AND I GOTTA SAY!
I'm only a bit into it and I already like him so much more than Marcus Aurelius. Let me tell you. Aurelius is alright, kind of, sometimes confusing and flawed and self contradictory (what philosopher isn't though, huh?). But he's sooo stuffy and self serious. Epictetus? So far? Dude basically cloaks his arguments in hyperbole and sarcasm. I half feel like I'm reading philosophy written by a subdued Oscar Wilde or something.
Telling Dala about Saint Augustine and how he was a Christian convert who's previous beliefs shaped quite a bit of his philosophy but for the life of me I couldn't remember the name of his previous faith even though I knew the gist of it. I had to look it up. Manichaeism. How could I forget that? Seriously.
Either I'm getting forgetful cause I'm getting old or I'm getting forgetful cause I try to remember too much these days. Maybe both.
Oh well.
Back to Epictetus. The man's a riot.
Edit: Just saw I mis-spelled and left off Robert's last name in my title. Gonna leave it like that. The stoic in Robert is just gonna have to accept that.
Edit 2: Picture is of a Malaysian Dead Leaf Mantis performing a threat display. Cause we can all use a bit more nature in our lives, even if it's just a photo.
In Marcus Aurelius' defense, he wasn't writing for an audience. What is now called his Meditations wasn't written for publication, just to himself. Also, Nietzsche's takedown of the Stoics generally in Beyond Good & Evil is pretty good:In truth, the matter is altogether different: while you pretend rapturously to read the canon of your law in nature, you want something opposite, you strange actors and self-deceivers! Your pride wants to impose your morality, your ideal, on nature—even on nature—and incorporate them in her; you demand that she should be nature “according to the Stoa,” and you would like all existence to exist only after your own image—as an immense eternal glorification and generalization of Stoicism. For all your love of truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, so rigidly-hypnotically to see nature the wrong way, namely Stoically, that you are no longer able to see her differently. And some abysmal arrogance finally still inspires you with the insane hope that because you know how to tyrannize yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—nature, too, lets herself be tyrannized: is not the Stoic— a piece of nature?
And yet he sings high praises of the concept of amor fati in his autobiography, Ecce Homo, calling it "his formula for greatness in man." Of course, what I have read of that book seems pretty absurd, he states that "no one can point to any moment of my life in which I have assumed an arrogant or a pathetic attitude." Full of ourselves much? Never? I am unsure my eyebrow was meant to climb this high up my face. Perhaps I should read the whole thing though, as I only looked it up because of a quote I once saw, I wanted to know where it came from and was like WTF? But mostly it seems like a book full of "everyone else sucks and I am awesome and here's why" and actually it kind of reminds me of the guy in the White House right now talking about "people who didn't even cry when they were babies." Not saying he never had any good ideas, but damn dude LOL. Also "I'm not arrogant but the next chapter shall be titled 'Why I Write Such Excellent Books'" ....I'm dying over here.
I haven't read that one either, but my understanding from doing almost no research as that those titles were written with his tongue firmly in cheek.
I'm aware, but only because Dala informed me of the same last night after she read my post. That said, reading his works is like eating flavorless bread. Substantive? Yes. Nourishing? Kind of. Pleasurable? No. Not really in the common sense of the concept. I love the quote you shared. I agree with it in some ways too. I think my personal biggest complaint of Stoicism, of what I've seen of it and read in it and such, is that there's this undercurrent of an egocentric world view, which lends itself to vanity, self importance, and a perception that could lead oneself to behave intractably with the world and people around them. Sometimes I get the sense that Stoicism leaves no room for understanding that individuals make up the collective whole and the collective whole influences the individual, to the point where we need to understand that we are individuals, we are collectives, and no matter how much we wish to will otherwise, one does not exist without the other. I wouldn't say it's definite, but I have a pretty good feeling Stoics would be against face masks, greater good be damned.In Marcus Aurelius' defense, he wasn't writing for an audience. What is now called his Meditations wasn't written for publication, just to himself.
Yeah, and I do think the ultimate conclusion is basically never doing anything for anyone else. After all, one reading of Stoic teachings is that if something bad happens to someone else, their being unhappy is the result of their lack of Stoicism, which isn't something you can control, and so you shouldn't deal with it. I'm also not sure how you square Stoicism with any meaningful attempts at change.
