1 00:00:01,900 --> 00:00:07,285 [ ♫ Gentle Music ♫ ] 2 00:00:26,444 --> 00:00:29,048 Narrator: Ever since ancient times human beings have looked to 3 00:00:29,048 --> 00:00:33,992 philosophy for the secret of happiness, but few philosophers have 4 00:00:33,992 --> 00:00:37,231 come up with more suggestive or more relevant answers than 5 00:00:37,231 --> 00:00:41,256 one born on the Greek island of Samos, off the coast of modern Turkey, 6 00:00:41,256 --> 00:00:44,640 three hundred and forty one years before the birth of Christ . 7 00:00:48,082 --> 00:00:50,228 His name was Epicurus. 8 00:00:52,268 --> 00:00:54,838 Very little about him has survived; 9 00:00:54,978 --> 00:00:57,639 all of his books have been lost across the centuries, 10 00:00:57,639 --> 00:01:02,554 leaving his philosophy of happiness to be reconstructed from just a few fragments. 11 00:01:05,049 --> 00:01:10,811 Epicurus believed that we could all find a way to be happy; the problem was, 12 00:01:10,811 --> 00:01:13,815 quite simply, that we were looking in the wrong place. 13 00:01:16,147 --> 00:01:18,253 [♫♫] 14 00:01:30,281 --> 00:01:35,338 Unlike many philosophers, Epicurus' idea of happiness actually sounds rather fun, 15 00:01:35,978 --> 00:01:38,824 he didn't think we should feel guilty about wanting to have a pleasurable, 16 00:01:38,824 --> 00:01:42,646 enjoyable life and promised that he could show us how to. 17 00:01:46,099 --> 00:01:49,844 Of course you might wonder why you need a philosopher at all to teach you how 18 00:01:49,844 --> 00:01:54,060 to have a good time. We seem to think that the key to happiness 19 00:01:54,060 --> 00:01:56,955 is really pretty easy; its all about having a lot of money, 20 00:01:57,725 --> 00:02:00,222 so we can come to places like this, and go shopping. 21 00:02:02,292 --> 00:02:06,142 But before we reach for our wallets, Epicurus wanted us to stop and think; 22 00:02:07,461 --> 00:02:11,074 it's easy to imagine that money can solve everything, but can it? 23 00:02:12,482 --> 00:02:13,740 [ ♫ Singing in Greek ♫ ] 24 00:02:15,756 --> 00:02:20,948 Epicurus was committed to a life of happiness; he liked sex, laughter and beauty, but 25 00:02:20,948 --> 00:02:25,659 crucially spent his time pointing out that happiness is in fact, rather a tricky issue, 26 00:02:27,355 --> 00:02:31,493 and a philosopher might help you to find it more easily than a credit card ever could. 27 00:02:34,838 --> 00:02:38,422 That Epicurus was in favour of pleasure at all shocked many of his ancient Greek 28 00:02:38,422 --> 00:02:43,618 contemporaries, his philosophy became synonymous with a lotus eating lifestyle. 29 00:02:48,637 --> 00:02:52,867 To this day, people who love luxurious eating and drinking can sometimes be 30 00:02:52,867 --> 00:02:57,317 described as Epicurean, in fact that's a complete misunderstanding. 31 00:02:59,323 --> 00:03:02,441 [♫ Singing continues ♫ ] 32 00:03:05,911 --> 00:03:09,036 Botton: Epicurus said that pleasure was the most important thing in life, and yet if 33 00:03:09,036 --> 00:03:12,467 we actually look at the way that he lived, it seems he lived far from a 34 00:03:12,467 --> 00:03:16,807 luxurious life. His house was very simple, his clothes were extremely basic, 35 00:03:16,807 --> 00:03:20,736 he always drank water rather than wine, he found fish much too expensive and 36 00:03:20,736 --> 00:03:24,770 he was happy just eating meals with bread, vegetables and a few olives. 37 00:03:25,637 --> 00:03:29,597 He once asked a friend, send me a pot of cheese, so that I can have a feast 38 00:03:29,597 --> 00:03:33,878 whenever I like, these were the kinds of tastes of a man who would describe 39 00:03:33,878 --> 00:03:35,611 pleasure as the end of life. 40 00:03:46,094 --> 00:03:50,223 Narrator: At the heart of Epicurus' philosophy is a simple thought: that we aren't very 41 00:03:50,223 --> 00:03:54,522 good at knowing what will make us happy, that we may feel powerfully drawn towards 42 00:03:54,522 --> 00:03:59,325 material things, and be convinced that they are what we require to be happy. 43 00:03:59,695 --> 00:04:04,492 We’re often wrong, what we want is not always what we need, and nothing shows 44 00:04:04,492 --> 00:04:07,449 that up more starkly than our impulse to go shopping. 45 00:04:08,687 --> 00:04:13,936 Steven: I like shopping, most weeks it’s just a couple of bags but sometimes it’s, 46 00:04:13,936 --> 00:04:17,210 I don’t know like ten/twelve bags a time, I like designer names. 47 00:04:17,950 --> 00:04:23,227 Dolce and Gabanna stuff, these clothes, DKNY and I love Gucci clothes as well. 48 00:04:24,026 --> 00:04:27,942 Narrator : Steven Perry is a hairdresser from Liverpool who spends all his spare time shopping. 49 00:04:28,991 --> 00:04:33,978 Steven: I suppose I could resist, but usually I don't, usually I just go in and shop anywhere. 50 00:04:35,242 --> 00:04:39,711 Although when I go out buying all this stuff, it makes me happy, at the end of the 51 00:04:39,711 --> 00:04:42,658 month when the credit card and the store card bills and the 52 00:04:42,658 --> 00:04:47,415 loan payments come out, stuff like that, then that doesn’t make me happy because 53 00:04:47,415 --> 00:04:50,238 I see how much is going out, every month on debt. 54 00:04:51,741 --> 00:04:54,741 [ Indistinct Talking ] 55 00:04:57,324 --> 00:04:58,927 Botton: How many watches have you got? 56 00:04:59,820 --> 00:05:02,358 Steven: Not really that many, probably about ten. Something like that. 57 00:05:02,358 --> 00:05:03,888 Botton: You've only got ten watches? Steven: Only ten 58 00:05:03,888 --> 00:05:06,620 Botton: I've only got one! What’s the one you’re wearing now? 59 00:05:06,620 --> 00:05:12,605 Steven: A spoon watch at the minute, I like this just for general everyday 60 00:05:12,867 --> 00:05:16,127 because it’s only like ninety nine pounds and... 61 00:05:16,977 --> 00:05:20,196 Narrator: Steven often gets into debt and I couldn't help wondering if his desire 62 00:05:20,196 --> 00:05:21,944 to go shopping might be a bit out of control. 63 00:05:22,094 --> 00:05:24,674 Botton: So if that’s the everyday watch, what’s the fancy watch? 64 00:05:25,192 --> 00:05:29,428 Steven: The thousand pound Tag watch -- Oh my God, that’s amazing, so what’s 65 00:05:29,478 --> 00:05:32,558 the craziest thing you've bought in terms of like, bad impulse buying? 66 00:05:33,288 --> 00:05:35,878 A pair of shorts. -- From where? 67 00:05:35,878 --> 00:05:44,753 Umm, from a shopping mall in Liverpool, I'll show you them, they didn’t have my size, 68 00:05:44,753 --> 00:05:50,693 so I thought these’ll fit me, but you put them on and they just tend 69 00:05:50,693 --> 00:05:55,899 to look truly horrendous, like cycling shorts, sorta thing. 70 00:05:56,118 --> 00:06:01,585 Botton: How much did they cost? -- God, I don’t know, about fifty pounds? 71 00:06:01,638 --> 00:06:05,216 Fifty sixty quid, something like that. They were never taken back, 72 00:06:05,216 --> 00:06:11,982 the same as these jeans; I think these have still got the labels on. 73 00:06:12,157 --> 00:06:17,703 I just got these home and they didn't fit miles too long and miles too big. 74 00:06:17,703 --> 00:06:21,851 I did mean to take them back but I don’t like taking things back. 75 00:06:24,681 --> 00:06:27,987 Narrator: Do you ever get home and think I'm surrounded by shopping bags 76 00:06:28,217 --> 00:06:31,041 and you’re thinking God, what am I going to do with all this? 77 00:06:31,041 --> 00:06:35,233 --Yeah, especially when you come home and you've just got bags everywhere 78 00:06:35,233 --> 00:06:39,793 and you think, Why have I spent all that? And