To the stoics themselves, wealth and power are indifferent: neither good or bad.
I say that the title is provocative because wealth and power often provoke people, as can be seen in this very discussion (here on Hacker News). Depending on where you come from and where you are in life, a phrase such as "rich and powerful" may call forth the negative stereotype of evil wealthy people, or it may call forth the positive stereotype of Hacker News style entrepreneurs.
It is much easier to be indifferent to wealth and power if you already have it.
My take on the supposed rise in popularity of stoicism is not that it appeals to the "rich and powerful" per se. I do however think it appeals to people who have found themselves in a situation when they no longer have obvious things to live for, which is certainly the case for these people.
If you suddenly find yourself with free time and autonomy, philosophy is a pretty good thing to fill the void with, I think.
I have found a stoic attitude a great method by which to weather the ups and downs of life. Whether that means stubbing my toe, dealing with death, or finding myself without an income or a place to live, acceptance of the situation as it is prevents wasting time and energy railing against the inevitabilities of life.
Do you have small kids? Just curious, because having a small helpless human dependent on you for their survival and well being has made me change my attitude towards life a bit away from Stoicism.
A right way to live with children is of course different from without children, but I don't think the two are incompatible?
In fact, I think having children is helpful in improving your own attitudes, because it can be really put you to the test.
I also think it can be helpful to have some kind of idea of what being a good human entails. For instance, instead of yelling "Don't do that!" I sometimes manage to ask "How does X look like? Are they happy?"
Of course, one must respect that children have their own lives and are starting afresh - the set of values we've determined for ourselves isn't necessarily something we should interpret too strictly in the context of a child who hasn't yet had the chance to experience the world.
It's also worth noting that the noted stoic philosopher and emperor Marcus Aurelius had completely worthless personal relationships, especially a son who ended up being remarkably poorly-raised. I saw a lot of folks who adhered to stoicism raise their kids very poorly: I don't know whether that's correlation (I think proximate causal factor is never seeing their kids) or causation.
My first is on the way. I can't say for sure what my views will be in 5 years, but even with pregnancy I know there are things that could go wrong. Will I suffer if something goes awry? Absolutely. But will I let it adversely affect my future state of being? I hope not.
Why do you suppose that is? I don't have kids myself, but if I ever did I think I would prioritize the incorporation of stoicism into their upbringing.
Just as a stab in the dark, perhaps you perceive the philosophy of stoicism as being orthogonal to a healthy amount of flippancy in life? If that's the case then I would make the case that the two concepts aren't actually mutually exclusive.
Not OP. Anecdotally stoicism does nothing for your capability to nurture your children or make actively wise choices. The best example of this is the painfully obvious one of Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus.
The main failure for the Roman empire was that he failed to name a successor worthy to the task, so Commodus got the gig. I don't know what his failures as a father were or were there any but Commodus came out just wrong either way.
Either this teaches us one of two things or both: 1. even a wise sage is unable to heal his family or 2. Stoicism does not grant you universal wisdom.
Either way, the outcome is that stoicism is obviously not a universal remedy.
If you read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, the take out message is that the world is shit and people are horrible, but that is no reason not to behave as a gentleman and carry yourself with dignity.
Stoicism can be applied by personal choice to various situations in ones life, but it's hard to make it into a socially pro-active philosophy.
And yes, I generalized whole lot of stuff based on one example only. Call me bayesian.
You're just talking about the downs though. No one needs stoicism to weather the ups of life. The rich are just jerking themselves off. Probably because they have some subconscious insecurity over the lack of suffering in their lives.
Or stoicism applies most relevantly to the ups. From a Buddhist perspective, attachment to perceived pleasant moments leads to greater suffering when fortunes are reversed.
Stoicism was "originally" a philosophy of (mostly) the rich and powerful of Rome, so it's unsurprisingly compatible.
It's moderate, in that it doesn't prescribe any big external changes to your society or any particular lifestyle. It also reminds me somewhat of deism, which was a popular elite philosophy around the time of the US' founding. Secularism in all but name, with a moderate's concern for the implications of being too extreme. God exists, but let's set that aside.
This is relevant, because the dominant philosophies at the time (and always) were religious. Some of the completing philosophies mentioned, were much more prone to conflict with the religious order.
For example, to this day, the conflict between Jews of the time and "Hellenisers" is a taboo subject in religious circles. These were secular philosophies that became popular in Roman Judea, often among the more internationally minded elite, encroaching on religious monopoly of certain subjects. Epicorus (mentioned here) is a Talmudic villain, and will still get a rise out of many rabbis.
For those not wanting to wade through this, the thesis seems to be "...Stoicism caught on among Roman elites because it was the one form of philosophical guidance that didn’t urge them to renounce wealth or power....can be used to justify the idea that the rich and powerful are meant to be rich and powerful, that the poor and downtrodden are meant to be poor and downtrodden, and that even the worst actions are actually good in an ineffable and eternal way. Such claims can be used to justify complacency, social callousness, and even exploitative or destructive behavior."
I love philosophers, history, and philosophy. I consider myself an existential stoic. (How I reconcile these philosophies I will save for another day) The problem I had with this essay is the same problem I have with a lot of philosophy: it takes itself far, far too seriously for my tastes.
