> It's always been less of a philosophy and more of a ruling class handbook on how to conduct oneself.
Why is that not valid still? No model or strategy works for everyone. A philosophy aimed at people at the top still has value unless you prove otherwise. It being in a niche does not disqualify it automatically.
The ridiculous part in the articles you describe is the targeting, not the ideas. It's the age old fallacy - train as Arnold did for the Olympia and you are going to get as big as him, when in fact he got big first, then adopted the training style and if you would copy that you would only get injured. In the same way a philosophy for top leaders could be very bad for the bottom socioeconomic class.
The criticism is very much addressing ideas. Nietzsche's criticism of stoicism as a life-denying philosophy is also a criticism of what he perceived to be a particular leadership culture in a, in his perspective, declining Europe.
Passiveness, denying emotions and lived experience and with that also beauty and heroism and embracing risk and instead opting for rationalizing and theorizing and detachment is, he argues, bad not just for ordinary people but for the entire culture.
And I think that's very relevant today when it comes to leaders. We don't really have leaders as such but rather science, public intellectuals, bureaucrats, processes and so forth. When was the last time there was a modern leadership that had a sense for beauty or aesthetics?
That was a little bait and switch (antiquity vs late modern periods) as again, I think any model of thought is to be taken in context. But I understand what you are saying and personally I also think we have fallen victim to extreme rationalism.
Why is that not valid still? No model or strategy works for everyone. A philosophy aimed at people at the top still has value unless you prove otherwise. It being in a niche does not disqualify it automatically.
The ridiculous part in the articles you describe is the targeting, not the ideas. It's the age old fallacy - train as Arnold did for the Olympia and you are going to get as big as him, when in fact he got big first, then adopted the training style and if you would copy that you would only get injured. In the same way a philosophy for top leaders could be very bad for the bottom socioeconomic class.