Ancient Cynicism is not for Navia an object of “scientific” curiosity only. Navia is one of the leading scholars of ancient Cynicism, yet for all their wide-ranging and detailed scholarship, his writings are not simply academic, but glow with the passionate conviction of a believer.
It is always one thing to gain identity from opposing society at large, and quite another to sustain ongoing commitment.
The key problematic here, however, for Jesus, the early Christians, anarchists, beats, hippies and DRs hoping for a DR-friendly society, is that intentional communities require some sense of overcoming adversity, having purpose, a means of functioning and maintaining morale in the medium to long-term. There are certainly some overlaps but one distinctive dissimilarity: the DR has no illusory better world to look forward to, whereas the Christian had (and many Christians still have) illusions of rapture and heaven to look forward to. Since that fantasised world has never materialised, we can only wonder about the likeness between early Christian communities and theoretical DR communities. Jesus and others did not expect to find fulfilment in this world (meaning this civilisation) but looked forward to another world, or another kind of existence.
Along with Diogenes, many anarchists, and latter day hip-pies, Jesus has been regarded as a model of the be-here-now philosophy, and hardly a champion of a work ethic and investment portfolio agenda. Rather, he espoused an ascetic lifestyle, nomadic, without possessions, possibly without sex, without career anxieties (‘consider the lilies’) and at best paying lip service to civic authorities and traditional religious institutions. Yet the Biblical Jesus was clearly anything but a facilely happy consumerist, bureautype or bovine citizen. On the face of it, most people do not think of Jesus as a depressive realist. In the first example, Diogenes indicts much of what goes by the name of civilization, and in the second he condemns in no uncertain terms the condition in which most human beings live. What do we learn from both examples? Plenty indeed, in fact more than we could learn from a treatise on the uselessness of most human inventions and practices, and on the brutal fact, recognized by the Cynics, that most people appear to be human but are not, that is, that most people deceive us into the belief that they are intelligent and decent, while in reality they are nothing but camouflaged rascals and ruffians, and are not therefore truly human. In the example of the child, we have a specific behavioral response Diogenes throws away his own cup-and a succinct statement: "A child has given me a lesson in plainness of living." In the second example, we have a terse double reply: Few people were at the baths, but there was a large crowd of bathers. It is reported by Diogenes Laertius (VI, 37) that one day, after observing a child drinking out of his hand, Diogenes threw away the cup from his wallet, saying, "A child has given me a lesson in plainness of living." Again, according to Diogenes Laertius (VI, 40), as Diogenes was leaving the public baths, some body asked him whether there were many men bathing, to which he answered that there were few people but a large crowd of bathers.
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