The Work-Life Balance in Ancient Egyptian Ethics

WerMaat

From the thread discussing perfection, I'm branching this out into a separate discussion.

Ancient Egypt did not have philosophical texts in the style of the Greeks, instead they had their own tradition of "sebayt", teaching.
They were mostly concerned with practical ethics: How to live your life in a successful and ethical fashion.
I'd like to present one aspect of these teaching: the concept of moderation and the balance of work and duty on the one hand, and joy and leisure on the other hand.

I'm quoting from the teaching of Ptah-Hotep, one of the oldest and most famous. See here:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/ptahhotep.html

The idea of "balance" seems simple, but as I think on it, it just grows the more significant. I'm guessing the balance beam was a common and important tool in their lives - perhaps one in every home. One arrives at (for me) a dimly seen concept of balance, juxtaposed against ideas of either/or, neither/nor. Balance, it would seem, is part pragmatic and part nefer. And to be sure, all balance is a matter of moment, and never endures. — tim wood

It was actually more a concept of moderation, of finding a middle way between extremes:
"A man who worries all day long
will never be allowed a good moment.
A man who lazes all day long
will never have a solid house."

This passage uses the expression "At nfrt", the "good moment" or "perfect moment" as a concept of joy in life. But it warns concerning a "wenef ib", the person "leisurely of heart" all day: nn grg n-f pr - literally "not furnished for him a house".

The even more famous passage is this one:
"Follow your heart as long as you live.
Do not make a loss on what is said,
do not subtract time from following the heart.
Harming its time is an offence to the ka."

In Egyptian:
Sms ib.k - follow your heart
tr n wnn.k - time of your existence
m ir HAw Hr mddwt - not do a surplus over what-is-said
m xb tr n Sms ib - not shorten the time of follow-the-heart
bwt kA pw HDt At.f - an abomination of the soul it is, to spoil its moment

Unfortunately the meaning of the phrase "HAw hr" is somewhat unclear: is it a "more than" or a "loss of"? I favour the interpretation that it talks about "working more than that which has been instructed".
As in: do your duty, but don't work overtime.
I see this phrase as the earliest documented concept of a work-life balance. :grin:

To get a deeper understanding, we should also take a look at two more key words: "Ib", the heart, and "Ka".

1. The "heart" may not be taken, in its modern sense, as a symbol of emotion only. The Egyptians saw the heart not only as a center of emotions, but also in a much more comprehensive sense, as the seat of mind, conscience and personality.
"following the heart" can be interpreted to mean "seek pleasure", and later Egyptian citations of this phrase point in this direction. However, I think it's valid to consider a more nuanced interpretation. I believe the phrase also suggests that you should set time aside for yourself, to look inward and meditate, to be true to yourself and follow your hobbies and passions.

It would fit the composition of the text to contrast the "Sms ib" - follow yourself - with the "mddwt", the instructions/orders given from the outside.
@tim wood , once again observe the symmetric composition of key words arranged around "m ir HAw Hr mddwt" as the center:
Sms ib.k tr n wnn.k
m ir HAw Hr mddwt
m xb tr n Sms ib

2. "Ka" is often translated as "soul". But the western concept of soul is much closer to the Egyptian word "Ba": an immortal and transcendent part of the person.
Some Egyptologists leave the word "Ka" untranslated. Like "Maat" it is a complex concept that has no direct analogy in our language.
Each human has a Ka - a Double, an immaterial counterpart of the body. The Ka is fashioned on Khnum's potter wheel together with the body. During life, "Ka" is something like your spirit, your mind, the thing that makes "you" more than a physical body. Fun fact: Egyptian "Cheers!" is "n kA-k", "to your Ka!"
After death, the Ka is what remains. After the body dies, the Ka can still remain on earth and interact with the living if it has an intact mummy or a statue as a "seat", which replaces the body.
This is why all the funeral cult and the offerings to the ancestors are addressed "to the Ka of N.N."

Therefore the last sentence gives a dire warning: If you don't grant your Ka, your spirit, its proper "moments", then you are committing a grave offence against it.

So, what do you think of PtahHotep?
Outdated and superficial?
Timeless and profound?

I know that I'm a freak that way, I love PtahHotep's teaching even though I don't agree with him on all points. (My nickname is also take from a phrase of PtahHotep: wr mAat wAH spdt - "Great is Maat, and of enduring keenness")
But I'd be interested in your opinion. Is this philosophy, or does "real" philosophy start in Greece?
(or technically in Turkey/Asia Minor, if you count the Pre-Socratics)

RegularGuy

↪WerMaat

Are you an Egyptologist? You seem to be very knowledgeable. Good to have you here!

WerMaat

↪Noah Te Stroete

Not quite, it's a hobby. :grin:
I don't have a PHD and I don't work in the field, but I attended university up to a bachelor level and I've studied independently since.

tim wood

But I'd be interested in your opinion. Is this philosophy, or does "real" philosophy start in Greece? — WerMaat

They were mostly concerned with practical ethics: How to live your life in a successful and ethical fashion. — WerMaat

Mortimer Adler, mid 20th-century American philosopher, wrote a book titled The Time of our Lives, in which he says he first thought of it as a re-writing of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (which plan he discovered he had to expand for various reasons - Adler's an excellent book). Aristotle would seem to qualify as a philosopher. And now we learn - what most folks generally suspect in the breach - that Aristotle had at least in this case his own Aristotle, perhaps 2,000 years before him!

Arguably Greek philosophy started in Greece (and as you note, arguably not). But clearly the Egyptian is philosophy if anything is. So much for that.

I find a contrast: Adler's in the most general terms is about what the good life is and how to approach achieving it. No surprise, the good life is one of philosophical reflection. And what that is, Adler is at pains to make reasonably clear.

Aristotle's Ethics, again in the most general terms, seems indeed about a kind of balance. On closer reading, however, it is at best partially about balance; rather it is about proportion and finding the mean between extremes.

Both of these books - again arguably - are for thee and me. Adler's for anyone who can read and understand. Aristotle's, though, no doubt for free men - that is, not everyone.

And now that I'm a newly minted 4-minute Egyptologist, Ptahhotep - may his Ka be gratified and leave me alone! His seems to be about how to live correctly under authority, for those living in proximity to and under that authority. That is, the subordinate life. A sharp critic may observe that nothing has changed since his time except perhaps perception. Machiavelli would find nothing within to correct.

But if I may return to the notion of balance, modern sensibilities, Aristotle to Adler, seem to be about inclusion/exclusion: do this; don't do that, & etc. The Egyptian, as I read it, seems to be saying in part some of the same things, but also that there is in life a mix, and the trick is to, in a sense, do the best you can, make lemonade, and enjoy the lemonade. Or another way: one can balance a load by jettisoning all cargo, the balance remaining intrinsic to base design. (Never mind that some designs require a load to be stable.) Or one can balance it by keeping the "cargo" and simply managing it well. I read Ptahhotep as being all about this latter - foreshadowing Stoicism.

If he did write - teach - c. 2,000 BC, it can be asked if his thinking was original, or if he had his own "Aristotle." Perhaps he did, and likely it was another Egyptian!

From the internet: "An Egyptologist is any archaeologist, historian, linguist, or art historian who specializes in Egyptology, the scientific study of Ancient Egypt and its antiquities." That makes you an Egyptologist.

The Work-Life Balance in Ancient Egyptian Ethics

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions