Negotiating the Affordance of Greco-Roman Spiritual Exercise for Community Flourishing: From and beyond Foucauldian Care of the Self

Abstract

The worldwide launch of neoliberalism ushered everyone into an atomized society. Neoliberalism transforms Homo sapiens into Homo economicus, a narcissistic self-entrepreneur that positions their body as a factory, skills as resources, and earnings as products while relying less on others. Such atomization of individuals undermines the community. Following the Cartesian moment, enlightenment, and postmodernism’s later wave, the world is disenchanted, deprived of unity in the form of community fragmentation. Foucault offered a Greco–Roman philosophical remedy for contemporary society, focusing on the formulation of ‘Spiritual-Corporality’ through the practice of care of the self. Foucault believed the one who takes good care of himself is often self-assured of his ability, expectations, and missions in relationships with others, he does not resort to tyranny in those relationships, giving him an ethical advantage in caring for his family and fellow citizens. If everyone strives to take care of themselves, the city-state will prosper. However, Foucault relied on Stoic philosophy over other ancient schools and failed to provide concrete practices on how to bind ourselves with others through care of the self. In partial agreement with Foucault, the present study chooses Hadot’s spiritual exercise as a more accurate terminology to justify Greco–Roman philosophies’ affordance to contemporary social unification. After reviewing the philosophies of Aristotle, the Stoics, and Epicurus, the present study selected the spiritual exercises of ‘hitting the mean as deliberation’, ‘reframing of self’, and ‘thinking outside the box’ as suitable practices for community flourishing.

1. Introduction

Facing human atomization and the current decline of community spirit, this study aims to use philosophical inquiry to answer three research questions: 1. How do sociocultural, historical, and economic reasons cause the prevalence of individualism and fragmentation of community in contemporary society? 2. To what extent can Foucauldian care of the self, representing the Greco-Roman tradition of spiritual exercise, offer a solution to the tensions between individual development, meaninglessness in uniting with others, and a community’s consolidation? 3. Which spiritual exercise can be used to help a community flourish via self-cultivation?

Drawing from Michel Foucault’s Homo economicus hypothesis, Section 2 will discuss the economic reason, that is, how neoliberalism accelerates a community’s decline. Section 3 will be about using Charles Taylor’s ‘triple embedding’ framework to explore the sociocultural and historical underpinnings of a community’s secularization. Section 4 will negotiate the extent to which Foucauldian care of the self helps solve the tensions between individual development, the meaninglessness in uniting with others, and a community’s consolidation; the section will close with a critique of the limitation of Foucault’s care of the self and usher readers to the ancient holistic tradition of spiritual exercise. Built on Section 5’s navigation through Aristotelian, Stoic, and Epicurean philosophies, Section 6 summarizes three kinds of spiritual exercises that would help a community flourish and encourage an individual’s self-cultivation.

2. The Neoliberal Attack on Social Solidarity

Inherited from classical liberalism and neoclassical economics, neoliberalism was originally a school of economic thought created by the Mont Pelerin Society, represented by figures such as Milton Friedman, Karl Popper, and Friedrich von Hayek in the 1940s (Harvey 2005). The society believed that freedom in the Western world is threatened by state power and that the protection of a free and competitive market and respect for private property are the foundations for Western freedom (Harvey 2005). This is how neoliberal thought was generated. However, neoliberalism as an economic thought did not receive much attention until it became a national strategy in the UK and the US when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan assumed office in the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively (Cahill and Konings 2017). The rationale behind Thatcher’s and Reagan’s encouragement of neoliberalism was to find a solution for the economic stagnation caused by the postwar Keynesian policies adopted in many countries as of the late 1960s. Keynesianism suggested that the state become a welfare state and take responsibility for government actions as a recovery policy: ‘full employment, economic growth, and the welfare of its citizens, and that state power should be freely deployed, alongside of or, if necessary, intervening in or even substituting for market processes to achieve these ends’ (Harvey 2005, p. 10). Keynesianism was effective in maintaining countries’ stability and reconstructing after the economic losses incurred during WWII in the first two decades after the armistice. However, since the late 1960s, economies have stagnated (Harvey 2005).

Neoliberalism, as a replacement strategy, focused its innovation on countering the influence of the welfare state, accelerating the privatization of state industries, and eliminating any obstacles that hindered market vitality (Harvey 2005). Generally, neoliberalism encompasses the following characteristics:

This entails confronting trade union power, attacking all forms of social solidarity that hindered competitive flexibility, dismantling or rolling back the commitments of the welfare state, the privatization of public enterprises, reducing taxes, encouraging entrepreneurial initiatives, and creating a favorable business climate to induce a strong inflow of foreign investment.

(Harvey 2005, p. 23)

With its approaches, neoliberalism eliminated economic stagnation in countries including the UK, the US, Sweden, Chile, India, and China (Harvey 2005). However, neoliberalism subsequently led to the fading of public industries. Simultaneously, corporate influence that was once confined to the commercial sector spread into other areas previously dedicated to public welfare, such as healthcare, housing, transportation, and education (Giroux 2002). As such, many public sectors that once provided the ethos of social solidarity became private.

