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Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

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Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#61

Post by betenoire »

pj_mukh wrote: post #14

"stoicism’s Providential claim that everything in the universe is already perfect and that things which seem bad or unjust are secretly good underneath (a claim Christianity borrowed from Stoicism) can be used to justify the idea that the rich and powerful are meant to be rich and powerful" What did I miss? Does Stoicism claim everything in the universe is already perfect? That seems like a bold (counter-intuitive) c…

"perfect" is a weird word to use in stoicism, but I do think it can be used to justify that things "are the way they are" and shrug it off with some visualization.

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#62

Post by broof »

bee_rider wrote: post #51

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?

I found it to be way more empowering. There truly are many things in life that we don’t control, but there are many that we do. Would you agree it’s wise to reduce stress about the stuff we don’t have control over?

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#63

Post by surgical_fire »

mjburgess wrote: post #38
andrewmutz wrote: post #31

Earlier 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…

> Behind each of the stoic virutues is a psychological position to dettach, dissociate and live in a more abstracted conceptual space. This can be theraputic if you are in grief, etc.

This is also great during the best of times. Happiness is as ephemeral as grief. Accepting that in many ways the vicissitudes of life are beyond your control is a positive thing. Exercising temperance and prudence, among other things, is far from being merely therapeutical.

> Outside of that, personally I think: attach too much, risk more than you ought, and participate in the world ("dirty your hands") by making the best of it, rather than anything more abstract.

You are describing hell. I actively avoid in my life people like that, for good reason.

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#65

Post by s1artibartfast »

mjburgess wrote: post #38
andrewmutz wrote: post #31

Earlier 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…

Stoicism is a powerful tool to achieving long term objectives that require planning, commitment, and control. Not all objectives fall into this category.

What are your priorities? Would you consider yourself a hedonist?

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#66

Post by mjburgess »

dmichulke wrote: post #56
mjburgess wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)?

Happiness is only one meta-value, and at the level of "what the right meta" is, I'm somewhere between a nihilist and an aristotleian-sort-of-biologist:

I only think that the people who are screaming when they are about to die are living like a healthy animal. And in the absence of any objective meta-values, it kinda seems like we might well just be what we are.

Denying's one's instincts is an interesting exercise, and no doubt improves self-control -- but it isnt "above being an animal" -- its, at best, a different way of being an animal. One I think, taken to a stocial extreme, seems an injury.

People who readily accept death (as, no doubt, I do) seem injured, and trying to get to this state seems like a kind of self-injury to me -- a means of poking out the eye because the brain doesnt like what it sees.

People screaming when a plane is crashing seem to have their eyes open.

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#67

Post by codexb »

mjburgess wrote: post #38
andrewmutz wrote: post #31

Earlier 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…

I think your last example demonstrates the value of stoicism. In many cases, our untrained emotional response to life prevents us from achieving more or enjoying life. Instead of screaming, you could spend the time enjoying your loved ones for as long as possible. You could try to find a way to stop the plane from falling or work on bracing yourself to survive the impact.

Stoicism is a realizing that many of our instinctual and emotional and responses and actions do more harm than good. It may feel good to scream at someone we believe has wronged us, but it doesn't help them or us and doesn't correct the perceived wrong.

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#68

Post by [deleted] »

mjburgess wrote: post #4

It'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…

[deleted]

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#69

Post by zozbot234 »

mjburgess wrote: post #38
andrewmutz wrote: post #31

Earlier 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…

> Behind each of the stoic virutues is a psychological position to dettach, dissociate and live in a more abstracted conceptual space.

Many proponents of Stoicism would disagree with this in rather strong terms, FWIW. If you go back to our earliest sources, Stoicism seems to be very much about living in the present moment and engaging with the world; it's just very careful about avoiding dysfunctional behaviors and the attitudes that would promote them.

The oft-referenced Stoic notion of avoiding the harmful "passions" is not so much about becoming completely detached from the world, and more about not acting outwardly in ways that turn out to be materially bad or dysfunctional. It's just that achieving this is harder than we might expect: the Stoics were well aware that our acting-out is often driven by inner attitudes and stances that can only be controlled effectively after quite a bit of time and inward effort, and complete control is more of an abstract ideal than something readily achievable.

Re: Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

#70

Post by throw0101c »

andrewmutz wrote: post #31
mjburgess wrote: post #4

It'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 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

So Aristotle then:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues

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