[HN Gopher] Indifference is a power
___________________________________________________________________
Indifference is a power
Author : suioir
Score : 194 points
Date : 2026-01-13 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
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| blamestross wrote:
| My journey with stoicism has been useful and powerful at every
| phase, but for future and fellow walkers of this path I leave
| advice:
|
| You you a mindful stoic or a dissociated one?
|
| I'd argue dissociation, at least in the short term, is a critical
| part of the process. To not let the gut reactions carry you away.
| You do often need to realize, those reactions are still often
| happening. You body does it's own thing and you need to be
| mindful when it does that. Fear, shock, anxiety, elation, they
| all happen even if you keep a clear conscious mind. The in the
| situation, the work is in correcting for the biases they give.
|
| In the medium term, if you aren't going back and holding the
| emotions you set aside, you are doing it wrong. Stoicism sells as
| "magical no emotion land" but you are flesh and flesh has
| emotions. Both reasonable and unreasonable. You job is to manage
| and integrate them effectively.
|
| Stoicism is a good toolkit for managing and analyzing emotions,
| but if you don't add going back and feeling those emotions to the
| tools, you are just a timebomb running an emotional debt and
| dissociating from it. I've done that, and watched others do the
| same. Odds are this message won't actually change things if you
| are there right now, but maybe it will nudge you in the right
| direction.
| randomtoast wrote:
| > In the medium term, if you aren't going back and holding the
| emotions you set aside, you are doing it wrong. Stoicism sells
| as "magical no emotion land" but you are flesh and flesh has
| emotions. Both reasonable and unreasonable. You job is to
| manage and integrate them effectively.
|
| I think it's helpful not to identify with your emotions. You
| may experience emotions, but you are not your emotions. That's
| the difference between saying "I'm angry" and "I feel anger
| arising within me."
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I guess what I don't get about this is: couldn't you apply
| the same mode to other internal states? "I understand this,"
| vs "I feel understanding arising in me?"
|
| Maybe that is good, now that I write it out. I think
| "understanding" is actually a pretty dumb mental state to
| invest a lot in.
| blamestross wrote:
| That is a dissociating mode, a more mindful one, but still
| intentionally distancing yourself from your experiences. It
| works great for improving your perception of yourself and
| being mindful. Its a meditation.
|
| It also isn't really available in a crisis, in the moment.
| All our long term work is really to train the anxious idiot
| part of ourselves who runs the show most of the time how to
| cope with what the world and body are doing right now. That
| person is very much connected to their emotions, no matter
| what story we make up about it. You need practice being that
| person feeling those emotions as well as practice analyzing
| them.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > but if you don't add going back and feeling those emotions to
| the tools, you are just a timebomb running an emotional debt
| and dissociating from it
|
| What would that entail? I can't imagine e.g. taking some time
| on Sunday afternoon to feel that panic I suppressed from the
| crisis on Monday.
| blamestross wrote:
| > I can't imagine e.g. taking some time on Sunday afternoon
| to feel that panic I suppressed from the crisis on Monday.
|
| Almost literally that. Revisit the moments that made you
| "suppress" things. Think of it as a post-mortem. It won't be
| the same, an echo distorted by time and distance, But pay
| attention to what you set aside. Suppressing emotions is the
| short term hack. The ideal is to be able to have them and
| still be centered. Only way to get better at that is
| practice.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Unexpected but intruiging. Thanks for the guidance!
| parpfish wrote:
| I can't help but think that the rise in stoicisms popularity
| among manosphere types because it lets them repackage a lot of
| more undesirable masculine traits under a legitimate label--
| You're not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak. Just
| suck it up and power through. Bottle it up.
|
| Whether those traits a "real stoicism" or not doesn't matter,
| because that's the way it gets spread through TikTok length
| discourse
| vannucci wrote:
| This is the exact phrasing I was just searching for, and I fear
| the same thing that this pop stoicism revival is trying to
| formalize some really asocial behaviors.
| prox wrote:
| Reminds of "We belief something first, and then we pick our
| reasons for it."
|
| People aren't really engaging with their philosophy ("love of
| wisdom") but pick and choose so it reinforces what they
| already believe. They don't exactly think about it they stay
| mildly glossing some concepts in the popular amateur/ social
| media sphere.
| aquariusDue wrote:
| In some ways I always wonder if this Build-A-Bear thingy
| we've developed in the last 100 or so years regarding
| spirituality, morals, principles and all that as an
| alternative to traditional religious practices isn't just
| as lame as what it's meant to replace but in its own kind.
|
| I'm not advocating for religious institutions or theocracy,
| mind you, I'm trying to formulate an argument how someone
| talking about how living life in accordance to Stoics on
| YouTube or Christ in a church is more of an aesthetics
| issue than a virtue one.
|
| Though I feel by the time I successfully formulate that
| argument I'll have multiple groups clamoring for my head.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| It's not just pop stoicism. For years now it seems to me that
| a lot of memes regarding personal conduct spread on social
| media that essentially try to dress up toxic behavior in a
| positive light and encourage it.
|
| I'm aware that society had these same sorts of issues prior
| to social media but it's still depressing watching it play
| out.
| SirFatty wrote:
| "Just suck it up and power through"
|
| I don't feel that is a "undesirable masculine trait", I live by
| that and still "feel things" and have emotions.
| everdrive wrote:
| One thing that's worth noting is that Epictetus himself was a
| slave, and I think it's informed a lot of his thoughts. For
| him, true freedom is being able to overcome the events of the
| world. You may not be able to control whether or not you're a
| slave, but (to Epictetus) you can control how you feel about
| being a slave, and that is true freedom.
|
| ie, he saw the world as full of misery and difficulty, and
| saw modifying your internal experience as the only possible
| path forward.
| s1mplicissimus wrote:
| Huh, I never saw it that way but it makes sense. I guess
| the cruelest thing to do to Epictetus would then be to make
| him believe he could be anything other than a slave, if
| only he worked hard enough. Oh...
| exe34 wrote:
| Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world and
| adopted the same outlook. there were people along the whole
| spectrum between slave and emperor who also did.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| That slave mindset is not good, though. It's not about not
| having feelings. It's about ignoring your feelings.
|
| Why do your opinions not matter?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Conversely, why _should_ they matter? I 'm not saying they
| shouldn't but I think it's worth pondering.
| exe34 wrote:
| Even better, where did you get the opinions? are they
| definitely your own, did you choose them from all available
| options by picking the ones that were best for you, or did
| you passively absorb them from people who can profit from
| giving you those opinions?
| stackedinserter wrote:
| It's not "suck it up and move on", it's "accept the reality
| as starting point and do what's possible, with calm clear
| mind"
| Lio wrote:
| Memento mori. Death is inevitable but worrying constantly
| about it, whether your own or your loved ones, is no way to
| live.
|
| As I get older and as my parents get older I take comfort
| from that.
| drakenot wrote:
| I think that's more a critique of the modern caricature of
| stoicism than of Stoicism itself. Classical Stoicism isn't
| about suppressing emotions. It's about understanding your
| emotions, examining where they come from, and choosing how you
| respond rather than being ruled by them.
| confounder wrote:
| I think this is the most concisely accurate description of
| Stoicism I've yet seen; well done.
| iammjm wrote:
| Also it's about learning to distinguish between stuff we can
| influence vs stuff we cannot. Like I cannot influence if the
| sun rises tomorrow or not, so there's not point in worrying
| about it
| raffael_de wrote:
| understanding, examining and choosing are all thinking based.
| and that's why stoicism isn't really working well for humans.
| emotions are neuropsychologically lower level than
| thoughts/logic/ratio. having said that, lectures about
| stoicism might well be excellent instructions for language
| models on how to handle communication with humans.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| It's more to separate the feeling from the reaction to the
| feeling by a layer of understanding & examination. Feel
| first, understand the feeling, examine whether the feeling
| is appropriate for the situation that caused it, determine
| how to react, react. It's an OODA loop applied to one's own
| emotions: Observe the feeling, Orient on the situation,
| Decide on a response, Act as decided. If you pre-decide to
| always suppress any reaction you're missing the point.
| Stoicism is quite similar to modern Cognitive Behavior
| Therapy. If you just react without thinking you'll often
| react to your learned habits rather than the actual
| situation at hand.
| raffael_de wrote:
| The realization of emerging emotions by cultivating
| mindfulness. I mean this is basically also what various
| practices/exercises in (Zen) Buddhism aim at. But I'd
| argue that the practical methodology advertised by
| Stoicism is too ratio based to be effective beyond a
| basic . I would rather put my money on more indirect
| approaches like classic mindfulness exercises and
| meditation. They are less goal oriented by design, but
| the axiom (which I accept from experience and
| observation) is that a healthy mind will be expressing
| stoic virtues naturally without knowing how to call it.
| matwood wrote:
| Part of practicing Stoicism is to bring emotions up to the
| understanding, examining, and choosing level. You still
| have emotions, but you don't let them control you.
|
| I love JiuJitsu because many parts of it are like
| microcosms of life. The first time someone lays on you and
| you feel like you can't breath, you panic. That's an
| emotion. After a few times you realize you can breath and
| eventually you will feel the panic and instead of
| succumbing, it'll wash past you. By practicing feeling
| emotions, especially negative ones like being uncomfortable
| over and over, eventually they move into your higher level
| thinking and no longer control you. You absolutely still
| have them, but your reaction to them has changed.
| raffael_de wrote:
| I would actually argue that the sensation from
| experiencing asphyxiation is not really an emotion but
| instead one of the most fundamental sensations any life
| form will experience. Just saying as I already argued
| that ratio is a layer above emotions. Having said that,
| Jujutsu (as well as all forms of martial arts and sports)
| are intertwined with emotional experience and needs.