Self-Entrepreneurship and the Fragmentation of People

Foucault’s lecture on the birth of biopolitics delved into the essence of neoliberalism: human capital as a technology of governance. According to Foucault (1979a), human capital theory redefines the concept of labor, distinguished from how classical economics views labor as workers’ time spent in production or as a form of power as defined by Marxism. From the perspective of the laborer, Foucault (1979a) stated that labor is an income return on laborers’ investment in themselves: their bodies or skills that enable them to complete tasks and earn remuneration. Foucault (1979a, p. 224) argued that laborers and their bodily skills are inseparable, making them machines that constantly produce and earn salaries:

The worker’s skill really is a machine, but a machine which cannot be separated from the worker himself… We should think of the skill that is united with the worker as, in a way, the side through which the worker is a machine, but a machine understood in the positive sense, since it is a machine that produces an earnings stream.

Laborers must continuously sharpen their skills at work to ensure that their body–machine is capable of producing earnings, preventing their body–machine from aging or becoming obsolete (Foucault 1979a). This description of humans as a combination of body–machine–ability–earnings reveals the mechanism behind the constant need to invest in human capital, suggesting that a person becomes an ‘entrepreneur of himself, being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer, being for himself the source of [his] earnings’ (Foucault 1979a, p. 226). The prevalence of human capital has transformed Homo sapiens into Homo economicus, who are self-entrepreneurs that no longer need to be or are exploited by the Bourgeoisie other but are exploited themselves as their own bosses (Han 2017).

Self-entrepreneurs must continuously focus on themselves, learning new skills, increasing abilities (Foucault 1979a), and branding themselves with new achievements (Han 2017) to guarantee that the body–machine does not become obsolete in producing earning streams. Foucault deciphered the lived logic of Homo economicus as the ‘investment-costs-profit’ calculation, as in all companies (Foucault 1979a, p. 242), which, in nature, aims to prevent the loss of profit in as many aspects as possible and has permeated all areas of life. For example, in public affairs regarding national law-making, the complexity of laws is not necessarily important as long as ‘punishment appeared as having to be calculated in terms of the injured party’s interests, in terms of redress for damages’ (Foucault 1979b, p. 46). Within the mindset of Homo economicus, potential law offenders who evaluate the cost of breaking the law as unaffordable might hesitate, thereby controlling the crime rate (Foucault 1979b).

Furthermore, applying Foucault’s thinking to more personal matters, when seeking a partner, individuals tend to prefer someone with a genetic advantage or stronger social or economic capital for producing offspring with superior human capital (Foucault 1979a). The marriage relationship was becoming more utilitarian and self-centered rather than because of eros of and to others. A person’s reliance on others dwindles in such a society obsessed with self-profit. As Han (2017, p. 1) lamented, ‘The crisis of love does not derive from too many others so much as from the erosion of the Other. This erosion is occurring in all spheres of life; its corollary is the mounting narcissification of the Self’. As such, using human capital theory, neoliberalism therefore expedites the fragmentation of people and sabotages the rationales for people to unite with each other and as communities, given its mission to bulldoze all forms of social solidarity (Harvey 2005).

3. The Meaninglessness of Uniting with Others in a Secularized World

Perhaps Homo economicus in neoliberalism seems a superficial explanation of the fading of social solidarity. A deeper reason might have something to do with the feeling of meaninglessness of uniting with others. Max Weber (1922) named the post-Enlightenment period a world of disenchantment, in which all the mysterious and magical aspects of how people view the world and themselves were excluded and subsequently replaced by scientific calculation. After the Enlightenment, the once spiritual world was dissolved and left with the machinations of matter (Smith 2014). Charles Taylor highlighted that in the enchanted pre-Enlightenment world, people indiscriminately lived socially in the form of religious communities, and all personal behaviors were communal: ‘As long as the common weal is bound up in collectives, rites, devotion, allegiances, it couldn’t be seen just as an individual’s own business that he break ranks, even less that he blaspheme or try to desecrate the rite’ (Taylor 2007, p. 42).

In this sense, before the Enlightenment, people were communal while being religious, and the latter was a prerequisite for the former. Taylor (2007) also introduced triple embedding, which sustained the religious societies of communities in the pre-Enlightenment epoch. He explained: ‘Human agents are embedded in society, society in the cosmos, and the cosmos incorporates the divine’ (Taylor 2007, p. 152). However, in today’s secularized society, triple embedding has been disembedded.

3.1. Cosmos’s Technicization

Cosmos, in triple embedding being thought as the supernatural foundation of the natural world (Taylor 2007), was exiled by the Enlightenment, which prioritized natural science knowledge (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002), particularly Newtonian mathematics (Cassirer 1951). Science and mathematics as forms of formal logic became the core truth to understanding the world (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002). As a trade-off, animism was excluded at the debut of disenchantment (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002). Later, the Enlightenment reduced history to facts, things to matters, and all myths to the result of anthropomorphism that was used only to express humans’ fear and fragility (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002). Since then, everything has become calculable, and things unresolvable into numbers fall into illusion or literature (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002). As Horkheimer and Adorno (2002) lamented, ‘For enlightenment, anything which does not conform to the standard of calculability and utility must be viewed with suspicion’ (p. 3).

