Reflections on Stoicism

Trying to rehabilitate stoicism or maybe just discuss it in a world of sigma grindsets or whatever.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is an odd book, it’s sort of odd to even think of it as a book, it just happens to be collected and organized in a format we recognize as a book, in reality its much more like a series of personal pep-talks. It’s the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, trying to keep himself on the right track during the tumultuous years of his reign, which admittedly were not a good time for the Roman empire. He’s reminding himself of his own philosophical views, and applying them to his current situation, views that he has learned from thinkers like Seneca, Epicurus and Heraclitus. These are what we call “stoics”, or philosophers would practiced what we call stoicism, a set of principles and beliefs on how to live one’s life. This can be pretty easily summarized in the expression “What is good is easy to get, what is terrible is easy to endure”. It’s founded on the idea that you can’t control much of what happens to you, but you can control your reaction to what happens. That reaction should be one of acceptance and persistent dedication to treating others justly, and acting in accordance with the logos, what we might call fate or nature. At every moment, we have the option to accept what happens to us with humility, the option to treat others justly, and the option to approach things with care and grace so that we don’t cause greater harm. This asks us to view the world with dispassion, to understand that when things happen they are not “good” or “bad”, they are just events that have occurred to us. It’s our own perception that assigns value to them, and it is always within our faculties to discard these perceptions.

I suppose its a bit flaccid to say that the internet tends to pollute discourse and bastardize things, but I’m too far into this stupid thing to stop now, and I can’t help but grimace when I stumble across posts claiming it’s transcendental value. Like most other self-help things for young men, it’s been bastardized and portrayed as its most alienated and grim self, as the philosophy of someone who is completely separate from meaningful relationships or hope for the future, and that’s what makes it good. Instagram accounts with stupid fucking names like CarnivoreAurelius or national.spirit, with a 50/50 split of anime or Greek sculptures as their PFPs should already probably be put into work camps, but I think they reflect a particularly pernicious strain of alienated false-consciousness.

author’s note: I just looked up the account Carnivore.Aurelius for old time’s sake and they’re following a dua lipa fan page so maybe I shouldnt even bother with this.

Hopefully it’s not too controversial to say that capitalism, especially in its current form, isolates and alienates people, made even worse by the terrible individualization that occurs to regular users of social media. At some level people want a way out, they want some way to alleviate this pressure, but they need this alleviation to take place through some cultural lens that makes it acceptable to them. For example the average American isn’t going to express their frustration with the system by organizing into a social block, as there really isn’t much culturally that orients them towards this, instead they will do what is reinforced through culture, and that is either shoot people at their workplace/school, or post about it on social media. And ultimately this internet expression of stoicism is just another type of posting, it’s another type of performance of character and virtue that most of social life can be boiled down to in an era where your identity is defined what you consume, and more specifically by the media you consume.

I guess when some of the most annoying people on the internet are telling you how great something is, you have to take a moment to wonder if that thing is actually really annoying as well. In this case I have to admit that stoicism is in some ways really annoying. Advocating for a dispassionate view of the world is dehumanizing, sure things suck some times but that’s part of the deal, its the barrier of entry. Furthermore, stoicism does feel a bit like telling a person with depression to just think happy thoughts. I don’t think I can square that practice of stoicism with how I want to live my life, and I don’t think I should try. I think you should be passionate, and accept that things are hard, and you should understand that you can’t just think your way out feeling terrible sometimes, but I still think it can be useful.

What a lot of people get wrong about stoicism is the individuality of it. Aurelius talks at length about the reason you should act stoically is because it allows you to be a better member of society, it helps you distance yourself from the irrationality that physical and emotional pain can bring you, and help make things better for other people. It’s not about narcissistic self betterment, it’s about humility and acceptance of your place in the universe. I think stoicism shouldn’t come from a place of cold detachment and disdain for other people and their inability to think as good as you, but rather compassion, because you too have experienced pain and you know what they’re going through.

I appreciate that stoicism acknowledges that life is difficult and sometimes pointless, I think it starts to go wrong when we start to think that we should make ourselves just as difficult and pointless.

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I wrote this while listening to the following music: