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

I think cooperation is, by far, the most ordinary case. Oppressive, normative, cooperation. This may not seems so online, which is a very unusual environment -- but the vast majority of people are conflict-avoidant.

You might say a war is conflict, but not really: the main mechanisms of war are cooperation.

Very rarely are interpersonal situations prone to disagreement.

The disgust here isn't about trauma, it's a healthy narcissm: the guy doesn't want to be deceived and thinks i'm being deceptive.

I don't think I'm being deceptive, because my heart is on my sleeve -- if I were being deceptive, I'd present an apparently objective analysis and give away little of my apparent feelings on the matter (cf. seemingly all mainstream news today).

I have a different ethic of transparency -- I want people to be emotionally and intellectually transparent. Pretending not to feel one way about an issue represses itself in a manupulated intellectual presentation of the matter -- the reader becomes mystified by the apparent disinterest of the speaker.

If there's one thing I hate with a great passion its false dispassion and intellectual manipulation. So I opt for emotional honesty as part of the package.

>Whenever they come up, one would observe and act according to Stoic virtues.

I am talking about precisely this. If something happens that angers you or makes you sad, you can always stop and try to alter your natural reaction/thoughts to be more aligned with a more forgiving/serene/understanding nature.

What I am saying is if you do this really well, everything in life just becomes "it just is", and in turn becomes nothing at all

I think you're being too kind in assuming there is some sort of real philosophy or faith here. I laid out what I have observed the tech elite doing precisely to show that they are rootless and will join with whatever bandwagon is popular in their techbro circle.

It's the great irony of our tech elite. They all believe they are independent thinkers who are changing the world but like any clique they follow what the group says and found another Sass App or become another VC investor.

It would depend on the translation, and what you understood him to be doing. One of the ones I read recently was incredibly bastardized to seem more stoical, completely removing in cases his own asides.

These are diaries he wanted burned -- they were just exercises in writing for himself to clam himself down. He is writing to himself.

Go back and read a few sections and ask: "what happened to Marcus on this evening for him to go to his study and rebuke himself with this lesson?"

There's clearly a lot of bitterness there, and depression.

Opening a translation at random, to a random book: https://vreeman.com/meditations/#book10

> # 10.1 To my soul:

Are you ever going to achieve goodness? Ever going to be simple, whole, and naked—as plain to see as the body that contains you? Know what an affectionate and loving disposition would feel like? Ever be fulfilled, ever stop desiring—lusting and longing for people and things to enjoy? Or for more time to enjoy them? Or for some other place or country—“a more temperate clime”? Or for people easier to get along with? And instead be satisfied with what you have, and accept the present—all of it. And convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods, ....

I mean this is a deeply mournful person with an excess of self-admonishment.

Why is he, somewhere alone in his room, writing these thoughts to himself? Why does he go on and on to admonish his failure to "Know what an affectionate and loving disposition would feel like" ?

Whatever the cause that evening, he's in great pain with it. He sees his life as a failure. Its harder to tell the inciding incident in this particular passage -- but for some, its clearly been some betrayl or insult or similar which makes him rail against people.

----

Consider, just a little ways down:

> # 10.13 When you wake up, ask yourself:

Does it make any difference to you if other people blame you for doing what’s right?

It makes no difference.

Have you forgotten what the people who are so vociferous in praise or blame of others are like as they sleep and eat?

Forgotten their behavior, their fears, their desires, their thefts and depredations—not physical ones, but those committed by what should be highest in them? What creates, when it chooses, loyalty, humility, truth, order, well-being.

------

Reading this I say to myself, "OK. Marcus, dear me. What cross are you matrying yourself on this time? What gossip has upset you this evening. Why now, each morning, do you have to remember that you're above the gossiping crowds "

All this suppression of the particular by talking about the abstract is all very telling. No one rants like this in their diaries without a provocation, he's too self-righteously high-minded to do anything other than rail against all humanity. A normal person would air their particular grievances -- and be much better for it.

I'm rewatching House MD. at the moment, it's very housian in its own way. Its not that he has been lied to, its that Lying is the Metaphyiscal Necessity of Life, and o woe is me, what suffering! Etc. All just a cheap misdirection for being hurt by someone.

There are no rational arguments or pathos appeals to assuage the greed and lust for power by the rich. They're too far gone and immovable, especially when they have the personality defects similar to malignant narcissism. They only respect strength.