the credit card bill comes at the 79 00:06:39,793 --> 00:06:42,565 end of the month and you think, Oh! Why did I spend all that? 80 00:06:43,526 --> 00:06:47,579 Narrator: In a way we're all a bit like Steven, people who shop too much; 81 00:06:47,929 --> 00:06:51,384 Epicurus thought he knew why. We don’t understand what we really 82 00:06:51,384 --> 00:06:57,246 need and so fall prey to manic substitute desires for huge numbers of ill-fitting 83 00:06:57,246 --> 00:07:02,065 trousers or countless pairs of shoes. But Epicurus declared that he had 84 00:07:02,065 --> 00:07:06,056 actually discovered what we did need, and luckily for anyone without 85 00:07:06,056 --> 00:07:09,485 much money, the ingredients of happiness come pretty cheap. 86 00:07:12,133 --> 00:07:17,674 The first ingredient we need is friends. Epicurus took the idea of friendship 87 00:07:17,674 --> 00:07:21,759 very seriously, so seriously that he made an extremely radical innovation. 88 00:07:21,759 --> 00:07:25,761 When he came to Athens in 306 BC at the age of 35, he bought a large house 89 00:07:25,761 --> 00:07:30,310 just outside the city of Athens, this place here which he called ‘The Garden’; 90 00:07:31,090 --> 00:07:34,199 of course at that time it was rather beautiful, more beautiful than it is now, 91 00:07:34,199 --> 00:07:36,438 where it seems to be a taxi graveyard. 92 00:07:39,658 --> 00:07:41,768 What he did, was that he bought this house 93 00:07:41,768 --> 00:07:43,960 and asked a group of friends to move in with him. 94 00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:46,245 The house was quite large, so there was room enough for everyone to have 95 00:07:46,245 --> 00:07:49,220 their own quarters at the same time as coming together for meals and 96 00:07:49,220 --> 00:07:51,824 conversations in the common rooms of the house. 97 00:07:54,142 --> 00:07:57,521 What Epicurus was doing was picking up on a rather common sense point, 98 00:07:57,521 --> 00:07:59,992 which is that friends are a major source of happiness. 99 00:08:00,262 --> 00:08:02,919 But I think where he was distinctive was in his idea that in order 100 00:08:02,919 --> 00:08:05,958 to really benefit from friends, you had to see them not just occasionally 101 00:08:05,958 --> 00:08:09,368 not just for the odd drink in a bar or the odd chat on the phone, 102 00:08:09,368 --> 00:08:13,489 he had to be with his friends at all times, so they’d be permanent companions. 103 00:08:13,489 --> 00:08:16,339 And I think that was his distinctive idea of happiness. 104 00:08:19,351 --> 00:08:23,110 Narrator: You wouldn't catch Epicurus devouring lunch on his own in a burger bar; 105 00:08:23,110 --> 00:08:26,540 he recommended that we try never even to eat a snack alone. 106 00:08:27,027 --> 00:08:32,311 Before you eat or drink anything, he said, Consider carefully who you eat or drink with, 107 00:08:32,311 --> 00:08:36,068 rather than what you eat or drink, for feeding without a friend is the life 108 00:08:36,068 --> 00:08:37,837 of a lion or a wolf. 109 00:08:40,734 --> 00:08:42,934 [ ♫♫ ] 110 00:08:44,170 --> 00:08:48,400 Narrator: The second thing Epicurus thought we needed to be happy was freedom and 111 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:50,729 in order to achieve it, he and his friends decided to 112 00:08:50,729 --> 00:08:52,313 leave Athens altogether. 113 00:08:53,973 --> 00:08:56,743 For them, to be free meant to be financially 114 00:08:56,743 --> 00:09:01,085 independent, economically self-sufficient, not answerable to horrible bosses 115 00:09:01,085 --> 00:09:04,092 for their income, so they resolved to leave city life, 116 00:09:04,092 --> 00:09:07,787 and its competitive and gossipy atmosphere behind them once and for all. 117 00:09:08,506 --> 00:09:12,211 So they left Athens and started what could best be described as a commune. 