"Free Dog"——a Study On Freedom Of Greek Cynicism

There was a special community in Greek in the fourth century BC. They criticaled society, acted weirdly, lead a ascetic life persistencedly, and using this style of life to express faith and to exclaim ideas and to practice their ideal. This is known as one of the ancient Greek small Socrates which called cynicism. Cynicism emerged in a special historical environment and social situation. In their own unique opinion of freedom, cynicism created a series of distinctive values on life, society, education etc, and profoundly influence in history.In the view of Cynics, the people in the real world has become slaves of desire, what people care about is how to maximize the demand of desire, wealth, power, and the life, and as the mission of cynics which is telling the world with their own behavior that smell of money, fame, and so on are like shit, people accept being slaved, being prisoned by secular society's religion, system, laws seriously. Only following by the behavioring way and the philosophy idea according to cynicism can break these chains, and escape from secular slavery to become an independent, free man. Cynicism has not been a prisoner of the city-state thought, they focused on how to free individual as the principal duty. The natural relationship between master and slave and class of have been completely break by cynicism, in the ideal cynicism country the ideas like equality, mutual help, monarch, class, slavery and so on will be meanless, everyone is equal as the citizens of the world, when all people of the world would become cynics, war, desire, sin willno longer exist, people all depend on nature to live, to free.Cynicism's idea of free base on individual, in the influence of cynicism austere life and rich spirit idea, which the cynics freedom satisfy self-helping, rather than finding external support and with satisfaction in the heart. This freedom don't depend on secular to exist, but exist in human nature. That is means human are free when they born, free is the result of temperance, not for accumulating wealth and powerful right,or guide from others.As a philosophy party in early ancient Greece about which debate and thought free, cynicism school was unique in the freedom definition and explanation, which is significant to commence. After analyzing and researching of cynicism freedom idea, we will surely achieve some valuable revelation, distinguish many social problems and meanwhile also can help form more scientific, more mature, more comprehensive new age freedom idea.