Do the rich adapt stoicism because of the underlying metaphysics in much the same way that powerful Romans did? Did powerful Romans even adapt it in this way, or are we left with various interpretations depending on which sources we use? More to the point, when you pick up a philosophy, decide you like it and want to apply it in your life, is this decision akin to adopting a new religion, becoming part of a cult? Or is it more like entertaining some useful concepts that you play on playing with to see how useful they may be to you?
It's not a facile question. If we adopt philosophies in the same we adopt worldviews, then the history and inner conflicts can be quite important. If, however, we adopt philosophies in the same we might pick up a grape Slurpee at the local seven-eleven, then not so much.
Philosophy tends to take itself far too seriously, and it tends to take a few really good ideas and beat the living heck out of them until they don't work anymore. I doubt the thesis here. Or rather, it's overstated by a significant degree.
That is not the thesis of the article, and misrepresenting it that way is doing it a diservice. It would be better to "wade" through it in full than to mis-sumarize it.
In fact it doesn't have a thesis, as far as the question "why does stoicism appeal to modern rich and powerful". The partial quote you posted is part of a musing around that topic, but it only takes reading that paragraph in full to see what you call its thesis is nothing of the sort.
Here it is for the lazy:
"Thus, turning to the questions that Nellie asked me for her article, when I see a fad for stoicism among today’s rising rich, I see a good side and a bad side. The good side is that stoicism, sharing a lot with Buddhism, teaches that the only real treasures are inner treasures–virtue, self-mastery, courage, charity–and that all things in existence are part of one good, divine, and sacred whole, a stance which can combat selfishness and intolerance by encouraging self-discipline and teaching us to love and value every stranger as much as we love our families and ourselves. But on the negative side, stoicism’s Providential claim that everything in the universe is already perfect and that things which seem bad or unjust are secretly good underneath (a claim Christianity borrowed from Stoicism) can be used to justify the idea that the rich and powerful are meant to be rich and powerful, that the poor and downtrodden are meant to be poor and downtrodden, and that even the worst actions are actually good in an ineffable and eternal way. Such claims can be used to justify complacency, social callousness, and even exploitative or destructive behavior."
It seems to me that the essay makes a claim about the nature of stoicism and how it could be expected to influence modern fans of the philosophy, and you are making a claim about the magnitude or degree to which modern students of the philosophy actually commit themselves to it. I'm not sure there is a genuine contradiction here. She may be correct in saying that, to the degree that one adopts the precepts stoicism, it will tend to have such and such an effect on you; and you may be correct to point out that modern students of stoicism are not likely to commit themselves to the philosophy with religious fervor.
By the way, I would say a better thesis statement is found in the final paragraph: Because I think it’s important that we mingle some Voltaire in with our Seneca, and remember that stoicism’s invaluable advice for taking better care of ourselves inside can–if we fail to mix it with other ideas–come with a big blind spot regarding the world outside ourselves, and whether we should change it.
The number of times stoicism has come up and I see people allude to practicing stoicism or identifying it by the indifference or complacency of the stoic tells me that people are not adopting it philosophically, but more religiously.
I always had the impression that stoic virtues mandate that someone who has power to bring change and improve the lives of others also has a duty of doing so.
I guess the problem with any philosophy is that humans tend to pick and choose the parts that are convenient.
In any case, I still think stoicism teaches invaluable skills in today's society.
It invites you to step back from the mundane and consider your life, its infinitesimal place in the universe, its ultimate transience, and the kind of attitude and virtues you want to practice.
It's a form of deep reflection that places your life in a cosmological perspective. In that respect it serves a similar function to prayer and the contemplation of the divine in some religions.
I don’t think stoicism is related to those things. Those sound like nice meditative things to do, which are compatible with a wide range of different philosophical schools of thought, but none of that sounds like it is actively connected to the defining characteristics of stoicism.
I disagree. I have only read parts of Epictetus' Discourses and Aerelius' Meditations, but I think it is borne out by both texts. I don't have them to hand. But quickly looking through an online edition of the Meditations, I am faced with a great many passages matching the stated views. For example:
'Though thou shouldst be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same.'
'How quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them; what is the nature of all sensible things, and particularly those which attract with the bait of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapoury fame; how worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead they are- all this it is the part of the intellectual faculty to observe.'
That’s still not what stoicism is. Those quotes are one of many about not holding your success or who you are to materialistic goals, or infinite goals.
while reflecting on yourself via meditation can be useful, it is not the only way, it doesn’t need a one week retreat, and if the goal is to meditate on the next idea that will revolutionize everything then that is definitely not stoic.
I did not say that it was all that stoicism is. I am not even claiming that it is especially central to stoicism. But it is undeniably a part of stoicism, as any fair reading of those two quotes indicates. Yes one of the central beliefs of stoicism is that we should inculcate within ourselves an ability to withstand any change in our external circumstances. But it is a complex philosophical system. It is perfectly possible for stoicism to admit both that belief, and the view that I'm ascribing to it.
Interesting article. I'd like to encourage people to read more stuff from her blog, it's absolutely excellent.
I'm currently reading this piece[0] (teaser quote: "then, in the early seventeenth century, Francis Bacon invented progress."). Then there's the series ostensibly about Machiavelli[1], but that is actually a whirlwind tour of Italian renaissance history, philosophy, intrigue and eventually, yes, Machiavelli.
They also want to signal that they are "stoic", nonchalant bad-assess ready to take on everything fate throws at them -- second rate caviar, aging like everybody else, the $10M condo not being just right, some competitor gaining ground, and so on.