| Jujutsu for example is probably one of the best physical
| therapies for adults to overcome fear of non-sexual
| physical contact. Also the whole idea around fighting
| other people in your spare time draws its inspiration
| from a desire to externalize negative emotions which are
| either too abstract or too challenging to address in a
| mental reflection process.
| tetha wrote:
| And now that I've read that the second time, this is very
| close to various kinds of therapy.
|
| For example, anxiety exists and sometimes occurs, and it
| means parts of me are trying to be very careful and precise
| about something. This can be a problem at times if it
| overcomes you, but it can also be leveraged into a strength
| once you figure why it's flaring up at the moment.
|
| Another example, travel used to be a nuisance, but now I've
| setup and continue refining some packing and preparation
| checklists for trips of varying length. Now it's a big no-
| brainer to be well-prepared for a short work-trip and I'm
| usually very calm about it.
| drcongo wrote:
| That's so far away from what stoic practice is. Is that really
| what TikTok tells you?
| parpfish wrote:
| The modern/online resurgence of stoicism isn't driven by
| people that have studied actual books.
|
| It's being driven by people that are making tiktoks after
| they learned about it by watching a five minute YouTube
| video. It's a very lossy game of telephone.
| drcongo wrote:
| Well that's pretty depressing, I had no idea.
| alansaber wrote:
| Pop philosophy being turned into AI audio transcribed by a
| cool video game character (also being mostly AI generated)
| is clearly the crowning jewel of our civilization.
| senko wrote:
| Where can I find this AI generated cool video game
| character spewing out pop philosophy? Sounds like fun!
| aquariusDue wrote:
| Only because Freud and Jung fell out of fashion, these
| TikToks are the pop-psychology books of yesteryear.
| tclancy wrote:
| As someone who has been interested in actual Stoicism for
| years, yes, there is a whole industry of people monetizing
| cherry-picked bullet points to serve up what people already
| want to hear. The fact it all comes with a less-than-subtle
| sheen of "Western Thought" widens the audience to not just
| men who don't think real good, but also racists. Happily, now
| that can be accelerated with AI as we simultaneously remove
| actual Greek philosophers from college entirely!
|
| I would love to sit back with some quotation from Marcus
| Aurelius about how it's not anything I have to worry about,
| but that's the part I never quite bought into with Stoicism I
| suppose. So ignore all of the above.
| drcongo wrote:
| I got interested a few years back thanks to Derren Brown's
| book "Happy" (recommended). I have found it helpful. I
| can't say I actually do any of the exercises, but it has
| slightly reframed how I think about my own wellbeing and
| happiness.
|
| edit: I've missed all this new bite sized version stuff
| though precisely because I avoid bite size stuff like the
| plague. TikTok and the TikTokification of everything else
| can fuck right off. I'm looking at you, YouTube.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| I'm tired of the whole "toxic masculinity" framing.
|
| First, it's sloppy. Plenty of genuinely harmful traits exist,
| but trying to pin them to "masculine" or "feminine" archetypes
| is more ideology than analysis. If the problem is bad behavior,
| just call it bad behavior. Adding a gender label doesn't
| improve clarity, it just adds noise.
|
| Second, it's selectively applied. Many traits that are equally
| destructive are rarely labeled at all, usually because they're
| expressed indirectly or through social maneuvering rather than
| overt force. That doesn't make them less harmful, just harder
| to name without breaking the narrative.
|
| More broadly, labeling a negative trait as inherently
| "masculine" is simply rude and unnecessary. "Undesirable
| traits" works fine and doesn't require turning half the
| population into a rhetorical prop.
|
| As a non-toxic and extremely moral male biological specimen,
| I'll just note that attaching moral failure to the male gender
| category feels oddly out of step with modern norms around
| inclusivity. It's as vile and disgusting as referring to a
| person by the wrong pronoun.
| jezzamon wrote:
| I think you should understand the terms as "toxic
| masculinity" as opposed to "positive masculinity". It's not
| saying masculinity is toxic. Or if you want, as opposed to
| "true masculinity" - reframing masculinity as a positive
| thing when expressed correctly.
| naasking wrote:
| Why do undesirable or desirable behaviours need a
| sex/gender label at all? Asshole behaviour isn't gender-
| specific. Maybe people should just focus on criticizing
| specific undesirable behaviours, and praising specific
| desirable behaviours.
| zxcvasd wrote:
| The group of traits often described by "toxic
| masculinity" are _overwhelmingly_ displayed only by
| males, so... it makes sense?
|
| If you aren't someone who displays that specific bundle
| of traits/behaviors, I would suggest being stoic about it
| and not taking the term personally.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| The term is overused. Females have extremely toxic
| behavior as well. But the term toxic feminist is not used
| to label them. It's nowhere near as extreme.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| The world does not lack terms to describe any feminine
| behavior, toxic or otherwise, so I don't think this is a
| real problem.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Can you use those terms in polite company though?
|
| It's strange. Clearly at some point society at large came
| to believe that the current crop of terms at the time was
| undesirable. Yet various modern analogues are treated
| differently.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by polite company, I think. I'm
| sure there are a lot of conversations among men, who are
| polite to each other, talking about women being on their
| periods or hysterical or whatever. Is that no longer the
| norm? My friend group doesn't do it but given the
| rhetoric we've seen on HN and elsewhere "locker room
| talk" is still a thing.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I don't think you'd need to be similarly selective about
| the phrase "toxic masculinity" at least on average.
| Hopefully you see the point I'm trying to make?
|
| Of course it's also possible that I live in a slightly
| different bubble than you do.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| If you replaced "males" in that sentence with ... well,
| let's be honest here, pretty much any other category, the
| statement would likely be deemed entirely unacceptable
| and the comment censored (ie [flagged][dead]) in short
| order.
|
| Regardless of how the statistics for that specific set of
| behaviors break down my personal experience is that both
| the application and acceptance of such terminology (ie
| referring to various sets of behaviors which it might
| make sense to group together based on whatever metric) is
| highly selective in a manner that's convenient for the
| party expressing it. The statement is often true but the
| grouping superfluous, included only (seemingly) to push
| an agenda.
| LanceH wrote:
| But there is no corresponding discussion of "toxic
| femininity", or if there is, it is that discussion is
| framed as more "toxic masculinity" from the "manosphere".
|
| It's a term used to apply guilt across all males to
| subvert any actual debate.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| Crime is also overwhelmingly associated with race.
| Intelligence quotient as well. We don't characterize race
| by statistical facts because we would offend the
| outliers.
|
| I think it's important to follow etiquette in common
| language rather then label entire minorities or groups
| based off of statistics.
| matwood wrote:
| > Crime is also overwhelmingly associated with race.
|
| Race or poverty?
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| There is a correlation between crime and race. Also Race
| and poverty. The causal association has yet to be
| determined but the correlative association exists.
| strken wrote:
| In this specific discussion, the traits labelled as toxic
| masculinity were as follows:
|
| > You're not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you
| weak. Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up.
|
| The person who most embodies these traits for me, in my
| life, is...my mum. I don't view them as exclusively toxic
| any more than I view them as exclusively masculine,
| either. Sometimes you really do just choose to hug your
| kids even when they were aggravating little twits five
| minutes ago and you're still mad at them, and that's a
| good thing.
| everdrive wrote:
| In practice, the term is never used this way. It's used as
| a cudgel.
| exe34 wrote:
| citations needed. (give five examples).
| parpfish wrote:
| Toxic masculinity doesn't mean men are poisonous.
|
| It means men are being poisoned.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| What is poisoning men if men aren't poisonous?
| yesitcan wrote:
| > As a non-toxic and extremely moral male biological
| specimen, I'll just note that attaching moral failure to the
| male gender category feels oddly out of step with modern
| norms around inclusivity. It's as vile and disgusting as
| referring to a person by the wrong pronoun.
|
| This would read like satire in most places besides HN
| poulpy123 wrote:
| It's funny because while I believe the concept of toxic
| masculinity is absolutely badly used in general, and should
| be seen with suspicion, here is one of the real examples it
| makes sense to use it. There absolutely people (Andrew rate
| is one of the most famous) that prey on the weaknesses and
| toxic aspects of masculinity (you have also the same for
| female weaknesses and toxicity)
| emaro wrote:
| I use the term not for traits and behaviours _I_ think are
| masculine, but are _sold_ as being masculine, which are
| toxic. An example would be that it 's masculine to not cry or
| show emotions (whereas woman are labeled as "emotional").
| Suppressing emotions is nothing gender specific of course,
| but when certain groups promote that as "masculine", calling
| that "toxic masculinity" makes sense IMO.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| I still think this is where the framing quietly breaks
| down.
|
| What you're describing is not "masculinity" being toxic,
| but a particular sales pitch that smuggles bad norms under
| the masculinity label. Historically, this is exactly how
| language like "that's so gay" operated. People didn't mean
| "homosexual" in any literal sense. They meant weak,
| unserious, emotionally incontinent, indulgent. If pressed,
| the defense was always the same: I'm not talking about gay
| people, I'm talking about the stereotype society wrongly
| attaches to them.
|
| The move is familiar because it works rhetorically. You get
| to criticize a behavior while outsourcing the moral weight
| to an identity category. The identity absorbs the stain,
| even if everyone insists that's not what they meant.
|
| We've seen this pattern over and over: "Real men don't
| cry." "Be a man" meaning suppress emotion, not develop
| discipline. "That's gay" meaning fragile or contemptible.