Indeed, when the whole nature becomes absolute objectivity, it becomes susceptible to man’s manipulation and utility, and Horkheimer (2004) noticed the end product of the Enlightenment—the birth of instrumental reason. Elsewhere he said: ‘What human beings seek to learn from nature is how to use it to dominate wholly both it and human beings’ (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, p. 2). With a similar critique, Heidegger drew a panorama of the world after the Enlightenment, an increasingly technicized world. Heidegger (1966) discovered that the whole world is becoming entirely technical. Every natural thing is challenged and demanded to reveal itself as stockpiles of products and fuels at humans’ command for further exploitation and ordering (Heidegger 1977). Even human beings are unconsciously challenged into exploitation and order due to their participation in the process (Heidegger 1977). Beholding such danger, Heidegger (1966) alerted that it is more uncanny that humans are unprepared and unable to meditate on such transformation. He sensed a tinge of meaning loss in the world’s disenchantment, so he advocated for people to develop gelassenheit, releasement toward things, and meditative thinking to be open to the alternative meanings concealed by technology (Heidegger 1966). However, humans cannot tolerate a meaningless life in which there does not seem to be a mythical cosmo that gives us a lofty meaning except for a nihilist alternative to exploit and manufacture more.

3.2. The Deconstructed Society

In Taylor’s (2007) triple embedding, he depicted a society in pre-Enlightenment as an on-earth agent of the supernatural divinity, and he wrote: ‘Society itself was understood as something grounded in a higher reality; earthly kingdoms were grounded in a heavenly kingdom’ (p. 25). However, like how enlightenment disenchanted the cosmos, postmodernity deconstructed all the decencies in social unification. Here, we take the nation as an example. Using postmodern thinking, Edward Said (1993) deconstructed nation as narratives. In other words, a nation becomes a nation due to people from the dominant class narrate their legitimacy in owning the territory, while they can stop others from formulating their legitimate narrative on the land’s ownership. In this vein, a nation is not a God-granted land. Similarly, Benedict Anderson (1991) revealed that nations that once united people, giving them the willingness to fight and die for the nations, are imagined communities.

Zygmunt Bauman (2000), in his Liquid Modernity, extended the deconstructed strategy to all forms of community, saying that in such a liquid or uncertain epoch, how ‘collectivists tie their members to joint history, custom, language, or schooling is getting more threadbare by the year’ (p. 169). He added, ‘All communities are postulated projects rather than realities, something that comes after, not before the individual choice’ (Bauman 2000, p. 169). Moreover, Bauman (2000) did not forget to point out the fragility and hypocrisy of being a community member in contemporary times, saying, ‘One cannot be a bona fide communitarian without giving the devil his due, without on one occasion admitting the freedom of individual choice denied on another’ (p. 170). When society is deconstructed and the communitarian ideal is debunked, people’s reasons to be a part of a community become unpredictable except for pragmatic outcomes.

3.3. The Self-Sufficient Mortal

In Taylor’s third aspect of the triple embedding, he commented on being human and how their subjectivity was susceptible to spirits before the Enlightenment. He said: ‘People lived in an enchanted world, a world “charged” with presence that was open and vulnerable, not closed and self-sufficient’ (Taylor 2007, p. 25). His opinion demonstrates a drastic difference between pre-Enlightenment people (who are named by him as the porous subject) and post-Enlightenment people (the buffered subject) in the face of spiritual effects (Taylor 2007). Being the porous subject means the spiritual elements can permeate the person, so religious elements of blessing, curse, and grace stay meaningful to him (Taylor 2007). In ancient Greece, one could even make himself spiritual, making the level of his soul with divinity, transcending the corporeal self through philosophical exercises such as care of the self (which will be explained in Section 4) (Foucault 1982; Hadot 2002).

However, later, after the Enlightenment, as the buffered subject, the subject was separated from spirituality and divinity and became a mortal in a biological sense. Foucault (1982) opined that such becoming of man occurred after the Cartesian moment. Descartes’s method of doubt opened the epoch prioritizing the scientific method to inquire about observable truths (Blackburn 2000), so a human being’s subjectivity was, thus, self-evidently lying within his corporeal embodiment. Such change called for a person to stop seeking meaning for his being from elsewhere because to know himself is all that he can do to approach the truth of his existence (Foucault 1982). Just like Foucault (1982) claimed:

[T]he philosopher (or the scientist, or simply someone who seeks the truth) can recognize the truth and have access to it himself and solely through his activity of knowing, without him having to change or alter his being as subject.

(p. 17)

The Foucauldian quotation justifies why Taylor (2007) said that people have become self-sufficient: They do not need help from supernatural powers, and they believe themselves the masters of the universe, and their learned scientific knowledge ‘would establish man as the master of nature’ (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, p. 1). Subsequently, all the once spirituality-infused exercises in many traditions fell to being exercises ensuring their survival (Foucault 1982), about which Stone (2011) proffered a suitable example:

In the United States, yoga is done mostly for aesthetic purposes or for medical benefits. The spiritual dimension of yoga is often internal to the practitioner: stress release and better breathing… This is not to suggest that exercise cannot be a practice of the self aimed at truth, but most people exercise for the sake of health and beauty.

(p. 155)

So, except for the pursuit of scientific knowledge and how to sustain well-being for their success and benefits, ‘on their way toward modern science, human beings have discarded meaning’ (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, p. 3). Generally, with Taylor’s (2007) triple embedding of cosmos-society-people being disembedded by secularization, the ontological source of meaning for people to unite with others becomes unstable.

4. An Antique Solution from Foucault

Neoliberalism is still in its prime, forming a tension between the spirit of community and the development of individualism; meanwhile, the world’s increasing technicization and homogenization grow with the spread of instrumental rationality and a feeling of meaninglessness. Witnessing such complex social tensions, 20th-century political philosophers of communitarianism confirmed individual attachments and obligations to support communities, thus advocating the rebuilding of community spirits competing with growing individualism (Bell 2024). However, with community expansion without curb, the collective power may threaten individual liberty, just as what the Mont Pelerin Society, the society of neoliberal theorists, was against (Harvey 2005). More importantly, contemporary communitarianism appeals to its readers through a theoretical and political lobby; nevertheless, the naturalness of population is beyond the control of any policymaker’s subjective intention and even law, just as Foucault (1978b) highlighted: ‘If one says to a population “do this”, there is not only no guarantee that it will do it, but also there is quite simply no guarantee that it can do it’. (p. 71). The communitarianists’ limitations warrant another solution, which should solve the tensions between individuals and the community and respect the population’s naturalness while re-establishing their meaning-making with others.

4.1. Self and Others in Tradition of Care of the Self

Foucault offered an ancient spiritual remedy for the tensions. Foucault suggested the reformulation of ‘Spiritual-Corporality’ in contemporary human subjects through the practices of care of the self (Vintges 2011). Care of the self practices nourished from the philosophies from different schools of thought include a plethora of activities such as researching, memorizing philosophical maxims, writing a diary, writing letters, contemplating one’s mistakes to activate certain correct ways of living, retrospecting in the morning and evening, meditation on death, preserving one’s health, and seeking assistance from friends to overcome difficulties (Foucault 1988). Care of the self requires a person’s thorough conversion to themselves, their body, and their soul, rather than wealth, reputation, or any other external factors (Foucault 1988). Foucault (1988) posited that once someone truly embraces such conversion, no dependence, enslavement, disease, or misfortune will encumber them. Through care of the self, an individual can internalize all the philosophical maxims of life, achieve harmony between body and soul, attain happiness, and become the subject of their own spirituality (Foucault 1988).

In an interview asking Foucault about the relationship between others and the self-cared subject, Foucault opined that by taking care of themselves, individuals can not only cultivate spirituality and embody truth in themselves but also be entitled to taking care of others (Foucault 2020). Because the one who takes good care of themselves is often self-assured in their ability, expectations, and missions in relationship to others, they do not resort to any kind of domination in that relationship (Foucault 1978a), giving them an ethical advantage in caring for their family and fellow citizens. If everyone strives to take care of themselves, the city–state will prosper (Foucault 2020). Foucault said, ‘There is upward continuity in the sense that whoever wants to be able to govern the state must first know how to govern himself, and then, at another level, his family, his goods, his lands, after which he will succeed in governing the state’ (Foucault 1978a, p. 94). In general terms, care of the self as a spiritual activity connects individuals with the possibility of community flourishing. Such connection could be seen as Foucault’s (1983) alternative mode of societal governance, which he called the government of self and others; we understand the former as a prerequisite of the latter.

Foucault is correct in ushering us towards antiquity and particularly towards how the exercise of one’s subjectivity is connected with the flourishing of community. In this vein, an individual’s self-development is not in tension with others and the community. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the naturalness of population decides people’s behavior and mentality, not at all being manipulated by laws and appeals of policymakers, but desire as a factor of naturalness would lead people to pursue their wants against all odds, just as Foucault (1978b, p. 72) said: ‘Every individual acts out of desire. One can do nothing against desire’. As stated in a previous chapter, the practices of care of the self might have been secularized as exercises for health and mental well-being, but some of their functions might remain. On the one hand, the straightforwardness and user-friendliness of care of the self exercises make them more acceptable to people who desire to sustain fitness and mental harmony. On the other hand, care of the self practices are originally from different ancient philosophical traditions, and by practicing them, those doing so would become more self-assured and happy, regardless of whether they are doing the exercises for their health benefits or as spiritual practice. Therefore, care of the self may also help resolve tension for people to sustain themselves in the modern world while re-establishing meaning-making initially in an existentialist sense. We know that such existentialist meaning-making is temporary because it is narrow and self-focused, failing to represent the holistic ethos of ancient philosophy.

4.2. Foucault’s Boundary and Hadot’s Solution

Indeed, Hadot (2011a) criticized Foucault’s interpretation of the Greco-Roman philosophy, his care of the self, as being indulgent in self, particularly in the making of self only as an artifact of aesthetics. The Greco-Roman philosophical schools’ focuses were not all about self, so Hadot (2011a) preferred to use spiritual exercise instead of care of the self, saying ‘it seems difficult to accept that the philosophical practice of the Stoics and Platonists was nothing but a relationship to one’s self, a culture of the self, or a pleasure taken in oneself’. (p. 208). We agree more with Hadot on this point. Aristotle’s ultimate focus was to answer the question regarding how to be good in order to flourish (Meyer 2023). For the Stoics, the focus is maintaining harmony with nature through reframing attitudes toward things (Sellars 2020a); for the Epicurus school, the concerns were to have tranquility as happiness via reducing worries (Sellars 2020b). Although these three schools seem to have different approaches to and exercises in philosophy, they all lead their followers to change themselves and transcend their ‘partial, biased, egocentric, egoist’ selves (Hadot 2011b, p. 86). Such transcendence of the self enabled the ancient philosophies’ followers a view from above or a universal perception of things (Hadot 2011a), which thus laid the foundation for the followers’ consolidation with others as community by not just considering the interests of themselves. Words such as ‘care’ and ‘self’ have taken on different connotative meanings in modern-day linguistics, so they cannot adequately deliver the meaning of spirituality and the arduous exercise required (Hadot 2011a). Therefore, Foucault’s care of the self oversimplifies the essence of the ancient tradition of spiritual exercise, but its friendliness invites contemporary people to embrace the ancient philosophy. So, in this essay, Foucauldian care of the self serves as an invitation, ushering readers to spiritual exercise.