They also wake up earlier than common folk, exercise and eat better than common folk, and so on. All of which are easy when you have personal chefs and a big entourage to take care of "details" like washing the dishes, taking the kids to school, preparing your clothes, making breakfast, and so on...
It's about time management and prioritizing what's important. Are there exceptions like the single parent with 2 hour each way commutes working 8 jobs with 5 kids? Sure, but in general common folk have time to do all the things you list. Throw in IF and they can skip breakfast ;)
I know a single parent that trained for and ran a marathons while working full time and raising 2 kids. She was not up to date on whatever TV show was popular, but that's a good thing.
Time and food are very similar in this regard. People do not know what they are using and how much until they sit down and do a log for a week. If after logging they find their entire week is full with zero wasted time, good on them. They are already getting it done. But, most people are likely wasting tons of time watching TV, mindlessly scrolling on social media, and/or reading HN (yeah, writing this comment has already blown through my allotted HN time this morning).
You're probably right about signalling, but I think there's a more sympathetic take. The story of the Buddha is of a prince who had all a person could ever want, only to discover old-age, disease and death. He realized that suffering is inescapable and universal and therefore requires a universal solution. I'm not rich or powerful by any means, but I'm doing comparatively well financially and in health. But it's never enough. Systems like Buddhism or stoicism answer the question: "I seem to be doing well in life, but why do I still feel so shitty?"
>To put it another way: the basic features of human life are universal. Stress, betrayal, love, trust, anger, loneliness, etc.
Money can alleviate many of those problems -- it's just not a magic want to fix everything.
Stress for example: you can be stressed for rent, for the cost of medical emergencies, for providing for your kids, etc. If you're rich, you don't need to stress for any of that. Not only that, you also don't end up homeless, broke after a surgery, and so on. Nor do you have to skip meals.
And when money problem come in, even real love and familial relationships (not based on gold-digging) are stressed. Tons of families break and argue about money problems, especially in recessions etc.
>It doesnt really matter how pretty your rooms are or how much you own, the fundamentals don't change in their existence, only in their proportion.
Sure, you will still die, get lonely sometimes, or have friends betray you like a rich person. But that's what's common, how about what's much more difficult? If you want to become a scientist but can't afford to go to college, and can't even afford a scholarship because you need to work at the family farm and help the family, it does matter.
And that's just one of myriads of examples. How about being lonely, not because you're anti-social or can't get friends, but because you're working 12 hours a day in some sweatshop? Or you're a single mother juggling two shitty jobs?
Those are all common situations. And not just in some third world either.
How often have you insured your children for being kidnapped?
How often have you been bound-up in a hotel room by robbers looking for jewellery?
You know your marines body gaurd that follows you everywhere? Does he annoy you at all?
Do you feel safe?
Did your daughter overdose on coke at 27? Your son?
Your comment just illustrates your ability to understand the unique problems of the poor. There are many such problems of the rich too.
I'm not saying that all problems are equal. Only that you vastly under-estimate the "natural unhappiness" of people, and the "natural stress" of living when you think that money has some magical impact on that. It doesnt.
>How often have you insured your children for being kidnapped? How often have you been bound-up in a hotel room by robbers looking for jewellery? You know your marines body gaurd that follows you everywhere? Does he annoy you at all. Do you feel safe?
Not the best counter-examples. Poor people live in much more crime-ridden places, and are much more frequently victims of violent crime...
And regarding "did your daughter overdose on coke at 27? Your son?", No, poor/working/middle class kids mostly overdose on plain old heroin, crack, opioids, and the like, in much larger percentages...
I'm not sure how Stoicism wouldn't help someone too poor to go to college. Someone able to fully imbibe stoicism into their life in such a situation could study independently; college is not necessary to learn or to become a scientist.
Because just saying -ism and expecting to be on right side of school of thought isn't everything. (Sāti) mindfulness is just a trend (many many apps, guides etc)(1). One truly needs to cultivate concentration (which also helps at work) but it can't be done without mindfulness. Nothing more and nothing else and just keeping up with the literature of Buddhism (dharma books that Culadasa is working on to publish later this year(2) and this is advice from someone who practiced hundreds of hours and heard this advice many times. Otherthings like practicing chanting (waste of time) and owning Buddha popular statues (waste of money).
Your second paragraph sounds to me like i live. But i am not "rich". I just take advantage of what is out there to make my life easier or to save time. And actually that is all what economy is about.
>Your second paragraph sounds to me like i live. But i am not "rich".
If you're not "rich" I'm not sure how you have dispensed with preparing breakfast, taking the kids to school, clothes, cooking, cleaning the house, driving to work, and so on I've described the rich as having dispensed with.
At worse, if you have achieved all of the above, you're better off than 90% of the global population, and probably have no kids, eat out whenever you want, and pay some domestic helper. So, not Bezos rich, but not common folk either...
I don't know if it matches the "actual" definitions, but to me "rich" is a lifestyle. It means not worrying about having enough to do what you desire to do. "Wealthy", on the other hand, means never having to work again if you don't want to (or if your priorities change).
By those metrics, I'm (sometimes) rich, but I'm not wealthy. I'm working on it. My financial goal in life is to build a process that generates enough of a positive income stream in perpetuity to take care of my family, and to be able to leave that process to my descendants.
