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Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

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Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#41
post #34

I'm a little surprised that the article doesn't mention cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It is easily one of the "hottest" forms of psychotherapy in recent years, and is heavily inspired by Stoic ideas. Mindfulness more generally is also having a big moment in clinical psychology.

Best CBT books you can recommend?

Not sure, but I've seen Feeling Good by David Burns[1] recommended in ADHD circles. Can anyone back this up?

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-The-Mood-Therapy/dp/03808...

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nailed my personal experience. I wonder how many others of us there are?

DOZENS!!

Hundreds of thousands, absolute minimum. You want to look at the small scale environmentalists as one specific example. Not the "fly my lear jet to the anti-nuclear protest" but the organic home gardener types. Chipsy sounds like he was channeling John Micheal Greer there, towards the end. JMG's blog is well worth reading for other insights, of course.

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#43
post #34

I'm a little surprised that the article doesn't mention cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It is easily one of the "hottest" forms of psychotherapy in recent years, and is heavily inspired by Stoic ideas. Mindfulness more generally is also having a big moment in clinical psychology.

Best CBT books you can recommend?

This book is the standard book most doctors recommend (or so I'm told):

http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/03808...

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#44
post #4

Is stoicism having a cultural moment? I rather think that modern western culture is about as un-Stoic as it has been at any point since... sometime before Stoicism was invented, and that any explicit endorsement of Stoicism you may find among the remaining sane people is purely a reaction to that. Stoicism teaches that suffering and misfortune are part of life, and that wisdom comes from learning to deal with this fa…

Modern day "nerd" culture teaches us that we are special snowflakes who are the only rational ones in a land full of sheep, persecuted and looked down upon for our virtue. You are the thing you think you are criticizing.

Stoicism teaches us that anyone can be rational, and that we're not really so different after all.

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#45
post #8

This was a wonderful read. Could someone who's gone down this path provide a reading list for someone interested in learning more?

I'd suggest reading the Enchiridion first. It's arguably the most influential text of all, and it's a very quick read. http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

Thanks, I've started on Marcus Aurelius a couple of times, and it does indeed seem like a bunch of somewhat cryptical notes to self. Enchiridion seems relatively straight-forward in comparison.

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#46
post #21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The three best-known literary products of Stoic culture and philosophy are probably: - Marcus Aurelius' Meditations (make sure to get the Hays translation! By far the best). Aurelius was an emperor of Rome; Meditations are his musings to himself in later life. It's interesting to reading the internal grapplings of a man who was, to his countrymen, basically a walking god. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca's Letters from a Stoi…

Interesting that nobody seems to have had anything particularly worth writing on the subject of stoicism for the past nearly-2000 years.

Human condition writing like philosophy and religion formation peaked about two millennia ago. Once its figured out, there isn't too much new to say, unlike, say, technology or fashion. You can write a popularization or translation once in awhile. An eternity of profitable textbooks are possible, just like mathematics.

If you'd like a vision into what Moores Law or computer science will look like in 2000 years, you could do worse than comparing to the humanities peaking 2000 years ago. In 2000 years there will be academic disciples reading Knuth and the lambda-ites will continually be having "revival" journalist articles written about them every couple years and their heretical un-natural love of parenthesis.

It would be interesting to argue that position against something like geometry where at the entry level there really isn't much new beyond Euclid however at the higher end there has been progress and at the low end modern textbooks don't resemble "The Elements" very closely even if conceptually there is nothing new.

Strong fact based arguments could be made either way. Halting-problem-like, the most effective way to figure it out will probably be to wait 2000 years and see what happens.

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#47
post #17

The problem is that stoic people can suffer a serious social penalty to their interests and the cooperation they get from others. It's expected that, once you are in a bad situation, you fight in an outwardly visible fashion. If you don't display the markers of frustration in an easily understandable way, people will think you just don't care enough. Meanwhile, there is little downside to histrionics and unreasonable…

There's a hidden assumption that signalling and belief have to be the same.

If some weird signalling is just an annoying valueless externality, then acting (assuming its any good) isn't as relevant as the belief within.

Maybe an analogy with politics, nobody really believes sloganeering except the smallest of minds; its merely a traditional weapon that has to be used as part of the show. Ditto obeisance to political correctness, its just signalling you gotta do in public, nobody believes that stuff internally or in private except a small cadre of insane people. "Emperor has no clothes" moment and all that.

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#48
post #21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The three best-known literary products of Stoic culture and philosophy are probably: - Marcus Aurelius' Meditations (make sure to get the Hays translation! By far the best). Aurelius was an emperor of Rome; Meditations are his musings to himself in later life. It's interesting to reading the internal grapplings of a man who was, to his countrymen, basically a walking god. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca's Letters from a Stoi…

Interesting that nobody seems to have had anything particularly worth writing on the subject of stoicism for the past nearly-2000 years.

Many places in the gospels and epistles in the Bible are directly addressing stoicism. Granted, those were also written about 2000 years ago. But people today write and talk about Philippians 4 all the time.

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#49
post #4

Is stoicism having a cultural moment? I rather think that modern western culture is about as un-Stoic as it has been at any point since... sometime before Stoicism was invented, and that any explicit endorsement of Stoicism you may find among the remaining sane people is purely a reaction to that. Stoicism teaches that suffering and misfortune are part of life, and that wisdom comes from learning to deal with this fa…

Was going to type up a similar response. This is exactly how I feel. Stoicism looks like it's gaining in popularity because of people reacting to the oversensitivity running rampant in society today. You can hardly teach people today that feeling bad is OK.

Re: Why Is Stoicism Having a Cultural Moment?

#50
post #20
post #4

Is stoicism having a cultural moment? I rather think that modern western culture is about as un-Stoic as it has been at any point since... sometime before Stoicism was invented, and that any explicit endorsement of Stoicism you may find among the remaining sane people is purely a reaction to that. Stoicism teaches that suffering and misfortune are part of life, and that wisdom comes from learning to deal with this fa…

Modern-day Oprah culture teaches that you are a beautiful and unique person and that any suffering or misfortune you may encounter is something that you should probably sue somebody about. close, but I'd generalize this more and adapt it so that it also relates more to non-US cultures (less Oprah, less suing), and by removing the action (suing) from it and replacing it with what people tend to think, not how they rea…

I see no reason to throw Oprah into this discussion. If she said that then quote, else cut the rubbish. If anything Oprah was the one that was sued by the meat industry for speaking about Mad Cow disease.
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