{"id":3438,"date":"2021-06-21T15:38:08","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T15:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=3438"},"modified":"2021-06-21T15:39:12","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T15:39:12","slug":"the-new-stoicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/21\/the-new-stoicism\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Stoicism"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The New Stoicism<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The ancient philosophy of Stoicism is currently experiencing a revival\u2014but it\u2019s modern practitioners may find it falls short of a true solution for life\u2019s most pressing problems.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Leah Libresco Sargeant<\/em><\/p>

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No matter how much planning my teacher did for our fourth-grade field trip to the Circle Line Ferry, my personal commitment to Stoicism must have come as a surprise.<\/p>

We students had all packed lunches, which went in three big coolers, which were loaded onto our buses and were supposed <\/em>to have come onto the ferry. Only two of the coolers were actually transferred, and the teachers were breaking the bad news to the children with no lunches, trying to forestall meltdowns.<\/p>

\u201cAll right, then,\u201d I said. \u201cI just won\u2019t be hungry.\u201d My teacher seemed confused, so I explained, in my little, piping voice, \u201cThere\u2019s no point in being hungry if I don\u2019t have any food. I can\u2019t control whether there\u2019s lunch, I can only control if I\u2019m upset about it. So I won\u2019t be.\u201d<\/p>

I had picked up the outlines of Stoicism from my child\u2019s encyclopedia of philosophy, and I stayed committed to it through college. When we read Epictetus\u2019s Handbook<\/em> in my Directed Studies course, the professor opened discussion with \u201cSo, Stoicism, would you do it?\u201d and I leapt in, saying I didn\u2019t see any possible argument for not<\/em> being a stoic. My classmates were less<\/em> flummoxed than my elementary school teacher had been, but none of them seemed to feel the intrinsic correctness <\/em>of Stoicism the way I did.<\/p>

I loved Stoicism for two reasons, one petty and one profound. I liked that Stoicism seemed to make me stronger (and, thus, to my thinking then, better<\/em>) than other people. While the other kids were upset, I was able to endure<\/em>, and be unmastered by misfortune. (Stoicism was a pretty good way to get through the social cruelties of middle and high schools). But the other reason I liked Stoicism was because it was true<\/em>. Hunger was basically a warning light, prompting me to eat. But, once the message had been received, there was no reason to leave the klaxon blaring when I couldn\u2019t do anything about it. Leaning into hunger wasn\u2019t just a recipe for frustration, it felt like buying into an untruth.<\/p>

No matter how much I wanted<\/em> it, I couldn\u2019t summon food on the boat. Wallowing in my feelings seemed to imply that they were really hooked up to the causal nature of the world.\u00a0 But being upset about my inability to resolve such situations was as silly as feeling upset because I couldn\u2019t walk through walls. Stoicism was a way of realigning my model of the world and my agency within it with the world as it truly is.<\/p>

By the time Stoicism went mainstream, I was no longer identifying myself as a Stoic, and I\u2019d converted from atheism to Catholicism. But if I had left Stoicism, many others had joined in my place. Two years after my baptism, 2014 marked the first Stoic Week, with coordinated events in four cities to bring modern Stoics together. Stoicon, a one day conference\/festival of stoicism, began in 2013, and this year\u2019s gathering will include more than a dozen talks, many by authors of books that aim to translate the handbooks of Epictetus and others for the modern reader.<\/p>

What makes stoicism so attractive now? There\u2019s a hint in the theme of 2017\u2019s Stoicon: \u201cStoicism at Work.\u201d Stoicism has picked up steam as it\u2019s been packaged as a life-hack. Before you drink your Bulletproof Coffee and start your Four-Hour Work Week, why not arm yourself for the day with some Meditations from Marcus Aurelius?<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Acknowledging that we are powerless to rectify a wrong can be true, denying that a wrong is wrong never is.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Ryan Holiday, the author of The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumphs<\/em>, Ego is the Enemy<\/em>, and a collection of daily meditations for the aspiring stoic (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living<\/em>) has been one of the most successful evangelizers for this brand of stoicism.<\/p>

Holiday\u2019s works are book-length pep-talks, scattered with portraits of historical figures who succeeded in overcoming obstacles, ego, or both. Although in both books, Holiday credits these Stoic-derived ideas with changing his life, he gives almost no personal examples. Relying on these sketches of famous figures instead of inviting readers into his own life robs us of the chance to see what stoicism feels like from the inside.<\/p>

Massimo Pigliucci does considerably better in his How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life<\/em>. Pigliucci, a philosophy professor at CUNY-City College, is more forthcoming, sharing stories not just of his persistence, but about his ethical struggles. In one example, he recounts how, while withdrawing money from his bank\u2019s ATM, he became so troubled thinking about the company\u2019s questionable practices and whether he was culpable for them, that he left the ATM, walked into the branch, and closed his account.<\/p>

For Pigliucci, Stoicism is a tool to help him live a more ethical life, not just a more successful, efficient, or effective one. By contrast, the only story Holiday tells about himself is how he dealt with the humiliation of writing multiple drafts of the very book the reader is holding. He tore up and composted the drafts he was finished with and used them to mulch his lawn. He writes, \u201cI liked to remind myself that the same process is going to happen to me when I\u2019m done, when I die and nature tears me up.\u201d<\/p>