| "Masculine energy" marketed as dominance without
| responsibility. "Feminine energy" marketed as intuition
| without accountability.
|
| In every case, the failure isn't gendered. It's human. But
| the label does the work of making it feel natural to aim
| the critique at a group rather than the behavior itself.
|
| This is why the analogy matters. Society eventually
| realized that using "gay" as a stand-in for negative traits
| was lazy at best and corrosive at worst, even when people
| swore they weren't talking about actual gay people. The
| word still carried the freight.
|
| I'm just applying the same standard here, as a proud
| champion of masculinity and part-time custodian of its
| reputation.
|
| If the problem is emotional suppression, call it emotional
| suppression. If the problem is social pressure to perform
| invulnerability, call that out. If the problem is dominance
| without accountability, say so plainly.
|
| Masculinity, like femininity, is a broad distribution of
| traits, not a slogan. Strength and restraint. Risk-taking
| and responsibility. Stoicism and emotional regulation. The
| pathologies show up when any of those lose balance, not
| because they're "masculine."
|
| We spent decades correctly arguing that femininity itself
| wasn't the problem, only the caricatures imposed on it. I'm
| simply extending that courtesy to masculinity, which seems
| overdue.
|
| As a non-toxic, extremely moral male biological specimen
| and self-appointed advocate for masculine dignity, I'm
| fully in favor of men crying, feeling, and communicating. I
| just don't think masculinity needs to be rhetorically
| sacrificed to achieve that outcome.
|
| If anything, masculinity should be defended, rehabilitated,
| and held to a higher standard, not permanently prefixed
| with an asterisk.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > ... As a non-toxic, extremely moral male biological
| specimen and self-appointed advocate for masculine
| dignity, I'm fully in favor of men crying, feeling, and
| communicating. ...
|
| The whole point is that men communicating about their
| inner emotions and feelings have to learn to be
| _extremely_ diplomatic about it, lest their communication
| be misinterpreted by others (intentionally or not!) as
| them just freaking out and throwing an angry temper
| tantrum. Men have responsibilities to those around them
| that ultimately _require_ developing strong discipline
| and keeping their emotions under check, at least to a
| very significant extent. This is what the whole notion of
| "toxic masculinity/femininity/whatever" is getting at;
| ultimately, uncontrolled anger and other negative
| emotions can be a whole lot _more_ toxic than simple
| emotional restraint.
| naasking wrote:
| > I can't help but think that the stoicism is so popular among
| manosphere type
|
| Is it actually though?
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| No, the new wave of popularity for Stoicism can be traced back
| to Tom Wolfe's 1998 bestseller, A Man in Full.
| https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tom-Wolfe-s-Book-A-Man-i...
| stackedinserter wrote:
| "undesirable masculine traits" haha
|
| Who un-desires them? You?
| vcanales wrote:
| > You're not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak.
| Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up.
|
| Yeah, none of that is "real stoicism", but just the hydroponic
| TikTok version of it, as you say.
|
| This can happen to anything if TikTok is your main source of
| information; everything becomes life hacks, "tricks", and "did
| you know that <insert biased misinterpretation of well known
| thing>" types of knowledge bites. Philosophy is unfortunately
| not the only victim of short-length "edutainment".
|
| I think that Stoicism might be particularly vulnerable to this
| because of its built in flexibility, which makes it easy for
| people to divulge their interpretations of it with little
| pushback. If you haven't read much of it, and without a clear
| rirgid "rule set" for what Stoicism is (other than its tenets
| in the cardinal virtues and dichotomy of control), you might
| believe me if I tell you that it is a Philosophy that
| encourages suicide and tells you that being sad because a
| family member passed is stupid.
| belinder wrote:
| A bit similar to "Expect the worst, hope for the best"
| c22 wrote:
| I always expect a reversion to the mean and hope I'm right.
| everdrive wrote:
| Actual stoicism is kind of darkly funny. Here's a word-for-word
| (translated, of course) excerpt from Epictetus:
|
| "It's possible to understand what nature wants from situations
| where we're no different from other people. For example, when a
| slave breaks someone else's cup we're instantly ready to say
| 'These things happen.' So when it's a cup of yours that gets
| broken, appreciate that you have the same attitude as when it's
| someone else's cup. Transfer the principle to things of greater
| importance. Has someone else's child or wife died? There's no one
| who wouldn't say 'So it goes.' But when it's one's own child or
| wife who's died, the automatic response is 'Oh, no!' and 'Poor
| me!' It's essential to remember how we feel when we hear of this
| happening to others."
|
| There are a few (darkly) funny claims in here:
|
| - _ANYONE_ would be pretty indifferent to hear that someone's
| wife or child has died.
|
| - You should feel the same about your wife or child as someone
| else's.
|
| - Potentially, you should feel the same way about your wife as
| you do a cup.
|
| I'm being cheeky with the last one, and I don't think there's
| _nothing_ to the quote above, however I cannot imagine most
| people being able to adopt this view, or seeing it as a view
| which _should_ be adopted.
| throwaw12 wrote:
| IMO, its not dark.
|
| How I perceived it, Epictetus wants to say: things happen and
| you are on a spectrum of emotions based on the context (in case
| of death, how close you were to the person), try to minimize
| the length of the spectrum.
| everdrive wrote:
| I agree in part. You could read Epictetus as saying "just try
| not caring about people," which I think is the incorrect
| reading. Instead, I think he's saying something like "take a
| step back and realize that your deep personal attachments
| don't look so important when you step outside your
| perspective. You can use this realization to help get past
| the deep emotional pain that is normal for people to feel."
|
| However, the line about other's indifference I think can only
| be read as dark funny to a modern reader:
|
| > has someone else's child or wife died? There's no one who
| wouldn't say 'So it goes.'
| alansaber wrote:
| Our environment is simply far less brutal. This is closely
| aligned to the mentality of people in war torn countries,
| to the present day.
| empiricus wrote:
| Actually when one is old enough, the lethality around
| becomes much more visible.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| This is true and no one thinks about it until they reach
| 50-70
|
| Either everyone you know dies 1 by 1, or you do.
| id wrote:
| The world being indifferent to your pain is not helping if
| you're in acute pain. Step outside your perspective, sure.
| I guarantee you this will not work if you have real issues
| like physical pain due to terminal cancer.
| matwood wrote:
| You should read "A Man's Search for Meaning" sometime.
| While not exactly Stoicism many of the ideas are
| similar/related. How a person views and responds to their
| situation, has a huge impact on them. No one is saying
| any of this will remove all of someone's acute pain, but
| as crazy as it sounds, accepting that suffering can lead
| maybe the pain not being quite so bad.
| s1mplicissimus wrote:
| In more modern terms, I would call what Epictetus does here a
| reframing. It's used in therapy, marketing, PR and presumably
| other areas as well. Essentially it's saying "well, but if you
| look at it $this way$, it's not so bad, is it?" .
|
| When strangers tell you that, it's very often with a malicious
| motivation, but it can be a helpful tool for coping with your
| own stuff.
| sharkbird2 wrote:
| I see it more as being about acceptance. If your wife dies, at
| some point, you will have to accept that your wife died and
| move on. This doesn't mean that you are cold or insensitive to
| it, it just means that you have accepted and processed this
| sorrow fully and are now ready to move on.
|
| Stoicism for me is about practicing a sort of pre-acceptance of
| such things. To understand that everything bad that can happen
| eventually will happen (if you live long enough) and to accept
| it even before it has happened.
| krzat wrote:
| Maybe it was intentionally funny, maybe not.
|
| But imagining oneself from a third perspective has a
| therapeutic effect that you can't really explain in words. You
| just do it and it's deeply soothing somehow.
| everdrive wrote:
| I suppose some of it is also not dark at all, and is simply
| funny. Here's another excerpt:
|
| "If you're informed that someone or other is speaking ill of
| you, don't defend yourself against the allegations, but respond
| by saying: "Well, he must be unaware of my other faults,
| otherwise these wouldn't have been the only ones he mentioned."
|
| It's stated a bit differently, but this is effectively the
| exact tact taken by Eminem's competition-winning rap in 8 Mile.
| "These guys think I'm bad? They missed all this obvious stuff,
| let me lay out all my faults for you."
| koolba wrote:
| Reminds me of Lincoln being called "two-face" by Douglas and
| replying " _If I had another face, do you think I 'd wear
| this one?_"
|
| Self deprecation can indeed be disarming. But it must never
| cross the point of eliminating self respect. That's when you
| go from easy going to pure loser.
| deadbabe wrote:
| I think if we did the opposite, where we imagine we are the
| same person as other people in various situations, I think we
| would be overcome with debilitating pain, unable to function
| and just curling up into a ball and crying all day.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| As I get older, I read this entirely differently (as an appeal
| to empathy) than I did when I was younger (as an appeal to
| stolidity).
|
| In other words, you _should_ be pained for your neighbor when
| his slave breaks his cup. Maybe his grandmother left him that
| cup, and he 's developed many fond memories around which he
| drank a soothing beverage in that heirloom. That empathy how we
| connect with people, build meaning, and make life richer.
| jaapz wrote:
| That's probably not how the stoics meant it though.
| mock-possum wrote:
| What treatment of the slave does the broken cup's provenance
| justify?
| tsunamifury wrote:
| * Pop stoicism is an anesthetic for the powerless.
|
| * Classical stoicism was an anesthetic for the powerful.
|
| * Both suppress the self in service of an external system.