Furthermore, in Foucault’s articles and lectures, he failed to provide concrete practices on how to bind ourselves with others through care of the self. Additionally, he tended to rely on Stoicism to generalize the thoughts of other Greco-Roman philosophical schools (Hadot 2011a), despite the fact that the schools shared many commonalities. Responding to Foucauldian theory’s limitations, the following sections will respectively examine three major schools of the Greco-Roman times: Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans, because many of their works were concerned more with the relationship between the individual and others than those of philosophical schools like the Cynics. Thus, the below sections will navigate through ideas of some of the representing figures of the three schools (i.e., Aristotle, Seneca, the renowned philosopher of the Stoics, and Epicurus).

5. Individual and Community in Greco-Roman Philosophies

5.1. Aristotle’s Politikon Zoion and Virtue Formulation

Aristotle believes human beings are politikon zoion, social animals, which is sometimes interchangeably translated as political animals (Sellars 2023). To Aristotle, being a social animal indicates an inseparable relationship between every individual and community because he observed that everyone was born in a family and raised in a city–state, and no one could sustain themselves without the benefits of the protection and resources of their social groups (Sellars 2023). Aristotle claimed that community is prior to the individual and that the individual being part of a community is human nature (Sellars 2023). Aristotle believed those choosing isolation or trying to eliminate the city-state to be aberrations of their nature; more importantly, these isolated people choose to be deprived of the free time, education, art, and intellectual resources provided by the community, for which ‘Aristotle would say that such a person is unable to live a fully human life. Focused entirely on subsistence, they’ll be closer to animal’ (Sellars 2023, p. 65).

To Aristotle, as a political animal, an individual, in their pursuit of flourishing or living well, is interwoven with the running of the city–state, that is, the community. Aristotle did not agree with oligarchy or democracy for running a city–state; instead, he preferred a city–state run ‘based on friendship and partnership, with members willing to share with each other’ (Sellars 2023, p. 68). In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle opined that building good relationships with others requires the development of justice in all stakeholders; justice, per se, is seen as the whole virtue because it concerns the goodness of another person: ‘a just person does what is good for another, whether that is the ruler or a fellow citizen’ (translated by Meyer 2023, p. 165). Nevertheless, equipping a person with such justice is easier said than done, as just action only comes from a just person. However, the building of a just or virtuous person accumulates from performing small virtuous actions in a complete life. Aristotle wrote,

We become house builders by building houses, and kitharists by playing the kithara. Similarly, by doing justice we become just, by acting with discipline we develop self-discipline, and by performing brave acts we develop bravery… We become brave by getting used to making little of the things that frighten us and enduring them, and once we have become brave, we are especially able to endure frightening things.

(translated by Meyer 2023, pp. 39–47)

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle emphasized the exercise of deliberation in virtue formulation, which involves finding an intermediate condition to make good decisions: ‘to establish that virtue of character is an intermediate condition… that it is intermediate between two vices—one of excess and one of deficiency… being good is hard work, since it is hard work to find the mean in a particular case’ (translated by Meyer 2023, pp. 69–71). Striking such a middle ground plays a pivotal role in the give-and-take of living with others. For example, if we never oppose but always agree with our friends’ actions, we become obsequious, which is a vice compared with the virtuous, the mean; on the contrary, if we totally ignore others’ feelings, we become contentious, another vice (Meyer 2023). Similarly, when with others, how to present ourselves as neither hot-tempered nor meek and how to display deftness in joking rather than appearing vulgar or stiff are all questions when making good decisions for others and ourselves. Therefore, as Aristotle claimed, ‘friendship is virtue’ (Meyer 2023, p. 227), one’s becoming a virtuous person concerns the sustaining of a community’s flourishing.

5.2. ‘We Are God’s Limbs’: Seneca’s God Emulation

The Stoic philosopher Seneca claimed, ‘This totality by which we are embraced is a single, constant whole, and it is God: we are God’s comrades and God’s limbs’ (translated by Kaster 2023, p. 95). In the Stoicism worldview, God is not Zeus but ‘vague, impersonal forces’ (Romm 2020, p. xx); put simply, the Stoic God is equivalent to nature or the universe (Sellars 2020a). The Stoics believed in the totality of the universe, in which all beings are interconnected and all humans are all ‘comrades’ and ‘limbs’ of God (Kaster 2023). In other words, human beings are naturally social animals not only because they are separated parts of the totality but also because of human beings’ reliance on societies of families and communities to survive (Romm 2020). As such, people should be naturally indistinguishable from each other as fellows (Kaster 2023), with justice to and harmoniousness with others being innate signs of being good fellows (Sellars 2020a). However, those who cannot merge with others and do injustice to others are thought to be deviant from the natural development of human beings, causing their failure in the pursuit of happiness (Sellars 2020a). Seneca pointed out that ‘People who have regard only for themselves and turn everything to their own advantage cannot live the best human life’ (translated by Kaster 2023, p. 171).

