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School of Stoics

Seneca Moral essays

Seneca: You waste your pains: you want to do what is…

You waste your pains: you want to do what is certain to be done. You say, “I do not wish necessarily to kill him, but to punish him by exile, or public disgrace, or loss of property.” I can more easily pardon one who wishes to give his enemy a wound than one who wishes to give him a blister: for the latter is not only bad, but petty-minded.

The passage follows a public-domain translation of Seneca’s moral essays. The reading beside it is ours.

There is a difference between stopping harm and savoring someone else's discomfort. A consequence can be necessary: an employee may need to be fired, a boundary enforced, a fraud reported. But when we begin designing humiliations, public embarrassments, or elaborate penalties, we have moved beyond justice into pettiness. Seneca sees this clearly. The person who wants to inflict a small, lingering sting is not being more principled than the person who wants to strike; they are often being more consumed. Ask what the situation actually requires. Is the goal protection, repair, and accountability? Or do you want them to feel what you felt? The first can be done calmly. The second will never feel finished. Do the necessary thing, as cleanly as you can, and leave the extra suffering out of it.

Justice Temperance Perspective Anger Frustration

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