|
| * Neither are about empathy.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| From just the quote above, I understand more as something
| intermediate : don't be pained when your cup is broken, like
| if it it was the cup of some else but be pained when someone
| else wife or child die, like if it was your
| stodor89 wrote:
| My initial reaction was to disagree, but the man did
| allegedly take in an abandoned infant. And a woman to care
| for it[1]. And, our readings[2] of that quote (acceptance vs
| altruism) aren't in any way incompatible.
|
| [1] You _absolutely_ don 't want to be a single woman in 1st
| century AD.
|
| [2] acceptance vs altruism
| ndr wrote:
| I wonder how evolutionary fit such indifference really is. It
| can, of course, be way too much as well as too little.
| bsoles wrote:
| > You should feel the same about your wife or child as someone
| else's.
|
| I don't see why it should be so.
|
| It makes perfect sense to sympathize(?) and understand that
| somebody is grieving and is likely going through pain/emotions
| that I would have gone through if my wife/child has died. But
| that is not the same thing as me feeling those emotions.
|
| Isn't this the distinction between empathy and sympathy?
| solumunus wrote:
| They were pointing out the implication in the source material
| but not agreeing with it.
| flatline wrote:
| I find stoicism to be Taoism's spiritual sibling in the West.
| From the Dao De Jing, passage 5, Red Pine's translation:
|
| "Heaven and Earth are heartless / treating creatures like straw
| dogs / heartless is the sage / treating people like straw
| dogs..."
|
| and his translation of one commentary:
|
| "Heaven and Earth aren't partial. They don't kill living things
| out of cruelty or give them birth out of kindness. We do the
| same when we make straw dogs to use in sacrifices. We dress
| them up and put them on the altar, but not because we love
| them. And when the ceremony is over, we throw them into the
| street, but not because we hate them. This is how the sage
| treats the people."
|
| It reflects a detached, broad perspective on the world, which
| does not deny our very attached and narrow view, but rather
| augments it and provides a counterweight to our suffering.
| maxbond wrote:
| There's some passages in the Zhuangzi (another of the 3
| central ancient Taoist texts, along with the Tao Te Ching and
| Liehzi) that feel very analogous. I'm too lazy to find actual
| translations right now so bear in mind my recollection may be
| flawed.
|
| There's a part where it talks any how, if you're sailing on a
| river and an unoccupied boat comes down the river towards
| you, you simply avoid it. But if that boat were occupied, you
| might holler at the person to get out of your way, and it
| might be upsetting.
|
| There's also a passage where Zhuangzi's wife has died, and
| his friend find him merrily beating a drum. He asks if this
| is the proper way to mourn his wife. Zhuangzi replies that he
| had initially cried and lamented when his wife passed, until
| he realized that she had become what she was before she had
| lived, and that to everything there was a season. (There's
| definitely more here than I remember off the top of my head.)
|
| Tangentially, if one has only read the Tao Te Ching, the
| Zhuangzi and Liehzi are also great and worth reading. The
| Liehzi is very short, and the Zhuangzi can be abridged to the
| first 7 chapters if desired. (Chapter 17 slaps but is mostly
| a reiteration of chapter 1.) You could read all 3 in a
| weekend (if you abridge Zhuangzi).
|
| Some free audiobooks:
|
| Tao Te Ching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCLpgXmK3cg
| [1hr]
|
| Liehzi: https://librivox.org/the-book-of-lieh-tzu-by-lieh-
| tzu-transl... [3hr]
|
| Zhuangzi abridged:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCQYEeHlXOY [2hr]
| lifis wrote:
| It is the teaching of acceptable of impermanence also found in
| Buddhism and other eastern lineages.
| mock-possum wrote:
| I think that's the wrong takeaway - the point is that when it's
| happening to someone else, it's easier to see the 'right'
| attitude to take regarding misfortune.
|
| Of course it's awful to have your child die, but also it's
| fairly commonly understood, that it can't be the end of _your_
| life as well, you take the time you need to grieve, and then
| you go on living. "So it goes."
|
| The point with the cup is the same: it's easier to council
| patience and forgiveness when your lap isn't soaked with wine,
| when shards of your cup don't litter the floor.
|
| It's demonstrating a route to removing yourself from the
| emotion of the present situation, to examine things rationally,
| dispassionately, like you would if they were happening to
| someone else, because it's easier to see the right thing to do
| that way.
| id wrote:
| It simply doesn't work, even assuming you had no empathy as
| described in the quote.
| threethirtytwo wrote:
| Some people hold this view not by choice, but by biology. In
| clinical terms it's associated with psychopathy, or antisocial
| personality disorder if you prefer more neutral language. These
| individuals can perform acts that would emotionally devastate
| most people while experiencing little to no internal response.
| Importantly, the vast majority of psychopaths are not violent
| criminals or serial killers.
|
| This isn't speculative philosophy. Psychopathy is a well-
| studied area of psychology and neuroscience, and we can
| identify brain patterns that allow clinicians to assess
| psychopathy with a high probability of being correct. This
| gives us something close to a real-world example of the
| "perfect stoic," taken to an extreme beyond what any philosophy
| actually advocates. What's striking is that psychopathy is
| strongly associated not with superior functioning, but with
| impulsivity, poor long-term planning, and difficulty
| integrating into society.
|
| The takeaway is uncomfortable but important: emotions are not
| merely noise that interferes with rationality. They function as
| behavioral guardrails. Remove them entirely and pure logic
| alone is insufficient to regulate behavior in a social world.
| Without those constraints, people don't become hyper-rational
| idealists. They become unstable, maladaptive, and conspicuously
| out of place.
|
| I think the main reason is that social behavior is not rational
| as a first-order effect. It is irrational at the local level
| and only becomes rational indirectly, sometimes as a side
| effect of a side effect.
|
| For example, if I see someone on the street who has just been
| stabbed, the strictly first-order rational response is to
| ignore it and keep walking. Helping costs time, energy, and
| introduces personal risk. From a narrow perspective, conserving
| resources dominates. Why spend calories calling an ambulance
| when ignoring it is cheaper?
|
| The second- or third-order effects are where things change.
| Someone might see you help and treat you differently later, or
| the person you helped might repay you in some way. But in any
| single instance, those payoffs are unlikely. Most of the time
| you get nothing. Likewise, any stigma for not helping can
| evaporate quickly. People have short memories.
|
| The real effect shows up in aggregate. If you consistently
| apply this kind of extreme local rationality minute to minute,
| people notice. Over time, patterns form. You are perceived as
| cold, unreliable, or unsafe to depend on, and you are gradually
| shunned. It's not even the second-order effects that matter
| most, but the cumulative aggregation of them.
|
| This is where evolution matters. Natural selection is the
| ultimate trial-based selector. It does not care about what is
| logically defensible in a single instance. It selects for
| strategies that survive repeated interaction with reality over
| long time horizons.
|
| But selection does not operate only at the level of isolated
| individuals. Humans evolved in groups, and many traits exist
| specifically to regulate group dynamics. Emotions such as
| empathy, guilt, shame, and moral outrage function not just to
| guide personal behavior, but to coordinate groups and enforce
| norms. They create alignment without requiring explicit
| calculation.
|
| Just as importantly, groups evolve mechanisms to identify and
| prune individuals who don't internalize those constraints.
| Someone who consistently defects, exploits, or optimizes
| locally at the expense of others may do fine in isolated
| interactions, but over time they are marked, excluded, or
| expelled. This pruning is not moral. It is functional. Groups
| that fail to do it collapse under free-riding and mistrust.
|
| Seen through this lens, emotions are not optional. They are
| load-bearing components of social systems. They bias
| individuals toward cooperation and simultaneously give groups
| tools to detect and remove those who can't or won't play by the
| same rules.
|
| Natural selection already ran this experiment at scale.
| Psychopathy illustrates what happens when these mechanisms are
| weakened or absent. What remains is not a superior form of
| rationality, but a system that optimizes locally, destabilizes
| its environment, and ultimately selects itself out.
|
| In that context, stoicism is best understood not as a
| prescription to remove emotion, but as an attempt to discipline
| it. Whether it succeeds depends on how narrowly or literally it
| is interpreted. Taken as emotional suppression or pure rational
| control, it collapses into the same failure modes already
| visible in the clinical and evolutionary evidence. Taken more
| loosely, it functions less as a truth about human behavior and
| more as a coping framework with limited scope.
| svat wrote:
| Here are some other translations of that passage (Enchiridion
| 26):
| https://enchiridion.tasuki.org/display:Code:e,ec,twh,twr,gl,...
|
| - The first part says: if you shrug off someone else's cup
| being broken as just an accident, you should also do the same
| when yours gets broken.
|
| - Then he clearly says _"Apply now the same principle to the
| matters of greater importance."_
|
| - The last part says that if you respond to someone else's
| bereavement with platitudes like "Such is the lot of man" or
| "This is an accident of mortality" (this does not preclude some
| amount of sympathy and compassion preceding those statements!),
| then you should respond the same to yours, rather than thinking
| of yourself as uniquely wretched and unfortunate.
|
| The main point is about being consistent in how you view
| others' fate and yours: not that you should care equally about
| someone's wife and yours (or that you should be indifferent to
| either), just that the _story you tell_ about life and fortune
| should be the same.
|
| [He's also obviously distinguishing the cup situation (a simple
| everyday thing where the principle is easy to see and follow,
| given as an establishing example) from the wife situation (a
| situation where the principle is harder to apply), by saying
| "greater things" / "higher matters" / "matters of greater
| importance".]
| tasuki wrote:
| There's logic to prevent you from viewing more than five
| translations at one time, but I'm happy to see you got right
| past that by url-hacking. It breaks the layout a little bit
| and makes the site even worse on mobile.
