It seems to be a philosophy about being a good little productive serf and continuing to be productive while taking your powerlessness on the nose? Why would anybody in a modern free society follow this philosophy?
Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
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Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#52It's no accident that a roman emperor (tyrant, mass murderer, and courtier) is the premier famous stoic. Nor is it an accident that the next most famous case is that of British empire public schooling, british "stiff upper lip" stocisim. (EDIT: Marcus Aurelius) himself was no stoic philosopher, he merely wrote diaries to himself in his late days -- diaries he wanted burned, not published. And these were rehresals of…
I have no idea how you can read his meditations and come away with this conclusion. Where are you getting that “Your job is to pretend it matters because it matters to your followers”
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#53I can’t speak for the rich and powerful (as I’m neither), nor do I subscribe to stoicism necessarily. But I do work in tech and enjoyed (and periodically re-read) Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” I originally read it out of curiosity, not often you get to see a leader’s supposedly unedited, personal diary. But I keep coming back because of the calming prose and (imo) useful lessons about dealing with a stressful world.…
I love Meditations but everytime I think about Aurelius I laugh so hard thinking about this random Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoic/comments/1823mip/how_do_you_g...
Here's the text:
## How do you get over the fact Marcus Aurelius wife cheated on him with a gladiator?
I have been into stoicism for a while and have been using it to cope with life but learning this info has made me second guess the entire philosophy. Now whenever I try to be stoic I think about Marcus sitting in the corner writing meditations while his wife gets brutalized by a gigachad gladiator. Now whenever I think about stoicism it seems like a cuck philosophy. Was Marcus really the adam22 of his time? How can I get over this?
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Idk why this was the funniest thing to me, and now I just think of Marcus in the other room, hearing his wife getting ploughed, writing about how happiness doesn't depend on external circumstance so it's nbd
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#54One perspective is that meditation and stoicism helps silence guilt about being so properous in an unequal society.
Why should one feel guilt about being prosperous in an unequal society? Even if you accept that it's based entirely on luck rather than merits, I don't see why you should feel guilt. A few examples of things based entirely on luck that no one really argues we should feel guilty about: Being tall Having high innate level of intelligence Athletic Physical beauty
You shouldn't. First, I reject the framing that one's success today is due to privilege. But even if that were true (and it isn't), so what? What previous generations did has nothing whatsoever to do with me, morally speaking. I'm responsible for my own actions alone; this collective guilt line of thinking some people follow is nonsense.
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#55I wonder what caused the current obsession with stoicism. It seems vacant.
It's a remarkably good set of strategies and mindset for dealing with conflict, anxiety, and having to make a large number of difficult decisions.
The core of stoicism (stressed more by Epictetus, a former slave, than Marcus Aurelius) is that we should not focus or worry on things we can't control. We can't control other people, or societies, or the unforeseen tragic events we may experience, but we can control our own actions, our own thoughts, and the way we respond to them. We can't dictate our emotions, but we can handle how we express those emotions.
In many ways, it's similar to what you might learn going through therapy. But the mental health and difficulties that men face are somewhat overlooked by society and not taken as seriously as maybe they should be. In that environment, literally any strategies at all for dealing with stress and anxiety that are tailored towards men are going to be popular.
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your perceptions of stoicism are so detatched from mine, I have to ask, what does stoicism mean to you? The wikipedia entry describes it like this: "The Stoics believed that the practice of virtue is enough to achieve eudaimonia: a well-lived life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing the four cardinal virtues in everyday life — prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice — as…
> prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice I adopt rather the opposite virutes. Imprudence, risk, throwing-your-self-at-a-wall-until-you-cant, intemperance (conflict, debate, disagreement, competition) and pragmatism (address what is rather than what should be). Behind each of the stoic virutues is a psychological position to dettach, dissociate and live in a more abstracted conceptual space. This can be theraput…
> If the plane is falling from the sky, i envy the people screaming -- they have the right levels of attachemnt to their own lives.
Are you saying that happier people scream more (shortly before dying)?
