Virtues, Passions, and Self-Help Gurus

A Critique of 'Stoicism'

A much needed disclaimer: this was written before I studied Stoicism (that is, not the modern, watered down kind) in a more academic and rigorous way. While much of my critique remains the same, it is important to note that there are more than some caricaturizations of the ethical aspects of Classic and Roman Stoicism.

---

Of all the evils that run freely throughout our world today, it seems strange to concentrate on the recent spike in interest towards Stoicism. Or, towards ‘Stoicism’: the watered-down, self-help-esque version of Stoicism.

On the surface, it may be seen as a harmless push towards some ancient philosophical current. Some may even see it as something beneficial: a logical and even virtuous response to anguish and anxiety-ridden state of the world. It could be seen, for instance, as a reaction to what Byung-Chul Han would call the ‘Burnout Society’¹: one dominated by excessive optimism and competitiveness, which is to be viscerally opposed or else will throw itself into a state of never-ending stress and depression. Or, in the eyes of people that are optimistic—if not naive—a natural reaction to this world of hedonistic—read: near-epicurean—materialism towards a world-view and a way of life that is, at least on print, far more noble. Perhaps, even virtuous.

Photo by Giammarco Boscaro on Unsplash

While all these reads of the matter at hand could very well be true, I still doubt the nobility of this rather sudden rise in popularity of a philosophical current that proposes the reduction of emotional reactions in a cultural environment where emotional overreactions are the the bread and butter of everyday discourse, particularly online². In a way, it is interesting—if not incredibly funny—that a variation of Stoicism arises in a cultural climate that feels like a variation of Epicureanism. Two old rivals; together once more.

The Proponents of ‘Stoicism’

Perhaps I am too much of a cynic and, thus, my read of this phenomenon entirely wrong. Perhaps this truly is an honest 180-degree turn of societal currents, with fed-up folk leading the way. But I am far too skeptical of the self-improvement apparatus beneath this whole mess because, despite perfectly knowing the utterly idiocy that rules it [the self-improvement cult group], I’ve fallen prey to it more than a couple times³. So, this is my very first critique of the rise in popularity of ‘Stoicism’: the source is, and has always been, stinky, self-centered internet celebrities in search of, first and foremost, profit⁴. This is, of course, incredibly fallacious (and thus should be take with a pinch of salt) but I cannot suddenly ignore that the people promoting this could very well have hidden, selfish, agendas. I cannot ignore that niche celebrities are selling courses on Stoicism (read: what they have degraded it to) and quickly writing rather shallow, often overpriced, books on the matter. To do so would be to lie to myself and to you, dear reader.

A Sketch of ‘Stoicism’

To seriously proceed any further I must attempt—even if terribly—to define what I’m trying to fight against. I wish not, after all, to discover windmills are my true rivals, and not giants.

‘Stoicism’ vs Stoicism

First of all, ‘Stoicism’ is not true Stoicism. It is heavily inspired by it of course, but it is nowhere near the same. Holiday and Hanselman’s The Daily Stoic is not Epictetus’ Enchiridion⁵. How to Think Like a Roman Emperor is not Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. How does it differ? In short, it is not as radical. This is a good thing.

This type of encounter would never occur between a Stoic and a ‘Stoic’.

Another difference lies on the current iteration of Stoicism relies a lot less on the old, cosmological foundations of the iterations that came before it. The modern ‘Stoic’ would probably not fully agree with the idea that everything that happens is good and necessary (for it is part of the single, lawful order and design of the universe) except for human vices and idiocy, while the old, traditional Stoic would.

Furthermore, the average modern ‘Stoic’ would probably instinctively cringe if he met the old one and the latter told him that there are no such things as physical evils but only moral ones. The former would not be so quick as to not qualify things as, say, diseases as physical evils, even if he agreed a weak, irrational reaction to them was a greater evil; a fundamentally one.

Again, ‘Stoicism’ not being equal to traditional Stoicism may be beneficial. At the very least ‘Stoicism’, even if terrible on its own right, is nowhere as cold nor inhuman nor immoral⁶ as its fore-bearer.

With these differences established (even if more do exist) we can proceed.

The Stoic Creed

Given its popularity (old and new) there are plenty of summaries of what Stoicism (again, both old and new) entail. Many of them will be far better than what I will try to provide ahead⁷.