118 00:09:12,890 --> 00:09:16,320 We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday life and politics, 119 00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:19,244 Epicurus wrote, and that’s precisely what they did. 120 00:09:20,439 --> 00:09:23,137 The life was simple, but at least they enjoyed their freedom. 121 00:09:25,433 --> 00:09:29,312 They didn’t mind if they looked shabby, or didn’t have as much money as other people, 122 00:09:29,312 --> 00:09:32,634 because they were self-sufficient, and had gained their independence 123 00:09:32,634 --> 00:09:36,901 from what other people thought. There was, in a financial sense, 124 00:09:36,901 --> 00:09:37,865 nothing to prove. 125 00:09:39,941 --> 00:09:44,239 Epicurus believed there was a third ingredient necessary for happiness, 126 00:09:44,239 --> 00:09:48,303 and that was an analysed life. By which he meant a life in which 127 00:09:48,303 --> 00:09:52,688 we take time off to reflect on our worries, to analyse what is troubling us. 128 00:09:53,691 --> 00:09:57,561 Our anxieties quickly diminish if we give ourselves time to think them through. 129 00:09:59,095 --> 00:10:02,504 And to do that we need to take a step back from the noisy distractions 130 00:10:02,504 --> 00:10:06,524 of the commercial world, and to find time and space for quiet thinking 131 00:10:06,524 --> 00:10:07,459 about our lives. 132 00:10:09,656 --> 00:10:12,766 Of course, having loads of money has never made anyone unhappy, 133 00:10:13,070 --> 00:10:16,905 but I think the lovely idea in Epicurus is that if you’re denied money 134 00:10:16,905 --> 00:10:21,415 for whatever reason, and yet you have his 3 goods, that is you’ve got friends, 135 00:10:21,415 --> 00:10:24,529 you’ve got an analysed life, and you’re self-sufficient, 136 00:10:24,529 --> 00:10:26,202 then you’ll never be denied happiness. 137 00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:30,405 And conversely, if you’ve got loads of money but you’re lacking friends, 138 00:10:30,405 --> 00:10:32,881 you haven’t got a self-sufficient life, you’re not doing a lot of analysing, 139 00:10:32,881 --> 00:10:35,486 then you’ll never be happy, according to Epicurus. 140 00:10:36,036 --> 00:10:39,933 So if we try and draw this relationship between happiness and money on a graph, 141 00:10:39,933 --> 00:10:45,119 imagine that on this side of the graph you’ve got levels of happiness, 142 00:10:45,119 --> 00:10:48,753 and then on this side you’ve got levels of income, for Epicurus, 143 00:10:48,753 --> 00:10:51,855 so long as you’ve got enough money to provide you with the essentials of life 144 00:10:51,855 --> 00:10:55,633 you can start to be happy fairly early on, if you have his 3 goods. 145 00:10:57,168 --> 00:11:00,832 You won’t get any happier the more money you accumulate, 146 00:11:00,832 --> 00:11:04,469 the level of happiness stays pretty steady. However, if you’ve got loads of money, 147 00:11:04,469 --> 00:11:06,570 yet you haven’t got any friends, you’re not self-sufficient, 148 00:11:06,570 --> 00:11:09,789 you’ve got loads of anxieties,then you’re level of happiness 149 00:11:09,789 --> 00:11:11,419 is going to stay very flat. 150 00:11:12,498 --> 00:11:16,131 And I think that’s a lovely consoling idea for anyone who’s either worried about 151 00:11:16,131 --> 00:11:19,536 the fact that they may lose their money or is denied the chance to make any. 152 00:11:22,082 --> 00:11:24,909 Narrator: But if the ingredients of happiness are so simple, why aren't 153 00:11:24,909 --> 00:11:29,218 more of us actually happy? Epicurus blamed advertising. 154 00:11:32,011 --> 00:11:35,465 As we've just seen, advertising can be enormously seductive; 155 00:11:35,465 --> 00:11:39,528 it tends to make us feel that there are all sorts of things missing from our lives. 