Diogenes refused by living within society, not by withdrawing from it

Evidence

But beyond showing that refusal is possible-highlighting the “cracks” in the crushingly habitual-Diogenes also has much to teach us about how to refuse. It’s important to note that, faced with the unrelenting hypocrisy of society, Diogenes did not flee to the mountains (like some philosophers) or kill himself (like still other philosophers). In other words, he neither assimilated to nor fully exited society; instead he lived in the midst of it, in a permanent state of refusal. As Navia describes it, he felt it was his duty to stand as a living refusal in a backward world: [Diogenes] opted for remaining in the world for the express purpose of challenging its customs and practices, its laws and conventions, by his worlds and, more so, by his action. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 253

Navia describes it, he felt it was his duty to stand as a living refusal in a backward world: … [Diogenes] opted for remaining in the world for the express purpose of challenging its customs and practices, its laws and conventions, by his worlds and, more so, by his action. Practicing his extreme brand of Cynicism, then, he stood as a veritable refutation of the world and, as the Gospel would say of Saint John the Baptist, as “a voice crying in the wilderness” (Matt. 3:3). — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 254

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is the crucial passage for defending Odell against the ‘withdrawal’ misreading — she explicitly models ‘how to refuse’ on Diogenes’s neither-assimilate-nor-exit stance, which is precisely her own.
• XREF: Directly answers the reader’s stated question about the misreading; this passage is the proof-text that doing nothing/Diyogenes-style refusal is engagement with society, not retreat from it.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘On Sacrifice’ article — Diogenes’s refusal of sacrificial/heroic exit (flee or die) parallels the logics Odell rejects.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 253; Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 254