I’m doing 3 books for the Rudius Media Book Club for the next few weeks. The discussion is now open, and we’re looking at A Man in Full, The Meditations and Epictetus.

Here are the questions we’re addressing, at least initially

1) What is a ‘Man in Full?’ What do the Stoics tell us about being a “man?” (or woman) In the book, who is the true man? Is it Croker or Conrad?

2) How do you handle misfortune?

3) Where does meaning come from? How do we fulfill our nature? Where does one find the benchmarks to define themselves by?

Check it out.

I’m not going to talk much about my religious beliefs here, but if you’ve looked at my Reading List, it’s pretty obvious where I fall on the spectrum. The inevitable question that always comes up when you debate such things is: if we rid ourselves of the old system, what will take it’s places? Anarchy? Meaninglessness? Rampant immorality? These of course are questions that indicate a fear of change more than anything else.

But, anyway, I’ve been reading Hobbes lately for a class. Here we have a man who almost certainly would have been an atheist if he were alive today. An author who not by coincidence is using a biblical term in an ironic fashion as a title. A man who wrote some of the darkest philosophy–not just for his time but for all time. Who talked of man’s brutishness, tendency to do evil, etc.

And what was his ultimate rule?

Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy selfe.