Stoicism

We should like to embark upon a comprehensive, but unsystematic, explanation for… a lot of things. And we shall start with stoicism.

But many people do not like stoicism. It is fair to say it shows a rather ridiculous face. You can swallow your anger, but it seldom goes down well. So the Stoic Face has it’s mouth full and firmly sealed and a look of pained endurance. Most people, which here means, the sensible majority, would just spit it out and get it over with.

When the Stoic Face can hold it in no longer, rather a scene follows. But it is not a stoic scene. Actually, the real stoics disapproved of the whole ordeal, the full mouth, the strained endurance and the final upshot. The real stoics preferred chewing emotions up thoroughly before any attempt is made to swallow. Thus we have the Stoic Posture: head bowed, pacing back and forth, with philosophic gesticulations and much stroking of the beard. He will progress through a series of complicated fallacies to the conclusion that nothing matters, that it is not worth crying over spilt milk (by which he means, the most terrible disasters that can happen in or out of life), and above all, that it is a most serious error to ever feel any emotion about anything. He is rather wrong; if there is never any good reason for me to feel sad, then it is an exceedingly interesting and highly significant fact that I do feel sad anyway. If he wants to be logical, let him be logical. But let him not deny the facts.

Such are my gripes with stoicism. Nevertheless, I think it is among the most philosophical philosophies, when handled by a true philosopher. If you can, like the Roman Seneca, be a thoroughgoing Stoic and enjoy poetry, then you are probably on the right track. A proper stoic may not even call themself a stoic, and should certainly realise that there is no need to call themself a stoic. Reasonableness is the chief virtue of stoicism. It consists in subjecting daily life to scrutiny and making pragmatic choices. Crying over spilt milk achieves nothing and is regretted afterwards. On the other hand the only reason for the tears is the frustration of the situation. So there is no good reason to cry; besides, cleaning up the milk would remove even the urge to cry. People are making that kind of judgment all the time. But people are failing to make that kind of judgment all the time too. The sense of justice which urges one to punish the crime first and attempt to rectify it afterwards; the love of peace which urges one to break up the argument unsolved; the enthusiasm which thrusts one headlong into a catastrophe of unreadiness – all these the stoic rejects. A stoic who is genuinely reasonable rejects them not because he does not love justice, peace, and zeal, but because he does love them, and wants to take the surest means of achieving them. But I should add, a reasonable person who is genuinely a stoic thinks like that all the time.

Hence I am of the opinion that a stoic is only as good as the values they live by. Every philosopher lives by the value of reason, but it is impossible to avoid having other values too. It’s no use swallowing emotions, but to learn to set them aside while reasoning out their significance and how to achieve your goals is invaluable.