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On Modern "Stoicism"
Feb. 9th, 2019 03:16 pmI've been around a few people who have claimed to be practicing "Stoicism" let's just say I wasn't very impressed; to put it rather lightly. Back when I still had Facebook I poked around in a few groups that were ostensibly devoted to Stoic practice. There I noticed a lot of virtue-signalling and plenty of parroting of currently-fashionable ideologies (various regressive-progressive liberal and SJW talking points), of course under the guise of being "stoic." What a hoot.
Problem #1 is that so-called "Modern Stoicism" is rather wishy-washy on the topic of metaphysics. It's most popular promoters, which are life coaches of the typical contemporary character, tend to avoid the fact that the classical/traditional Stoics of Hellenistic antiquity nearly all subscribed to a spiritual worldview of one sort or another. The Moderns however are just fine with letting their students cling into whatever nihilistic and relativistic modern and postmodern views they wish. Enforcing spiritual discipline among students is, ya know, bad for business and stuff. Who wants to chase away customers when there's so much $$$ to be made?? On a more grounded note, it's quite possible that many of these "teachers" are themselves ignorant of traditional spiritual doctrines. So even if they aren't necessarily money-grubbing opportunists, they are still a shining example of the blind leading the blind.
The bitter truth is that most modern, secular, educated people (this comprises the vast majority of those who identify as stoics today) here in the West now base their morality solely on utilitarian presuppositions and believe in one or another "humanist" doctrines which place no principle higher than that of the individual human ego. In absence of a higher or divine principle, human existence is little more than a battle of egocentric wills and this battle can only be framed realistically though the lens of Machiavellian game theory analysis. So we have people **using** stoic methodology for the purpose of **appearing** more virtuous (what they envision virtue to be) than the next guy. There's no Good in and of itself. What's passed off as "stoic" virtues is little more than mere utility. The purpose of the whole endeavor is to use a "stoic" toolkit to prove one's ego as **appearing** to be more pure/clean or advanced/evolved than other egos. Of course I don't think most modern stoic practitioners see their own use of stoicism as being anything like those attributes. But if/when they sit down and ponder the ultimate purpose for their study of this knowledge then they may in fact come to a similar conclusion as to what I laid out above. The long and short of it is that without a consistent Physics* (metaphysical weltanschauung), Stoicism is nothing more than a methodology without a clearly-defined end goal.
*remember that classical/traditional Stoicism consists of three parts: Physics, Logic/Rhetoric and Ethics. Most modern practitioners tend to omit the first two parts and are thus practicing a massively-incomplete system.
Problem #1 is that so-called "Modern Stoicism" is rather wishy-washy on the topic of metaphysics. It's most popular promoters, which are life coaches of the typical contemporary character, tend to avoid the fact that the classical/traditional Stoics of Hellenistic antiquity nearly all subscribed to a spiritual worldview of one sort or another. The Moderns however are just fine with letting their students cling into whatever nihilistic and relativistic modern and postmodern views they wish. Enforcing spiritual discipline among students is, ya know, bad for business and stuff. Who wants to chase away customers when there's so much $$$ to be made?? On a more grounded note, it's quite possible that many of these "teachers" are themselves ignorant of traditional spiritual doctrines. So even if they aren't necessarily money-grubbing opportunists, they are still a shining example of the blind leading the blind.
The bitter truth is that most modern, secular, educated people (this comprises the vast majority of those who identify as stoics today) here in the West now base their morality solely on utilitarian presuppositions and believe in one or another "humanist" doctrines which place no principle higher than that of the individual human ego. In absence of a higher or divine principle, human existence is little more than a battle of egocentric wills and this battle can only be framed realistically though the lens of Machiavellian game theory analysis. So we have people **using** stoic methodology for the purpose of **appearing** more virtuous (what they envision virtue to be) than the next guy. There's no Good in and of itself. What's passed off as "stoic" virtues is little more than mere utility. The purpose of the whole endeavor is to use a "stoic" toolkit to prove one's ego as **appearing** to be more pure/clean or advanced/evolved than other egos. Of course I don't think most modern stoic practitioners see their own use of stoicism as being anything like those attributes. But if/when they sit down and ponder the ultimate purpose for their study of this knowledge then they may in fact come to a similar conclusion as to what I laid out above. The long and short of it is that without a consistent Physics* (metaphysical weltanschauung), Stoicism is nothing more than a methodology without a clearly-defined end goal.
*remember that classical/traditional Stoicism consists of three parts: Physics, Logic/Rhetoric and Ethics. Most modern practitioners tend to omit the first two parts and are thus practicing a massively-incomplete system.
