The BFD | What Seinfeld Learned While Reading Marcus Aurelius

Jon Miltimore
Jonathan Miltimore is the Senior Creative Strategist of FEE.org at the Foundation for Economic Education.

Emperor of Rome from 161–180 AD, Marcus Aurelius is remembered as the “Philosopher King,” largely because of his classic work Meditations, a cornerstone of Stoic philosophy that delves into such themes as reason, virtue, self-control, self-improvement, and finding peace in a turbulent world.

The book might seem like an odd choice for a comedian, but Seinfeld told Bensinger that the book helped him understand the impermanence of the physical world in which we live.

“Everything that you’re worried about is going to be gone like that [snaps fingers]. The people that are criticizing you, they’re going to be gone,” he said. “You’re going to be gone.”

The actor, who recently turned 70, said the realization helped him appreciate how precious time is here, and how it shouldn’t be squandered by fretting over things we can’t control.

“[It’s] wasted time and energy,” Seinfeld said. “Marcus Aurelius says your only focus should be on getting better at what you’re doing. Focus on what you’re doing; get better at what you’re doing. Everything else is a complete waste of time.”

‘Those Who Can Rule Themselves’

Though he might not have known it, Seinfeld’s message is deeply entwined with the freedom philosophy. The idea that self-improvement is inherently pro-liberty is one FEE-founder Leonard Read explored in his 1962 book Elements of Libertarian Leadership:

All individuals are faced with the problem of whom to improve, themselves or others. Their aim, it seems to me, should be to affect their own unfolding, the upgrading of their own consciousness, in short, self-perfection. Those who don’t even try or, when trying, find self-perfection too difficult, usually seek to expend their energy on others. Their energy has to find some target. Those who succeed in directing their energy inward – particularly if they be blessed with great energy, like Goethe, for instance – become moral leaders. Those who fail to direct their energy inward and let it manifest itself externally – particularly if they be of great energy, like Napoleon, for instance – become immoral leaders. Those who refuse to rule themselves are usually bent on ruling others. Those who can rule themselves usually have no interest in ruling others.

Read was essentially saying that the best way to improve the world is to improve your self, an idea that stretches all the way back to Plato (c. 427–348 BC).

The notion is pretty simple. In order to help others, one must first attend to his own needs. Or as Plato says, in order to ensure justice to others, first a man must set “his own house in good order and rule himself.”

A Different Approach

The idea put forth by Seinfeld and Read, that man’s first duty is to tend to the self, is embedded in Western philosophy. It’s present in the American ethos of individualism, and in the economics of Adam Smith, who noted, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Yet it’s not an idea you’ll find in all philosophies.

Marxism, for example, takes a very different approach. One will look in vain within Marx’s gospel for ideas like self-improvement or self-control, or bettering society through bettering oneself.

Instead, Marx’s ideology is built on fixing what he saw as an unjust and broken world.

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims,” Marx declared in The Communist Manifesto. “They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”

Read that last part again. The forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.

This was not mere hyperbole by Marx. His philosophy aimed to destroy everything on which civilization was based, including:

Religion and Morality: “[Socialism] abolishes all religion, and all morality.”
The Family: “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain”.
Truth: “Communism abolishes eternal truths.”
The Nation-State: “Working men have no country.”
Individuality and Freedom: “The abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality.”

The point isn’t to argue on whether all the things on this list are good. The atheist might not object to abolishing religion, just as the anarchist may not object to abolishing the nation-state. The point is that Marx wanted to abolish it all.

‘You Have Power Over Your Mind’

In his 1948 magnum opus, the scholar Richard Weaver declared that “ideas have consequences.”

Whether we know it or not, ideas shape us. They shape not just the world we live in, but ourselves. Marx’s personal life showed that he was indifferent toward, perhaps even hostile to, self-improvement. The reason for this was obvious: he was consumed with revolution.

The Stoics saw a better way.

“You have power over your mind, not outside events,” Marcus Aurelius observed. “Realize this, and you will find strength.”

This was the power that Jerry Seinfeld discovered. Don’t worry about the things you can’t control; focus on what you can control. Your self. This is where mastery is found.

Today, so many Americans fret over things beyond their control. Their emotions get trapped by external affairs like the stock market, injustice (real and perceived), or who’s President of the United States.

It’s not that these things aren’t important. They are. But our ability to control events and systems is minimal. Embracing a philosophy that acknowledges our limits – instead of one that seeks to overthrow the world – is a path to individual growth, which is the source of human progress.

In a sense, much of the disorder (and warfare) of our modern age stems directly from the ideas of Marx, whose worldview sought to overturn both the natural order and the institutions on which Western Civilization was based. Ayn Rand observed the solution to this dilemma decades ago.

“The present state of the world is not the proof of philosophy’s impotence, but the proof of philosophy’s power,” Rand wrote in For the New Intellectual. “It is philosophy that has brought men to this state – it is only philosophy that can lead them out.”

How the struggle of ideas will play out is something we cannot possibly know today, but Leonard Read would no doubt say that victory for the right ideas begins by ruling ourselves. And the first step toward this end begins by embracing the simple wisdom Seinfeld gleaned from his readings of Marcus Aurelius: “Focus on what you’re doing; get better at what you’re doing.”