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

I think the Cromwellian dictum "Trust in God but keep your powder dry" is the intelligent Christian's attitude to this...

> Surely you in your life you have met many Christians who said "God works in mysterious ways", "there is a purpose for everything", "trust in the Lord", etc.?

Yes, but this is something people say in times of grief, for the comfort of the grieving -- it's not a consistent moral philosophy that they hold to in other parts of their life, nor is it meant to be. There are better answers than this, but they are oftentimes much harder to process, and much more likely to accidentally pain the one who is grieving.

> It's arguably a necessary tenet for Christianity to hold together as a coherent belief system.

No, it's not. You're correct in that "you need some way to explain why bad things still happen", but we've come a long, long way from "stuff just happens". For example, the Catholic view is that suffering is A) not committed by, but permitted by, God; B) necessary for salvation and free will to coexist. In this view, evil is in essence a deviation from the will of God -- but free will must, in this conception, at the very least include the free will to choose to follow or choose to oppose God's own will. To quote St. Aquinas, paraphrasing St. Augustine: "Since God is the supremely highest good, he would not allow evil to exist in his creation unless he were so all powerful that he could even make good out of evil". More broadly, suffering is seen as having not only a redemptive but an edifying nature that can ultimately bring us closer to God.

I understand that this might sound repulsive on first glance, but frankly I do not think there is an answer to "why is there evil?" which would not be at initial examination -- certainly, it's no worse than the idea that we are simply here to suffer by random caprice, and that that suffering is itself meaningless, nothing but a failure on your own (meaningless) value function. Yes, one might hope that things 'could have been a different way' -- but what would a world without any grief, any suffering even be like? This is the point of the whole pleasure-machine/experience-machine thought experiment: many people would very much rather live in this world, with all its suffering, than one totally blank, devoid of depth and complexity. One might even go as far as to assert that no 'good' God could permit such terrible depths of suffering -- congenital illness, rape, torture, child slavery, so on and so forth. But so many times, in exploring theories of computational complexity or abstract mathematics or informatics, we see that what might have seemed to be simple assumptions can have enormous, essential effects: deciding whether all programs written for a FSM with one stack is simple, but for one with two stacks the problem becomes impossible. Perhaps it is impossible to have a world "with matter, with living things made from matter, with free will for those living beings, but without the ability of one living thing to enslave another". We cannot know -- but if there is a truly transcendent, omniscient God, then He certainly would.

For a more modern (more philosophically-flavored) take, I'd suggest reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: he explores the binding of Isaac with the idea being to address this very question. In particular, he strongly disagrees with Kant's idea that God would simply choose to follow the categorical imperative, and emphasizes instead the transcendence of God and divine morality. But as an existentialist I think his writing is much closer to how we as members of the modern world can feel than philosophers/theologians who came before him.

This is one of three major answers to the problem of Theodicy (justifying God in the face of evil) in Christian theology. They are:

1. Pedagogical (the one you mentioned) - Evil exists so that we may grow and learn. All evil will be used to create even greater good. Quintessential example would be the story of Job in the Old Testament.

2. Eschatological — Evil is a by-product of having any creation in time whatsoever, and will be fully restored at the end of all things. Another way of thinking of this one is that evil is "non-being", the absence of the good. A lack, a privation. Espoused by Augustine (and before him, Neoplatonism in general), and Aquinas.

3. Freedom-oriented — Evil (even natural evil) is a broken state of affairs caused by the freedom of people, who use that freedom against God. God nonetheless allows this because he allows us the dignity to choose. The official teaching of the Catholic Church. The straightforward reading of Genesis 2.

None of these say that "This <bad thing> is not bad" - Christianity acknowledges the existence of evil "as evil". However, with God's grace, evil may be healed or made to serve higher purposes.

Them be some deep theological waters you're wading into.

It's not a tenet, because it's not presented as a teaching that "bad things are good things".

