Feeling better is not the point, but…

Dear Friends,

I’ve been a bit slow to respond to this most recent exchange of letters, since I’ve been under the weather this last week. But that did afford me the opportunity to read through all of the entries published so far, which have been enjoyable to read and reflect upon.

There are a number of very useful distinctions and cautions set out within these posts, certain of which I would like to highlight. I’d say I agree with a number of these, at least in part. Working backwards, so starting with John’s piece, I particularly like the point that he makes, and has been consistently making for a long time (for example in the interview we did with him on the Wisdom for Life show years back). This is that a lot of things people both associate with Stoicism, and tend to isolate from the larger interconnected system of Stoic philosophy, are not distinctively Stoic at all. They can rightly be called something like “Stoic-lite,” or “life hacks,” or similar terms.

You do see this sort of mistaken approach a lot with people who are interested in studying and applying Stoicism, which is understandable. They’ve likely initially been introduced to Stoicism by sources that attempt to truncate or simplify Stoicism, and they haven’t progressed enough to realize what they’re missing out on by not approaching Stoicism as a systematic philosophy rather than a grab-bag of disconnected ideas and practices. Those who serve up those bite-sized bits to others on blogs, podcasts, shows, books, and the like have less excuse, particularly when they’re doing that presumably to reap rewards of what Stoics identify as externals, making money, deriving social status or clout, positioning themselves as experts or gurus.

I’d have to think more about whether an undue emphasis on Epictetus is a root cause. I’m not convinced by that. Just going from my experience, if there’s one author who seems most attractive to people peddling watered-down versions of Stoicism, it’s Marcus Aurelius. I do agree with John that people do make far too much of the “three topoi” Epictetus discusses, trying to shoehorn all sorts of other matters under that rubric.

The distinction Massimo draws between Stoicism as a genuine philosophy of life and “life-hackeris[t]” misappropriations of the philosophy (or rather of isolated bits of it) runs along those same lines. I think it’s a very useful insight to note that a number of  “perversions” of Stoicism stem from the confusion of actual Stoicism with the life-hacky approach, which has the implication that these distinctive ways of going wrong aren’t just a reduction of Stoicism to life-hacks (or even lower, just memorizing and posting a bunch of, often-fake, inspirational “quotes”).

Broicism and $toicism have long been identified as among these “perversions,” and I expect we could come up with a number of other specific ways of turning Stoicism into something it’s not. Less often called-out, but just as bad is what Massimo calls “stoicisM, … the use of Stoic philosophy to encourage militarism and a cult of the military.” I’ll admit that, as a veteran, I often feel an equal sense of disgust when I see that sort of stuff, particularly when it’s some wannabe tough guy (it’s nearly always guys) who never served, or when I see some ex-military guy trying to cash in by pandering to those types.

Some might balk at Massimo’s use of “perversion” and say that Stoics shouldn’t engage in name-calling, to which the proper response would be that there’s a distinction between name-calling and rightly identifying something as what it is, and choosing not to candy-coat terms. Strictly speaking, “perversion” is precisely the right term, since it means to turn or twist something away, in the wrong direction. Or we could say, a right term, because there’s another that is equally apt, namely “corruption,” a term that both Plato and Aristotle use to denote bad types of political regimes, corrosive to the characters of both those stuck in them and those ruling them. We could say that the purveyors and proponents of Broicism, $toicism, or stoicisM are analogous to the rulers of corrupted regimes, in it ultimately for their own benefit as opposed to a wider common good, and providing to their audiences a corrupted version of Stoicism deeply at odds with the actual philosophy.

Going back further to Meredith’s letter, one of the distinctions I like the most is between “tiger parenting,” where the goal is to take control over children’s lives and shape them into the people one desires them to be, and an approach to parenting imbued with Stoic thought, practice, and structure. This isn’t a simple distinction between being mistaken about what one can control and then attempting to impose control, on the one hand, vs rightly recognizing what is and what isn’t up to us, as Meredith points out. There’s a different set of interconnected goals in mind in Stoicism-informed parenting, i.e. “good character/the virtues, critical thinking, and independent, autonomous decision making,” as opposed to conformity and compliance, “success” measured in terms of externals, or seeing one’s ego projected onto one’s children.