Note that this doesn't necessarily require billions (or even millions) of dollars to attain. I've severely cut my recurring expenses, and categorize them into "essential" and "discretionary". For instance: I spend a lot of money right now on high-speed Internet access. I have 300Mbps at home (Gigabit wasn't worth the cost to me), an iPhone X, and an iPad Pro, all with LTE. My 10-year-old has a 6th-Gen iPad LTE, and my wife has a Samsung Galaxy 10+. Monthly costs for all of that is ~$650 / month... and it's entirely discretionary. I can afford it, but I could also turn it off tomorrow if my financial situation were to change. Meanwhile, my mortgage is $850 / month, and that's "essential". My utilities combined are $125 / month, and those are "essential". Add in food and such, and I'm right at $1,400 / month of total essential expenses - I need $17k / year to run my household at a minimum. In order to make that in interest in a traditional investment account, I'd need $340k. That's obvious back-of-the-envelope and doesn't take into account market fluctuations or inflation, but it goes to show what I mean: I would be completely financially independent with less than a half million dollars in traditional investments.
My plan relies on that sort of investment for retirement, because it's a relatively safe platform to build upon. I'm in the process now of saving enough capital to get into real estate in a substantial way. If my planning is remotely accurate, I should be able to use rental properties to grow an income stream there exponentially - barring a major depression, the real challenge will be one of process, not money. Managing a single commercial rental with a long-term lease agreement is one thing; managing a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand... that's quite another.
I put "rich" in quotes. I consider everyone in the west "rich", but thats a discussion of its own.
I have bought a robot that vacuums for me twice the week. I rent. I spend like 50 euros per week for prepared food. I spend 10 euro/week for scooter rides from/to work,or i walk or bike. I pay like 100 euro per month for washing/drycleaning. Health insurance is paid via salary, so no further costs there. I jump between entertainment formats, so i only pay 10 euro per month for visual entertainment. So, almost everything has been taken care of.
> They also wake up earlier than common folk, exercise and eat better than common folk, and so on. All of which are easy when you have personal chefs and a big entourage to take care of "details" like washing the dishes, taking the kids to school, preparing your clothes, making breakfast, and so on...
Marrying the right person and having close family and friends nearby covers all of that regardless of income level. If you live your life as an island then money can buy a lot of those things but IMHO that’s going to be a sad life.
>Marrying the right person and having close family and friends nearby covers all of that regardless of income level.
Provided your spouse doesn't need to work too. And that you're OK not helping her with the stuff. And even then, you've just shared the duties, not eliminated them from your life to some servants that just do anything and you don't owe them nothing but an insignificant amount of your money.
In communal traditional societies the above is easier. In modern city life this is all but lost for the common folk.
Waking up early and getting things done is a matter of self discipline. I had trouble with all of those things until I started going to bed early with my son and wife. Before that I stayed up late and was tremendously tired all the time. Now I wake up at 6 AM without an alarm and just automagically get shit done and have left over time for my side projects, fixing the house etc.
>Waking up early and getting things done is a matter of self discipline.
Anything a person can do is a matter of self-discipline. I could not have slept for 36 days because of working 2-shifts and still "have the discipline" to go for a run. Slim chances, but it happens.
But self-discipline is much easier to muster in "easy mode", when your other duties are taken care of by an army of servants.
Talk of self-discipline without talk of environmental factors making people less tired, less stressed, and less concerned with basic life matters to focus on that discipline is moot.
And talk of self-discipline should take into account aggregates, to discover what's the baseline for most people under certain conditions, not point at some outliers that did it against all odds and say "Here, anyone can do it" (as if difficulty doesn't matter). That's like pointing out Usain Bolt and saying "here, anyone can run sub-10 secs and if you don't you just lack the discipline".
Do you think e.g. a-list actors who trivially lose amazing amounts of weight for roles have "more discipline" that the average folks who statistically fail much worse in their diets?
Or that they have personal chefs, trainers, massagers, cleaners, and so on, plus a 5-10 million dollar incentive (to get the next "action" part), siding with their "self-discipline).
> But self-discipline is much easier to muster in "easy mode", when your other duties are taken care of by an army of servants.
Self discipline is also easier when you actually work on your self discipline, plan your day, have a schedule, stay off your phone and computer when not working and so on. There are countless ways you can make your life easier and stress free.
Losing weight is a matter of eating healthy foods, using the stairs instead of elevators, taking walks during lunchtime, don't eat/drink sugar rich foods and drinks. Losing weight is obviously difficult when one has a medical condition that prevents losing weight, but when you don't it is a matter of self discipline to lose weight. Also taking daily vitamin D supplements makes a huge positive impact on ones mental and physical health.
Nothing you are saying is explicitly wrong. Yeah life is easier when you have self discipline. But you're presenting what you're saying as a counter to what the other person is saying, which is that having all of those extra environmental factors (personal chef, housekeeping, etc) make it way easier. What you're saying is self discipline for the common folk is easier when they work on it vs if they don't. That doesn't negate that while them working/focusing on self discipline is easier by, say, a factor of 25% (numbers are just for explanation purposes), having to not worry about doing the dishes, planning your meals, etc makes it easier by 85 or 90%.
Everything is a matter of self discipline, sure, but that's one factor out of a billion. You seem to be arguing that losing weight or getting your life together can be as easy as it is for the rich and powerful if you want it bad enough and take some vitamin D. That makes it easier, but not as easy as it is for, say, Jeff Bezos to exercise every day.
