Two irritations of their time

“It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize;” Aristotle states for all of time (Metaphysics 982b). Thoughtful questioning does not thrive on the ground of practised routines; it needs the unexpected, the deviation, the new and disturbing to get going. The reasons for this are legion and can also lie in the behaviour of others.

The image of the dropout, who lives in an empty barrel and whose way of life provokes social norms, has left a lasting impression on Diogenes of Sinope. Even today, the ancient thinker from the 4th century B.C.E. is regarded as an icon of philosophical courage. According to legend, he asked Alexander (who later became Great) to get out of his sun. With this proverbial sentence, he simultaneously rejected potential benefits that the ruler might have offered him. Such anecdotes about the non-conformist behaviour of the Cynic testify to solidly developed philosophical actionism.

In their lack of respect for political authorities and traditional customs, two predominantly fictional cult figures have joined hands over the centuries: Diogenes, whose writings have been lost and whose memory preserves many a witty provocative saying, and Edmund "Mundl" Sackbauer, the anti-hero from Ernst Hinterberger's television series Ein echter Wiener geht nicht unter (A Real Viennese Does Not Go Down), produced by ORF from 1975 to 1979. In a sometimes crude choice of words, Mundl - congenially portrayed by the unforgettable Karl Merkatz - not only brings the type of the grumbling Viennese prole to the screens of the Austrian television age, but also quite impressively stages the tension between being rooted in the everyday and a platonic heaven of ideas. The latter is still a hypothesis in the history of ideas. Further research in the form of a repeated viewing of the 24 Mundl episodes is certainly necessary.

PS: Mundl's preferences come close to those of Diogenes in terms of needlessness. He, too, sees family ties primarily as a burden, does not need a cup to drink, and basically leads a frugal life (as long as there is enough amber nectar).