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Deep Thoughts from the Slammer

History seems to indicate that some good thinking gets done in jails.  Socrates did some pretty heavy intellectual lifting in a cell just before he was executed.  The Apostle Paul wrote some of his epistles from prison.  You also have Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” in the mix.  However, most people are completely unaware of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy.  It’s a shame, because it has to be one of the best of the good-writings-from-the-pokey genre.  The problem could be the title.  Most people think that philosophy is the sort of thing you should receive consolation for, not from.

Consolation has not always been overlooked.  In fact, some people think that, except for the Bible and Augustine’s Confessions, Consolation of Philosophy may have been the most read book for about the first 500 years of the medieval period, which is about 498 years longer than The Purpose Driven Life stayed on the best-seller lists.

Anyway, we are at the point where we are ready to talk about Boethius in my History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy classes.  I always look forward to it for two reasons.  First, when someone gets thrown in the slammer, there is frequently an interesting story behind it.  This is the case for Boethius (hereafter known as Bo), a fairly high-ranking political figure who ends up in prison because of political intrigue and is eventually executed.

Second, imprisonment and impending execution seems to crystallize one’s thought process.  Bo, a Christian who strove to live a principled life, quite naturally spends some time contemplating why really bad things (like being locked in the “big-house”) happen to good people.

Obviously, I can’t summarize everything he had to say, but let me give you one little gem.  One question he asks is why evil people end up with so much power.  After thinking about this for a while, he concludes that evil people are actually weak.  A good definition of power is the ability to get what you desire most.  Since ultimately all our actions aim at a desire for happiness, those who try to get it by riches, fame, or political intrigue never actually achieve it.  Those who follow these routes in the pursuit of happiness never feel they have enough of whatever they crave and they worry about losing whatever they have.  In the end, then, the very things so many rely on to bring happiness actually bring misery.

Here’s the irony.  Bo appears to be the one who is powerless.  After all, he’s the one locked in a dingy cell awaiting execution.  However, he concludes that it is actually he, not his persecutors, who is more powerful because he has a wisdom that is grounded in something that is eternal.  That is the foundation of his happiness.  No one can take that from him unless he consents to give it up.

Sounds like maybe Bo is on to something here, which makes me wonder whether my writing might be a bit more profound if I spent some time in jail.  The one night I spent in jail (No, I wasn’t arrested for anything.  The local sheriff of Boise City, OK figured that it might be wise for my friend and I, both 18 and 200 miles from home on bicycles, to have a roof over our heads that night.  It’s a long story) didn’t really give me sufficient time to determine whether incarceration would result in any Boethius-sized wisdom.

Come to think of it, for those of you wondering how you are going to get that 20-page research essay done . . .  Nah.  Probably not a good idea.