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How Stoicism can help us

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Re: How Stoicism can help us

#61

Post by watwut »

lordleft wrote: post #38
pewpewpew777 wrote: post #12

Marcus Aurelius is responsible for raising and empowering his son Commodus - the emperor depicted in the movie Gladiator. It's useful to keep this in mind when reading his meditations. Yes, the message can be nice and joyful to read. Yet the man who wrote them created a tyrant and contributed to untold suffering.

I really don't know if the casual link is as firm as you insist. To what extent are parents are culpable for the crimes of their of-age children? And is there any indication that the philosophy expounded in the Meditations would lead to a maladjusted child? It feels like you're dismissing all of Aurelius' thought on the basis of something that may or may not be his fault, instead of contending with his thought direct…

There is maladjustment as in individual sickness. And then there are value systems, beliefs and philosophies that leads to or enable bad behavior or bad actors.

Dealing with thought only in abstract often ignores real world consequences of that thought system. It makes sense to ask what part of that thought lead to different behavior in real world.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#63

Post by watwut »

j7ake wrote: post #57
freehunter wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The belief the physical pain is the only kind of pain worth caring about is very misguided and causes a lot of harm in the world. It's think kind of belief that causes mental health issues to become stigmatized so people avoid seeking treatment or discussing it. This leads to breakdowns or suicide. Just because muscles are not aching and bones are not broken and skin is intact does not mean a person is not suffering…

Nobody is saying physical pain is the only pain worth considering. What people are saying is that if you asked 100 coal miners and 100 tech workers to swap jobs for one year, then asked them one year later whether they would like to switch back, there will be an overwhelming asymmetry towards staying a tech worker. The problems a tech worker faces is minuscule relative to a coal miner. And the above thought experimen…

That is not odds with philosophy adoption at all. In fact, nature of these (imagined) miners problems can make it harder to adopt philosophy that would make it harder to seek solutions to very real problems they have. If you endure pain with no display, your pain is taken less seriously after all and at some point, you need that doctor to understand it is real. And at other point you already need to stop working or fight for better conditions. Very real miners were very real dying and passive acceptance of that was not what bought changes.

But in case of tech people, stoically waiting is to your benefit as tech is generally higher status job. Moreover tech workers often time primary use stoicism to put expectations on other people rather then themselves.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#64

Post by unixhero »

I would rather recommend reading this book about what Stoisiscm is and how to apply it; by Stockdale.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31201.Thoughts_of_a_Phil...

https://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Philosophical-Fighter-Pilot-...

First part: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#65

Post by Doubl »

gallerdude wrote: post #6

I think there’s a fundamental human drive to regret - evolutionarily, it makes sense that we’d be optimized to know exactly how we would do better in a bad situation we recently faced . But in the modern world, this isn’t a matter or life or death, and it affects our mental health significantly. I always think of Stoicism as a sort of patch to override this bug - the you can’t change what you can’t change, whatever h…

I like this way of thinking about things. Another one I heard recently is that whatever you do you'll regret it. Get married, you'll regret it, don't get married, the same, etc. So regret is a constant, which is comforting in its way

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#66

Post by iiv »

gnosticrose wrote: post #59
AmericanChopper wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do horrendous about it? Adopting the stoic approach to tempering your impulses, accepting that which is beyond your control, and seeking happiness from within doesn’t sound horrendous to me at all. There’s plenty of wisdom in Stoicism for people to benefit from.

I love to read the historical stoics. But there is the good old traditional Stoicism and this new "self-help" stoicism trend that isn't the same at all.

You didn't answer the question: what is so horrible about trying to help oneself by tempering one's emotions and seeking happiness within?

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#67

Post by fastball »

ssivark wrote: post #51
codingslave wrote: post #41

For anyone who wants an alternate view (by Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism #9): "Do you want to live "according to nature"? O you noble Stoics, what a verbal swindle! Imagine a being like nature - extravagant without limit, indifferent without limit, without purposes and consideration, without pity and justice, simultaneously fruitful, desolate, and unknown - imagine this indifference itself as a power - ho…

At a quick glance, that passage seems to be almost deliberately obfuscating the difference between living while accounting for nature (the uncontrollable aspects) i.e. in accordance with , versus, living like nature.

Yes, in more recent times, it reminds me of author Naomi Wolf basing her book on a false premise[0].

Likewise, Nietzsche gets something wrong in the first line and proceeds to waste an entire paragraph.

0: https://www.chronicle.com/article/An-Author-Learned-of-a/246...

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#68

Post by h0l0cube »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #45
h0l0cube wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism

Greco-Buddhism, as its name suggests, is Buddhism with Greek influence, not vice versa.

It's an example of the intermingling of two different schools of thought. In the wiki link there's no determination on the primacy of influence, but it does tell that Greek populations were taking on Buddhist ideas (indeed 'converting' to buddhism) before the birth of stoicism. In that light, the notion that these ideas traveled back to Greece doesn't seem that far-fetched.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#69

Post by ocodia »

unixhero wrote: post #62

I myself prefer transcendentalism. I need to be surrounded by more positive emotions. I read this text, "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson - modern translation, at least at once a year: http://www.youmeworks.com/self_reliance_translated.html Great discussion in this topic btw.

That was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing it!

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#70

Post by SebiH »

lordleft wrote: post #39

One of my favorite passages from the Meditations is Marcus' observation that Stoicism has value regardless of one's theology and metaphysics: Either there is a fatal necessity and invincible order, or a kind Providence, or a confusion without a purpose and without a director. If then there is an invincible necessity, why do you resist? But if there is a Providence that allows itself to be propitiated, make yourself w…

I find Gregory Hay's translation much more readable, here's the same passage:

Fatal necessity, and inescapable order. Or benevolent Providence. Or confusion—random and undirected. If it’s an inescapable necessity, why resist it? If it’s Providence, and admits of being worshipped, then try to be worthy of God’s aid. If it’s confusion and anarchy, then be grateful that on this raging sea you have a mind to guide you. And if the storm should carry you away, let it carry off flesh, breath and all the rest, but not the mind. Which can’t be swept away.

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