In some ways it's easier to exercise self-discipline when someone is super rich, but in others it is harder. For example, look at all of the rich and powerful with drug and alcohol problems. When someone has almost everything it is easy to become lazy and/or abuse substances.
Is it easier for Bezos to get out of bed 20 minutes earlier and do 100 burpees than it is for you or I? IMO, it's not that different.
>In some ways it's easier to exercise self-discipline when someone is super rich, but in others it is harder. For example, look at all of the rich and powerful with drug and alcohol problems. When someone has almost everything it is easy to become lazy and/or abuse substances.
I look at them, and also see how it's easier for them to get out of their abuse problems, with top notch rehabilitation facilities and everything set up for them.
They also get top notch medical assistance while doing them, and first rate drugs. Many even have their doctors prepare the stuff.
Which they can afford and do at a nice environment, not some crack house.
And when they're caught by the police, they usually get a slap on the wrist and some rehab time, not hard jail like commoners.
And when you stop doing drugs, you get to go back to a nice warm house, and financial independence. Not to your abusing home, or living in the streets.
There are tons of junkies around where I live (not a shabby or poor neighborhood even, just has a shabby square nearby), that don't have these easy ways out.
Now, imagine a rich person, getting out of drugs, while enjoying all those niceties while he was abusing them, and saying "I did it all through my self-discipline" -- and implying by that that common junkies lack the same level of self-discipline (while they might have 2x his self-discipline but face 10x the problems to overcome).
>Self discipline is also easier when you actually work on your self discipline, plan your day, have a schedule, stay off your phone and computer when not working and so on.
That's true, but cyclical. All of those things are still easier when you are rich and basic concerns are taken care of by others, which was my argument.
I didn't say those are impossible for non-rich folks.
Just harder.
People make it sound like being rich and having servants has no benefit on these regards... If anything maybe it's even a burden. If that's the case, I accept donations.
You keep references armies of servants or other BS as if somehow that makes adopting stoicism more likely. Stoicism is there specifically for when life is difficult. Why do you not understand this? If you have an emotional hissy fit whenever you need to do something difficult, then perhaps you should adopt a more stoic attitude and just get it done.
>You keep references armies of servants or other BS as if somehow that makes adopting stoicism more likely.
Err, TFA is about how rich and powerful adopt stoicism as a fashion (back to the times of Rome). So, yeah, I guess it does make it more likely. Seneca was a stoic. His slaves, not so much.
>Stoicism is there specifically for when life is difficult. Why do you not understand this?
Because what something is supposed to be for, and what people adopt it for are two different things. Christianity is also supposed to be a "religion of peace", but that's not what many of it adherents use it as...
You understand absolutely nothing about what there is to criticize in the various religious and how that is completely separate a personal, non-religious philosophy like Stoicism.
Furthermore, nobody adopts Stoicism as a fashion. I don't know where you're getting this from. Waking up early, eating right, going to the gym, etc. are not things exclusive to Stoicism if that's what you're implying. That is ridiculous. Just because people talk about it does not mean they're virtue signalling (a concept that comes from various philosophies and religions [Stoicism, Taoism, etc.]) about how Stoic they are. Nobody is making laws that hurt the poor, which are based on Stoicism. I don't care about Seneca or his slaves. That's not relevant to Stoicism. I don't even know how you could even attempt to make the connection between these two things. It's like if someone who regularly went around kicking homeless people said "You should feed and take care of the homeless", would you then be opposed to feeding and taking care of the homeless? That's absurd. There's no rational connection between those two things, but that's what you're trying to do with respect to Stoicism and folks like Seneca.
I wake up at 6. Then I do breakfast, lunches, shower, walk the kiddo and backpack out the door, take the train, go to work. According to some website, my income puts me in the top 15%. So middle-high maybe...
I apply stoicism to my life. It’s a work in progress, and will always be. Nobody becomes a stoic, that’s not a thing. And the authors clearly doesn’t know the difference.
The level of discourse on HN around social issues is becoming utterly unproductive and embarassing. This is a 4th rate rant by someone with a chip on their shoulder.
You don't need a personal chef to be able to go for a run before work. I dread to think of the personal issues that underlie such a skewed incorrect view of the world
I'm starting to agree with you, and have thought about not reading the comments on these types of articles anymore.
These sorts of comments are about protecting ones ego. Instead of accepting the responsibility for not exercising, blaming the lack of a personal chef shifts the responsibility externally.
A stoic would look at the situation and figure out what is in their control to change, and then get to work. It could be something simple like no more TV. It could also be a much longer term plan like get additional education in order to find a better job which in turn leads to more free time. Regardless of the plan, the general attitude of figuring out what is in a person's control and then acting is the skill here.
>You don't need a personal chef to be able to go for a run before work.
Which is neither here, nor there. I didn't say you need one. I said that those things "are easy" when you have that kind of aid (versus not having it).
Is that somehow controversial?
I like how my statement (widely upvoted) is a "4th rate rant", but this content-less response managed to get what I wrote wrong on the one small sentence it intended as a counter-argument.
Little more than a rant designed to frame anyone with more money than you in a negative light
> Which is neither here, nor there. I didn't say you need one. I said that those things "are easy" when you have that kind of aid (versus not having it).w
No, you didn't, you explicitly and literally stated that is the reason for certain attributes, as if it were common
> They also wake up earlier than common folk, exercise and eat better than common folk, and so on. All of which are easy when you have personal chefs and a big entourage to take care of "details" like washing the dishes, taking the kids to school, preparing your clothes, making breakfast, and so on...