The most common known parts of Stoicism are nicely packaged in a little phrase found in Act II, Scene II of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Here it goes:

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. — Hamlet

For a more formal—if something can be more formal than Shakespeare—iteration of the main idea conceptualized in this phrase are also found in the texts of Stoics. For instance, in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (emphasis my own):

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgement about it. And it is in your power to abolish this judgment now. — Marcus Aurelius'

From other of the old Stoics, we can pull several quotes:

There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. — Epictetus (in Chapter 1 of the Enchiridion)

It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable. — Seneca

Death is nothing terrible, […] the terror consists in our notion of death. — Epictetus (in Chapter 5 of the Enchiridion)

If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person. — Seneca

For modern representatives of Stoicism there is also, at least, one very didactic quotes:

What we desire makes us vulnerable. — Ryan Holiday (author of The Daily Stoic)

We can gather a couple from the brief analysis of some of these quotes (and the texts containing them)

1. There are three virtues or concepts Stoics would consider necessary:

   1. resignation, to accept what cannot be changed

   2. courage, to change what can be changed

   3. wisdom, to know the difference

2. The result of living—after all, Stoicism, particularly the modern kind, is a particularly practical philosophy—with these concepts in mind is inner freedom. As William Ernest Henley would put it in his Victorian stoic-esque poem Invictus:

   I am the master of my fate
   I am the captain of my soul.

3. Physical pain doesn’t exist to Stoics (at least, not in the same manner that it exists for the rest of us). For them, the reaction to the thing that happens to you—particularly if it is something painful or difficult, say getting cancer or being a slave (like Epictetus)—is far more important than the thing itself.

4. Feelings and Passions must be subdued to Reason. To maximize Freedom, one must minimize Feelings and Passions.

5. Happiness is not derived from external things, but internal ones.

One could continue with this list and add—at the very least—twenty points to it but I have neither the time nor the energy to pursue such an endeavor. Besides, I do feel this is enough to pick apart.

The Problems of Stoicism

Unto the main course. It is worth saying that a lot of this critique ends up attacking not only the modern variant of Stoicism, but older ones as well. At the end, even if the current approach is superficial the well from where it draws its ideas also has severe problems that ought not be ignored.

Without further ado:

Two Sides of the Same Coin

The problem of ‘Stoicism’, overall, is two-fold: it suffers from the same problem of its older form by reducing life to a mere portion of the human experience (traditional Stoics reduced it to biological functions, sometimes even finding no difference between man and animals⁸) and it suffers from the other side of its parentage, the modern self-help movement, by caring way too much about self-improvement, self-righteousness, and productivity.

Funnily enough, I believe these two parts (the old self-righteous degradation of Man and the modern productivity-focused degradation of Man) are but two faces of the same coin: the idea that life, in the end, is worthless. Seneca praises the advice of killing himself Stoic gives to Tullius Marcellinnus (to the point in which, seeing that he is not physically strong enough to do it, he convinces his slaves to kill him); Modernity praises the efforts to push euthanasia, medically assisted death (the euphemism for ‘murder’ now used in Canada), assisted suicide, and so on…

A Nihilist Façade

Stoics, both traditional and modern, looked out into the world and decided that the best way to face the problems out there (of which there are many) is to hide in their shells and convince themselves that since they can’t change those things, they should simply change the way they feel those things. They don’t care about trying, because in their Stoic worldview there is no reason to try: fate is already written, and it is foolish to go against it.

Of course, most that claim to be Stoics nowadays do not fall here: it is—Deo gratias—too watered-down. It has become almost a buzzword. But these problems still underlie this philosophy. It is probably one of the reasons why, in this world that has decided to fight a War Against Meaning, Stoicism is making a comeback: even if noble in the surface (because there are, of course, many noble, practical things in Stoicism) Stoics are just that: fatalists; nihilists.

Passions Make Us Human

Stoics don’t have hope—because all is decided already and they cannot change it—and are not fond of passions; and what is Man without passions? Without emotions? Of course, the disordered use of the passions (a.k.a. sin) leads to the betrayal of ourselves, death (which the Stoics don’t care about), and the severance of the bond between Man and God, but does the ordered use of them not lead to greatness? To the goodness Stoics so severely claim to be concerned about? And what is Man without this search?

