Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

exurbe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 338 posts

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

#281

Post by timeon »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #163

"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 inco…

This duality where god is "allowing" some other entity to do evil seem to be closer to Gnosticism than to omniscient and omnipotent god of Christianity.

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

#282

Post by alienthrowaway »

timeon wrote: post #279
alienthrowaway wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free will -> original sin -> all manner of diseases, suffering tyat are part of the human condition. Even without the theology, a person suffering due to a forebear's poor decision is well-understood: a decent percentage if people think it's the natural order for a child to go hungry if their parents are drug-addicts or imprisoned.

How is hungry children, because of it's parents, relevant to my question? If someone gets cancer as toddler who's fault is that? If someone is born with disability, with caused by new mutation, who's fault is that? Are these part of free will? Do you thing that it is good that it is happening?

I summarized the connection in my first statement, as it relates to the Christian Theological concept of "Original Sin". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

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

#283

Post by engels_gibs »

AlexandrB wrote: post #227
engels_gibs wrote: post #139

The first, true and only philosophy for the working class, the exploited, the proletarians and the dispossessed is marxism. Teaching "stoicism" to people who barely can afford food, to slaves in the Congo, to overworked uber eats cyclists that work 12 hours a day for pennies, is not only ridiculous, it's criminal. Standing silent or content in the face of exploitation, injustice and the threat of destruction of human…

Every Marxism-derived political system has been terrible for the proletariat. I lived under communism for the first 6 years of my life. What I remember is a tiny apartment, an elevator that reeked of piss, having to store water in buckets because you never knew when it would stop working, and wiping my ass with yesterday's newspaper (which you obviously couldn't flush). Even at my poorest in Canada, I've never known…

In which country did you live?

I don't think anyone with even a basic understanding of history can say that communism has been bad for the working class. Really? Communism transformed the Soviet Union into a global superpower in just a few decades. It turned a rural, agrarian society into one that launched the first satellite into space. It provided free housing and education to people who, for generations, couldn't even read. It achieved groundbreaking advancements in nuclear energy and developed the atomic bomb.

China, under the leadership of the Communist Party, is now #1 in science, technology, and industry. Its success as a superpower is thanks to communism. And before you argue, "but China isn't communist!!!11," please shut up. Yes, it is. If it were just another average capitalist country, it wouldn't have achieved even 1% of what it has. It would have been exploited by imperialist powers, just like Latin America and Africa. China's rise to #1 is due to the Communist Party's strict control over capital.

The Soviet bloc did decline and collapsed in the late 20th century. You likely lived through that time, as its collapse was caused by competition from the West, bureaucratization of the revolution, and a lack of innovation. However, saying "the revolution stagnated" because "communism was a failure" is entirely false. It wasn't a failure; the most significant story of the 20th century is the resounding success of communism wherever it was applied.

Even if you lived in a capitalist country, as a worker, you have communism to thank. The fear of communism forced the West to implement a welfare state and make reforms that benefited workers they otherwise wouldn't have. They poured billions into workers' hands to prevent them from embracing communism. Communism led to the creation of the Welfare State and the Marshall Plan. Competition with the Soviet Union is why South Korea and Japan received hundreds of billions from the USA. The fear of a revolution was very real, prompting many third-world countries to adopt nationalist and welfare-state policies that improved millions' lives.

Your argument simply doesn't hold up. It is demonstrably false.

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

#284

Post by lbrito »

bko wrote: post #84
nkassis wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guilt isn't due to the simple fact of being prosperous it's more about the prioritization of self-interest over that of a win-win option that helps the broader good.

I don't follow. If you're prosperous due to no reason of your own (eg rich parents, lottery, etc), you didn't prioritize self interest If it is self made you presumably made it by creating value for others, otherwise why would anyone pay you?

Your idea of wealth creation is is amazingly naive.

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

#285

Post by timeon »

alienthrowaway wrote: post #282
timeon wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is hungry children, because of it's parents, relevant to my question? If someone gets cancer as toddler who's fault is that? If someone is born with disability, with caused by new mutation, who's fault is that? Are these part of free will? Do you thing that it is good that it is happening?

I summarized the connection in my first statement, as it relates to the Christian Theological concept of "Original Sin". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin

Just side note: that Wikipedia link seems really interesting - I'm familiar with the concept but not with details of various denominations and history. I'm definitely going to reserve some time for it in near future.