You are very clearly trying to dehumanise a certain quarter of society.
> They
Application, repeatedly, of a pronoun with no specification or example concrete of the target of your ire. It is abundantly clear that you need to invent fantasy to make political targets of perfectly average individuals
I’m surprised by the way people are choosing to respond to you. Waking up early is obviously not the point of your comment, but many replies seem to take you literally and act like merely waking up early would be some sort of refutation of the idea you’re describing.
One pathology that wealthy people (on a global scale) sometimes fall into is using their wealth and privilege to access behaviors that make them feel more like they’ve personally “worked hard” for what they have, like behavioral status symbols that are far less accessible to people without privilege.
Waking up early for purposes of pure self-maintenance, like meditation or high-end exercise, and getting to work very early, are often examples of this. It superficially feels like an accomplishment, like a justifying act of endorsing that you, as a wealthy person, are somehow exceptional and “deserving” (rather that just lucky to have money that buys the freedom to use recreational time like that) and allows you to focus on how your behavior differs from the masses to create a false sense that wealth is “earned” by “working” for it because of these photo-op-like engineered segments of “self-sacrifice.”
Less privileged folks may have to get up early just to barely make it to a shit job because of a 90 minute commute or a bunch of child care (or elder care) duties they have to perform. They may eat poorly or miss exercising because of all the obligations they cannot financially afford to offload.
I don’t see why anyone is reading a different idea into your comment.
> Waking up early for purposes of pure self-maintenance, like meditation or high-end exercise, and getting to work very early, are often examples of this. It superficially feels like an accomplishment...
There is nothing superficial about those things. By doing those things you gain wealth that is not measurable by any amount of money.
> Less privileged folks may have to get up early just to barely make it to a shit job because of a 90 minute commute or a bunch of child care (or elder care) duties they have to perform. They may eat poorly or miss exercising because of all the obligations they cannot financially afford to offload.
Less privileged folk also tend to stay up late and fill their minds with mindless media streams (television, social media etc.), drink alcohol to relieve stress to name a few stress relief activities. Daily stress should not be relieved by mind numbing crap, but by taking care of ones mental and physical health or seeking psychological help from professionals. Yes people tend to have too many obligations in which case people should re-assess their values and make sacrifices to not burn themselves out and die early.
Life is complicated but we also tend to over complicate it.
That is a tone deaf and harmful misunderstanding of poor people.
Also, I don’t dispute that things like waking up early, meditation or exercise have real benefits. Whether they have real benefits is unrelated to this discussion.
Separately, without money to alleviate obligations, many poor people find themselves overwhelmed through no fault of their own. A bad, unexpected legal or medical situation can leave you at the breaking point of stress for no other reason than lack of money.
It may help to consider having more empathy as you mentally imagine the plight of poor folks.
You both are correct, that's the sad part - being poor is hard, and the margins for mistake/accident/bad luck are often razor thin.
But oh boy do I see tons of self-destructing, borderline stupid behavior among predominantly poor from where I come from - alcohol, cigarettes, taking shark loans for unnecessary 'luxuries', and the list goes on and on.
> “But oh boy do I see tons of self-destructing, borderline stupid behavior among predominantly poor from where I come from”
This is the harmful misunderstanding part. Many systems in society are designed, intentionally, to perpetuate the defeated state that poor people randomly find themselves in.
The manifestations of systematic poverty are not really free will choices of poor people a lot the time, from poor financial investments, poor purchase choices (especially when it comes to dietary choices or purchases for children), poor investment in education. The whole world they inhabit is institutionally configured to perpetuate this, give them no empathy or support.
To a good first order approximation, zero percent of the life situation inhabited by most poor people is “their fault” and most outward seeming bad habits that are lazily easy for us to judge are really things we, society, have pushed onto them, and we should not take the easy way out and think contemptibly towards them.
If a poor person acts in a self destructive manner, it is not societies fault, it is their own. Trying to find excuses for them isn't helping them and is in fact actively harmful.
The usefulness of Stoicism comes from accepting the difficulties of life and dealing with them without indulging in excess with the excuse that it's for "self-care".
When you fail and blame others, you fail again and again, because you can't learn what the root cause is in order to change your approach.
I'm not saying that being poor is easy; I know first hand that it's not. I'm saying that the fact that it's not easy is the point and reason to adopt Stoicism.
> “If a poor person acts in a self destructive manner, it is not societies fault, it is their own”
It looks like we just disagree. I do believe that is often society’s fault, and that it’s usually just a lazy way to absolve one’s self of blame or moral duty to act, or to justify that it’s OK to take political action that tacitly increases harm to the poor because it’s “their fault” they experience the circumstances they do.
We often want to read narratives into our daily observations that paint ourselves as either self-sufficient heroes who worked for everything we got, or as victims of unfair circumstance. But when it comes to other people, we try to read narratives into their circumstances that absolve us of having to worry about it, or justify preconceived judgments we want to make.
Bad decision making on the part of people systematically harmed by institutions, governments and policies is a classic example. Such people were often given no realistic opportunity to be capable of making good choices, but we steady ready to rush in and blame them the minute they make bad choices, which were the only kind of choice we gave them any realistic option to make.