|
| I see you included all the translations except Stephen
| Walton's. Yes he took some liberties, but I like it anyway :)
| svat wrote:
| Thanks for making this site; I love it and have returned to
| it many times. (I don't mind the layout with all
| translations even on mobile; I just rotate my phone or
| decrease font size.) I read through the whole thing
| recently.
| (https://twitter.com/svat/status/2004591889010643102)
|
| Thanks also for making it open-source. I used it for a blog
| post about a story I remembered from my school textbook :)
| https://shreevatsa.net/post/bazin-letter-box/ ->
| https://shreevatsa.net/bazin-letter-box/
|
| Stephen Walton's translation is actually my favourite! I
| omitted it here because this is HN and likely someone would
| complain the translation is clearly incorrect because it
| talks about "Your neighbor's car gets hit in a parking
| lot". But to include it too just for completeness :) https:
| //enchiridion.tasuki.org/display:Code:e,ec,twh,twr,gl,...
| tasuki wrote:
| I'm very glad to hear all that! My goal was to make it
| easy to use, so the following part of your blog post
| (2019!) absolutely made my day:
|
| > The software too pleasantly just worked, with no setup
| or install required: just clone the sample app, change
| the filenames and <base href="..."> in index.html as it
| mentions. It's a joy when that happens.
|
| Suffice to say, many people haven't had as much success
| as you: they fumbled around for 10-20 commits and ended
| up with something broken. I think requiring people to
| edit json is just too much :)
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I don't see this as particularly dark or particularly funny.
| Seems like good advice. Most of our negative emotions are a
| waste of time and energy. I always try to see things in the
| greater context of the world: all things are brief, beautiful,
| and utterly without meaning in the greater scheme of things. If
| I spend a ton of time wailing and grinding my teeth about shit
| then I'm just wasting time I could be using to enjoy the
| experience of being alive.
| s1mplicissimus wrote:
| > Most of our negative emotions are a waste of time and
| energy.
|
| In a different frame, most of our negative emotions are there
| to help us - by signifying that something is wrong. You could
| be thankful for having them so that you are prompted to
| investigate what's wrong. It's only when we forget that
| feelings are only a part of our experience and start to
| identify with feelings (positive and negative) that trouble
| arises.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I really mean that _wallowing_ in our negative emotions is
| a waste of time and energy.
| stodor89 wrote:
| It's about accepting the bad things that will inevitably happen
| to us. "Loving your wife" and "grieving when she dies" are two
| separate things. We need mental framing that does not connect
| them, even though our default settings are to do so. Or at
| least that's how I'm reading it.
| al_borland wrote:
| This reminds me of this Buddhist story about the cup that is
| already broken. I think I like this a bit better, as it's not
| that the cup doesn't matter, but rather enjoying it for what it
| is while you have it.
|
| A monk had a beautiful, delicate tea cup.
|
| His student asked him about the cup. And much to the student's
| surprise he replied that the cup is already broken. "What do
| you mean?" - asked the student.
|
| The monk said - "To me this cup is already broken."
|
| "I enjoy it. I drink from it. It holds my water admirably -
| sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. When I
| tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put it on the
| shelf and the winds blows it over or I knock it off the table
| and it shatters on the ground then I say - of course.
|
| When I understand the glass is already broken, every moment
| with it is precious."
| matwood wrote:
| Great story. It's a stepping stone to understanding fully
| that we are all going to die and that life itself is
| precious.
| bee_rider wrote:
| He was a slave at some point, right? Maybe he was just trying
| to get people to chill out about their cups, to save some of
| his former peers an unpleasant time.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'll take this further and I'm not sure if I've seen it
| anywhere, but I feel like humor is an absolutely necessary
| component to any philosophy or life practice in this direction.
|
| In a way, this is an idea that to me, rises above perhaps the
| specifics of all of these isms. People from Dave Chappelle to
| Kurt Vonnegut really get this.
| herdymerzbow wrote:
| I thought the darkest thing you were going to point to was the
| matter of fact reference to the role of the slave as the
| inadvertent cup breaker! Some wonderfully insightful thoughts
| on how to manage one's emotions when confronted by life's
| challenges, of which I think are worth reading, but taking for
| granted the other human whose life is not their own and who is
| treated as (valuable) property by the philosopher is pretty
| dark to me.
|
| I'm guessing that the institution of slavery was part of the
| entire imperial project of conquest so even if their conscience
| was briefly troubled it would've fallen into the 'so it goes'
| basket. But it does seem strange to the modern reader.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Stoicism is like recommending having a couple drinks ( literally
| ) to a "normal" person with mild social anxiety with a need to go
| out in the World and live life.
|
| It works and it's good advice.
|
| Unfortunately it gets recommended to everybody at every point in
| their lives, which include alcoholics and people in crisis.
|
| In a more direct way: Stop with this "no emotion" "I'm a
| fortress" bullshit. It only helps a narrow group of people in
| specific circumstances of their lives but wreaks havoc on
| everybody else because it's misplaced and mostly a lie or at
| least a very incomplete picture.
| N_Lens wrote:
| Very well put!
| dot_treo wrote:
| In the past I've been trying to adopt the stoic mindset, but
| always struggled. But I continued to read and learn about it.
|
| Unrelatedly, I came across a recomendation for David Burns
| "Feeling Good" here on hackernews a couple of years ago.
|
| Reading it with my interest in stoicism in mind, I honestly found
| it to be probably the best modern day handbook to actually
| adopting the stoic mindset - without ever mentioning it.
|
| As far as I understand stoicism, it is all about seeing things as
| they are, and understanding that the only thing that we really
| control is our reaction / interpretation of events. And the CBT
| approach that is explained in Feeling Good/Feeling Great is
| exactly how you do this.
|
| With this perspective Marcus Aurelius Meditations suddenly make a
| lot more sense. They are his therapy homework.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Love that book. It changed my life.
| maxverse wrote:
| If anyone Googles it and is wondering about Feeling Good (1999)
| and Feeling Great (2020) by the same author, it seems like
| Feeling Great is just an updated version of the original book,
| based on more experience and new insights. Here's the author
| discussing the difference:
|
| https://feelinggood.com/2020/10/26/213-from-feeling-good-to-...
| richardanaya wrote:
| Happiness only comes from the achievement of values. The greatest
| bamboozlement of stoicism is teaching people to be indifferent to
| achieving their values. It lobotomizes upside gains in a world
| that's full of opportunity to a mind of reason.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > teaching people to be indifferent to achieving their values
|
| That's inaccurate. Stoicism teaches indifference to outcomes
| you don't fully control, while demanding total commitment to
| the values you do control such as your character, choices, and
| actions.
| havblue wrote:
| While it isn't expressly stoic, I'm liking the gray rock tactic
| more and more as I age. You can just not fight the people who are
| rude to you and not engage with ideas that frustrate you. When
| you reduce your personal connections to what you have direct
| control over and your actual responsibility, the need to argue
| with most people is very low.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Mel Robins' popular "Let Them Theory" captures some of the
| sentiment of Stoicism.
|
| https://www.melrobbins.com/book/the-let-them-theory/
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Key phrase "captures some of the sentiment of Stoicism". Her
| book could be cut down to about ten pages.
|
| If Books Could Kill reviewed her book in April 2025:
|
| "Peter and Michael discuss The Let Them Theory, a self-help
| guide to seeking bliss through unmitigated complacency."
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/2RupLQH4eBnUX4mo1zAAFz?si=h...
| recursive wrote:
| > Her book could be cut down to about ten pages.
|
| Should I understand that to be a critique?
| rramadass wrote:
| _Samkhya Philosophy_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya)
| gives a far more comprehensive model to analytically go beyond
| _the three sources of suffering_ (viz. from own body /mind, from
| other beings/things, from acts of god).
|
| You can then think of specific practices from Buddhism eg.
| _Tibetan Lojong_ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong - and
| Stoicism as applications within that framework.
|
| PS: Keith Seddon's _Epictetus ' Handbook and the Tablet of Cebes:
| Guides to Stoic Living_ is one of the best books in stoic
| literature. - https://www.routledge.com/Epictetus-Handbook--and-
| the-Tablet...
| game_the0ry wrote:
| > Any misfortune 'that lies outside the sphere of choice' should
| be considered an opportunity to strengthen our resolve, not an
| excuse to weaken it.
|
| This is a solid reframe that has helped me in difficult times:
| any bad luck turned from a setback/obstacle to an empowering
| stepping stone to the next level.
| voidhorse wrote:
| _Yawn_ I am so over stoicism being the philosophy du jour. I
| shouldn 't be surprised, since it's stony individualism aligns
| extremely well with the amoral and increasingly draconian
| imperatives of unbridled, self-interested capital (I guess one
| could write a book on this), but man seeing it constantly
| referenced in dumbed down contentless rehashing of the surface
| level engagements one could have with a body of thought in all
| this popular media is becoming _so_ tiring.
|
| If you're _actually_ interested in stoicism I highly encourage
| picking up books by some actual scholars.
| begueradj wrote:
| Since the Covid theater, Stoicism is everywhere: that's why I
| don't read about it anymore because wherever the mass and Pavlov
| dogs head, the truth is elsewhere.