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#57It's no accident that a roman emperor (tyrant, mass murderer, and courtier) is the premier famous stoic. Nor is it an accident that the next most famous case is that of British empire public schooling, british "stiff upper lip" stocisim. (EDIT: Marcus Aurelius) himself was no stoic philosopher, he merely wrote diaries to himself in his late days -- diaries he wanted burned, not published. And these were rehresals of…
Interesting, can you provide more sources, about the dictators and stoicism, also Marcus Aurelius was he a tyrant, mass murderer, and courtier?
Pretty much all Roman emperors would be considered tyrants and mass murderers by the standards of modern western liberal democracies. Marcus Aurelius was a product of his time and hardly a hero to emulate. But despite their flaws we can learn some universal lessons from their surviving writings that still apply to modern life — including at least some elements of stoicism.
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your perceptions of stoicism are so detatched from mine, I have to ask, what does stoicism mean to you? The wikipedia entry describes it like this: "The Stoics believed that the practice of virtue is enough to achieve eudaimonia: a well-lived life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing the four cardinal virtues in everyday life — prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice — as…
> prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice I adopt rather the opposite virutes. Imprudence, risk, throwing-your-self-at-a-wall-until-you-cant, intemperance (conflict, debate, disagreement, competition) and pragmatism (address what is rather than what should be). Behind each of the stoic virutues is a psychological position to dettach, dissociate and live in a more abstracted conceptual space. This can be theraput…
That's all great and it sounds like stoicism isn't for you. But that doesn't mean that it's "a deeply hollow, dissociative, nihilistic philosophy which dresses up the status quo as 'God's plan' -- a rationalization of interest to the elite above all others."
Virtues like prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice can improve the lives of people of any part of society, not just the elites.
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because you're a social animal in a social world, whose social action creates and modifies that world. Since you are a body, in an environment, with a psychology -- your actions have an effect upon the world. The invitation to dissociate and mute your social emotions is an invitation to keep everything as-it-is.
This is not an invitation to mute your emotions. This is questioning why someone should feel a particular emotion. > is an invitation to keep everything as-it-is. I don’t need to feel personal guilt about something outside of my control in order to 1) recognize problems in the world, 2) want the factors causing those problems to change, and 3) actively work to change them. And for many people, feeling guilt - especia…
I mean I'm more responding to Marcus Aurellius and other formalisations of historical stoicism, than the pretty widely understood idea that "somethings are important, some arent" and "care most about what you can change, and least about what you cant"
These sort of bits of old wisdom also come in their opposites ("you never know when something is important", "your passions can define your life, and create opportunities") etc.
So I'm taking stoicism as a particular prioritising of those "bits of old wisdom" that combine together in relevant historical texts, and add up, in my view, to being quite radically dissociative.
Stoicism doesnt own, "keep calm under fire"
Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)
#60It's no accident that a roman emperor (tyrant, mass murderer, and courtier) is the premier famous stoic. Nor is it an accident that the next most famous case is that of British empire public schooling, british "stiff upper lip" stocisim. (EDIT: Marcus Aurelius) himself was no stoic philosopher, he merely wrote diaries to himself in his late days -- diaries he wanted burned, not published. And these were rehresals of…
Your take on this is wild to me, and while TFA as whole is somewhat more balanced, I'm pretty surprised at this whole train of thought. An emperor was a stoic, and so was a slave. Epictetus is only mentioned twice in passing in the article, but it does say that
> Some stoic authors were slaves themselves, like Epictetus author of the beautiful stoic handbook Enchiridion, and many stoic writings focus on providing therapies for armoring one’s inner self against such evils as physical pain, illness, losing friends, disgrace, and exile.
Seems like people from all walks of life thought maybe it was a useful point of view, and that it's universal because people from all walks of life have their own suffering to deal with.
I get that in an inevitably political world that's increasingly polarized, philosophy always becomes a sort of fashion show where it's not about what's being worn but who is wearing it lately. But this is really pretty silly. Stoicism predates silicon valley and will still be around after it's gone, and there is substance that goes far beyond "deeply hollow, dissociative, nihilistic".
If it sounds that way to you, I assume maybe you are just in a situation where you have someone that you kind of hate preaching it at you.. in which case adding some distance makes sense no matter what they are evangelizing. Quoting TFA again
> [stoicism] reminds me of the profession of wealth therapists who help the uber-wealthy stop feeling guilty about spending $2,000 on bed sheets or millions on a megayacht.
So there it is, that's what's really bothering the guy.