Should stoicism make a comeback?

for me to poop on

I don't know. All I know is that I'm ready to setup a little shrine to the Twin Philosophers and worship them as divine heroes. There needs to be Zhou era ritual ceremonies held in their honour, and we can praise Parmenides as the supreme ancestor.

no.

marc aurelius was a hack

is you? because is me as well as the post you just replied to

Yes, it's me, although there seems to be a good number of people online who want to promote classical philosophy. I'm on the codex where people discuss it, too, although there we have usernames so it's a different atmosphere.

There are very large and active Stoics groups on facebook, too, although I just left one because it was run by a gibbering idiot who kept posting inane shit about modern US mainstream politics.

to be fair the Stoics were very involved in politics

i think it's the last hope we have

another question is how will we end modern sophistry?

To be sure, but I don't mean it in that sense.

I mean I was just getting spammed with posts from one guy that consisted of polls like "who is more stoic? Obama, Clinton, or Trump?" Followed by a rant about how Trump is racist, sexist, and unfit to be president. Or his forced attempts at making stoics fit popular modern political positions, like "unlike Christians, Stoics condemned slavery", etc.

Anyway, i just meant that there are some very large, very active Stoic groups. It's definitely a viable choice today if you want to promote that movement.

lol yeah waht a shitshow

also
>unlike Christians, Stoics condemned slavery
isn't it like the exact opposite? and i say this is a Stoic.

sounds like a moron

>purpose of life is to make yourself morally stronger
>morals

morals is a spicy one

your probably alot more well read than me but the highest value item out of stoicism is the everything happens for reason, the amount of times i just went with flow instead of fighting something i shouldnt have has been advantageous

does anyone have any good reading material on stoics in hypercomplex societies ? or being stoic in the winds of market forces ? because this is where i think it breaks down

fuck i hate faggots projecting their ideologies when talking about philosophy

The problem of most online communities is that they try too hard to fit Stoicism with modern sensibilities.

So, you end up with a "modern Stoicism" community which sees no problem with intemperance (since they believe in post-Sexual Revolution sexual ethics and in modern times everyone is a gourmand), anger (when it is against Trump), greed (they believe that "as long as you keep your virtue it is not bad to aim for superfluous material goods, such as luxury cars"), etc.

In the end, if you follow one of them it is more likely that you will unlearn Stoicism than that you learn it.

The Epicureans were hedonists in the same way that North Korea is a 'people's republic'.

The birth of the NSDAP is exactly that.

Isn't the western world already fundamentally Stoic, though?

I mean obviously the people are not, but the ideal of what a man should be like in the minds of most regular people in the west is essentially a Stoic sage.

Not anymore.

The ideal Stoic would be a hard man, who lived a simple and austere life, who did nothing for the sake of pleasure. The "ideal modern man" is a sensitive man, who is rich and "knows how to have fun".

The Stoic man would probably be called boring by modern people. Also, nowadays many men base their selfworthy on how the most promiscuous kind of women judge their appearance. For the Stoics, this would be considered extremely weak and effete.

Nah, nobody considers that an 'ideal'. That's just what pop culture filters through. Tell someome they base their selfworth on how women see you and they'll think you're a sad individual.

Also Stoics were not hard men. They could be sensitive and have fun. The point of Stoicism is that you do not let your emotions and desires overwhelm you.

>Nah, nobody considers that an 'ideal'. That's just what pop culture filters through.

That's what is considered an ideal nowadays. Pop culture dominates people.

>Tell someome they base their selfworth on how women see you and they'll think you're a sad individual.

That's in practice how many men see life. "I fuck more women than you do" or "I'm a failure because women don't like me", or "lol, why you are calling him a fag, that guy is swimming in pussy".

>Also Stoics were not hard men. They could be sensitive and have fun. The point of Stoicism is that you do not let your emotions and desires overwhelm you.

Stoics were hard men. Marcus Aurelius lived a very simple, austere life. He was not a party boy. He was not a sensitive guy who would cry at the smallest thing. He was a man who would spend a large part of his life in a military camp fighting barbarians, with his weak body.

Are you the same retard who kept insisiting the Byzantines were feminine and weak because they had an urbanized society?

What in the fuck this has to do with Byzantium?

>who did nothing for the sake of pleasure.

I think that's taking their teachings to an extreme. They advocate a simple life, but not one totally devoid of pleasures.