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| That's kind of a narrow take; the mainstream may be directed
| towards a good thing and just not have the depth to draw a
| benefit, its attention being superficial and fleeting.
|
| E.g. the Pavlovian dog metaphor is quite a mainstream trope,
| but doesn't it carry an important message nevertheless?
|
| If anything, I would say that fleeting takes and offhand
| dismissals are what determines and solidifies the mainstream's
| superficiality.
| begueradj wrote:
| My whole comment refers to the "Propaganda" book by Edward
| Bernays.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| If you always walk in the opposite direction of the crowd you
| are still letting them control where you go.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I find classic Stoicism interesting, but these modern social
| media and influencer versions of Stoicism feel like something
| else entirely.
|
| The heading and subheading of this article invoke ideas of
| indifference and warriors and prisoners. This appeals to
| frustrated people, more often men, who are struggling with
| emotional regulation and want a solution that feels like a tough
| response.
|
| Maybe there's something useful in here, but more often than not
| when I see younger people I work with invoke stoicism it's as a
| weak defensive mechanism to dodge their emotions for a while
| rather than deal with them. The modern simplified ideal of
| stoicism is just being too tough to care and flexing to show
| others that you don't care.
|
| Anecdotally, I haven't seen anyone embrace this social media
| version of stoicism and thrive on it long term. At best it's just
| a phase that helps them get past something temporary, but at
| worst it's a misleading ideal that leads them to bottling up and
| ignoring problems until they become too unbearable to ignore.
| Some times you do have to care and you have to address the root
| cause, not just listen to some influencers telling you to be so
| tough you don't care like legions of warriors and prisoners in
| past literature.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I think of the "tough warrior philosopher" messaging as the
| installation medium for this hack. All hacks need an attractive
| bait/installer.
|
| Once the hack sets in, you start reading more b/c you identify
| partially as "philosopher", and you start to see more of the
| genuine, peaceful, forgiving side, like in Meditations. The "we
| are all flawed men" kind of thing.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I think of the "tough warrior philosopher" messaging as the
| installation medium for this hack. All hacks need an
| attractive bait/installer.
|
| The average young person who discovers stoicism via articles
| like this or via an influencer isn't going to do a deep dive
| into classic literature as the next step.
|
| They're going to seek out more influencer slop that delivers
| more of what drew them to it: The prisoner/warrior bait about
| being so tough that you don't care about anything.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| That depends on how much credit you give to the average
| person. In this climate, probably a small amount, but I
| think the stoics would say that we should not judge them if
| they're not ready to hear the msg, but be glad they heard
| it and hope it settles in later.
| matwood wrote:
| The average young person probably does nothing at all.
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Some percentage
| of people will come to Stoicism via an influencer and
| continue to dig.
| baseballdork wrote:
| The contention is with "good". Is it good to have a bunch
| of people becoming emotionally stunted in case a handful
| dig further? Presumably there were people moved to
| stoicism prior to the current influencer trend, is that
| not good enough?
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
|
| But it's not a choice between good or perfect. The
| internet style stoicism becomes a sort of learned
| helplessness for people who skim articles and think it
| means you should assume everything is out of your control
| and instead focus on ignoring your emotions.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Proper Stoicism is not about dodging your emotions, it's very
| much about dodging the _adverse behavioral effects_ of your
| emotions. You 're encouraged to work through your emotions
| proactively and in depth (the Stoics encouraged _askesis_ which
| literally means 'training' or 'exercise') so that they don't
| adversely affect you and others down the road. Of course, you
| should also learn how to counter these effects in the moment,
| which often involves temporarily repressing and "bottling up"
| disagreeable emotions, such as anger. But there's really no
| expectation in the sources that this will suffice long term.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Indeed, one exercise is negative visualization. Think about
| the worst thing that can happen in other words, simulate the
| feelings and mentally rehearse a measured response.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Proper Stoicism is not about dodging your emotions, it's
| very much about dodging the adverse behavioral effects of
| your emotions.
|
| I'm not disagreeing with this. I understand classic stoicism,
| but I've also seen the effects of modern pseudo-stoicism as
| pushed by influencers and social media.
|
| Focusing on stoicism and trying to dodge the effects of your
| emotions is a reasonable strategy for someone who is truly
| stuck in a situation, like the prisoners or warriors cited in
| the article.
|
| But it becomes a self-defeating action when the situation
| you're dealing with is something that should be addressed or
| changed rather than dealing with it like you're a prisoner
| and helpless victim. The common example is someone in a toxic
| job who is furiously consuming stoicism social media and
| trying to act stoic in the face of a job they hate instead of
| using that energy to apply for another job.
| andsoitis wrote:
| It isn't the fault of an ancient philosophy that modern
| humans twist it into superficial slob.
|
| It certainly isn't an indictment against Stoicism.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > It isn't the fault of an ancient philosophy
|
| As I said, I'm talking about the article and the pseudo-
| stoicism pushed on social media
| raffael_de wrote:
| another example are soldiers who adapted to war and have to
| reintegrate back into society.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| ISTM that improving one's emotional self-regulation is an
| excellent _first-line_ response to being in what seems to
| be a toxic job. It may be that leaving that job and
| applying for another is still the right thing to do, all
| things considered, but we cannot know for sure unless we
| are in that situation ourselves and can de-stress enough to
| do a proper evaluation of it.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I agree that improving emotional regulation is a first
| step to building up the energy to change a situation.
|
| My issue with modern internet style pseudo-stoicism is
| that it's fixated on becoming indifferent (the title of
| this article, even) and breeds a sort of learned
| helplessness. The article's sub-heading is about
| prisoners and warriors, but using techniques optimized
| for being a prisoner or stuck in a war isn't quite right
| for someone navigating a toxic relationship or toxic job
| where you're not actually entirely helpless.
| lazide wrote:
| The best emotion to change a situation (though you might
| not like the change!) is anger.
|
| Indifference is the best emotion to stay in a situation.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It's learning to not burden yourself with things you cannot
| control.
| Aurornis wrote:
| When applied indiscriminately as a fix-all philosophy, it
| treats everything as something you cannot control.
|
| That's the problem.
| raffael_de wrote:
| Very well put. I'd add the psychological concept of
| dissociation which seems to be central to the hackernews
| version of stoicism. Instead of connecting to your emotions it
| encourages pushing them down. That's just going to postpone the
| moment when you have to deal with them. Either because of
| psychosomatic illness, depression, burn out or mental
| breakdown. Attempting to influence, change, control
| feelings/emotions by rational concepts and thinking is doomed
| to fail. Emotions are on a lower level than verbal and logical
| mental processes.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| As someone who has run multiple "empire tier" tech platforms,
| I've learned personally why you tend to develop this mindset.
|
| This brand of stoicism you refer to is high order "cope" with
| your emotional self telling you it is wrong.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| What ? You don't want to read a book by a total rando about how
| stoicism will transform you into an alpha male in 30 days and
| with a gen ai cover of a Greek warrior from 300 ?
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| it's Broicism; Modern self-help for dudes that think enjoying
| sex is feminine and washing your bung is homoerotic. The
| primary consumer is unlikely to read the entirety of The
| Meditations and prefers short, punchy aphorisms they can
| memorize.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| This is one of those rare cases where I believe young men would
| benefit from reading more Nietzsche.
|
| "Do you want to live 'according to nature'? O you noble Stoics,
| what a verbal swindle! Imagine a being like nature -
| extravagant without limit, indifferent without limit, without
| purposes and consideration, without pity and justice,
| simultaneously fruitful, desolate, and unknown - imagine this
| indifference itself as a power - how could you live in
| accordance with this indifference? Living - isn't that
| precisely a will to be something different from what this
| nature is? Isn't living appraising, preferring, being unjust,
| being limited, wanting to be different?"
| willmarch wrote:
| This just shows that Nietzsche did not understand stoicism on
| any deep level
| recursive wrote:
| If that's true, then what hope does anyone else have?
| bigbadfeline wrote:
| Nietzsche never cared about understanding of anything, he
| had an agenda, a mission to fulfill. His arguments are
| always shallow and shifty - the quote provided by
| throw4847285 is a good illustration of it.
|
| With that said, my words aren't an endorsement of Stoicism,
| nor am I against it - I know little about it because I
| don't think it addresses my specific needs.
| svat wrote:
| This is quoted (and addressed) near the beginning of the
| article (paragraphs 3 to 6), for what it's worth.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Well that's what I get for commenting before reading the
| article. A nasty habit.
|
| Well now that I've read that part of the article, I can say
| that it's a pretty lame retort.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Sounds Socratic rather than taking a position
| 6stringmerc wrote:
| As an actual prisoner in solitary confinement, the principles
| of stoic acceptance helped me a lot. Control is a powerful
| myth. It is stunning once it is taken away.
|
| >Stoicism is, as much as anything, a philosophy of gratitude -
| and a gratitude, moreover, rugged enough to endure anything.
| komali2 wrote:
| Yes, exactly what I've been thinking about. I remember a
| conversation I had here a few years back where a few of us were
| sharing how growing up on forums like 4chan had implanted in us
| a deep nihilism and cynicism, and how that was being mistaken
| for stoicism, when really it's just being emotionally stunted.
|
| I've been thinking about this modern idea of stoicism along the
| same lines you've written here. Basically it seems like a lot
| of self help is directed towards this idea of regulating and
| controlling yourself, often by trying to overcome our inherent
| flaws as humans, which I don't necessarily disagree with.
| However, take for example this from the article:
|
| > has given the name 'negative visualisation'. By keeping the
| very worst that can happen in our heads constantly, the Stoics
| tell us, we immunise ourselves from the dangers of too much so-
| called 'positive thinking', a product of the mind that believes
| a realistic accounting of the world can lead only to despair.
| Only by envisioning the bad can we truly appreciate the good;
| gratitude does not arrive when we take things for granted.
