It's definitely the case these days that Stoicism is being adopted in a consumer self-help context, and shorthanded to "masculine virtue", i.e. tough guys and winners are Stoics. And this favors putting Meditations on your shelf for show and ignoring the other Stoic writers, so as to center Stoicism as a "philosophy of kings." The last time I visited a Barnes and Noble, they had six different printings of Meditations, and one of Enchiridion.
But that's not really a bad thing. The point isn't to read all the writers and think "now I am a Stoic". To actually apply virtue ethics you always have to do some meditations of your own and construct a right way of acting for the time and place. Simply saying to others "I followed the book" like it's a homework assignment doesn't cause that kind of change, and that's going to be the majority of people anywhere, anytime in history.
In this post and the comic it links to there is an awful lot of beating around the bush about who precisely the people are that are grifting stoicism in the variety of ways presented. Why not name names? Does anyone know who they are talking about?
I looked up the "bomber pilot in Vietnam who kept a copy of Epictetus in the plane" and it appears to be James Stockdale who was apparently a prisoner of war on Vietnam for many years -- which actually does sound like a situation Stoic philosophy would be useful in. Very different than the strawman presented in the comic: "I always carry a copy of Epictetus's work while I'm bombing villages, so I can use his wisdom to make their screams not affect me".
This is kind of addressed in the article. The specific difference between using stoic techniques/mindsets to do something, versus actually adhering to stoic philosophy.
I think the "strawman" hits the nail on the head in that regard.
The article discusses the capture/torture/etc in some significant detail. Search for "unjust war".
He is named in the text, and the reason as to why he is justly criticized (he witnessed the USA's false flag operation that started the Vietnam War, yet kept silent and participated in the hostilities) is also spelled out.
“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control." -- Epictetus
In 2023, I think we can achieve a level of control that's incomprehensible to Epictetus. The goal is to maximize equanimity, freedom, and control over one's time/destiny. Money can get you quite far on that path. I sometimes feel that Massimo's just bitter at the success of people like Ryan Holiday (who just took Massimo's work and "packaged" it).
Everything that matters, including how much money you have, but more importantly when you and the people you love become sick or die accidentally is governed by chance.
If you think money gets you a pass, maybe recheck your understanding of the issues and the stoic solution. The shallow packaged version produced by Ryan Holiday isn’t a good source
I expected to read that and find Holiday to be some kind of terrible human but I came out of it with an appreciation of what he was doing, despite the author’s clear intent to paint him in a bad light.
The “bad stoicism “ examples are indeed “bad”. They are in fact completely antithetical to the stoic ethos.
The “bad” in actual stoicism lies in a common misinterpretation of classical stoic works as a result of missing context.
The context is that Epictetus et al wrote those works in a time when people were normally ruled by “passions” and did not live under the same expectation of self control and rational action that is expected (rightly or not) of the average person in the modern day.
This contextual disparity leads some people to think that stoicism means to completely abandon emotion and emotional self care. This is not only untrue, it can be deeply harmful.
Classical stoic works need to be read within the passionate context within which they were written to be properly understood.
This too shall pass. It’s the latest diet. Won’t work with everyone and critical thinking is still king. You shouldn’t believe everything you read/see/hear, even this very comment.
I’d argue stoicism is seeing a resurgence at least in the English speaking world that I’m familiar with due to rather grimdark economic conditions. So I expect stoicism still has quite a bit of steam.
Well the author of TFA has written some good ones, including his book "Think Like a Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Today's World". You can also find some stuff on his website[1]
But that's not really a bad thing. The point isn't to read all the writers and think "now I am a Stoic". To actually apply virtue ethics you always have to do some meditations of your own and construct a right way of acting for the time and place. Simply saying to others "I followed the book" like it's a homework assignment doesn't cause that kind of change, and that's going to be the majority of people anywhere, anytime in history.