156 00:11:40,798 --> 00:11:44,559 But Epicurus insisted that we only need three things to be happy: 157 00:11:44,559 --> 00:11:49,332 friends, freedom and an analysed life. If he's right, why then do 158 00:11:49,332 --> 00:11:50,717 we want to shop so much? 159 00:11:51,644 --> 00:11:55,741 Epicurus' answer would be that the commercial world slyly associates the things 160 00:11:55,741 --> 00:11:59,191 it wants to sell us with the things it knows that we need. 161 00:12:01,722 --> 00:12:04,983 So for example, this might persuade us to buy Bacardi, 162 00:12:04,983 --> 00:12:08,689 but only by blurring the fact that its really the friends that we're looking for. 163 00:12:12,238 --> 00:12:14,947 This one tries to sell us perfume by naming it after the thing 164 00:12:14,947 --> 00:12:17,711 we're all really after: freedom. 165 00:12:22,643 --> 00:12:26,283 And this one flogs us whiskey by promising the calm resolution of our problems 166 00:12:26,283 --> 00:12:28,773 that only an analysed life could bring us. 167 00:12:31,963 --> 00:12:33,266 And it's this blurring of our 168 00:12:33,266 --> 00:12:36,788 desires that makes us so confused about what it is we want. 169 00:12:39,129 --> 00:12:42,961 What are the most important things that make you happy? 170 00:12:42,961 --> 00:12:49,852 --Umm, the people around me, if theyre happy then I'm happy, umm, 171 00:12:50,862 --> 00:12:55,457 and like if works going good then that makes me happy as well. 172 00:12:55,737 --> 00:12:59,222 But do you ever think, what if I threw all this away, 173 00:12:59,222 --> 00:13:04,083 threw all that away, all these jumpers, and just concentrated on getting work right, 174 00:13:04,083 --> 00:13:06,613 getting a family and friends right I would never have to go to the 175 00:13:06,613 --> 00:13:08,931 Trafford centre again. 176 00:13:08,931 --> 00:13:13,290 Steven: Yeah, because if I shop to cheer myself up, if I'm already happy then I dont need 177 00:13:13,290 --> 00:13:14,934 to cheer myself up do I? 178 00:13:17,154 --> 00:13:23,830 Steven: So at the minute Im fairly happy so I'm not shopping quite as much as I used to, 179 00:13:24,689 --> 00:13:29,032 but who's to say that next week something might happen and then 180 00:13:29,032 --> 00:13:30,292 I'll just have to go and shop. 181 00:13:44,167 --> 00:13:48,179 Epicurus may have lived more than two thousand years ago but he would've 182 00:13:48,179 --> 00:13:52,685 understood the pressures that make people like Steven shop so much, and he had a bold 183 00:13:52,685 --> 00:13:57,651 and practical solution to counter them. The place to find it is here in a dusty 184 00:13:57,651 --> 00:14:03,313 and remote corner of South-Western Turkey. That Epicurus should still speak to us 185 00:14:03,313 --> 00:14:07,072 at all is something of a miracle, as every one of the three hundred books 186 00:14:07,072 --> 00:14:11,710 that he wrote has been lost. But his philosophy developed into a kind of creed, 187 00:14:11,710 --> 00:14:15,466 almost like a religion, and remained popular for some four hundred years. 188 00:14:16,295 --> 00:14:21,620 Epicurean communities were founded in places like this, all across the ancient world. And 189 00:14:21,620 --> 00:14:25,558 it's largely thanks to them that fragments of what Epicurus wrote have survived. 190 00:14:32,834 --> 00:14:36,590 Narrator: I've come with local Archaeologist Mustufu Adak to see the ruins of . 191 00:14:36,590 --> 00:14:38,798 the ancient town of Oinoanda. 192 00:14:42,568 --> 00:14:44,258 Oinoanda was once home to 193 00:14:44,258 --> 00:14:47,592 twenty five thousand people; a place with a lavish theatre, 194 00:14:47,592 --> 00:14:50,307 a busy market place, or agora, and a huge aquaduct. 195 00:14:51,627 --> 00:14:53,307 It was also home to a follower 196 00:14:53,307 --> 00:14:57,823 of Epicurus' philosophy, one of the wealthiest citizens of the town, 197 00:14:57,823 --> 00:15:00,391 a man called Diogenes, of Oinoanda. 198 00:15:04,382 --> 00:15:09,098 Around the AD 120s, this Diogenes took a highly unusual decision, 199 00:15:09,538 --> 00:15:14,047 he paid for an enormous wall to be put up as part of a giant structure 200 00:15:14,047 --> 00:15:17,667 known as a Stoa, on which he had inscribed Epicurus' 201 00:15:17,667 --> 00:15:22,255 entire philosophy of happiness, so that all the citizens of his town 202 00:15:22,255 --> 00:15:24,204 could learn and be inspired by it. 203 00:15:24,914 --> 00:15:30,214 Botton: Where are we walking now? Mustufu: We are walking now in the old agora 204 00:15:31,094 --> 00:15:33,484 where Diogenes had his Stoa. 205 00:15:39,594 --> 00:15:41,934 Botton: What we're seeing now is bits of the wall. 206 00:15:41,934 --> 00:15:45,676 Mustufu: This wall was broken up by an earthquake, most probably, 207 00:15:45,676 --> 00:15:50,000 and there are more than two-hundred fragments of the inscription. 208 00:15:51,652 --> 00:15:55,284 This is one of the fragments; this is the beginning of the inscription. 209 00:15:55,284 --> 00:15:56,731 Botton: And this is where Diogenes tries to explain why he 210 00:15:56,731 --> 00:15:59,731 put up the wall in the first place 211 00:15:59,731 --> 00:16:05,925 Mustufu: Yes, hes saying that if there were one or two persons who are lost, 212 00:16:05,925 --> 00:16:11,749 he could educate them personally, but there are more, many people, 213 00:16:11,749 --> 00:16:13,676 So he decided to put up this stone. 214 00:16:14,247 --> 00:16:17,286 So if there were just one or two people who didn't know how to be happy, 215 00:16:17,286 --> 00:16:20,536 he'd go and talk to them, but because there are so many the best way 216 00:16:20,536 --> 00:16:25,080 to help them is to actually put up a wall in the middle of the town. 217 00:16:25,491 --> 00:16:28,561 That's right, that's the explanation he gives here in this part. 218 00:16:29,218 --> 00:16:35,388 Botton: What a lovely thing to do. Diogenes was acting on a crucial 219 00:16:35,388 --> 00:16:40,317 idea in Epicurus, that in order to live wisely, it isn't enough just to read a 220 00:16:40,317 --> 00:16:44,487 philosophical argument once or twice; we need constant reminders 221 00:16:44,487 --> 00:16:47,929 of it, or we'll forget. When we're encouraged to go shopping 222 00:16:47,929 --> 00:16:51,601 by bright lights and inviting displays we're quickly liable to lose 223 00:16:51,601 --> 00:16:53,360 sight of our true desires. 224 00:16:55,490 --> 00:16:57,200 So we have to counteract the influence 225 00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:01,912 of advertising by creating advertisements which say what we really do need, 226 00:17:02,972 --> 00:17:05,933 and that's why Diogenes put up his wall. 227 00:17:06,353 --> 00:17:09,563 Mustufu: ...and I think this door collapsed then. 228 00:17:09,563 --> 00:17:10,890 Botton: What is this here? 229 00:17:10,890 --> 00:17:14,231 Mustufu: This is another very fascinating fragment... 230 00:17:14,231 --> 00:17:15,955 Narrator: The massive limestone wall originally stood right next 231 00:17:15,955 --> 00:17:18,725 to the marketplace of the town. 232 00:17:19,995 --> 00:17:22,455 Inhabitants shopping in the boutiques of Oinoanda 233 00:17:22,455 --> 00:17:25,605 were warned to expect little happiness from the activity. 234 00:17:29,166 --> 00:17:33,800 Luxurious food and drinks, says one fragment, in no way protect you from harm; 235 00:17:36,550 --> 00:17:41,372 wealth beyond what is natural is no more use than an over-flowing container. 236 00:17:42,077 --> 00:17:47,159 Real value is generated not by theatres and bars, perfumes and ointments, 237 00:17:47,159 --> 00:17:48,144 but by philosophy. 