|
| This is fighting an uphill battle. Rather than work against our
| own psychology, it seems to me that the better thing to do is
| to leverage our irrationality to great affect, which is what
| positive thinking and self actualization does. "Fake it til you
| make it" genuinely does work.
|
| I'm starting to feel like the better path to take is the one
| that fully acknowledges and embraces all of our sloppiness.
| I've been doing this with my ADHD: rather than trying to
| leverage system upon system to normalize my behavior, I've
| tried giving up on that entirely and instead focusing more on
| directing things like hyperfocus in productive directions. I've
| been trying to put aside this lie I've been telling myself that
| I can be some strong independent man forging his own path, and
| spending lots of time with people, asking people lots of
| questions instead of going home to read on my own. Rather than
| try to master my willpower when it came to weight loss, I
| accepted my weakness and threw away all the snacks in the
| house.
|
| I think stoicism still has its place in attempting to prevent
| e.g. self harming behavior in response to e.g. anger or
| depression (blowing up on someone for example), but I feel
| lately like it's a pointless lie to pretend we can go through
| life without letting other people affect our emotions; or if
| not a lie, then that to try to do so cuts us off from an
| absolutely critical aspect of human existence.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I think stoicism still has its place in attempting to
| prevent e.g. self harming behavior ...
|
| Stoic sources actually state explicitly that Stoic ethics is
| all about preventing "self-harming behavior" arising from our
| emotions. They just have a much more expansive definition of
| what's "self-harming" than modern society does! Raw emotional
| responses are seen as mere facts of nature that cannot be
| meaningfully avoided and repressed, but they can still be
| subjected to reasonable judgment, and then accepted or
| critiqued. The common modern idea that Stoicism is merely
| about emotional repression and a totally "unemotional" stance
| is quite a misconception.
| komali2 wrote:
| > The common modern idea that Stoicism is merely about
| emotional repression and a totally "unemotional" stance is
| quite a misconception.
|
| Honestly, I blame Mr. Spock. Another thought I've been
| chewing on is emotional repression from a certain crowd of
| people who grew up as socially isolated nerds and / or
| autists that identified strongly with what they perceived
| as hyper rational characters like Spock. Sprinkle in high
| technology and the fact that these characters succeed at
| things nerds love and you get hero worship and emulation.
| Then add in all the masculine marketing we get from "stoic"
| characters like the dude from Drive to get another layer to
| the equation.
| parpfish wrote:
| this thread seems to be filled with a lot of folks that have
| read and understood actual stoicism but are unaware of the fact
| that a "pop stoicism" exists out in the world.
|
| this leads to a lot of people talking past each other.
| oooyay wrote:
| I'm not even sure you've nailed "classic" stoicism. More than a
| few stoics have related stoicism to normalizing your reaction
| to something that happens to you as if it happened to someone
| else. It implies maintaining a perspective that the world just
| _does_ and that it 's largely impersonal.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| >these modern social media and influencer versions of Stoicism
| feel like something else entirely
|
| Yes, the pop philosophy folks tend to confuse Stoicism with
| Spartanism, just like they confuse Epicureanism with Hedonism.
| It also helps to have a basic understanding of ancient Aretaic
| (Virtue) Ethics and the context in which some of these works
| were written (e.g., was one work or school of thought developed
| in response to some other one that preceded it).
|
| As always, it's best to read the original works, and in the
| case of the Stoics (Epictetus, Aurelius, Seneca) they're really
| not difficult reads assuming a decent modern translation.
|
| Also stay away from the manosphere influencers who peddle the
| weird self help stuff you allude to, whether under the guise of
| Stoicism or anything else.
| rendaw wrote:
| What's the difference between Epicureanism and Hedonism?
| laserlight wrote:
| Epicureanism is sustainable hedonism.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Sustainable and importantly ethical.
| Isamu wrote:
| People invoke Marcus Aurelius but are not really engaged in the
| classical study of Greek stoicism, they read into it what they
| want to see. It's a lazy justification for what you already
| want. Any "epiphany" that comes from that is self serving,
| cloaked in moralistic terms.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| While stoicism was not invented by Marcus Aurelius the particular
| flavor referred to these days was and let's be absolutely clear
| what it was:
|
| Stoicism was Aurelius ways to justify mass death and conquering
| of an empire while creating a mental patterns that roughly said
| "don't worry too much about."
| iammjm wrote:
| Did you actually ever read something by Aurelius?
| xzjis wrote:
| You really have to already be privileged, and not directly
| affected by these so-called "external causes" the author talks
| about, to be able to take comfort in ignoring them. But is that
| even desirable? Do we actually want to live in a society where
| the privileged ignore other people's problems simply because they
| can? Is it even acceptable to say: "A fascist militia (ICE) kills
| a lesbian woman for no reason other than the fact that she is
| lesbian, but since I'm not the one targeted by ICE, I should
| disconnect from social media, turn off the TV, and ignore this
| injustice"?
|
| Not only can external problems that affect our mental health
| serve as a driving force for action--because it _is_ possible to
| organize and fight against the causes of these injustices--but in
| addition, inaction in the face of what is initially "external"
| inevitably leads to a point where we ourselves become affected by
| those same injustices.
|
| I want to quote a sermon by the German pastor Martin Niemoller,
| who spoke precisely about this:
|
| > First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out-- >
| Because I was not a Communist. > > Then they came for the
| Socialists, and I did not speak out-- > Because I was not a
| Socialist. > > Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did
| not speak out-- > Because I was not a Trade Unionist. > > Then
| they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- > Because I was
| not a Jew. > > Then they came for me--and there was no one left
| to speak for me.
| thejackgoode wrote:
| I used to be a fan, it entirely ruined CBT for me - you can only
| gaslight yourself so well into ignoring emotional compass and I
| think I maxed it out before encountering CBT approach.
| vicek22 wrote:
| I like the moral part of Stoicism a lot, and even though the
| original texts are slightly morbid, the core idea makes perfect
| logical sense. You can't fully control things outside of your
| mind, and when you try to control them, you suffer (e.g. you
| don't want to get sick, but you will, you don't want to get old ,
| but you will)
|
| What I struggled with was applying this "logical understanding"
| to my day-to-day life. In other words, the recommended practice
| of morning and evening meditation was always too early and too
| late, respectively. I needed to have tools to use in the
| difficult moments directly.
|
| I recently discovered Acceptance Commitment Therapy - It's an
| interesting mix of mindfulness and living in accordance with your
| values. If you also struggle to bring the stoic teachings to your
| minute-by-minute life, give the book "ACT made simple" a try.
|
| There are differences.. Stoic teaching would have you analyse the
| thought (impression) and discard it as something out of your
| control. Whilst ACT will have you accept that the thought exists,
| but not identify with it. Stoics give you the values (virtues),
| ACT lets you pick them. But all in all, those two approaches are
| complementary.
| speak_plainly wrote:
| If Socratic philosophy is the greatest threat to state power,
| Stoicism is the framework for mass compliance. It's a
| psychological strategy for emotional management that replaces the
| traditional goals of inquiry. This system encourages individuals
| to obey authority and limit their emotional range to reach a
| state of internal comfort. This objective discourages the act of
| questioning. In this regard, it functions as an anti-philosophy.
|
| The modern interest in Stoicism in my opinion is a move toward a
| secular version of the Christian experience. Modern Stoicism
| retains the Christian emphasis on submission and endurance while
| ignoring the superstitious elements inherent in Stoic physics,
| such as providential fatalism.
|
| If your objective is to maintain a state of functioning
| passivity, Stoicism is the effective solution (but I wouldn't
| recommend it).
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I don't think of stoicism as passive, though - it is just about
| responding rationally rather than irrationally, and one
| important aspect is focus on what can actually be modified,
| controlled or accomplished, not on fantasy. _That_ idea seems
| crucial to modernity, where the main manner of control is to
| dangle outrage after outrage in front of everyone to keep them
| focused on spectacle and NOT focused on what they can actually,
| materially, physically do to change the world.
| mrweasel wrote:
| In some sense I agree, there is a level of defeatism in at
| least part of the wisdom of the stoics and very little
| questioning of authority. You do have the "If it's not right
| don't do it, if it's not true don't say it", and you are
| suppose to act on things if they are within your control.
| There's just no encouragement that you're more capable than you
| think or that you should do anything beyond "The best revenge
| is to be unlike him who performed the injury." That doesn't
| really topple oppressive regimes.
|
| It's a bit of a interesting take, you should act with virtue,
| but there is no encouragement to act against oppression and
| question authority. It seems very much like something to ignore
| and hope there's not a clash.
| alphazard wrote:
| A lot of comments here use this metaphor of emotions as things
| that flow from a source, and need to be expressed or they will
| accumulate and explode. I think this can be traced to pop-
| psychology bullshit, and there isn't any neuroscientific basis
| backing it up. It seems like wishful thinking by people who like
| expressing their emotions to others and want to justify their
| spend on therapists, or their occasional emotional outbursts.
|
| Instead, the evidence points to the brain building habits around
| emotions and their regulation the same way it builds habits
| around everything else. If you practice not feeling emotions or
| becoming identified with them, then that habit will continue and
| they will become easier to not feel. There is not a debt to be
| paid, or a buildup to be released.
|
| This is often framed in different ways, mediators talk about
| "creating distance" and "noticing but not indulging". The
| timeless grug-brain approach is "ignoring", described by
| emotional people as "bottling up". These are different ways to
| frame the same phenomenon, which is that the brain does what it
| has practiced.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| A Stoic would say that negative emotions have root causes in
| the misconceptions you hold about how the world works, and what
| you can and cannot affect about it. If you don't proactively
| address those root causes (which doesn't require "expressing"
| the emotion, but does require _noticing_ and _judging_ it
| without reflexive acceptance) the negativity will in fact
| "keep flowing" and your short-term disregard of it will be less
| and less effective.
