Don't be a Stoic

Across the vast lands of Twitter, bookshops, Amazon and blog stires, one Philosophy has ruled them all. Stoicism is the philosophy in which thinkers — most notably Seneca and Epictetus — emphasised that a wise person would be emotionally adaptable to adversity since “virtue is sufficient for happiness”.

My argument is that some of the ideas behind stoicism are utter bs, while others are pretty solid; people should also not limit themselves to sticking with one philosophical current.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the argument, it would be important to notice that when we talk about stoicism today, we mostly refer to the roman branch. That is, the “state philosophy” driven by Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. This was a philosophy derived from earlier stoicism, that is the journey to “eudemonia” (a term many writers seem to love nowadays), as per the founder of stoicism, Zeno.

Seneca was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Rome, and Aurelius was the effing emperor of Rome.

Much of the teachings of stoicism then relied on concepts surrounding ethics, power, happiness, and knowledge. For example, one of the ideas we can take from the Roman stoicism is that passions are great (if even), but one must not be too carried by them. Additionally, one shouldn’t care about material things, lest they possess us…Ehm, excuse me? Seneca was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Rome, and Aurelius was the effing emperor of Rome. And the hypocrisies don’t end there, but it would be not worth much to attack the philosophy based on the lives of its preachers.

Just picking some stuff from the top of my mind I find a couple of problems with the most discussed teachings of stoicism: passions as a problem, duty and roles, and a certain numbness towards the external world. Of course, these very problematic points, together with other aspects of stoicism, hold some valuable nuances.

In other words, the obsession with seeing high levels of emotions as problematic brings along a vision of a good world as one without vulnerability.

In the excellently written Don’t be stoic: Roman Stoicism’s origins show its perniciousness, the author, Henry Gruber, touches on at least two of the points I noted. For example:

“The attention to Aurelius as emperor comes at the price of overlooking the young Marcus, a lover writing erotic letters to his teacher, the African orator Fronto […] Aurelius adopted Stoicism and duty, abandoning his early passion. By exalting Aurelius the resolute commander rather than Marcus the enraptured lover, Stoicism rejects love and its vulnerability in favour of power.”

In other words, the obsession with seeing high levels of emotions as problematic brings along a vision of a good world as one without vulnerability. One without love, suffering, and hope.

While I am more a behavioural scientist than a psychotherapist, I find it my duty to let you know that emotions are not a problem. Sure, if we do want to see the usefulness of stoic teachings such as “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it” (Marcus Aurelius), we can appreciate the insight into the fact that emotions can be misregulated. In this sense, when humans do not have an adaptive way of regulating emotions, we might misunderstand them and be overwhelmed by them, with negative consequences.

We might note there that psychology tells us nowadays that there are situations in which we might not want to mellow our emotions, but up them. For instance, in situations of danger, we might desire to be able to feel anxious, or excited.

But unfortunately, this is not where the stoic teachings about the perils of emotions end. Which, often comes with added misogyny when mixed with gender role stereotypes. Being transported by emotions is often (and was especially at the times of Romans, but you know!) considered girly, women-like; women are considered emotional and thus, for the stoics, less capable of wisdom and control.

What is left then, but duties and Nature…

“In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature “according to the Stoa,” and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise” — Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The world, the nature, the stoics assume they adhere to, is nothing more than a world they created in their own image, according to Nietzsche. I cannot disagree with this view, and I would add too: how can one be one with nature while one is also supposed to be able to control emotions, live by virtue, and be unaffected by experiences? Not to remark once more how hypocritical some of the teachings of the Stoics were (and are) given the voice they come from.

About duty, I stumbled across this:

“No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, ‘No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my colour undiminished.’”

This is all worth pointing out because of the disturbing habit we humans have of making excuses for not doing our duty or not being good. “It’s not cheating if it’s on vacation.” “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” “They hit me first.” “I’m on the road, who cares about my diet (or my sobriety)?” “I was tired. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

No. Duty is duty. Good is good. We must do it every day, everywhere.

Duty is duty, every day, everywhere. Ok, if we are talking about being an empathetic nice human being. Not ok if we are saying one cannot be too tired for something, cannot defend themselves in a fight, or eat a fucking cake on holiday.

Poor stoicism, it has been absorbed by the scammy and shallow culture of self-help (not all self-help is a scam, but let’s not digress about this here).

We limit ourselves when we adhere to labels related to our identities. While some labels may help us navigate the world and understand where we stand (think of sexual orientation labels), others may trap us into limiting constructs of beliefs. For example, a “republican” may feel like adhering to beliefs about climate, immigration, and world pandemics according to what they think their group would believe. The Same goes for liberals.

So yes, this is the moment in which I tell you I am not completely opposed to Stoicism. Like anything really. It is indeed flawed, but I’m yet to find a fully perfect ideology/philosophy. Also, it has much to teach. No, my problem is mostly with people, and how we adhere to things, sticking our identity so tightly against labels we might not even be able to use our eyes to see what else is around.

Then joining identity with this type of thing (e.g. philosophy, diets…you know “paleo”) can come with some subtle dangers (not subtle in the case of paleo. Eat your veggies, and your pasta, kid). For example, we might find ourselves more vulnerable to sales and marketing techniques of self-help/hacks books…and articles. So we find ourselves not reading the “Meditations”, or Seneca, but some “10 Ways Living Like a Stoic Will Benefit You”, or “How You Too Can Be a Stoic”. Spending money, getting more into the rabbit hole and being more and more closed to criticism.

Instead, be open. Take from the Stoics what you think they said right, take from the existentialists what enthralled you, and from your mum that you shouldn’t accept candies from strangers. You don’t need the name of a philosophical movement to be wise, to find your way in the world. You just need to open yourself to learning, continuously.

Interestingly, Stoicism is at the foundation of CBT’s (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) rude brother, REBT (Rational Emotion Behavioural Therapy).

In short, while CBT takes the usefulness of Stoicism — the fact that the way we interpret the world may be at fault for our negative emotions — Ellis, the founder of REBT, took a bit too much of the tough-love approach that stoics are often known for.

It is based, at least in the way Ellis practised it, a lot on telling people that all of their problems are rooted in the fact that they believe irrational things, and thus feel emotions that they needn’t be feeling. I much prefer thinking there is often a good reason for which we feel what we feel, even when it’s not an adaptive response to a situation, and that we can find ways to adapt by learning to understand emotions and how to regulate them. Sure, reappraisal (reframing the situation) is useful too, but not because of the “irrationality” of emotions.

I know, I know, I digressed, just there at the end. I’m sorry, I really am, but I can get a bit everywhere with these topics. But, thinking about concluding statements, I’d like to say that my problem is more with the ever-returning hype surrounding stoicism than the current itself. Sure, it is flawed, and its practitioners were deeply hypocritical, but between all the flaws there are some very adaptable teachings. We just need to remind ourselves that no philosopher has found the ultimate truth to the world, or how to live. We must be open-minded, read many sources, doubt as much as we can, and always continue to learn and get better.