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

#286

Post by taylorlapeyre »

Cantinflas wrote: post #246
taylorlapeyre wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of three major answers to the problem of Theodicy (justifying God in the face of evil) in Christian theology. They are: 1. Pedagogical (the one you mentioned) - Evil exists so that we may grow and learn. All evil will be used to create even greater good. Quintessential example would be the story of Job in the Old Testament. 2. Eschatological — Evil is a by-product of having any creation in time whatsoever…

Imo 1) and 3) make little sense, e.g. no one learns anything from a toddler dying from cancer, and no "freedom" caused it. 2) looks more interesting, although I'm not sure I understand it

A toddler dying of cancer falls under the category of "natural evil" (as opposed to moral evil, in which an intention or will is involved). You're correct to say that natural evil can sometimes be difficult to explain in a pedagogical sense. A storm taking one's home can be a way to teach us our dependence on God alone, but a child being taken by cancer does seem meaningless to us at the best of times, and simply cruel at the worst.

But the story of Job (in which his family, including his children, are taken away through natural evil) shows us two ways of engaging with this kind of evil: 1) Seeing the resulting struggle with God as its own form of growth, and 2) the virtue of humility.

In my opinion, there is no "one answer" to Theodicy - it requires all three and a healthy dose of Job's eventual humility. The first has been true in my life multiple times. The second is often helpful when engaging with evil on a cosmological level. The third is helpful when wrestling with the problem of moral evil. Taken together, I think the picture is reassuring, and certainly better than the alternative (a meaningless universe of hopeless suffering).

I recommend David Bentley Hart's "The Doors of the Sea" as a good short work on this subject!

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

#287

Post by refurb »

This is a pretty cynical view of stoicism, and not very deep.

“Stoicism, on the other hand, stressed the idea that everyone is part of a large perfect whole and thus that it’s everyone’s duty to fulfill the role Fate allots.”

Stoicism does not teach a lack of self-empowerment.

It says nothing about what you should do with your life and does teach one should live a good life (however one defines that).

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

#288

Post by LeroyRaz »

This article is wonderfully written. However I feel it makes a conceptual conflation.

First it describes the Greek philosophies as being essentially self help. Following that logic it would seem stocisim is not a system of ethics at all, but rather a way of dealing with struggle. Given that characterization, it seems quite bizzare to complain that stocisim provides no moral impetus to help others (a bit like complaining that a hammer - as opposed to a shovel - is a poor tool to dig holes).

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

#289

Post by taylorlapeyre »

scantis wrote: post #232
taylorlapeyre wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically correct, but quite misleading. The idea of "trust in God" or "faithfulness" is completely central to Job. The story doesn't concern itself with "doctrinal faith", but it implicitly discusses "faith" in the general sense of trust in the providence of God in the face of challenges that might make one abandon Him.

The word used was "aemuna" or "æmunatō". The most basic translation is reliability. The other word much later was pisteōs with loyalty in its most basic translation. The concept of faith as you describe it is a late interpretation, morphing both concepts together. Jobs "faith" is his reliability of character, neither his believe nor faith, yet axiomatically the definition behind those words. That if you choose to bel…

What is a "late interpretation" in your view? What time period exactly? Job has been read as a story that directly dialogues on the possibility of faith and trust in God in the face of evil for millennia. See The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 15a-16b), Midrash Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah, Exodus Rabbah), Saadia Gaon's commentary on Job, even Maimonides. And on the Christian side, Take Origen, John Chrysostom, and especially Gregory The Great's Moralia in Job in the 500s CE.

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

#290

Post by satvikpendem »

tasuki wrote: post #249
achierius wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely you in your life you have met many Christians who said "God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", "trust in the Lord", etc.? Yes, but this is something people say in times of grief, for the comfort of the grieving -- it's not a consistent moral philosophy that they hold to in other parts of their life, nor is it meant to be. There are better answers than this, but they are oftentime…

>> Surely you in your life you have met many Christians who said "God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", "trust in the Lord", etc.? > Yes, but this is something people say in times of grief, for the comfort of the grieving It is the stupidest thing to say to someone who is grieving.

Yes, but that is nonetheless the context in which it is said.
Post reply on HN