I have to respectfully disagree with the two of you. I can come up with a few quotes as evidence, but I think this particular one is a decent illustration of the stoic concept of sympatheia (mutual interconnectedness, or the whole [sometimes capitalized depending on translator] in Aurelius' writing): So by keeping in mind the whole I form a part of, I'll accept whatever happens. And because of my relationship to to other parts, I will do nothing selfish, but aim instead to join them, to direct my every action toward what benefits us all and to avoid what doesn't. If I do all that, then my life should go smoothly. As you might expect a citizen's life to go - one whose actions serve his fellow citizens, and who embraces the community's decree. -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 10.6 (emphasis mine) I would point out a couple of things: you could take the "whole does nothing that doesn't benefit it" to say that we should just let whoever is going to die go right ahead because death is a natural part of life but I would argue that the second section of this passage is a pretty strong argument against that. I would also point out that Aurelius ruled during the Antonine plague (it is said that up to 2000 people died per day at the height of it, so I think we can stop calling this time unprecedented now), he and his co-emperor Lucius Verus called Galen in to study and try to treat plague victims. When Aurelius died, his last words are reported to have been "Weep not for me, think rather of the pestilence and the deaths of so many others." Also RE: attempts at change - I posted this quote a couple of pubskis ago because it seemed fitting at the time: -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.18 This is also the same guy who "zooms out" and dumps on how everything is the same forever and ever but with a different set of names so I get it, and if you really zoom out it is kind of true, we are born, we live our short lives, we die, and we are soon forgotten. But change comes, sometimes slowly, sometimes in the blink of an eye. If this were not so we might still be wearing toga and riding horses everywhere. (So much poo!) But no matter our current circumstances, we have to stay focused on being good and doing the right thing. I think that the "you shouldn't deal with it/them/self-importance" is perhaps misunderstanding the idea that there is what you control and what you don't control. You can try to help other people but you have to do so with at least a little bit of detachment because ultimately you don't control them/their reaction. We don't control what happens, only how we react. I see how this might be taken as overimportance on the self. In a way it is, but the outcome should be that we direct our action toward the highest good. I hope I didn't ramble too much.Whether it's atoms or nature, the first thing to be said is this: I am a part of a world controlled by nature. Secondly: that I have a relationship with other, similar parts. And with that in mind I have no right, as a part, to complain about what is assigned me by the whole. Because what benefits the whole can't harm the parts, and the whole does nothing that doesn't benefit it. That's a trait shared by all natures, but the nature of the world is defined by a second characteristic as well: no outside force can compel it to cause itself harm.
Is anyone afraid of change? Why? What can take place without change? What is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? Can you take a bath unless the wood is set afire and undergoes a change? Can you be nourished unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Do you not see then that changes in yourself are just the same and equally necessary for the universal nature?
To be fair, I said "one reading" of Stoic teaching, not necessarily his :)
You're not wrong. In fact, the sentiment that you brought up about other people's unhappiness being a lack of their own stoicism is touched upon (I don't think he says it quite like that) by Aurelius in his writings, but again, that doesn't stop him from trying to be a good person. I have not yet gotten to read much of other stoic's works (after all, this whole thread came about because I tried but got my book stolen by my husband) so I can't say much for their takes yet. Overall I have found a lot of helpful concepts in what I have read of stoicism, but that can also be said for Buddhist teachings and other philosophies/religions but I guess what we are both getting at here is that none of them are perfect.
To be fair, my answer was more of an attempt at an obvious lawyerly cop-out than a genuine refutation of what you said. Nonetheless, I do think it ultimately depends in how it's applied by the person.
johnnyFive, I think we've been dunked on. This is what I get for marrying someone who reads as much as me. A dunking.
An Excerpt Discourses, Book III, 22 On Cynicism, 58-61 Dala, I got bad news for you. You can't have this book. It's mine now. I'm having too much fun with it. You're just gonna have to read something else.Listen to how, Diogenes, laid low with a fever, still lectured passers-by: 'Idiots, where are you going in such a hurry? You are going a great distance to see those damned athletes compete; why not stop a bit and see a man do combat with illness?' A man of his mettle is not one to accuse God, who chose him, of unfairness in making him ill. He positively prides himself on his hardships and is bold enough to be a roadside attraction. What would he blame God for? That he cuts such an admirable figure? What would the charge be? That his virtue is too glaringly bright? Here, just remember what he says about poverty, death and pain; how he compares his happiness with that of the Great King. Or rather, he doesn't think there is any comparison. For where you find unrest, grief, fear, frustrated desire, failed aversion, jealousy and envy, happiness has no room for admittance. And where values are false, these passions inevitably follow.
Mr. Dobbin would, if a practicing stoic and not just a translator of, say that your mangling of his name is an external and not in his control, and would probably be more pleased that you are enjoying the book than bothered that you goofed his name. Eventually no one will remember any of our names.