The Stoics thought that such deviance from human nature is interrupted by people’s incorrect thinking toward themselves and things (Sellars 2020a). Seneca encouraged his readers to emulate the good deeds of God (Romm 2020) to reframe deviant thinking so that they could develop harmonious relationships with themselves and others, benefiting their own virtue and society as a whole. Generosity and magnanimity are two keywords in Seneca’s works, which hailed the goodness of God while best representing Seneca’s expectation of virtue nurtured in human beings (Romm 2020; Kaster 2023). Generosity means to give without expecting a return, which is how God honors every inch of land with beauty but never asks for anything despite the chaos humans have caused on it (Romm 2020). As limbs of God, human beings are instilled with the default impulse to give; as humans are not as strong and fast as animals, the impulse to give to each other keeps us alive (Romm 2020). However, certain vices prevent human beings from acting like God: selfishness, timidity, egoism, and greed would make us unwilling to give or compel us to ask for rewards from giving (Romm 2020). Eventually, not emulating God’s generosity engenders loans, bribery, and, more seriously, ingratitude, which results in people’s unwillingness to give, fraying social ties (Romm 2020). In DE Beneficiis (On Benefits), Seneca reminded us that ‘giving is not like lending, since no return should be expected or demanded; gratitude is essential, but ingratitude should be pardoned’ (Romm 2020, p. 3). The previous sentence ushers readers to be open-minded when we give to others but expect no reward or even respect from the recipient. Seneca also comforted his readers with the idea that good conscience and virtue per se are the rewards for those who practice God’s generosity (Romm 2020).

Being large-minded, or being magnanimous, is beneficial for sustaining human beings’ divine nature of generosity. As another keyword used by Seneca, magnanimity is the mind of God, whose loftiness ‘pervaded every nook and cranny of the universe’ (Kaster 2023, pp. 8–9). Seneca praised magnanimity as the wise person’s virtue, which makes them almost no different from God, except for their mortality (Kaster 2023). Those with such virtue treat others fairly, and they can react to insults and others’ different opinions with calmness and generosity. Seneca wrote,

We have all done wrong, some more gravely, others more trivially, some intentionally, others acting on random impulse or led astray by another’s wickedness; some of us have been too little steadfast in standing by our good intentions and have lost our innocence unwillingly and reluctantly.

(translated by Kaster 2023, p. 155)

Seneca believed that being magnanimous is beneficial for eliminating interruptions that prevent people from integrating with others, enhancing society’s harmony. He said:

As all our limbs are in harmony because it is best for the whole that the individual parts be protected, so human beings will spare each individual because they have been born to form a social union, and a society cannot be sound save through the affectionate protection of its parts.

(translated by Kaster 2023, p. 167)

The mastering of magnanimity requires the development of clear thinking of one’s self and the fair judgment of others (Kaster 2023).

5.3. Epicurean Friendship as a Remedy of Ataraxia

Epicurus and his followers seemed suspicious of the political community of Athens; instead, they engaged in and were fascinated by their own philosophical community, the Epicurean Garden or Epicurean School, on the outskirt of Athens (Sellars 2020b). The Epicurean Garden was a unique community in which Epicurus and members, including his friends, brothers, slaves, women, and children, discussed, read, wrote, and practiced Epicurean philosophy to attain ataraxia (tranquility of mind) (Erler 2020). Tranquility was thought by Epicureans to be the status everyone is pursuing, like their good health, because they thought that tranquility is another way people mentally reach pleasure and avoid pain (Sellars 2020b). In the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus wrote,

He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquility of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid.

(in Erler 2020, p. 22)

Epicurus provided many approaches to ataraxia, many of which are famous, such as reducing desires, being self-sufficient, researching nature, and having no fear for death, which are also conceptualized as the Epicurean tetrapharmakos, the fourfold remedy: ‘Gods present no fears (We should no fear Gods, because Zeus is not existing), death no worries (even death causes no pain), and that, while the good is readily attainable (we have everything necessary to survive), evil is short-lived and hence endurable (most physical pains are too short lived to worry about)’ (Erler 2020, p. 27; explanations are ours). Epicurus believed that the practice of these philosophies would allow people to live as tranquil a life as a God with no worries or fears. Here, as with the Stoics, the Epicurean God is also the impartial universe (Sellars 2020b).

Friendship is fundamental to the Epicureans, as they believed that friendship guarantees tranquility (Erler 2020; Sellars 2020b). Specifically, Epicurus thought that when we are in trouble or are ill, having a friend who can give a helping hand provides a release of nervousness and a strengthening of confidence in overcoming these difficulties: ‘The mere possibility of helping and the expectation that there will be help makes friendship most useful for achieving tranquility of the mind and eudaimonia (happiness)’ (Erler 2020, p. 34). In the Epicurean Garden, every member should be good friends with others, providing help and empathy, and such friendship-based structuring of the community is thought to have advantages over that tied to contracts or rules (Sellars 2020b). The exercise of self-virtue is essential for becoming a good friend to the Epicurean, because they not only have to internalize Epicirus’ philosophical gnomai through days and nights of learning (Erler 2020) but also have to practice reducing their desires so that they know they have more than they need in life and that sharing with others is natural (Sellars 2020b).

5.4. Section Summary

Although Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans seemed to have their respective exercises for their followers to improve themselves for the community to flourish, the three schools all relate their followers’ exercises to living divinely or living a life that God lives. Such seeking of divinity is more observable in the Stoics and the Epicureans, but Aristotle also mentioned that those who lead a flourishing life are ‘godlike’ and ‘exercise immortality’ (Meyer 2023, p. xvi). Such commonalities of the divine practices of philosophical schools justify Hadot’s choice of using ‘spiritual exercise’ to summarize the daily practices of all the Greco-Roman philosophical schools: to transform people and replace their limited perceptions with a perspective of the totality or the God (Hadot 2011a).

