How Stoicism can help us • Hacker News Board

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#101

Post by HNestUnCulte » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 8:33 PM UTC

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 have always taken Stoicism to mean little more than everyday psychological dissociation with a nice-sounding philosophical lingo around it. Is there actually more?

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#102

Post by reitzensteinm » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #83

reitzensteinm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time of Aurelius, I'm not so sure that's an accurate description. The only non-adopted sons given power from Julius through Marcus were those of Vespasian (though a lot of adoptions were of extended family members). Of course, to not hand power to Commodus would have meant his death. I'm not judging him for his decision, but given his absolute power and obvious clarity of thought, it was a conscious decision t…

> it was a conscious decision to choose his son's life over the good of the empire. The generally contrived nature of this argument aside, this is really just revisionism. Commodus was 18 when Aurelius died, and he didn't become a lunatic until a fair bit after his fathers death. If you're looking for flaws in Marcus Aurelius (there's plenty), this isn't one of them.

Commodus did plenty as a child, even if it was overshadowed by later lunacy. My argument was poorly made though. I'll try to restate:

It's easy to get swept up in Meditations, viewing Marcus as the stoic Philosopher King that has profound lessons for us even today.

Parent tried to remind everyone about Commodus, and in my opinion correctly so; if Marcus lived up to the myth surrounding him, he'd have intuited the situation and dealt with it.

But he either didn't see what was coming, or decided to do nothing. Because for all the hype, he was just a man. Keeping this in mind is an antidote to getting carried away by what is a genuinely compelling piece of writing.

I wouldn't make this argument in a vacuum, but I saw OP get downvoted and wanted to jump in because I thought it was a fair enough point.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#103

Post by AmericanChopper » Sun, Jun 02, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #102

AmericanChopper wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was a conscious decision to choose his son's life over the good of the empire. The generally contrived nature of this argument aside, this is really just revisionism. Commodus was 18 when Aurelius died, and he didn't become a lunatic until a fair bit after his fathers death. If you're looking for flaws in Marcus Aurelius (there's plenty), this isn't one of them.

Commodus did plenty as a child, even if it was overshadowed by later lunacy. My argument was poorly made though. I'll try to restate: It's easy to get swept up in Meditations, viewing Marcus as the stoic Philosopher King that has profound lessons for us even today. Parent tried to remind everyone about Commodus, and in my opinion correctly so; if Marcus lived up to the myth surrounding him, he'd have intuited the sit…

So if he was as great as people say he was, then he would have intuited the fact that his son would eventually turn out to be a bad emperor, and would have murdered him? Hmmm...

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#104

Post by reitzensteinm » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 12:26 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #103

reitzensteinm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commodus did plenty as a child, even if it was overshadowed by later lunacy. My argument was poorly made though. I'll try to restate: It's easy to get swept up in Meditations, viewing Marcus as the stoic Philosopher King that has profound lessons for us even today. Parent tried to remind everyone about Commodus, and in my opinion correctly so; if Marcus lived up to the myth surrounding him, he'd have intuited the sit…

So if he was as great as people say he was, then he would have intuited the fact that his son would eventually turn out to be a bad emperor, and would have murdered him? Hmmm...

Yes, that is my argument.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#105

Post by AmericanChopper » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 1:50 AM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #104

AmericanChopper wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if he was as great as people say he was, then he would have intuited the fact that his son would eventually turn out to be a bad emperor, and would have murdered him? Hmmm...

Yes, that is my argument.

I don't think most people would consider inability to predict events that will occur after your death, and the act of not committing filicide to be very serious character shortcomings.

Commodus renounced Stoicism after his fathers death, and didn't do any of the terrible things he was known for until after then either.

This argument is beyond weak in terms of criticising Stoicism or Marcus.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#106

Post by reitzensteinm » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 2:38 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #105

reitzensteinm wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is my argument.

I don't think most people would consider inability to predict events that will occur after your death, and the act of not committing filicide to be very serious character shortcomings. Commodus renounced Stoicism after his fathers death, and didn't do any of the terrible things he was known for until after then either. This argument is beyond weak in terms of criticising Stoicism or Marcus.

There's a big difference between using Commodus as proof of Marcus' flaws, and using him as proof that Marcus was only human.

If the argument were that weak, you wouldn't bother with the strawman to counter it.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#107

Post by HNLurker2 » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 5:54 AM UTC

0815test wrote: post #55

ssivark wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No surprise there - the "living like nature" part was the whole schtick of Nietzsche's philosophy. More like an Epicurean with a healthy dose of Cynicism than a Stoic, if we have to make that kind of basic comparison. He would probably conflate Stoicism with the (nowadays prevalent and in many ways successful) "English" approach to values, which he considered a reversal of the "true" values that's driven by resentmen…

>Though Nietzsche did also develop a highly refined statement of "living in accordance with unchangeable nature" through his idea of Amor fati.

He looked down on any philosophical idea that uplifts your soul like stoicism, buddhism (deliberately making his work and ideas seem scary to them: happened to me when I first got into his ideas) etc

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#108

Post by HNLurker2 » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #73

ohaideredevs wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got nothing out of reading meditations after reading Aurelius' quotes. I feel like the whole back can be summarized "Focus on what you can control, don't stress over what you truly can't." Same with ALL of Buddhism.

There is more to Buddhism than mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the only thing that matters. The rest comes after that concentration, conduct and moral monastic rules.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#109

Post by tasuki » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 9:25 AM UTC

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #10

chess93 wrote: post #2

What is everyone’s favorite translation of Meditations? I bought a cheap copy and the translation is unsurprisingly hard to read and distracts from the text’s content.

Tangentially related: it's a pity there aren't more websites like this one: [0] It's nice to compare different translations in-line. The last line of section 3 is an excellent example of how different translations can be: [1] Enchiridion is well worth a read (I gather Carter has the best translation but I've gleaned this from places like Reddit so pinch of salt!), and I also enjoyed Derren Brown's Happy [0] which dra…

Hey that's my website! Happy you like it :)

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#110

Post by forgottenpass » Mon, Jun 03, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

>one of the biggest groups of people interested in it seems to be millennials who work in the tech industry

I'm not surprised after reflecting for a moment. Stoicism seems like a reasonable answer for people who want to escape the sentimentalism packaged as life skills that's so popular at the moment.