"for the sake of" is the thing here. Pleasure is not the aim of the acts.

>Isn't the western world already fundamentally Stoic, though?

Not really. A lot of ideals and popular ideas run contrary to Stoicism. Let's take this cheat-sheet, and let's make Anti-stoicism:

- Blame others for your unhappiness
- Satisfying the senses is a path to happiness
- Fame and fortune will bring you contentment
- Live life randomly
- Depend on things you cannot control
- Expect the best outcome in everything
- See yourself as a victim
- Dismiss nature and her ways
- Never be satisfied
- Freely indulge in negative emotions

You may notice a lot of people do the above.

Why is this board so suddenly obsessed with stoicism? Has anyone here even read Meditations or is everyone just trying to LARP as a Greek/Roman?

Why would the "History & Humanities" board be interested in a prominent Classic Philosophy School?

some salty atheist deterministic bro wrote that.

why Ad hominem ? because that graphic is pretty brutal to be honest

i think there is some unspoken thing about stoicism being embraced by really pure spiritual people. i cannot empirically define what it really is except to say you are either closer to god or further away from god on some numberless theoretical scale. People further away from god have trouble with stoicism.

>salty atheist deterministic bro
Wrote what?

Yes. That's a great post.

I think that people in general nowadays are anti-Stoic.

Hedonist's are pleasure seekers by definition, it just so happens that the Epicureans sense of pleasure was ascetic, whereas the Cyrenaics were at the other end of the spectrum. It's not improper to call Epicurus a hedonist, as long as you can discriminate between the different schools.

the world has got really crazy and we are not in controll anymore so it seems a good time to talk about that one philosophy where thats kinda a big thing

no /phil/ exists and Veeky Forums is pretty learned
> it's pronounced learn-ed

the infographic thats gonna make drink more wine and crush up some more pills... thanks for that one

Why do you think that's written by a salty atheist? And then write about Stoicism being embraced by spiritual people?

salty because its no holds barred brutal and very very generally i observe and correlate
- athiests - deterministic - no god
- stoics - fatalist - god

rarely see crossovers, my $0.02

>mfw people give up at infinite resignation

no. epicureans took hedonism to it's logical conclusion. in that sense they were the most true of the hedonistic schools

I think the issue here is the definition of hedonism. When people nowadays think of hedonism, they think of stuff like this

cnet.com/news/sex-education-porn-social-media/

which would be a mindless hedonism.

Epicureanism is a high IQ, thoughtful kind of hedonism where they think about what is the most pleasurable life. And eventually find out that the most pleasurable life is an ascetic and virtuous one.

That said, I'm not an Epicurean and I think their philosophy has some issues (not in the living ascetically issue, that's fine and the Stoics and Platonists also lived ascetically as far as I know, but on other issues)

A lot of people have always did the above, including the times when stoicism was really popular. Nevertheless, all the ideals on that cheat sheet will find resonance with a ton of people. Literally take one of those points and stick by it, and people will applaud you for it (except maybe fatalism). These are all things we deem good even if we do not live by them.

I think people underestimate how much Stoicism, through the prism of Christian ethics, has shaped our culture.

>Literally take one of those points and stick by it, and people will applaud you for it (except maybe fatalism).

>If you are unhappy it is your fault
and
>Hedonism is not the path to happiness

Would not get you applauded.

I get applauded for the first, and the second is very common.

Of course it fucking will. People are not /pol/ parodies of leftism. You taking responsibility for your state of being will earn you respect wherever you go.

...

Open any lifestyle magazine.
You will see that our society is not Stoic or Christian. It is Bentham utilitarian.

People don't elect people from lifestyle magazines to be leaders. Politicians do not claim to be hedonists, rich, materialist or hungry of fame and fortune to garner votes.

Stop assuming that pop culture is ALL culture.

>People don't elect people from lifestyle magazines to be leaders. Politicians do not claim to be hedonists, rich, materialist or hungry of fame and fortune to garner votes.
Out of all the presidential terms to say this in...

True, but the whole outroar about Trump being a viable candidate, let alone being elected, sort of proves my point.

>Politicians do not claim to be hedonists, rich, materialist or hungry of fame and fortune to garner votes.

user... The last election Americans chose between Trump and Clinton.

I agree with this belief.

The absence of pain and fear is a blessing.
Once you don't surpress your traumatic memories but use it as a tool. To remember your motivation and drive.

You can live as a blessed man.