This is the third and final
instalment of a series looking at the three key philosophies in Assassin’s
Creed. You can read part one on Existentialism
and part two on the Romantic
at the links.
When you look over the
philosophical landscape you will notice certain key features occupying a
particular space. I call these
Philosophical Cohorts. These are
distinct philosophical ideas that have more commonality than differences and
can actual work together without too much contradiction. If there is contradiction, it can prove
beneficial as some of the philosophical extremes temper each other.
In the space occupied by
Assassin’s Creed we find philosophies like Existentialism, the Romantic, Stoicism,
political libertarianism, and Objectivism to name a few. The spotlight here shines on Stoicism.
Stoicism is unique among
philosophies in that it is one of the few used in everyday language to describe
a particular attitude or personality type.
Altair and Connor Kenway are both described as stoic by critics and fans. This is due to the emphasis Stoicism places
on cultivating a particular attitude.
It is this focus on proactive
character shaping and building that has brought about resurgent interest in
Stoicism in recent years as people use it as a sort of self-help path, which it
is. If you check for meet-up groups
on-line, it is far easier to find Stoic groups than Existentialists ones. It was when I when looking for an
Existentialist group, and finding none, that I made-up a joke. “I was going to
form an Existentialist club, but then I thought, ‘What’s the point?’”
So why is Stoicism making a
comeback? It’s been said that the study
of philosophy began when someone asked a wise man, “What must I do to be
happy?” The five branches of philosophy
are arguably built around this premise, making philosophy self-help, however
this objective was lost along the way.
For example, happiness depends on context, so to establish this we have
Metaphysics answering the question, “What is reality (context)?”, but so many
philosophers get side tracked on this point and never get back to the happiness
part. Existentialism tends to do
this. Stoicism on the other hand retains
the focus on happiness and this gives the philosophy something the people
want. Stoicism not only describes
reality it also proscribes beneficial thoughts, attitudes, and actions.
I believe that the Creed
perfectly summarizes Existentialism.
Nothing is True; Everything is Permitted. Likewise, the Romantic can be summarized by
its values of Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love.
For Stoicism, the Serenity Prayer serves as a basic summary:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Stoicism does not go as far as
Existentialism in saying that “Nothing is True”, but it does tell us not to
concern ourselves with things over which we have no control, such as things
that are not true. Take the past for
example. The past is an imagined
construct. The only reality of it lies
in what it leaves behind. These are the
affects and effects of the past. Your past
experiences have affected your psyche making you who you are now and the
effects of the past are the consequences present in your immediate now.
Suppose you were in a fire as a
child and now you fear fire. That event
is in the past. It’s not real, however
the psychological affect remains and that is what you have to deal with
regarding fire today. I am writing this
on my computer. The computer exists in
the now as a consequence of me purchasing it.
Should something happen to my computer and it’s gone, then for all
intents and purposes it no longer exists in my reality. Beyond affect and effect,
the past is not real. It’s just an
idea. So don’t worry yourself over it. Stoicism encourages not wasting emotional
energy on things that do not exist for us or that you cannot control. The same hold true of the future.
There is a scene in AC Liberation
where Aveline has just figured-out that her step-mother is her mysterious nemesis
known only as "the company man".
This causes a bit of an existential crisis for her. Aveline knows what she must do as an Assassin
but has her doubts. She turns to her
fellow Assassin Connor Kenway for help. She asks, “Connor, are you always
certain in the means and ways of the brotherhood?” He replies in his usual
stoic brevity, "I trust my own hands".
What the hell, Connor? Aveline’s
reality just came crashing down and she’s faced with a difficult decision and
the best you can come-up with is some cryptic response. Allow me the conceit of rewriting Connor’s
reply.
Aveline, you say that you are
having doubts about how we Assassins do things, and it’s good to question, but
I don’t think that is the real issue here.
You are worrying about the future, about consequences that may or may
not occur. The future you imagine is not
real and is beyond your control. What you can control is what is at hand right
now and you can only trust yourself to do what you can with the information you
have in the moment.
Aveline responds saying "Of
course" as if Connor is simply reminded her of something already covered
in her philosophy class at Assassin school. We see this kind of behaviour quite a bit from
the Assassins – this attitude of acceptance.
One of my favourite lines in AC
Black Flag is something Edward Kenway says to Thatch. “I'm not of the same
mind, mate. But I won't begrudge you the state of yours.” The acceptance that other people should not
be expected to think as we do. When you
read through internet comments it is as though people are in a constant state
of outrage because others have a different point of view or have one that they
find offensive. Stoicism teaches that we
must expect that people will be people.