>It looks like we just disagree. I do believe that is often society’s fault, and that it’s usually just a lazy way to absolve one’s self of blame or moral duty to act, or to justify that it’s OK to take political action that tacitly increases harm to the poor because it’s “their fault” they experience the circumstances they do.
Apparently people believe the poor to be not just poor, but also an inferior race.
They're poor because they are inferior (lazy, lack self-discipline, self-destructive, etc).
After all, they used to say much the same things for blacks and women back in the day too. We got better than that, but in progressive cycles it's still acceptable to say those things for the poor these days...
There is nothing more infuriating that you actively ignoring my adjacent comment or the intent of what I am trying to say in order to demonize me and put sentiment into my words that were never there. You are scum for doing; absolutely wretched and vile.
Nothing about Stoicism says anything about taking political action against others. That's a strawman here.
Just so we're clear, I'm currently one of those poor people living on the brink of potential Homelessness. I'm not saying anything I'm saying as some out of touch elite. I'm saying what I'm saying as someone who understands what I need to do to get out of my current circumstances isn't dwell on or wallow in my failures and blame others. There's nothing good that comes from that. There's nothing actionable that comes from that. I would be actively harmed by doing such things.
When I often hear people making excuses for us poor, they seem to be the types that haven't touched poverty or are stricken by a form of toxic empathy; an unconscious desire to be seen as compassionate. It's well meaning, but it helps nobody.
Assuming you're in the US, in nearly every context, you have the opportunities available to you to succeed (exceptions include contexts that are no fault of your own such as homelessness as a child).
Many of us have those opportunities and we squander them. Stop telling people that if they're poor, then failure is inevitable or likely due to society. Yes, it's hard. Yes, there are factors about society that make it more difficult. That does not mean we're not ultimately responsible for our own decisions. You're teaching people helplessness by not acknowledging that. I know everything I need to do to succeed. I know that me failing to do those things is my fault and mine alone. I don't dwell on this, because otherwise I would descend into depression and self-destruction. Is that what you want of the poor? Do you want to encourage them to self-destruct? Because that is the ultimate implication of what your position against Stoicism seems to be. It's either that or a complete ignorance of what Stoicism implies.
>If a poor person acts in a self destructive manner, it is not societies fault, it is their own.
Not really, and for sure, not always.
And inversely, if a rich persons acts in a great manner, it's not necessarily some personal greatness behind that.
Society can make it easy for a rich person to do the right thing, and hard for a poor person to do the right thing. Even when it comes to taking care of themselves.
It's like Anatole France once wrote regarding the law: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Gym and healthy eating is great when you can just eat something fancy and well prepared, and spend 1 hour every day after your office work. Not so easy you're a working stiff juggling 12 hours of work a day, with not much salary to show for that, coming back to a miserable house, and just wanting to eat something and go to sleep for the next day.
There is a certain hipster Stoicism out there yes.
But Stoicism is also a valid response to the chaos and overwhelming hedonic treadmill of the 21st century. Look at the book below for how Stoiscim can help [1]:
"Anton shows how today's consumerist lifestyles distort and trivialize the need for self-worth, and he argues that each person faces the genuinely heroic tasks of contributing to the world's beauty, harmony, and resources; of forgiving the cosmos for self-conscious finitude; and of gratefully accepting the ambiguity of life's gifts."
I presume I am talking to the author right now of the book [1]. Anyway I find fascinating that you used Ernest Becker ideas (his book denial of death) and others overlooked ideas. I would check out the book.
I actually like to see proof that it is now a realy thing on Wall Street and Silicon Valey.
Just because one person mentions it somewhere, doesn't mean a relevant portion is actually doing / living it.
But yes as a software engineere and growing up in a modern socieity, reading about Stoicism comes close to how i perceive my life. But there have probably always been people thinking in that direction anyway.
"Stoicism was likely influenced by Buddhism through contact with India during the wars of Alexander the Great, and shares a lot with Buddhism: the whole universe is one vast, living, divine whole."
Universe as a "divine whole" is a concept found in Advaita vedanta, not in Buddhism.
“Life is full of suffering, but that suffering is a path to understanding a larger good.”
Again wrong. Understanding true nature of reality, any experience happiness,suffering, neutral is considered a path. Not just suffering.
Here is the failure mode, aptly summarized by someone who knew. You can weaponize any faith or metaphysic this way; some are more obvious than others.
As a personal way of thinking about your own circumstances, it’s fine as far as it goes. As a social ethic for how it’s OK to organize a society, it can quickly descend into something that, well:
For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines!
They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done!
These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form.
It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”
But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man.
Many rich and powerful are extremely ambitious. They aim high and get very upset when they don't get what they aimed for. The higher you get the less if your endeavors will succeed.
Stoicism is a good way of accepting the failure and preserving one's sanity.
I've been trying to read Marcus Aureleus for a few years, but it feels like wading through a swamp and I generally give up after 10 pages. Any recommendations for an annotated version for today's readers?
Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I really enjoy 'The Daily Stoic' by Ryan Holiday [0].
There's a page for each day of the year (so ideally you would read a page per day). Each page has a short quote from Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and others, together with an interpretation of Ryan Holiday. For me, this wa an easy way to get started with the whole topic of Stoicism and some of Senecas and Aurelius ideas.
