Western Civilization I / Unit 5 WC1 0423 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Classifying a Hellenistic School: Epicurean, Cynic, Stoic
The idea
The exam describes a way of life and asks which school it is. The method is two questions: what is the attitude to public life, and what is the attitude to feeling. Epicurean: withdraw; seek calm pleasure and avoid pain. Cynic: mock; strip away convention and live by nature. Stoic: serve; do your duty within fate and master emotion.
In practice
Four statements. A man who holds office because a divine order assigned him the role and who accepts his son's death without tears: Stoic. A teacher who lives in a garden with friends, avoids the assembly, and says the gods do not care: Epicurean. A philosopher who lives in a barrel, insults a king to his face, and calls money and titles corruptions: Cynic. A widow who manages her estate quietly, refuses public roles, and holds that death ends everything: Epicurean, the withdrawal and the finality together. The exam's likely trap: which school taught engagement in politics. Only the Stoics.
Where people slip
All three accommodate the status quo, which the anchor calls their shared departure from Socratic inquiry. Do not answer that any of them sought to reform the state. Cynics mocked it, Epicureans left it, Stoics served it, and none tried to change it.
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