|
| It's not a good "habit" to disregard negative emotions without
| also examining them.
| Jblx2 wrote:
| >emotions as things that flow from a source, and need to be
| expressed
|
| Yes, this does seem to be the assumption that many are
| (uncritically?) making. I wonder where this idea comes from.
| Anyone know the provenance of this? Has this concept been
| handed down from antiquity? Or Jung or Freud or ? Or is this
| something relatively modern?
| svat wrote:
| "Ignoring" is not the same as "noticing"; the difference is
| right there in the words!
|
| You are right that it is undesirable to be a slave to one's
| emotions, to keep having emotional outbursts or "expressing"
| all emotions impulsively. But at the other extreme if you try
| to address this by building a habit of dissociation and
| "ignoring" your feelings (as you propose), that is also not
| good, and not how Stoicism or meditation address it. (To use an
| analogy: it would be bad for a parent to be a slave to their
| children, or for a charioteer to be led by their horses instead
| of controlling them. But _ignoring_ them isn 't great either!)
|
| Stoicism addresses this preemptively, building a practice of
| having a proportionate response to things outside our control.
| Meditation also addresses this by, as you said, noticing
| emotions when they arise, recognizing them for what they are
| (creating some distance), and letting them pass instead of
| indulging them. Ignoring your emotions or letting them burst
| out are both different from letting them pass/seeing them
| through.
| ertgbnm wrote:
| Stoicism has always struck me as cognitive behavioural therapy
| (specifically the cognitive triangle) but for boys who think
| therapy is for women and is rife for misuse from people who don't
| understand it.
|
| I understand stoicism is deeply entwined with modern CBT and the
| roots can be traced back basically, but why misuse the ancient
| form when we have decades of evolution and study on CBT?
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| I'm more of a zen and taoism kind of person.
| joduplessis wrote:
| I think a lot of modern day stoicism is stoicism-without-
| hardship. And I think hardship is necessary for stoicism -
| otherwise all you have is determined detachment, which is
| something else entirely.
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| Ton arriere-arriere grand-pere a vecus la grosse misere ton
| arriere grand-pere il ramassait des cennes noires et pis ton
| grand-pere miracle est devenue millionaires ton pere en na
| heriter il a toute mit dans ses reer et pis toe tite jeunesse
| tu doit ton cul au ministaire. pas moyen davoir. un pres dans
| une intitustion banquaire. pour calmer tes envie de huldoper la
| cassiere tu lit des livre qui parle ... de simplicite
| vonlontaire
|
| - I think each generation can have a different reason for
| adopting any philosophy it's about whether it serves you or
| not.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| My absolute favorite (this is irony) form of stoicism in the
| modern era is when a company director paid some multiple of your
| salary sends a daily stoic quote to everyone in the organization
| that amounts to telling people to work longer hours and accept
| more abuse and to shut up about not getting even cost-of-living
| raises because they should be grateful that they're employed at
| all. Should people be grateful for employment?
| Mmmmm....debatable. Should that be the chosen form of interaction
| from a position of imbalanced power? My fucking god, no. Try
| being slightly less of a sociopath.
| SteveJS wrote:
| Ada Palmer has a great blog post on why Stocism is so appealing
| to rich folks. Her writing is always excellent.
|
| https://www.exurbe.com/stoicisms-appeal-to-the-rich-and-powe...
| j45 wrote:
| My favourite part of stoicism is needing to use the example of an
| emperor ruling over people trying to stay grounded as he can
| given the unfortunate circumstances of being the ruler of
| everything as the way forward for every average man to deeply
| relate to.
|
| Stoicism has its definite positives, but balancing the privileged
| emperor is always worth being mindful and expressive of.
| renewiltord wrote:
| "If the rule you followed brought you to this, what use is the
| rule?"
|
| The primary thing many who follow Stoicism do is tell people how
| much Stoicism they're doing.
|
| Every time I see someone espousing Stoicism I never think to
| myself "I would love to be like that guy".
|
| These two things together make it seem like it's just a viral
| meme. The male equivalent of the TikTok insistence that they
| won't date anyone who "doesn't go to therapy".
| anondual wrote:
| I don't know how much the modern take on stoicism diverges from
| its historical origins, but I'm among those who believe that it
| ultimately pumps a delusion: that one can solve mind aches with
| mind hacks. Contemplative mystics (e.g. Zen, Dao) can recognize
| in stoicism some elemental truths --mainly that our emotions tend
| to be driven by the fiction created by thoughts--, but they also
| see it as incomplete at best and at worst, just another misguided
| attempt at trusting the mind as a solution architect to the
| problems that it creates, which often results in other subtler
| problems like bypassing.
|
| Such traditions don't practice control or avoidance of emotions,
| but rather use them as teaching devices through aware observation
| when they manifest in experience (bodily sensations and
| thoughts). Through this "witnessing" there's realization of their
| fundamental nature, along with surrendering and integration of
| shadow elements. On the surface the result may _appear_ the same
| as what stoicism purports to give you, but there 's a radical
| difference. Where stoicism aims for thought-driven control,
| mystics know there's none to be found and instead encourage to
| trust in and to reconnect with our intuitive nature. Allow pain,
| feel it fully, let it go, and return in the flow.
|
| If you're not into mysticism, but are interested in this kind of
| work for the practical purpose of navigating your experience of
| life with less suffering, here's a secular curriculum: start with
| some embodiment practice (contemplation in bodily sensations,
| yoga nidra, body scan meditations, soft butter meditations, Tai
| Chi, Qigong, any physical activity done with heightened awareness
| of the body), find a good teacher or therapist to guide you into
| Shadow Work, supplement with regular Trauma and Tension Release
| Exercises (TRE), sprinkle some Loving Kindness meditations to
| take things to another level. Do this and you won't just look the
| part, you'll _feel_ it to your core.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Where stoicism aims for thought-driven control, mystics know
| there's none to be found and instead encourage to trust in and
| to reconnect with our intuitive nature. Allow pain, feel it
| fully, let it go, and return in the flow.
|
| The idea that thought is also ultimately driven by intuitions
| is one that stoics would've been quite familiar with. Part of
| the problem here is a definitional matter: should we restrict
| our view solely to the negative emotions, or admit that a
| positive "spirit" also exists in us that's ultimately just as
| intuitive and emotional? There isn't one single answer AIUI;
| both views are useful for different purposes, but it's true
| that a more "mystical" point of view could lead us to the
| latter. Some of the Stoics do talk about notions like "the good
| and bad _daimon_ (or _genius_ )" in ways that might somehow
| hint at the same reality, even though these intuitions are
| quite hard to understand in a modern context.
| Isamu wrote:
| Anger is an energy
| joshuakoehler wrote:
| > Stockdale rejected the false optimism proffered by
| Christianity, because he knew, from direct observation, that
| false hope is how you went insane in that prison.
|
| With all due respect to Stockdale, I wonder what definition of
| "Christianity" he had in mind. Historic, biblical Christianity
| doesn't make delusive promises to palliate suffering by implying
| that it will be brief or underwhelming. Just read the depths that
| David was brought to in the Psalms, or Job's experience, or the
| Apostle Paul's. Look at the thousands upon thousands of steeled
| and joyful Christian martyrs under the persecution by the Roman
| empire.
|
| Rather the Scriptures again and again plainly tell us to expect
| suffering - but the remedy goes far deeper than a mere Stoical
| submission to an impersonal logos in nature. Suffering, contrary
| to the Stoics, is not natural - to pretend that it is goes
| against our deepest sensibilities and experience. Rather the
| Scriptures explain the reason for suffering - it is due to living
| in a world that is experiencing the consequences of rebellion
| against its Creator. It should hurt, and denying this places us
| in an inevitable contradiction.
|
| The Stoics may argue this isn't much different than their own
| philosophy - both recognize it's a reality one way or another
| after all. However, Christianity goes on and ascends far higher,
| both subjectively and objectively. Both speak of the Logos, but
| the Logos of Christianity is far more than a distant, abstract
| principle. He is the one who cannot suffer, but who entered into
| this world of suffering through the Incarnation to redeem men by
| suffering more than any of them ever will.
|
| Thus Christianity presents a realist's view of suffering - it is
| common, deep, often bewildering. But Christians _are_ to submit
| to it as for their ultimate good. Like the Stoic, the Christian
| accepts it as a refiners fire:
|
| > My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers
| temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh
| patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be
| perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
|
| But unlike the Stoic, the Christian sees the source of it is far
| more personal, and will bring him to a far greater victory and
| joy than the best of the Stoics every could achieve.
|
| > For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
| worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in
| us. ... And we know that all things work together for good to
| them that love God, to them who are the called according to his
| purpose. ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
| through him that loved us.
|
| I can understand the draw to Stoicism felt by many today, and
| respect the movement in many ways, but I think the neo-Stoics
| overlook a greater philosophy, one which eventually drew in vast
| numbers of Stoics seeking a better way.
| electrosphere wrote:
| I recently spent time on Stoicism Week 2025:
| https://modernstoicism.com/stoic-week-2025-live-like-a-stoic...
|
| This years theme was on well-being, I found it useful.
| wagwang wrote:
| Stoics always think they are above caring about stupid shit, but
| that's the fun of life. The last sentence of Nietzsche's quote is
| completely right.
| Jblx2 wrote:
| Here is the HN discussion on this article from back in 2016:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12994262
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