{"id":115,"date":"2010-02-05T03:22:28","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T03:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html"},"modified":"2010-02-05T03:22:28","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T03:22:28","slug":"whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html","title":{"rendered":"Who&#8217;s your ancient Greek philosophy guru?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Vernon created <a href=\"http:\/\/www.markvernon.com\/quiz\/my-philosophy-guru\/\">a fun online quiz <\/a>to help you figure yours out. Here&#8217;s mine, along with a Vernon online video bit about him:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Your recommended philosophy-guru is <strong>ZENO OF CITIUM<\/strong>.<strong>Key fact:<\/strong> He taught in a stoa, the Athenian supermarket, and hence founded the school of philosophy called Stoicism.<strong>Must have:<\/strong> An interest in everyday life, for it is there that you learn life&#8217;s big lessons.<strong>Key promise:<\/strong> An ability to face anything, no matter how disastrous.<strong>Key peril:<\/strong> To be &#8220;stoical&#8221; is to turn your back on passion.<strong>Most likely to say:<\/strong> &#8220;If you have integrity, no-one can harm you.&#8221;<strong>Least likely to say:<\/strong> &#8220;Forget prudence! It won&#8217;t help you anyway.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Vernon says in this short clip that Zeno taught in the shops, in part because he thought how you shopped said something about who you are. Funny &#8212; I had a dream once that I was teaching a philosophy class at Central Market, over by the olive oil aisle. Seriously!<object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/UKRlyJjDAlo&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;hl=en_US&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;fs=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/UKRlyJjDAlo&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0xb1b1b1&#038;color2=0xcfcfcf&#038;hl=en_US&#038;feature=player_embedded&#038;fs=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowScriptAccess=\"always\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><\/embed><\/object>The only question of Mark&#8217;s I was uncertain about how to answer was the first, which asks if it&#8217;s more profitable to think about how to endure suffering, or how to be happy. I certainly spend a lot more of my time thinking about happiness, but that&#8217;s because I am blessed not to have had to endure much suffering, at least not yet. But as a general matter, I think it&#8217;s more important for philosophy to consider suffering than happiness, so I said &#8220;to endure suffering&#8221; the first time. But when I re-took the quiz, and answer &#8220;to be happy,&#8221; I got a different guru. Click past the jump to see <!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Your recommended philosophy-guru is <strong>ARISTOTLE.<\/strong><strong>Key fact: <\/strong>The star pupil of Plato.<strong>Must have:<\/strong> A desire to study the world and see what it reveals.<strong>Key promise: <\/strong>The good life, which comes from living a virtuous life.<strong>Key peril:<\/strong> The virtuous life can be tough.<strong>Most likely to say: <\/strong>&#8220;Everything has its proper place.&#8221;<strong>Least likely to say: <\/strong>&#8220;Science is where humanity went wrong.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/NXoSuwkGzeo&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/NXoSuwkGzeo&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"425\" height=\"344\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Vernon created a fun online quiz to help you figure yours out. Here&#8217;s mine, along with a Vernon online video bit about him: Your recommended philosophy-guru is ZENO OF CITIUM.Key fact: He taught in a stoa, the Athenian supermarket, and hence founded the school of philosophy called Stoicism.Must have: An interest in everyday life,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morals"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Who&#039;s your ancient Greek philosophy guru? - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who&#039;s your ancient Greek philosophy guru? - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark Vernon created a fun online quiz to help you figure yours out. Here&#8217;s mine, along with a Vernon online video bit about him: Your recommended philosophy-guru is ZENO OF CITIUM.Key fact: He taught in a stoa, the Athenian supermarket, and hence founded the school of philosophy called Stoicism.Must have: An interest in everyday life,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-05T03:22:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Who's your ancient Greek philosophy guru? - Rod Dreher","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Who's your ancient Greek philosophy guru? - Rod Dreher","og_description":"Mark Vernon created a fun online quiz to help you figure yours out. Here&#8217;s mine, along with a Vernon online video bit about him: Your recommended philosophy-guru is ZENO OF CITIUM.Key fact: He taught in a stoa, the Athenian supermarket, and hence founded the school of philosophy called Stoicism.Must have: An interest in everyday life,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html","og_site_name":"Rod Dreher","article_published_time":"2010-02-05T03:22:28+00:00","author":"Rod Dreher","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html","name":"Who's your ancient Greek philosophy guru? - Rod Dreher","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-02-05T03:22:28+00:00","dateModified":"2010-02-05T03:22:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#\/schema\/person\/0eb55fec41ac37c5cdc76396861852db"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/02\/whos-your-ancient-greek-philosophy-guru.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Who&#8217;s your ancient Greek philosophy guru?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/","name":"Rod Dreher","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#\/schema\/person\/0eb55fec41ac37c5cdc76396861852db","name":"Rod Dreher","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e1\/2e1e526772cb318f0168aec327715d02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e1\/2e1e526772cb318f0168aec327715d02x96.jpg","caption":"Rod Dreher"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/author\/rdreher"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}