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

> they have the right levels of attachemnt to their own lives.

they waste their last seconds on something that will not make them feel better.

as a hypochondriac, last time I thought I was dying, I thought about my loved ones and it helped me calm down.

"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)"

This is obviously and patently false. Christianity recognizes that God has both an active and permissive will. So, while God actively wills the good, He does not actively will evil. This would make God evil, which is incoherent. Rather, God permits evil, but only to bring about some greater good. So, it isn't that the evil isn't really evil, and it isn't that God wills the evil, but rather that the evil is permitted to occur to allow a good to come out of it. We do not deny the evil or the suffering it causes, but we embrace it and allow it to become an instrument of the good. To refuse to suffer the inevitable and inescapable evil that will be inflicted on us only produces more suffering, but a fruitless kind (though potentially instrumentally fruitful in that it may be instructive on this point). The Crucifixion is the paradigmatic example of fruitful suffering and self-sacrifice. The Crucifixion is tremendously evil, and according to Christian theology, the greatest evil ever committed. But by permitting this greatest of evils, God created the greatest of sacrifices, so cosmically great, in fact, that it could pay the price for all sin ever committed.

So, there's no complacency in Christianity, but it is cool-headed and subjects the emotional to reason and moves by the authentic love reason enables.

"stoicism predates the concept of human-generated progress by more than a millennium. It doesn’t teach us how to change the terrible aspects of the world, it teaches us how to adapt ourselves to them, and to accept them, presuming that they fundamentally cannot be fixed."

Another divergence is that Christianity encourages the humble discernment of what should be changed, what can be changed, and what cannot be changed and what should not be changed. In retrospect, this is common sense, and that is a good sign and to its credit, but ideologically-possessed people can become enraptured by a spirited and blind pursuit of some real or perceived good and cause a good deal of destruction as a result. There is a big difference between authentic zeal, which remains firmly rooted in reason, and becoming blinded by one's passions.

> 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.

But they don't. They're typically not used in such a way, because they're nonsense.

> you never know when something is important

This is just resigning yourself to ignorance and chance. It's an unfalsifiable truism, because you can point to instances where it was true (survivor bias) and say you applied this bit of wisdom, whereas in reality it was just chance.

> your passions can define your life, and create opportunities

Sure, that's one of the possibilities. But it's not wisdom. It's another random truism out of a horoscope that may or may not end up being true.

> Stoicism doesnt own, "keep calm under fire"

A philosophy doesn't need to own anything for it to be valid. One of its principles can be used by other philosophies. What a weird thing to write.

> Marcus Aurelius himself was no stoic philosopher, he merely wrote diaries to himself in his late days - diaries he wanted burned, not published.

This is how I read "Meditations" - not as writings of a sage (as far as I know, he didn't consider himself one), but as "shower thoughts". Ironically, since these were private notes, they were likely more genuine than if they had been intended for publication. And more approachable, precisely because he was not a philosopher.

Roman emperors were, without exception, autocrats. Yet, he is considered one of the better ones. Even if he didn't always live up to stoic ideals, he strived for them. This doesn't excuse his wrongdoings, but it suggests his writings can have value despite his flawed actions.

One thing that struck me, though, is how a philosophy promoting ideas like "things are good as they are" or "ignore spiteful people" works well when you're at the top. If you're a slave or poor, things might look quite different. Especially when spiteful people cannot be ignored - be it your master, your centurion, or an unfair competitor trying to frame you.

The author's claims are not generally true of Calvinism, either.