Am I wrong to be skeptic of a philosophy that tells me I should not at least try to fight the darkness? What is Man without struggle? What is Man without love and compassion? Without sadness and tears? A beast; nothing more. I am an idiot, a sinner, a very weak man, but a beast? That I will never allow myself to be. I shall fight.

Righteousness vs. Self-Righteousness

The Stoics believe being virtuous leads to happiness, so if one wishes to be happy he must seek to grow in virtue. In this I find no issue. However, their idea of virtue seems to be a sad image of what virtue truly is.

They seem to think what is virtuous is to say ‘it is what it is’ and stay put if something can’t be changed—which one can never now for sure, for most human cases. Is taking a stand against something unfair—even if virtually unchangeable—not righteous? Do we not deem the man who stands before certain death and faces it—even when it terrifies him—courageous?

Resignation before a ‘sure’—again, one must be humble enough to accept he never truly knows this—defeat is not necessarily virtuous. If it were, then we all ought to kill ourselves now because death is unavoidable. The most cynical of Stoics (Seneca, for instance) would be fine with this, of course. But the rest of us don’t need pretend we don’t see how moronic that approach is; we know, deep down, it is cowardliness.

Noble But Flawed

All things, good or bad, must come to an end. This is the case for this critique. There is much more that could be said and many additional details we could analyze. There is, also, a lot that could be improved from my critique. Yet, I am satisfied with it. At least for now.

It is not unrealistic to sense something noble about Stoicism (whether old or new) when we are first faced by it. Compared to its eternal enemy, Hedonism (Epicureanism back in the day), it is a more mature philosophy of life: it seems wiser, deeper. Yet, there is something fundamentally inhuman about it. Dr. Peter Kreeft puts it in a very entertaining way:

One might see cats as Stoics and dogs as Epicureans. Cats are clean and beautiful and noble, but aloof, even snobbish. They don’t chew your shoes, but they don’t wag their tail wildly at you when you come home either. Dogs are dirty and messy, but they greet you with amazing love and pleasure. — Dr. Peter Kreeft⁹

The choice between the snobs and the slobs, Stoics and Epicureans, seems to be ever-present today. One side is too cold; too inhuman. The other, seemingly warmer and more humane, is, too, inhuman in the end: letting your passions run wild, your emotions taking full control of you, and so on is an insult to your humanity… throwing them away, deeming them fundamentally against virtue, and so on is, too, an insult to Man.

The Christian Way

Christians should be neither Stoic nor Epicurean. We are called to be people of hope, and that means having illusions; passions. We could dive into Aquinas and Scouts and more, but I wish not to go for much longer. Thus, to the Epicureans and the Hedonists I offer as an example the Passion of the Lord, for the greatest joys of Mankind were forged with pain, not pleasure, and the Stoics could learn from it too.

Additionally, I offer to the Stoics the, supposedly, shortest verse of all of the Bible, telling us of the time when Christ goes see Mary of Bethany and Martha after their brother, Lazarus, has died:

And Jesus wept.¹⁰

I have said all I can say and I wish to end this post with a quote from the great G.K. Chesterton. From Orthodoxy (emphasis my own):

And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.

1. A concept he explains in his aptly named book, The Burnout Society.

2. Of course, online discourse is—in the grand scheme of things—utterly unimportant. However, it has served as the primary method of transmission of this post-modern variation of Stoicism. Thus, it mustn’t be ignored. At least, not for the purposes of debating ‘Stoicism’.

3. I suspect the average young adult male has done so at some point.

4. This, of course, is a generalization. I personally know a couple of folks that approximate this type without the sole purpose of their public lives being profit.

5. Not truly Epictetus’, of course, for he wrote nothing of his own (like Socrates). Compiled by his disciple Arrian.

6. The story of the suicide/murder of Tullius Marcellinnus, told to us and praised by Seneca, for instance. Regarding this, there is a good video by Empire of the Mind.

7. For instance, the very accessible rundown of stoic philosophers done by Dr. Peter Kreeft in the latter part of the first volume of Socrates’ Children.

8. For an example see, again, the story of Tullius Marcellinus.

9. In the first volume of Socrates’ Children.

10. John 11:35. Pulled from the Douay-Rheims.