Regardless of practicing Aristotle’s justice in relationships with others, Seneca’s generosity and magnanimity, or Epicurus’s fourfold remedy for being friends with others, their followers all needed self-discipline: in other words, to elevate their subjective and self-centered ego to the superior self, who, in Hadot’s (2011a) words, is changed by obtaining a view from above, which is a universal perception of aspects from God’s view. He said, ‘To forget one’s personal interest is precisely to have concern for oneself, that is, in fact, to have concern for the superior self beyond all egoism’ (Hadot 2011b, p. 109).

6. Selected Greco-Roman Spiritual Exercises for Social Unification

Referring to Philo of Alexandria, Hadot (2011a, p. 84) roughly categorized the Greco-Roman spiritual exercises as follows: ‘research, thorough investigation, reading, listening, attention, self-mastery, and indifference to indifferent things… meditation, therapies of passions, remembrance of good things… and the accomplishment of duties’. Elsewhere, he provided the amendment that spiritual exercise can also be dietary regimes, as long as these regimes are for one’s self-transformation (Hadot 2002). However, Hadot’s categorizations are rather general: they are not subtle enough to represent the signature exercises belonging to different schools, though they overlap sometimes. Integrating the aforementioned three schools’ concerns for community flourishing and the practice of self-transformation, we present ‘hitting the mean as deliberation’, ‘reframing of self’, and ‘thinking outside the box’, which will be explained in the following sections. Using reader-friendly translations of the ancient philosophical texts and modern-day language explaining the concrete implementation procedures, the below spiritual exercises will hopefully provide readers with a clearer reference.

6.1. Hitting the Mean as Deliberation

As mentioned in Section 5.1, Aristotle confirmed the importance of deliberation in the cultivation of virtue, as deliberation is the process of pondering how to strike a balance in actions, particularly when interacting with others. Such deliberation is difficult as it requires a person’s experiences throughout life and decision-making from moment to moment:

It is not easy to do so to the right recipients, in the right amounts, at the right time, with the right goal, and in the right manner. Not everyone can do it. That is why doing well is rare, praiseworthy, and splendid.

(Meyer 2023, p. 71)

However, Aristotle provided some advice, helping us to approach the mean (a middle course between two vices, or the balance) as much as possible. First, when performing actions, we should try to avoid aiming at the two extremes (Meyer 2023). Aristotle believed at the ends of the spectrum of any virtue are two vices, or extremes. For example, if bravery sits in the middle (mean) of a course, one extreme is called rashness and the other is cowardice; similarly, generosity has an extreme called extravagance and another called avarice (Meyer 2023).

Avoiding these extremes keeps a person from the most inappropriate actions, so choosing an action between the extremes of a virtue spectrum is more appropriate. Then, to hit the mean, or approximate the mean, Aristotle suggested that we should identify the behavior to which we are most susceptible, which is often the passion of one’s self, i.e., the ego. Then, once the behavior to which one is susceptible is identified, one should aim themselves in the opposite direction, which is more likely to be the mean (Meyer 2023). Meyer found that Aristotle’s suggestion maximizes the chances of hitting the mean: ‘You need to pull yourself away in the opposite direction, since by pulling hard against one fault, you get to the mean’ (p. 73). Generally, such deliberation is also a process of self-discipline, of disciplining passion and impulsivity.

6.2. Reframing of Self

As mentioned in Section 5.2, magnanimity is important for sustaining good relationships with others. However, magnanimity means being able to deal with insults and other unfair treatment from others, as well as treating others fairly, which all depend on ourselves:

Treating others fairly… depends, still more fundamentally, on one’s view of oneself: When you come right down to it, how important are you, and to what does that importance entitle you? What sort of person are you, and what sort of person do you want to be?

(Kaster 2023, p. 97)

The Stoics provided many suggestions on how to think clearly of the self, or what we call reframing the self. The first is refraining from egoism. Seneca thought that the most important reason preventing us from being large-minded is that we are egoists. He claimed that ‘We are quick to be pleased with ourselves. If we find someone to say we’re good, shrewd, righteous, we acknowledge the description’s truth’ (in Kaster 2023, p. 103). Similarly, we are easily hurt by others’ insults, which, to Seneca, is due to our ‘low-mindedness’—we are self-indulgent and not confident. On the contrary, Seneca comforted us in saying that ‘not everything that offends us harms us: it is our self-indulgence that drives us wild’ (Kaster 2023, p. 113).

To deal with taking insults seriously, as underpinned by egoism, Seneca asked us to step back from indulgence and evaluate the troubling situations and ourselves. He particularly stressed the importance of regular self-assessment to identify errors and cease anger. For this, we must follow three steps in our mind: ‘first play the part of an accuser, then of a judge, finally of an intercessor’ (Kaster 2023, p. 127).

The second suggestion involves avoiding the negative influence of others by not listening to or following the opinions of others. Seneca believed that many people act a certain way because others are doing the same, so he suggested that we shut our ears to those who follow fashion rather than their own reasoning:

Now everyone has mules to carry cups of crystal agate, embossed in gold by great craftsmen: it’s a shame to be seen to have only such baggage as can safely take a beating… Do not converse with all these people: they are the ones who transmit faults, passing them along from one to another… Their talk does a lot of harm.

(in Kaster 2023, p. 71)

Aside from thinking for ourselves, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus encouraged us to temporarily isolate ourselves from the company of some of our old friends when we are trying to formulate new habits because we might be easily influenced by them (Sellars 2020a). When we prevent the negative influences of others, we are able to make our own judgments and think clearly regarding who we are and who we aspire to become.

