"Ian Cutler is the laureate of itinerants and loiterers." Professor Matthew Beaumont
Ian Cutler’s writing follows the thoughts and ideas of the ancient Greek Cynics, the early Jesus movement (as distinct from its corruption as Christianity), and modern cynic philosophers and vagabond writers, to identify—often with humour—a philosophy (or anti-philosophy) that rejects the institutions of Western Civilisation, maintained as they are by an egotistical drive for celebrity and success defined as money, influence, and power. Vagabondage is a response to the suffocating glue of morality which has dominated Western Civilisation from its early beginnings—and of which Christianity, science, the judiciary, etcetera, would become the principal contributors and guardians of its ‘truths’.
The vagabond lifestyles described on this site are not part of a political movement, neither do its practitioners identify with any tribe. Neither do they seek to persuade others to adopt their beliefs or way of life. Vagabondage, like Cynicism, is predominantly a personal philosophy, one for surviving in what they regard as a hostile world of lies and manipulations. The aim is to live a life free from the tyranny and constraints felt from society’s laws and conventions, and free to adopt whatever laws and customs have meaning for the vagabond according to their own natural instincts.
If there is a model at all, it is the original concept of Cosmopolitanism as identified by the ancient Cynics, together with an affinity for the natural world and an ascetic lifestyle. This lifestyle has clear links to Buddhism. Diogenes was reportedly born in 404 BCE, 79 years after the Buddha died in 483 BCE, and there were clear trade links between the Mediterranean and India during the hundred or so years before Cynicism formally emerged. This connection is evident from the Cynics' philosophic stance that the key to happiness—or more accurately, a reduction in suffering—can be achieved by mastering our desires: if one desires nothing, one lacks nothing.
On this website, you are invited to discover the thoughts and writings not only of Cutler, but over 100 texts that Cutler refers to in his research. Most of which can be found for free—together with links to many free digital texts—on the blog posts attached to this site.