238 00:17:53,602 --> 00:17:57,872 The wall may have crumbled into ruin, but movingly the ideas inscribed 239 00:17:57,874 --> 00:18:00,019 on it retain their life and their relevance. 240 00:18:01,249 --> 00:18:03,019 Botton: It strikes me as a real paradox really, 241 00:18:03,019 --> 00:18:05,667 that you would've had where people were doing their shopping, 242 00:18:05,667 --> 00:18:08,099 they're sort of carrying their shopping, and then on the wall you've got these 243 00:18:08,099 --> 00:18:12,484 reminders that shopping is not necessarily going to make you happy. 244 00:18:12,484 --> 00:18:16,875 Mustufu: Yes, the letters of the inscription were red so that everyone could see them... 245 00:18:16,875 --> 00:18:19,524 Oh right, so it was all written in red? Mustufu: In red yes. 246 00:18:19,524 --> 00:18:21,950 So you really could have seen it, you could've been at the other side 247 00:18:21,950 --> 00:18:24,988 of the marketplace and you would’ve seen that there was this kind 248 00:18:24,988 --> 00:18:28,642 of advertisement almost, for Epicureanism on the wall. 249 00:18:32,702 --> 00:18:36,121 Botton: It must've been a beautiful spot; I mean to have not only philosophy 250 00:18:36,121 --> 00:18:41,095 enlightening you but also a fantastic view onto the surrounding countryside. 251 00:18:41,095 --> 00:18:46,559 I can imagine it would've been easy to be wise, not easy but easier to be wise here. 252 00:18:47,344 --> 00:18:52,004 I would've done less shopping if I had this wall and this surrounding. 253 00:18:55,687 --> 00:18:58,217 Botton: It's a pity they didn't do it more, and that they dont do it today, 254 00:18:58,217 --> 00:19:01,193 I think its a lovely idea. Mustufu: Yes 255 00:19:05,631 --> 00:19:09,323 Narrator: If Epicurus and his followers had been alive today they wouldn't have been 256 00:19:09,323 --> 00:19:13,163 sniffy about advertising, they would've enlisted it for their own ends. 257 00:19:13,653 --> 00:19:16,661 And for the same reason that Diogenes built his wall: 258 00:19:16,661 --> 00:19:19,835 to counter the constant inducements to go shopping with some 259 00:19:19,835 --> 00:19:22,492 equal inducements to live philosophically. 260 00:19:22,492 --> 00:19:25,492 Man: First idea is basically try 261 00:19:25,492 --> 00:19:29,162 ironic statements like, shop your blues away. 262 00:19:29,435 --> 00:19:33,431 Narrator: I've come to the kind of place were Epicureans might have turned: 263 00:19:33,431 --> 00:19:38,395 the offices of the advertising agency St. Lukes, to get ideas for creating some 264 00:19:38,395 --> 00:19:41,353 modern public reminders of how to live wisely. 265 00:19:42,081 --> 00:19:46,419 The first idea their creative team came up with was a sarcastic campaign, 266 00:19:46,419 --> 00:19:48,283 satirising the materialistic messages of most ads. 267 00:19:48,283 --> 00:19:51,283 Woman: This is really powerful, 268 00:19:51,283 --> 00:19:54,269 certainly in production terms it takes a number of additions 269 00:19:54,269 --> 00:19:57,483 but its very very cheap. Man: And then a bit more challenging, 270 00:19:57,483 --> 00:20:00,873 be happy with shopping, TV and yearly holidays. 271 00:20:00,873 --> 00:20:04,358 Botton: Right, I love that, that really does sum it all up, doesn't it? 272 00:20:04,358 --> 00:20:10,899 Man: I thought this was the strongest- fill the void in your life with a product 273 00:20:10,899 --> 00:20:15,246 Botton: And youd have shops advertising, shops selling these kind of products 274 00:20:15,246 --> 00:20:18,607 and then this stark reminder that perhaps it's not really 275 00:20:18,607 --> 00:20:20,461 going to fill any void. 276 00:20:20,461 --> 00:20:21,461 Its brilliant, thank you Steve. 