6.3. Thinking outside the Box

Regardless of being generous to others, like the Stoics; being just to others, like Aristotle; or being willing to share, like the Epicureans, thinking outside the box is the spiritual exercises their followers should practice. Integrating the opinions from the aforementioned schools, thinking outside the box involves three approaches: returning to things themselves, thinking from above, and reflecting on death. In terms of returning to things themselves, Epicurus thought that mentality is required to keep the mind tranquil (Sellars 2020b). As such, Epicurus asked his readers to reflect on the innate necessities of living, which are nothing beyond water, food, and a place to live; furthermore, he stressed that we do not need food, water, and shelter that are beyond our consumption ability (Sellars 2020b). Based on this returning-to-things mentality, people should not fear losing anything, because food, water, and shelter are easily attainable from nature; because people do not need extra resources, they are willing to share with others (Sellars 2020b).

Thinking from above is about comparing our lives’ limits with the universe’s boundlessness, so that we can take an eagle’s view in rethinking and rearranging our lives. As Marcus Aurelius said,

What a tiny part of the boundless abyss of time has been allotted to each of us—and this is soon vanished in eternity; what a tiny part of the universal substance and the universal soul; how tiny in the whole earth the mere clod on which you creep.

(in Sellars 2020a, p. 41)

Facing such an almighty universe, Aurelius learned of humanity’s humbleness, which involves following nature’s order with peace and no longer struggling with that beyond our control: ‘Nature gives all and takes all back. To her the man educated into humility says: “Give what you will; take back what you will”’ (in Sellars 2020a, p. 44). Aurelius encouraged his followers to pay attention to changes in the universe and the laws of nature, so that they could elevate their minds and know their mission in life:

For when man realizes that at any moment he may have to leave everything behind him and depart from the company of his fellows, he casts off the body and thence-forward dedicates himself wholly to the service of justice in his personal actions and compliance with Nature in all else.

(in Sellars 2020a, p. 46)

Similarly, Epicurus also suggested that his believers study the universe to know its formulation and laws, so that they could avoid superstition and be tranquil without fear (Sellars 2020b).

For the Stoics, reflecting on death allows people to understand the brevity of their lives, as they may die due to any unforeseen accidents; as a result, they should pursue what is most meaningful to themselves and do justice to others, taking every day as though it may be their last day of life (Sellars 2020a). For the Epicurean, to die means to have no more feeling, no pain or pleasure, as if the person was never born; knowing the nature of death, living people should not be afraid of dying, and if death is not frightening, then living is no problem at all (Sellars 2020b).

7. Some Concluding Thoughts

In answering the first research question (How do sociocultural, historical, and economic reasons cause the prevalence of individualism and fragmentation of community in contemporary society?), the study deduced that the prevalent neoliberalism and the disenchantment of the world contributed to the economic, sociocultural, and historical causes of the community’s fragmentation and man’s atomization. To respond to the second research question (To what extent can Foucauldian care of the self, representing the Greco-Roman spiritual exercise tradition, offer a solution for the tensions between individual development, meaninglessness in uniting with others, and community’s consolidation?), the study confirmed Foucault’s care of the self as an invitation to ancient spiritual exercise tradition, useful in alleviating the tensions and challenges for individuals to unite as a community. As for the third research question (Which spiritual exercise can be used to inform the community’s flourishing via self-cultivation?), the study recommends hitting the mean as deliberation, reframing self, and thinking outside the box as the three spiritual exercises integrated from the Aristotelian, Stoic, and Epicurean traditions.

Learning from Greco-Roman philosophies, the flourishing of a community is inseparable from individuals’ self-cultivation in spirituality, which gives implications to how to solve social separation. However, this is easier said than done, because today’s philosophers have strayed from the ancient philosophers’ mission to persuade followers to choose a philosophical way of living; instead, the modern philosophers tend to work on philosophical discourses, generating systematic interpretations of the universe or inventing new languages and terms (Hadot 2002). Just like Hadot (2002) opined:

I intend to show that a profound difference exists between the representations which the ancients made of philosophia and the representation which is usually made of philosophy today… that all the philosophers they study strove in turn to invent, each in an original way, a new construction, systematic and abstract, intended somehow or other to explain the universe, or at the least, if we are talking about contemporary philosophers, that they tried to elaborate a new discourse about language… I think that such a representation is mistaken if it is applied to the philosophy of antiquity… Philosophical discourse, then, originates in a choice of life and an existential option—not vice versa.

(pp. 2–3)

In other words, the transformation described in ancient philosophy (to become a superior self) gave seats to the learning of philosophical theories and research. We are not denying that followers of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy interacted with philosophical discourses, but they prioritized the practice of philosophical discourses, as Davidson pointed out in antiquity: ‘if theoretical discourse is torn away from its practical context, the import of that discourse cannot be understood’ (in Hadot 2011b, p. 112). That is, all the spiritual exercises in the Greco-Roman time period relied on practice. As a source of enlightenment for current readers, understanding the affordance of spiritual exercises from antiquity for the self and the community is not enough; the question is how to internalize this affordance through practice. Furthermore, as Hadot (2011b, p. 103) argued, ‘the experience of political life in Antiquity could inspire our modern democracies’, we may be inspired by the Greco-Roman spiritual exercise tradition on how to strengthen our communities through ourselves’ spiritual cultivation.