004: Banausos

[kylec]

I don’t speak Ancient Greek, but my favorite word out of the four or five I know is “banausos.” It’s a pejorative for manual laborer, craftsman, one who plies a trade, though that misses the heart of the meaning. It might be more accurate to use the word only at the beginning of the definition. Only a potter. Only a stonemason. Plato used it in contrast to the philosopher, who had many virtues, the system of which made up a philosophical life. If a philosopher was a generalist, a jack of all trades, a banausos was uber-specialized in one field at the expense of his soul. A famous contemporary example would be Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Master of the craft of boxing, but borderline illiterate with no other redeemable qualities as a human being outside of being able to put on a technically perfect boxing match. (Most banausoi—my best guess at the plural form—don’t get to be rich and famous.)

As it turns out, your trade has little to do with it. Socrates was a stonemason. He was also a soldier, accomplished drinker, etymologist, rabble rouser, dutiful citizen, and a lover of wisdom—a philosopher. To put in modern terms, if you’re a pipe fitter by trade, come home and plop down in front of the TV with a beer for the remainder of the evening, you might just be a banausos. But if you’re a pipe fitter, read voraciously, play a mean trumpet in a local brass band, speak Spanish and German, build homemade radios, brew beer in your garage, and question yourself constantly to make sure you are living as consistently as possible with the best set of virtues you can come up with, you might be what the ancients would call a philosopher.

I don’t think that many people outside of the universities are interested in philosophy these days, and I don’t blame them. The difference between the word in 4^th century B.C. Greece and modern America is nearly a reversal of terms. Pierre Hadot points out that to the ancients, philosophy was not the practice of lecturing to others, or debating meaningless abstractions. It was not even a system of thought. Philosophy was something you did—a way of life. Anything that couldn’t be put into practice was sophistry. To call back to the map analogy, it was a system of navigation meant to be used to make practical decisions. You didn’t have to agree with Diogenes the Cynic’s map if you weren’t a fan of living in a barrel in the park, relieving yourself in public, and trolling Plato, but no one could accuse him of being all talk and no walk.

By contrast, modern philosophy has left the wine barrel for the ivory tower. No doubt the interior is decorated with hundreds of fine maps, none of which have ever been used for anything other than wallpaper. To Socrates, the purpose of questioning everything and leading the self-examined life was to better understand how to live. Somewhere along the way, philosophy became the practice of arguing over abstractions in a classroom for the purpose of demonstrating to others just how smart you are. An act of virtue signaling instead of virtue seeking. I think its reputation as a pastime of high-fallutin’ nerds might be due in part to the fact that most folks don’t see anything admirable in those who practice it. What’s the word for someone who specializes in something to the point that they can’t handle anything outside of their very narrow domain? “Tenured professor” might come to mind, but banausos has a better ring. It’s not limited to the philosophy department, either. Humanities departments would rather spend time inventing tautologies, then criticizing people who fail to use the most up-to-date terminology. Research labs are often so specialized that a grad student from one has no idea what problems anyone else in the field is working on, as their work only relates to the work of others in their lab. Unlike traditional banausoi, who still provided valuable infrastructure and entertainment, academic banausoi can get trapped in abstractions that are relevant to almost no living human.

So why does any of that matter? If someone is looking for maps that improve their ability to navigate a territory, they are likely going to want 1) more than one, 2) maps that correspond to actual territory, not fantasy lands (maps that are actionable) 3) to use these maps for exploration, not just stare at them for aesthetic value or wave them at others to show off the collection. Whether I call it systems theory, ecology of mind, philosophy, metaphor, or anything else, if I want to actually find useful ways to think about problems in order to make better decisions I’ll need to avoid the banausic trap of getting fixated on one and only one possibility, or worse—talking aloud to myself about fantasy lands while I sort through the trash for plastic bottles to cash in. Whatever philosophies or theories of mind any of us entertain, they need to be testable and tested in the real world, with real consequences if they don’t work out. Not only a trade, but a way of life.

Comments

[causticus]

Banausos, yes that's the word I've been looking for! Thank you. I've complained plenty about the legions of ultra-specialized professionals and academics who are clueless about almost everything that falls outside the scope of their narrow profession or field of study. We're a society today of many 'expert-idiots' and very few (if any) wise generalists in positions of influence. The problem is the latter is often written off as the "knowitall" type and thus disregarded unless they've spent years working their way up the corporate/organizational food chain of wherever they might be employed, which in practice is a form of "yes man" screening, which tends to weed out independent thinkers and creative eccentrics.

Excellent essay overall. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts.

[kylec]

Thanks! I learned of the word from Nassim Taleb. You're right, we value the expert specialist, appropriately credentialed with a string of acronyms. Those who are blind outside their microscope. I think that food chain exists precisely to limit the opportunities to those who are willing to jump through the right hoops and have the right loyalties (dependecies), rather than letting capable, well-rounded folks ruin everything.