277 00:20:22,151 --> 00:20:23,140 Man: The most obvious idea was just 278 00:20:23,140 --> 00:20:30,475 to take luxury items and goods and somehow undermine them or show them 279 00:20:30,475 --> 00:20:36,213 for being a bit shallow or a bit kind of, empty inside. 280 00:20:36,213 --> 00:20:44,241 The best example we've got is something like this, just taking a lovely image of a 281 00:20:44,241 --> 00:20:50,042 beautiful house and just using the language of advertising, 282 00:20:50,042 --> 00:20:54,433 the caveat is, batteries not included, and just changing it to happiness not included. 283 00:20:54,845 --> 00:20:57,705 Botton: Right, I really like that, in a way that says it all doesn't it? 284 00:20:57,705 --> 00:21:00,767 It says, it keeps that subtlety of Epicureanism, which is, 285 00:21:00,767 --> 00:21:03,718 you could be happy in a house like that, but it's not included. 286 00:21:03,961 --> 00:21:08,418 It's not saying that you won't be happy in that house, which would be sort of Marxism, 287 00:21:08,418 --> 00:21:11,172 it's just saying it's not included so you better watch out before 288 00:21:11,172 --> 00:21:13,366 you spend all your energies trying to get this house. 289 00:21:32,303 --> 00:21:36,407 Narrator: Unfortunately philosophers have rarely had much money for advertising campaigns, 290 00:21:36,647 --> 00:21:40,355 but imagine a world where instead of being surrounded by adverts 291 00:21:40,355 --> 00:21:45,263 selling you watches, cars or fancy holidays. these ads remind you of how important 292 00:21:45,263 --> 00:21:49,818 it is to value friends to escape the rat race or reflect on your problems 293 00:21:50,358 --> 00:21:55,855 and didn't just use these genuinely nice things to sell you aftershave or aperitifs. 294 00:21:57,322 --> 00:22:00,119 It's hard to know whether the people of Oinoanda 295 00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:04,182 discovered what they did need and ceased buying what they didn't because of a 296 00:22:04,182 --> 00:22:06,099 giant advertisement in their midst. 297 00:22:06,638 --> 00:22:10,970 But Epicurus' central message seems, if anything, more relevant to today's 298 00:22:10,970 --> 00:22:15,046 consumer society than it did to his own, and theres no reason to believe 299 00:22:15,046 --> 00:22:18,931 that happiness is any more included in the many more things we can buy. 300 00:22:20,075 --> 00:22:23,780 Of course, putting up one poster in the Trafford centre in Manchester 301 00:22:23,780 --> 00:22:27,244 couldn't on its own turn back the tide of consumerism and, 302 00:22:27,244 --> 00:22:30,928 although shoppers seemed interested in what my ad was trying to say, 303 00:22:30,928 --> 00:22:34,166 I didn't see much evidence of people stopping shopping. 304 00:22:35,131 --> 00:22:38,263 But the fact remains, we're horribly confused about 305 00:22:38,263 --> 00:22:41,991 what could make us happy, if we really knew what we needed 306 00:22:41,991 --> 00:22:44,785 there are few things we'd be desperate to buy. 307 00:22:47,853 --> 00:22:51,617 Botton: Epicurus makes us think very carefully about the merits of our own society, 308 00:22:51,617 --> 00:22:54,864 of course these societies are enormously wealthy, we can buy almost anything 309 00:22:54,864 --> 00:22:58,159 we want in a place like this, full of colourful shops selling wonderfully 310 00:22:58,159 --> 00:23:01,831 well produced goods, and yet what Epicurus wants us to think is, 311 00:23:01,831 --> 00:23:06,666 do places like this really provide us with the key ingredients of happiness, 312 00:23:06,666 --> 00:23:09,552 and he thought, and I think he was right, that they don't. 313 00:23:10,694 --> 00:23:14,453 Happiness may be difficult to attain, Epicurus admitted that, 314 00:23:14,453 --> 00:23:18,400 but he insisted that the obstacles are not primarily financial.