What Insults Reveal About The Person Who Makes Them

     In my previous post, I noted that the Stoic philosopher Epictetus is one of the more interesting figures in Roman history. Another fascinating character is Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who I quoted in my 11/9/17 post on anger.
     We moderns like to think that we are the first complicated individuals in world history, but it would be difficult to find a more complicated person than Seneca. Seneca was born in what is now Corduba, Spain -- by then part of the Roman Empire -- to a prominent local family around 4 BC/BCE. He moved to Rome and pursued a career in politics; that career was full of ups and downs, including everything from service in the Roman Senate to banishment from Rome. The Stoic philosophy that Seneca espoused did not value externals like wealth, but he amassed a substantial fortune during his life. Seneca was also a prolific writer, authoring tragedies, philosophical treatises, and a collection of letters that is considered to be the precursor of the modern essay (Seneca was a major influence on Michel de Montaigne, who reinvented the essay in 16th Century France). After being recalled from exile, Seneca was appointed tutor to the young aristocrat who would later become the Emperor Nero. Seneca attempted to inculcate his pupil with Stoic virtues like clemency, but Nero developed into one of the worst tyrants in Roman history. In one of the great ironies of Western history -- given Seneca's public criticism of the tyranny of the Emperor Caligula -- Nero imposed the death sentence on his former tutor and adviser in 65 AD/CE (although Seneca was allowed to commit suicide like his hero Socrates).
     In happier times, Seneca authored a short treatise that has come to be known as On the Constancy of the Wise Person. In this work, based on Stoic principles, Seneca argued to his friend Annaeus Serenus that a sage could not be truly injured or insulted by anyone. James Ker's translation of the essay includes the following noteworthy passage:
          "Besides, the fact that the majority of insults are made by arrogant and insolent men who bear their good fortune poorly means that the wise person has something by which he can reject that inflated emotional reaction: magnanimity, the most beautiful of all the virtues."
     In recent days, Republican President Donald Trump gratuitously insulted Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren by repeating the derisive nickname "Pocahontas" during an event honoring Native American veterans of World War II. (Trump affixed this moniker to her during the 2016 presidential campaign, based on allegations that she incorrectly claimed Native ancestry). So instead of the media coverage focusing on the heroism of the Navajo veterans -- as noted by Warren in her response -- it focused on the President's racially insensitive insult. Rather than being magnanimous after his victory over opponents like Warren in the 2016 elections, Trump instead choose to make a gesture that can only be described as petty and beneath the dignity of his office.   
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References:
     Seneca, On the Constancy of the Wise Person, translated by James Ker, in Hardship and Happiness (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2014), 11.1 at page 160; see also pages ix-xi.