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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)

#141

Post by engels_gibs »

codexb wrote: post #55
adamnemecek wrote: post #2

I 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 o…

Thats patently false. Some people do control other people, some people do control whole societies. What stoicism does is: for the underclass, it tells them to accept such control. Lying that "you have no control" over working conditions, exploitation, misery, hunger, suffering, etc. Do nothing, because nothing you do will matter.

And for the capitalists upper class what it does is to validate the atroicities they commit: "the universe is an eternal good entity, everything happens for a reason. Sixty thousand children killed in Gaza? Its just the universe changing colors, changing quantity, some people turned from alive to unalive, but in the grand scheme of things it doesnt matter. You are just doing your role".

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

#142

Post by trescenzi »

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…

This is a very interesting comment for me. I really dislike your virtues but agree with everything else and your general dislike of stoicism.

I think there might be a more middle way which doesn’t include impertinence, for example, as a value but still celebrates screaming as your plane is falling from the sky.

The reason I dislike your values is because at face value they imply a disregard for others. I think there is a way to deeply value both yourself and others. It’s possible you don’t imply that disregard for others that I get from the values you listed though.

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

#143

Post by kilroy123 »

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…

This is a fair take at all. Have you actually read about stoicism from the true philosophers?

Epictetus, Zeno of Citium, and Seneca? Not to mention the many modern philosophers.

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

#144

Post by throw4847285 »

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…

I think a gap between wikipedia and a polemic by somebody clearly fired up about a topic is not just reasonable, but productive. Wikipedia, by nature, gives the sense that all philosophical viewpoints are equally dispassionate and it minimizes the degree to which reasonable people can substantially disagree about the rightness or wrongness of various worldviews. That usually gets dumped in the Controversy section. This is fine for an encyclopedia, but not for a debate.

Of course, I also think that OP is being polemical and that means they're not interested in being charitable. I think their criticisms are interesting, but the original post linked here does a far better job at balancing a charitable read of stoicism with a critique of why it is appealing to the rich and powerful.

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

#145

Post by freedomben »

lupusreal wrote: post #109
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…

In my personal life, work and home, I am surrounded by people who are constantly in a state of distress, ranging from frustration to simmering rage, about things which are completely beyond their ability to change. I never see it do them any good, nor cause any constructive change for society. My personal understanding of stoicism is focus on changing the things I can change, and not spend my time being miserable abo…

> My personal understanding of stoicism is focus on changing the things I can change, and not spend my time being miserable about things I'm powerless to change.

This is the overriding principle I've come away with as well, and it has felt to me like one of the most simple and wise things I've heard.

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

#146

Post by mjburgess »

overgard wrote: post #136
mjburgess wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that screaming at a person who has done you wrong, in the vast majority of cases, has both the intended effect and a desirable one. If you are in an elite position of leadership, and otherwise have more Machiavellian options, then you can always try to calculate revenge instead -- or forgive endlessly and be exploited. I'd say in the majority of cases, for most adult people with some life experience, shouti…

> I suspect that screaming at a person who has done you wrong, in the vast majority of cases, has both the intended effect and a desirable one. Not usually. Just some examples: Customer service people tend to be trained to de-escalate and send things up a level. Sometimes they call it "killing with kindness"; basically you repeat your stance with a smile on your face until the person going wild either calms down on t…

You're assuming that in most cases when people shout, they're being excessive.

I don't think that's true, at least "per capita". Maybe most shouting is done by the emotionally unstable, but most people arent emotionally unstable (as adults).

If an adult were shouting at me, I'd be greatful of it. I was slapped once, and I said thank you to the person who slapped me -- it told me I was being careless.

For people who arent evilly trying to manipulate you, like customer service -- expressing how you feel helps others know how you feel. I am, in many cases, grateful to know.

If I saw someone getting angry at a person in the customer-service-way, my instinct as an adult with life experience, is to treat that anger as symptomatic -- not evil. This is the danger in saying you shouldnt get angy: blaming the victim.

> Yikes dude

I wasnt endorsing that, I was saying, that's less healthy than just being angry.

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

#147

Post by FredPret »

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…

Here’s an interesting write-up on this. Nietzsche said essentially the same as you:

https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-not-to-be-a-stoic-but-...

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

#148

Post by kittikitti »

I absolutely hate Stoicism. It's used by people as a way to shut me up when I'm expressing negativity about something "I can't control". Almost everything about our lives, especially as we transition to this rent based economy, is out of our control. Stoicism just creates lonely people who are obsessed with controlling things and others.

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

#149

Post by throw4847285 »

samspot wrote: post #81

"But on the negative side, 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, that the poor and downtrodden are meant to be poor and downtrodden, and that even the worst actions ar…

Yeah, it's an especially odd claim because early Christianity was apocalyptic. The Second Coming was imminent. The world would be radically remade.

I think the author is confusing early Christianity with Calvinism.

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

#150

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

timeon wrote: post #130
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to write this. Relieved to see someone already wrote this. Only someone who has never actually taken the time to study the Bible could possibly claim that it teaches “things are secretly good underneath” The Bible teaches that things are so broken, so bad, and so irredeemable that God himself had to humble himself into the form of man, dying a physical death, to redeem it. It’s only pop-Christianity that te…

So what is your answer for Epicurean paradox?

Free will.

If people are allowed to make choices, evil is a possibility. You can argue that free will isn't good, but I'm not sure what evidence supports that argument.

So if God allows free will, then evil can happen. Just because he doesn't immediately stop it (read: eliminate free will) doesn't make God not-good.

I think part of this is man's hubris in assuming we can know what is perfectly good. The Epicurean paradox is hinged on the description of "all-good," which is far too simple in most people's minds.

A metaphor:

If I shove my child to the ground to teach them the consequences of falling, I am a bad father. If I warn them to tie their shoes, or they will fall, but do not explicitly force them to, I am a father willing to let my child learn, but I am not a "bad father" because of this.

Another aspect I think the Epicurean paradox misses is the concept of justice and eternity. If this physical life is all there is, then yeah, allowing people to suffer and die is an injustice. But if we are eternal beings in a temporary, physical body, suffering and dying in this world is a small blip on the timeline. What comes after has to be factored into the equation of "What is justice?" But that's where non-theistic reasoning can no longer come with us. The Bible is fairly clear about what comes after, and there is justice when viewed in that light.

If you believe this life is all there is, then yeah it's not hard to argue that God isn't just. But again, the Bible, upon which the Judeo-Christian belief system is built, is very explicit that this life is NOT all there is.

So the Epicurean paradox takes a small slice of the Bible out of context and points at it, without considering all the other context and argues, "Ha! See? Logical inconsistency!" when in reality it's just out of context.

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