One Stoic technique is to tell
yourself at the start of the day that you will meet stupid, rude, annoying, and
cruel people throughout your day. By
preparing yourself in advance you have no reason to be shocked when you do meet
one. It is about managing your
expectations. If you believe that you
are destined to meet your soul mate and will live in perpetual bliss for the
rest of your life, then chances are that life will disappoint. Instead cultivate realistic expectations and
accept life as it is and not as you wish it was.
One of the big issues that
Stoicism has to contend with in regards to public perception is the idea of the
stoic personality as someone cold, emotionless, and tacit. The prime Assassins
for this are Altair and Connor. The
philosophy behind this is the recognition that we cannot control the actions of
others, but we can control how we choose to respond.
Ten years ago my “soul mate” left
me. I was emotionally and
psychologically devastated. My life went
from being a social man about town before the relationship to being a virtual
hermit ever since. It would be easy for
me to scream, “She ruined my life!”, but that would be wrong. Leaving me was her right as a human
being. What caused this damage was not
her leaving but the way I chose to respond to it. I spent months replaying events in my mind
feeling constant pain and loss that took nearly a year to ease. My brooding only aggravated the problem,
prolonged the grieving process, and caused the damage. I did this to myself.
Stoicism teaches that we are
responsible for our own emotional responses and works on the premise that no
one can make us feel something that we do not choose to feel. In an age when emotions are encouraged and allowed
to run wild and undisciplined, this choice may not seem apparent. However, we know from examples among our
fellow humans that emotional self-control is not only possible but also common
in various cultures and zeitgeists. The
ancient Greek Stoics called the state resulting from emotional self-discipline apatheia,
from which we get the modern word apathy,
but the proper translation of apatheia is tranquillity. This pursuit of tranquillity is just one of
many similarities between Stoicism and Buddhism.
It is the emphasis on cultivating
emotional self-control that has led to apparently emotionless people to be
called stoic. The truth is we can also
choose to be happy and that is the point that is missed by non-Stoics. It is not about feeling nothing. It is about taking responsibility for our
feelings.
Another important Stoic concept
is un-attachment and this figures into an interpretation of the Creed. To recognise that Nothing is True is to see
the impermanence of things. Mary Read
alludes to this in Black Flag when she describes the Creed as, “the world’s
only certainty” possibly in reference to the expression, “the only constant is
change”. Things, people, and situations
do not last. They may be true today and
right now, but they are not True in the sense of constancy.
A key Stoic philosopher was the
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Every
now and then he would sleep on the floor to remind himself that his comforts
are impermanent. This type of self-denial serves to help us to not take our
comforts for granted but also to remind us that we can exist without these
comforts and conveniences. One of the
problems of wealth is that it protects the rich from the real world. The trivial is given too much value and the
demands of reality like food, shelter, and clothing are taken for granted as
simply always existing. In short, it’s
what we call First World Problems. Stoic
practices show us that we can survive happily without our mobile phones,
internet, or any number of luxuries that we have come to see as necessities. Another common technique among Stoics when faced with challenges is to ask, "What's the worst that can happen and can I live with that?"
The second part of the Creed also
has Stoic implications. When we
recognise that everything is permitted, remember that this applies to others as
much as it does ourselves. We cannot
control or necessarily predict the actions of others because everything is
permitted. You must then decide how you
choose to respond to how others use their freedom.
THE THREE PHILOSOSOPHIES OF
ASSASSIN’S CREED
Throughout the Assassin’s Creed
series there are constant references to a philosophical core belief system that
is never revealed in full. After all,
this is a video game series and not some philosophical treaties. What we do have is the Creed.
As mentioned in a previous essay,
the phrase “Nothing is True, Everything is permitted” is most likely of ancient
origin, at least Friedrich Nietzsche seem to think so in 1887. It had been erroneously attributed to the
Medieval Assassins of Iran and Syria, but it was not until the game series that
it became known as The Assassin’s Creed.
I believe that within this simple phrase we have allusions to
Existentialism, the Romantic, and to Stoicism and that all three of these
philosophies can be found expressed in the game series.
The Assassins of the game are
wholly fictional works created by a committee of writers overseen by corporate interests. However, the three philosophies behind the
Creed are very real and accessible. We
may not know the philosophical core beliefs of the fictional Assassins, but
chances are that a follower of a synthesis of these three philosophies would
fit right in within the Assassin Order.