I read the Meditations in secondary school, high school, but it was the Penguin Classic edition I think. I am reading it for a fourth time, a new translation by Gregory Hays that is wonderful. I grew up poor, but went to a Jesuit high school, took Latin for two years, and I've found Stoicism appealing, because it tied in with my family's spartan lifestyle. We didn't have a phone until I was 12 or 13, and a TV until I was 8 or 10 I think. Minimal furniture, hanging clothes out the window, etc. I can see how it appeals to those say in Silicon Valley, as an alternative or contrast to their materialistic, high-tech world, a refuge. I am not discounting that it appeals to them or anyone for that matter, simply because it has a lot of truth or substance to it. I consider part of my life as stoic, and part of it along the lines of romanticism. I've considered learning Koine Greek to read it, and others, in their original language.
As a side note, my second reading was provoked by the movie "Silence of the Lambs", where Hannibal Lecter coaches Clarice to, "“First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius." ;)
>As a side note, my second reading was provoked by the movie "Silence of the Lambs", where Hannibal Lecter coaches Clarice to, "“First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius
Remembered saying something that a man craves for what he sees.
Reading literature and philosophy is both an acquired taste and skill. If you're not used to that sort of thing it may just be that you need to work your way up to it. It's a very different kind of reading from pop-anything (-fiction, -history, et c.)
Or you may read plenty of that sort of thing but just bounced off Aurelius. Still happens. I'd recommend Staniforth's translation as the best balance between easy-reading and fidelity to the text, if you want to try again. Probably don't need annotations—it's very straightforward by the standards of philosophy. If you'd like an overview of Stoicism to accompany a reading of Aurelius, and you plan to read more philosophy, it's hard to beat Russell's A History of Western Philosophy for a single volume treatment of the field's classics; people complain about its having a lot of opinion in it as if Russell were trying to trick them, but it's pretty explicit when he's describing something and when he's opining so I've never understood what the fuss is.
MA studied the doctrines of Stoic philosopher Epictetus. His surviving works are his discourses and the Handbook, which is an executive summary of his teachings. You may read it entirely in no time and understand the context.
Having a newer translation helps with this. One of the ideas he pushes is plain speech. I felt silly reading about that in a translation with lots of "thous" and "shalls".
It is not what you asked, but maybe try to read with a pen & paper. Take notes, it will help with the swamp feeling. I personally find this trick does not really work with a text editor.
And use a highlighter or just write on the book to refer back to bits when writing notes. If it's just a standard paperback I'm sure most won't have reservations for writing on their books.
Stoicism is a wonderful tool for improving your inner peace, but be careful, lest its focus on acceptance prevent you from working to improve the outside world.
>Stoicism was likely influenced by Buddhism through contact with India during the wars of Alexander the Great, and shares a lot with Buddhism
So is it directly influenced by Buddhism or we presume.
I find both Buddhism and stoicism similar in the sense of self (seeing yourself as a bigger just oneness basically mysticism Bertrand Russel talked about(1)).
One could easily write and an article titled “Stoicism’s Appeal to the Poor and Disenfranchised.” Power and wealth is orthogonal to Stoic Philosophy. It counters much of today’s culture of blame of jealously of others and offers a more fulfilling and pragmatic outlook on one’s circumstances, rich or poor.
But the article's point is that its social ethos consists of just justifying the way things are. Two millenia later, we figured out that we can improve many of the way things were, we nearly abolished chattel slavery, we abolished a few diseases, we replaced debt slavery with bankruptcy...
Maybe what's useful is that even when you have a ton of money, you still have problems. Not just absolute ones that nobody can help (your friends and relatives dying, illness), but also problems that people who don't have a load of money think you ought to be able to do something about: kids not using the chances you give them, issues with your reputation, status compared to other rich people.
This article is okay, but contains some misinformation about the origin and principles of Stoicism. The NYT article itself was an absolute disgrace, completely misrepresenting what Stoicism is.
Because I think it’s important that we mingle some Voltaire in with our Seneca, and remember that stoicism’s invaluable advice for taking better care of ourselves inside can–if we fail to mix it with other ideas–come with a big blind spot regarding the world outside ourselves, and whether we should change it.
Hopefully there is room for a third, 'My duty is to go where fate leads me and fulfil the role I find myself in, in order to provide for the betterment of society'
Revelling in your success or stagnating in your failure doesn't feel very stoic to me.
Agreed. I do not have a very strong understanding or experience with stoicism, but I never really considered stoicism to be some kind of resignation to your fate just because you can't control it. It is to actively embrace it and remind yourself that when you have successes or failures, those things were sort of "part of the plan" and you know the best thing is to trek on. I don't necessarily even think that an "unsuccessful" person would accept themselves as an unsuccessful person, but just know that they are on a path they cannot see, but trust that what they are going through is net positive for society, the world, etc.
To the stoics themselves, wealth and power are indifferent: neither good or bad.
I say that the title is provocative because wealth and power often provoke people, as can be seen in this very discussion (here on Hacker News). Depending on where you come from and where you are in life, a phrase such as "rich and powerful" may call forth the negative stereotype of evil wealthy people, or it may call forth the positive stereotype of Hacker News style entrepreneurs.
It is much easier to be indifferent to wealth and power if you already have it.
My take on the supposed rise in popularity of stoicism is not that it appeals to the "rich and powerful" per se. I do however think it appeals to people who have found themselves in a situation when they no longer have obvious things to live for, which is certainly the case for these people.
If you suddenly find yourself with free time and autonomy, philosophy is a pretty good thing to fill the void with, I think.