I’m in total agreement on the point that we really should place central emphasis on the virtues, and another point Meredith makes as well, that “[b]ecause we have lost many of the original Greek sources of Stoicism, it can be difficult to get a clear understanding of what Stoic virtues meant and how they were defined in ancient times.” It requires a good bit of work, reading and researching, connecting and comparing discussions across authors in two different languages, framing these within the larger overall Stoic system, and noting and trying to reconcile occasional differences or even conflicts between authors on the virtues and related matters. I’ll just mention that I teach an online class on precisely that complex matter of the virtues, and that has led me into developing my notes into what will eventually take the form of a book-length study.

I will mention one point I find myself uneasy about, though not in outright disagreement. In my experience with people attempting to live out some sort of religious life and in my studies of religious thinkers, I wouldn’t say that “religious convictions . . . provide spiritual certainty” to everyone. In fact, the religious thinkers and interlocutors I find most interesting and worth engaging with are those who are deeply committed, even “convicted,” who certainly have strong beliefs, but for whom religion didn’t provide certainty, but rather a much more complex and even conflicted understanding of the world, themselves, other people, and the divine. Granted, a lot of people do gravitate towards religion because they desire certainty of that sort, but that’s definitely not the motivation or experience of many religious people, quite a few of whom have written about that. I’d also say I’ve encountered my fair share of people who appropriate Stoicism in a way analogous to a “religion” in this reductive sense of the term.

Coming at last to Greg’s piece that kicked off this whole rather far-ranging and quite fruitful exchange, I’m in agreement that Stoicism as an actual, systematic philosophy of life isn’t about “feeling better.” And it is the case that many people have mistakenly construed Stoicism along those lines, as something that one takes on, perhaps in small doses at first (i.e., life-hacks), in order to reduce negative emotions and experiences, and to consistently produce positive feelings in one’s life. I do like the neologism “Stoicism-as-salve interpretations,” which captures this mindset nicely.

I’m in agreement that virtue is absolutely central to Stoic ethics, and that virtue rather than joy is what is necessary for eudaimonia. My experience as someone who gives talks, leads classes, and organized groups focused on Stoicism also corresponds to what Greg notes, that virtue all too often gets lost in the shuffle. I suspect that one reason is that far too many contemporary interpreters of Stoicism just rattle off the four cardinal virtues, and don’t spend adequate time building a robust understanding of virtue as a whole, the cardinal virtues, and the subordinate virtues by devoting the time and attention to studying what classic Stoics texts do teach us about them.

But that’s just one plausible reason, and it strikes me that Greg has his finger on another important reason, namely that far too many contemporary proponents of Stoicism, ranging from those well-versed in it (like William Irvine) to those who have just the most superficial smattering of it (I won’t give examples, but all of us have encountered them), do present Stoicism as something that is intended primarily to make us feel good, feel better, or feel less bad. Now I would say (and I think this is entirely in line with classic Stoic sources) that this change in affects is a likely effect of studying and applying Stoicism, but it is a side-effect.

If we want to use a pharmaceutical analogy, we could say that if Stoicism is a remedy, far too many people are prescribing it for off-label purposes and losing sight of the main point of it.  We might even compare the situation to a particular medicine, Ozempic, originally developed to treat diabetes, which then became a weight-loss drug of choice to such an extent that diabetics encountered difficulties getting supplies of their medication. We all live in an attention economy where having inaccurate, poorly informed, and even perverse, but to many attractive, interpretations of Stoicism can unfortunately draw people away from pursuing the more authentic interpretations of the philosophy that will in the end do them much greater benefit. I suppose we can take some comfort, though, in that it seems it has always been like that, otherwise we wouldn’t see someone like Epictetus needing to correct and clarify what Stoicism actually involves to so many of his interlocutors.

I’d like to close by noting that, although feeling good isn’t the point of Stoicism, there’s nothing wrong with experiencing positive emotions. It’s good for us to feel joy, for instance, or love, friendship, and affection, or even to feel good about not experiencing a negative emotion, which is the case for me when I find myself not getting angry when in the past I would have (or at least less angry, or angry for a shorter time). In fact, one main reason I began studying Stoic philosophy in a serious way was the resources Stoics offered for understanding and managing my own anger. So I myself am one of those people Greg refers to who “get into Stoicism by looking for a salve for what ails them,” and then “stick around long enough to learn that Stoicism is more a life’s practice to be better.”

Vale,
Greg