However, we often label things as "good" and "bad," which are overly simplistic for many things in life. A child dying is unequivocally a bad thing. But if your faith deepens through the course of grieving, then a good thing happens from that bad thing. It doesn't nullify the bad thing. It doesn't magically transform it into a good thing. But your faith being made stronger is a good thing, while your child dying is a bad thing.

My understanding is this is the Biblical principle of redemption. Not to be confused with salvation. It's used to refer to God's ability to make good happen from a bad thing, or to "redeem" a bad thing. In this way, redemption can also refer to salvation because man is inherently bad, but through Jesus's death on the cross, man can be redeemed. Once again, bad things happen, but good things can come from them.

Again, it's important to note that the Bible does not teach BAD == GOOD. It teaches that bad things can be redeemed for good outcomes.

I am not a theologian, but that's my understanding of it.

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

So what is your answer for Epicurean paradox?

The author's claims are not generally true of Calvinism, either.

> prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice

I adopt rather the opposite virutes. Imprudence, risk, throwing-your-self-at-a-wall-until-you-cant, intemperance (conflict, debate, disagreement, competition) and pragmatism (address what is rather than what should be).

Behind each of the stoic virutues is a psychological position to dettach, dissociate and live in a more abstracted conceptual space. This can be theraputic if you are in grief, etc.

Outside of that, personally I think: attach too much, risk more than you ought, and participate in the world ("dirty your hands") by making the best of it, rather than anything more abstract.

Professors of stocism like to make a virute of dying quiety -- this i think absurd. If the plane is falling from the sky, i envy the people screaming -- they have the right levels of attachemnt to their own lives.

I think a gap between wikipedia and a polemic by somebody clearly fired up about a topic is not just reasonable, but productive. Wikipedia, by nature, gives the sense that all philosophical viewpoints are equally dispassionate and it minimizes the degree to which reasonable people can substantially disagree about the rightness or wrongness of various worldviews. That usually gets dumped in the Controversy section. This is fine for an encyclopedia, but not for a debate.

Of course, I also think that OP is being polemical and that means they're not interested in being charitable. I think their criticisms are interesting, but the original post linked here does a far better job at balancing a charitable read of stoicism with a critique of why it is appealing to the rich and powerful.

Roman Stoicism, of the sort practiced by Marcus Aurelius or Seneca, is vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy and tendentious sanctimony; Seneca’s insistence that virtue is detached from worldly goods is somewhat undermined by his corrupt exploitation of his station, for example. Stoicism qua stoicism was, like all Roman intellectual pursuits, originally Greek, and was based on an entire metaphysics of free-will determinism that the Romans pretty much ignored in favor of being able to pretend that they were upholding the supposed virtues of an imagined past (a favored pastime, see Tacitus and Cicero), even as they let their society slide ever further into corruption and tyranny. To be honest, Stoicism tells us a lot about the psychological and social character of the Romans, but didn’t really come into its own as an influential philosophy until its early modern rediscovery and the development of neo-Stoicist thought.

Philosophies are frameworks that help us make sense of the world. We can adopt them in ways that are maladjusted.

People with power often adopt stoic thinking as the nature of power comes with stresses that are difficult to manage. I’ve wielded power at a scale that was nothing like a president or ceo, but way beyond what the typical person experiences. It’s hard, and whatever you do, someone has a bad outcome in many cases.

Most people would characterize Marcus Aurelius or George Washington as wise rulers. They embraced stoicism. Yet Mussolini and Robespierre also identified as stoic-ish as well, and most people would objectively look at them with a harsher light.

> prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice

So Aristotle then:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues

> Stoicism was a philosophy that spanned slave to emperor in Rome.

As is addressed in the article.

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

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

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

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

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

> # 10.1 To my soul:

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

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

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

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

----

Consider, just a little ways down:

> # 10.13 When you wake up, ask yourself:

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

It makes no difference.

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

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

------

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

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

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

After it is written out it appears to be an inherent truth.

Seems to be a practitioner of stoism, to shift ones inner outlook, non obvious takes are strong.

Say what you will about Julius Caesar, at least he fought in the trenches. Many times were the battle was the toughest.