The equivalence may give him comfort, but it illuminates a larger problem with Holiday\u2019s philosophy. He doesn\u2019t have a way to distinguish between the transcendent and the impermanent. Holiday comes close to articulating what I loved about stoicism at the beginning of one of his books when he says, \u201cIt takes skill and discipline to bat away the pests of bad perceptions, to separate reliable signals from deceptive ones, to filter out prejudice, expectation and fear. But it\u2019s worth it, for what\u2019s left is truth<\/em>.\u201d But he spoils it in the next sentences when he adds, \u201cWhile others are excited or afraid, we will remain calm and imperturbable. We will see things simply and straightforwardly, as they truly are\u2014neither good nor bad.\u201d<\/p>

Stoicism doesn\u2019t require this kind of moral blindness. Acknowledging that we are powerless to rectify a wrong can be true, denying that a wrong is wrong never is. Holiday\u2019s stoicism is too shallow, focused on problems like my hunger on the boat\u2014momentary discomforts\u2014rather than, for example, engaging the moral problems of the hunger that accompanies poverty. When facing that kind of problem, sometimes a Stoic must ask, \u201cWhy isn\u2019t this in my locus of control? Is there anything I can do to be able to do more?\u201d<\/p>

Holiday is writing for a business-focused audience; his readers may have trouble imagining that\u00a0 their daily grind has much ethical significance. Holiday stays focused on the virtues of endurance and persistence (\u201c\u2019Working at it works<\/em>.\u2019 It\u2019s that simple.\u201d), without too much thought about what higher values these instrumental virtues may serve.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Stoicism for the masses arms readers for small problems, but leaves them unprepared for the biggest disruption of all.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Holiday\u2019s amoral take on Stoicism takes him strange places. He praises Erwin Rommel twice for his determination, irrespective of what it was this Nazi general was determined to do. More mildly, he cites Angela Merkel as an effective <\/em>politician, praising her patience and her humility, without appearing to give any thought to whether her policies are good<\/em>.<\/p>

That isn\u2019t necessarily a knock on a book about Stoicism. Stoicism is basically true, but it\u2019s a narrow, insufficient truth. It\u2019s a piece of how to see the world truly, but if it\u2019s taken on its own, it\u2019s no more helpful than looking through a telescope full-time. Too much is left outside the field of view. A stoic should have a hunger, like Pigliucci\u2019s, for fuller guidance on how to live virtuously.<\/p>

Both men praise the stoic practice of negative visualization as a way of preparing for (and perhaps avoiding) serious suffering. Holiday tells his readers that imagining the worst case scenarios will help them notice that things aren\u2019t so bad as they are. He suggests, \u201cIt might help to say it over and over again whenever you feel the anxiety begin to come on: I am not going to die from this. I am not going to die from this. I am not going to die from this<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>

Stoicism was forged in a harder age, Pigliucci reminds us. It \u201coriginated and thrived in times of political instability; people\u2019s lives could be upturned at a moment\u2019s notice, and death could befall anyone, at any age.\u201d It will certainly, he implies, be enough to help us with our own problems.<\/p>

Nothing about Pigliucci\u2019s statement is untrue today. Many people in the world live in exactly the conditions he describes, and even for those who are unlikely to be touched by political instability, death can still happen to anyone at any time.<\/p>

Pop Stoicism treats the fact of mortality as a truism about the past, but assumes that practitioners today will only face small problems. It has no real answer to give to the big questions: Stoicism is about endurance, not hope. Stoicism for the masses arms readers for small problems, but leaves them unprepared for the biggest disruption of all.<\/p>

Epictetus, in his Discourses, is more frank about death as a settled fact about the world. He writes plainly what Holiday in particular is prone to dance around, \u201c[W]hen you embrace your child, or your brother, or your friend [\u2026] [D]o you likewise remind yourself that you love what is mortal; that you love what is not your own. It is allowed you for the present, not irrevocably, nor forever; but as a fig, or a bunch of grapes, in the appointed season. If you long for these in winter you are foolish. So, if you long for your son, or your friend, when you cannot have him, remember that you are wishing for figs in winter.\u201d<\/p>

Christians cannot escape this reality. We know that we are created beings, sustained moment to moment by God. In his first Epistle, St. John the Evangelist writes almost<\/em> the same thing as Epictetus: \u201cDo not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world\u2014the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches\u2014comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever.\u201d<\/p>

Here is the missing piece. It is God who explodes the limits of created creatures, by sending His Son to us as one of us. It is God who shatters mortality when Christ, in his Passion, tramples down death by death. And it is God who breaks the boundaries of the locus of control, by telling us we always<\/em> have the option to enter into eternity by doing His will.<\/p>

If Stoicism means taking a clear-eyed view of the world, and aligning ourselves with the truth that does not pass away, then Christian Stoicism may, indeed, be a possibility. But by taking into account God\u2019s solution to our human predicament, we are driven not to dispassionate aloofness but to passionate love.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Leah Libresco Sargeant<\/strong> is the author of <\/em>Arriving at Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers that Even I Can Author. Her second book, on the Benedict Option projects to build thicker community that can happen in the timescale of a couple months, will come out with Ignatius in the Fall of 2018. She is the wife of Alexi Sargeant.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ancient philosophy of Stoicism is currently experiencing a revival\u2014but it\u2019s modern practitioners may find it falls short of a true solution for life\u2019s most pressing problems. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,10,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-essays","category-issue-8","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/FF-New-Stoicism-A.jpg?fit=1944%2C1112&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3438"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3448,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions\/3448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp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