As I watched an episode from “The Andy Griffith Show” this afternoon with my grandpa, I realized that this particular episode’s plot directly related to Chapter 11 of Epictetus’ Handbook of Stoicism and the idea of filial piety supported by Confucius. In the episode “Opie and the Spoiled Kid,” the main character Andy Griffith aides his son Opie in learning about the value of responsibility and resulting consequences for poor actions/choices made.
Opie learns that one of his new friends is rewarded with expensive, elaborate gifts from his rich father for just being a child. Opie fawns over his friend’s brand new $70 bicycle. On the other hand, Andy requires Opie to do chores around the house for merely a quarter a week (keep in mind, this is in 1963, so the current U.S. economy does not reflect these prices). Opie’s friend soon explains that he just needs to throw a temper tantrum in order to get his way. Opie later tries this after he asks Andy for a raise in his allowance and Andy denies him this raise. As Opie rolled around on the floor, Andy simply requested that he not get his pants dirty.
Later in the episode, after the second time Opie’s friend is stopped by the deputy sheriff for nearly running a woman carrying groceries over with his bicycle, Andy the Sheriff holds the boy’s bike until his father comes. When his father arrives, the little boy threatens the sheriff by telling him that his dad can take anything that comes his way since he has the money to take care of himself. Andy then asks him if that includes putting his own father in jail in order to retrieve the bicycle and the little boy responds with a definitive yes, ordering the sheriff to put his father in jail because he just wants his bike back.
It is at this point that the little boy’s rich father realizes that he has not been properly disciplining his son, to the point that it has influenced his son to acquire a great lack of disrespect for his father. He then tells the sheriff that they won’t be needing the bike back, as he plans on selling his son’s bike. Andy also points out that they have a good shed out back behind the police station in case his father wanted to give him a spanking.
After thinking about this plot, I realized that this spoiled kid did exactly the opposite of what Epictetus instructed in chapter 11. Chapter 11 explains that we should never say of anything, “I have lost it,” but instead, “I have given it back.” If someone were to say that their wife died or their land was taken, this too was given back. Another way of looking at this idea is accepting that whatever you “have lost” is a gift. You get to use it, but it isn’t really yours.
That being said, the concept of filial piety is not properly distributed here either. One of the Confucius Chinese terms that we learned is xiao, which means filial piety. This refers to having a proper love, respect, and obedience to your parents. Xiao is also the root of ren, which means goodness, and is an inner quality of character acquired by developing proper habits of emotion and action in your relationships and social roles. The spoiled rich kid never displayed this for his father, even though his father bought and gave him everything that he wanted. He would even sacrifice his own father’s status as a free man in order to get what he wanted. This is the total opposite of how xiao and ren are meant to be displayed. I would imagine after the way this boy’s father talked to him and took action to sell his bicycle, this son would learn and exhibit the value of filial piety.
As for Opie testing his limits as a child, the stoics (such as Seneca and Epictetus) explain that emotions like anger, hate, jealousy, envy, etc. represent irrational, immature, and unhealthy responses to situations so it is best not to have them. On the other hand, Aristotle explains that these emotions are a natural part of our psychological functioning and, when properly regulated and trained, play important functions in our lives as social beings. I think that both the stoics and Aristotle are correct in this situation. For one thing, Opie is just a young child. Children are smart in that they look for different ways to do things and accomplish certain feats. In this example, Opie is looking for a way to be happier in a materialistic sense. Yet, his actions taken to get what he wanted were displayed as childish and immature, showing he still has a lot to learn while growing up.
On the other hand, situations such as these are all just part of being a child and learning about life while growing up in the process. It was a good thing for Opie to experience this situation because he learned an important lesson: the value of growing up with responsibilities and respecting your parents for the decisions that they make (regardless of whether you care for their decisions or not). This shows that Andy’s son will benefit in the long run by being prepared for future responsibilities in life, while staying humble, and being able to maintain respect for his parents throughout the course of his life. In this way, we should also adhere to this lesson and do the same in our own lives.
Wow, you covered everything and I'm not sure I have anything new to add. But I say the part when the little kid is talking to the sheriff and threatens him saying that his father has money to handle it. I think that's kinda funny because nowadays we have teenagers with sports cars saying the same thing to cops instead of little boys on bikes. Also, this does bring up the idea of filal piety and the example Confucius used about the kid that reported his father for stealing sheep. With that example and the example from the show, I agree with Confucius that kids should not snitch on their parents. Unless, it is causing the child harm or I guess other people as well.
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