My reptile brain can appreciate that, at least!

From what I understand, the Roman Senate accused Julius Caesar of war crimes or the contemporary equivalent for his Gallic wars.

> the regular and casual war crimes and mass murders

It's phenomenal to read about these revered historical figures! They turn out be privileged thugs. We should be extremely reluctant to extol their virtues.

I'm glad they wrote several more comments. The first comment was intriguing, but the more the wrote the more wild it got. Especially the part about being connected to life like a person in a fall airplane.

I think they've mixed up Stoicism with some other philosophy entirely. They think Stoicism means feeling nothing, doing nothing. Almost like the Hindu concept of sanyasi.

I think it's just one of the few therapeutic skills that are generally offered to men and that genuinely considers the problems that men face.

The problems and issues that men face are largely ignored or downplayed compared with women and there's little offered to men in dealing with it. The traditional outlets like men-only clubs and spaces have been torn down in the name of equality. In that environment, literally anything at all that attempts to address the problems men face will become popular among men.

If you read Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, he takes rather dim view of Marcus Aurelius, and specifically doubts the seriousness of his writings and ideas, considering them somewhat dubious.

Great quote; I'll reuse this.

I saw a post a while ago from a guy who had read the 48 laws of power and tried to mirror the girl he liked but ended up making her think he was gay instead. Same energy.

lmao — reddit is undefeated

for opponents of stoicism “cuck philosophy” might be the goat of slogans

or an insane testament to the monk-like philosophy

I always saw Stoicism as “things around you are going to be really screwed up and panicking about it will make it worse”

The first part of that sentence is opposite to what the author here suggests.

All those things are somewhat socially determined. Even height has gone up in the last century. Personally I think I'm tall for somebody my age but I see a lot of young men who are a lot taller than me.

To look at that last one, in the solar economy up until 1920 or so, the peak of beauty socially [1] was the debutante from a rich or noble family. As soon as there were cities there were entertainers and courtesans, but in the mass media age the likes of Marie Antoinette just can't compete with professionals.

Standards of athleticism also involve an element of conformity. "Extreme sports" are frequently pioneered by older athletes who have no chance of making the NFL draft but get taken over by the young once a path is visible. (Early winners of the World Series of Poker were outright old, but it became a young man's game when it became mainstream in the 2000s.)

Some societies have a use for people with high intelligence, others don't.

[1] I'm sure there were beautiful peasants to my eye in Heian Japan but the text that survive from that period describe a very specific ideal including perfectly straight and rather coarse black hair that's about as rigid as the look of the kind of woman who, creepily, Instagram wants me to follow today.

Because you're a social animal in a social world, whose social action creates and modifies that world.

Since you are a body, in an environment, with a psychology -- your actions have an effect upon the world.

The invitation to dissociate and mute your social emotions is an invitation to keep everything as-it-is.

Guilty may be the wrong word but you should be aware that you got lucky. Like a lot of "self-made" men who got lucky and then tell others that they could achieve the same if only they worked as hard.

I hate articles "I did X and so can you". No, people often can't do what you did.

height isn't fungible

even if acquiring wealth is random, retaining wealth means choosing not to see and positively act on the state of the world

The problem is that the things you identified as being based on luck have cascading second-order effects. For example, people that are perceived as handsome have better chances in wage negotiations, and the same goes for people with a lighter skin tone. The most strongly connected trait to being financially successful: being born in a rich and educated family.

These things are outside your control, but entirely in control of a society.

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

> Why should one feel guilt about being prosperous in an unequal society?

I can understand the idea of feeling guilty about wasted potential (wealth, time, strength, beauty, intelligence). That which could be used to help those who need help, not exactly novel: “If you have two coats, give one away”

You shouldn't. First, I reject the framing that one's success today is due to privilege. But even if that were true (and it isn't), so what? What previous generations did has nothing whatsoever to do with me, morally speaking. I'm responsible for my own actions alone; this collective guilt line of thinking some people follow is nonsense.