The Promise and Problem of Pop Stoicism
Popular culture is having a Stoic moment. Philosophy has a reputation for being lofty and arcane, but Stoic texts have been leaving dusty philosophy bookcases and have found themselves in the hands of eager readers and writers trying to mine these ancient texts for wisdom. Bestsellers like Sharon Lebell’s Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness (2007) and Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman’s The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living (2016) are a testament to Stoicism’s current popularity. These days it’s not uncommon for the philosopher and non-philosopher (and somewhat infamously, Silicon Valley moguls) to be familiar with the names of Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca.
Philosophers should welcome the popular interest in Stoicism. But academic philosopher or not, we should ask why many are finding Stoicism inspirational. What’s the particular appeal of this philosophy?
There’s much to like in Stoic thought. The Stoics argue for emotional fortitude, self-control, and calmness in the face of misfortune. These core Stoic demands can only gain relevance within the current COVID-19 crisis. The Stoics also noted that people tend to make displays of their wealth, possessions, or good deeds, so they argued for a particular brand of restraint that avoids such theatrics. One can see the appeal of this kind of restraint for many of us who are drowning in a sea of online content and who often feel the pressure to turn our own activities into content on social media. Readability surely plays a role too. Since the Stoics often wrote in the genre of epistle or aphorism, their works are far less opaque than the dense treatises of other famous philosophers like Kant or Heidegger. And while some modern Stoics claim the appeal of Stoicism lies in some universal view of human nature as finite, easily frustrated, and often lacking meaning, goods, and virtue, I’m not convinced it explains the phenomenon entirely. Various schools of thought and religions address these issues. The contemporary popularity of Stoicism demands further explanation.
In the 1970s, philosopher Alasdair Macintyre anticipated the recent popularity of Stoicism when he noted that Stoicism lives beyond the ancient world and is “one of the permanent moral possibilities in the culture of the West.” According to Macintyre, our liberal political system often shies away from imposing a common good beyond the rights and freedoms that would secure our ability to pursue the lives that each individual thinks is worth living. The good I pursue is a good because I deem it to be so, and if it does not harm you, then neither you nor the state have any right to get in the way of that. On such a view, the burden of moral cultivation is largely seen as an individual’s own responsibility and carried out through individual processes.
A pop art print of Marcus Aurelius available for purchase on Amazon also attests to the contemporary popularity of Stoicism.
This modern liberal individualism is a fertile ground for certain versions of Stoic moral philosophy. Because Stoicism’s prescriptions often emphasize a turn inward, it is something we can interpret as not-too-distant from our culture’s brand of individualism. Take one of, if not the, Stoic prescription: Do not be concerned with that which is out of your control. Your choices and perceptions belong to you. When you are faced with adversity, adjust these choices and your perception of the situation. We might be able to retranslate this reading of Stoicism into a sentiment familiar to many Americans: pull yourself up by your bootstraps and deal with it.
The Daily Stoic claims that we should not quibble over “the unique beliefs of the various Stoics.” “Would such facts,” The Daily Stoic asks, “really help you day to day? What clarity does trivia provide?” At the risk of sounding pedantic, let me say that these unique beliefs do matter. Many Stoics differed on their positions or points of emphasis, and many Stoics point to the need for rational community with others. As readers of these popular representations of Stoicism and even the original texts, we need to remain vigilant about what authors choose to emphasize. One collage of quotes from Marcus Aurelius can lend support to the rugged individualism I just described. Another could emphasize his preoccupation with our social nature and his view that each individual is a part of the cosmic whole which they can contribute to alongside their fellow workers for the common good. These are stark differences. Which aspect is emphasized (or not) is not merely academic “trivia.”
Some of these philosophic details are exactly what makes Stoicism appealing and gives it logical consistency. Take a key aspect of Stoic metaphysics and practical ethics: the vision of a cosmic whole. In many versions of Stoicism, the universe, or Nature, operates according to some providential order. The things we encounter in the world operate according to their own laws and follow their own paths. The Stoics argue that when we realize this is the case—with everything from celestial bodies all the way down to an exasperating interaction with a coworker or neighbor—we can move from frustration to acceptance of the things that are out of our control.
Who could fail to see the appeal of this view? Many of us feel we have little control over the state of our country’s economy, politics, institutions, workplaces, and communities. The class and generational gaps in our culture have been emphasized to the point of parody. There is an increasing, and justified, worry that subsequent generations will be worse off than those prior to them. Younger generations often have to choose between incurring debts to earn the credentials for traditional places in the workforce, or otherwise pursue alternative, “gig,” or undervalued lines of work. Older generations have had, or will have to, give up workplaces and professions where they felt they had an impact. This pressure leads to an anxious scramble to carve a small space where you try to find work which is both meaningful and lucrative. All the while, the Stoic prescription sits above us: Don’t worry about what you cannot change.
I believe it’s a costly mistake to accept that our social conventions, our social, political, and economic organizations, communities, friendships, or what have you, are out of our control. Surely many things are out of our control. We require some kind of society or social organization that can meet our needs: bodily, emotional, social, intellectual, etc. But how we meet these needs is not entirely beyond our grasp. And while Stoic thought does, I believe, have a tendency to view the social world as an affront on personal sanctity, there is a risk of overblowing and even romanticizing this tendency. When the Stoics criticize the social world we encounter, it is most often a critique of those who are inconsiderate, selfish, and who cannot recognize the need for solidarity. No doubt this social engagement and solidarity is as important as it is difficult, frustrating and disheartening. To believe that macro-level changes, or even changes in our own personal relationships, happen easily is to dream with eyes wide open. But when faced with these challenges, we might remember Epictetus’ call to recognize how much we can progress (or regress) when meeting adversity.
All of that to say something simple: caution! Stoicism speaks to the real needs and anxieties we have today. Reading the Stoics can indeed help soothe the powerlessness we feel within massive social, political, and economic structures or when faced with problems which appear largely out of our individual control. But we should be watchful of how we and other authors bring our modern perspectives onto ancient texts, and be wary of popular presentations of Stoicism that downplay the social aspect of Stoic thought in favor of an alienating individualism. Rather than collapsing into ourselves, our current crisis should make it clear that individual decisions have profound effects on the social whole and that our happiness is often born from a rich engagement with the social world.
Christopher D. Quintana is pursuing a PhD in philosophy at Villanova University. His main areas of interest are the history of social and political philosophy and theories of virtue.