Why did stoicism go out of style?

example?

Stoicism as a philosophical tradition was a late stage emergence of Apollonian culture, going into vogue when the culture had already been rotting under the rule of the autocratic Caesars, and was promoted by idle aristocrats who were wealthy enough to afford the luxury of restraint.

As a late-term emergence, it was basically the ancient equivalent of mindfulness, a sort of fancy way of telling people that life is shit and they'd best get used to it. It was religion stripped of everything that makes it meaningful and galvanizes people to purpose, a clever word-play promoted for strictly propagandist purposes by the pagan temples and the court of the Caesars, which in this era was essentially an unholy alliance of church and state.

In the ideologically bankrupt Apollonian culture, Stoicism produced no major ethical breakthrough, it did not promote any sort of ideal or motivate the masses towards constructing an ideal society. It was in fact, a symptom of their impending collapse, a culture having long since traded its creative and spiritual traditions for a strict adherence to the here-and-now, a social preparation for the civil wars that were in Rome's not to distant future.

it never worked

The ideas within Stoicism aren't far removed from those of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

The "Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look." which I have often seen used as a motivational quote of sorts not only throws out the metaphor of digging a well used by the original, it also becomes a twisted parody of the original meaning.

I don't remember the exact wording, but the original says "Dig within; within is the source of good (ἀγαθός) which will eternally gush if you keep digging".

Basically the philosopher's call for continuous soul-searching for moral good becomes, in translation, a call for navel gazing in search of self-esteem.

>google quote
>goodreads
>tags: inner-strength, self-confidence, self-contentment
Makes me sick to my stomach.

There's an enormous corpus of valuable works in Greek.

In fact if you are interested in Antiquity, the majority of valuable works are in Greek.

Found the original:
el.wikisource.org/wiki/Τα_εις_εαυτόν/7

>Ἔνδον σkάπτε, ἔνδον ἡ πηγὴ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ kαὶ ἀεὶ ἀναβλύειν δυναμένη, ἐὰν ἀεὶ σkάπτῃς.

Pretty much what I said.

most people these days pretend they are familiar with a work after skimming a wikipedia article about it and you expect them to cross examine translations and ancient originals ??

The meaning of that translation isn't that far off, and I'd wager that the academics that translate it as thus have a good reason for doing so. You sound like an autist hung up on particulars.

Stoicism was an early precursor to Christianity. Any Christian is technically a stoic, their teachings is very similar.

It should be also pointed out the Stoicism height came about the fall of the Roman empire, when the world around them was falling to pieces so naturally people started looking towards the divine for answers in the form of Christianity, while others looked toward philosophy on how to live.

The meaning is completely off. Leaving out the digging may be defensible as a stylistic choice (though presenting this as hard labour is important to the message in my view) but replacing moral goodness with strength makes no sense.

Now, there are *better* translations. But without being able to read the original you are unable to assess the quality or notice nuances which were left out (or added!) by the translator. Indeed a looser translation might flow better and thus seem superior to a semi-literate reader.

Because it's a garbage philosophy.

English doesn't convey this nuance well. Does the word in question expressly mean a moral good rather than simply something that is good? Or is that your own subjective interpretation of it? Because I have serious doubts an academic would make that kind of fuckup. Also that sounds like a super old translation Which book of Meditations is this in? I have a very recent translation on hand.

Because its style is practically continental but it is incredibly 'life-denying' as the contys call it and so the only people who practice philosophy in a similar way hate it. (Any contys on here feel free to correct me)

People who tend to practice philosophy in an analytic manner question what insights stoicism has for us.

>continental
Fuck off

Christianity directed it towards God.

because it became so obvious after enlightenment that you neednt be called stoic..every thinker was one. it became the criteria of being a philosopher or even atheist and u took on from there as a dualist or idealist or whyever else that gets ur cock hard.

also, nobody on this thread knows what stoicism is...theyre typing nonsense. one user complains of wikipedia, had theae dimwits reas the wikipedia article at least theyd know what stoicism is. for gods sake why do o even bother with the internet its not like it ever does me any good.

You can literally do degrees in continental philosophy, why deny the distinction exists?

>degrees say so so its true

> Academics in what is essentially just an academic discipline say so