Stoicism
Prof. Bailly
Introductory Material
Remember that this material is based more or less on Tad
Brennan's The Stoic Life.
- The popular view of the stoic and stoicism
- Usually used to mean "unemotional," "impassive,"
"indifferent
to pain and pleasure," or "resigned to one's fate."
- Different ways to interpret that:
- The Stoic is the person who endures disastrous events and
yet
maintains appearances
- Focused on outward expression
- Why does maintaining outward appearances even in the face
of
inner wretchedness matter?
- Because of other people's opinions?
- Then stoicism is just concerned with another type of
pleasure and pain: fame, reputation.
- The "Mood Junky" (reportedly Hume's view of Stoicism)
- the Stoic is the person who feels all the time the sort of
heroic
virtue and motivation that we ordinary humans only feel
occasionally.
This is the sort of inspired state we are in, perhaps, after
reading a
particularly stirring call to action, watching
a patriotic film, or hearing an inspirational speech. With
us, it
fades. With the Stoic, the call to Virtue abides.
- Ordinary people in that state can do extraordinary things:
we've all felt the power of inspiration to make us ignore
all the
slings and arrows of fortune, or the call of money, or the
temptation
of wrongdoing.
- Thus the effort to become a stoic is the effort to
maintain
that inspired high emotion and motivation.
- Such exhilaration is unsustainable.
- On this version, the Stoic is, as Brennan puts it, a
"mood-junky," searching for the next, most lasting, state of
manic
inspiration.
- This Stoic is the plaything of emotions, exalted ones, but
nonetheless emotions.
- That is not Stoicism.
- Stoicism is an anesthetic: The Emotionless Stoic
- Fine. It might be attractive not to have these emotions
(at
times).
- There are certainly times in life when it seems preferable
not to have them:
- When the love of your life decides s/he loves someone
else.
- When your child dies.
- etc.
- Perhaps, some claim, in ancient times, life was just so
nasty, brutish, and short that it really was better to have
a lobotomy
or a permanent supply of valium. Nowadays, Stoicism is
simply no longer
attractive or necessary, then, because we have such
relatively
pain-free lives.
- That, however, is patent nonsense.
- What is more, it makes the Stoic into someone who, far
from
not caring about emotions and pain, cares so much for them
that s/he is
willing to forego all feeling to avoid them. A coward of
sorts. Or a
drop-out. A quitter.
- That is not Stoicism.
- So the popular view of stoicism has a sort of Jekyll/Hyde
aspect:
- Stiff upper lip/tough-guy : insensitive, brutish, heartless
- Public figure : hypocrite
- Impervious to pain : unable to feel joy
- Tranquil : numb
- Cool : apathetic
- Real Stoicism is much more interesting, both philosophically
and
personally.
- Next Section