Damn it sure is hard to be happy by Aristotle's standards! Almost as hard as living a "normal" life.
In reality, life is full of abnormalties: few of us can confidently say we are always beautiful; many career women are childless these days due to choosing to start families late in life, let alone ensuring nothing bad would happen to the precious children they do have; money is something that is never enough - there is always a better and more expensive private school to send your children to and always a nicer house to buy or a fancier neighbourhood to live in!
I used to really want a "normal" happy life, only to realise that "normal" is actually an extraordinarily blessed life after giving birth late-ish in life to a child who has a disability.
By Aristotle's standards I should be not that happy lol 😂, but I guess I will just "shake it off" (who else is a Swiftie here?).
I much prefer the Stoic take on this position, that it is possible for someone without external goods to be happy. I admit Aristotle has some points (it’s hard to say someone being tortured for life would be happy), but I think he goes too far in thinking you need so many external goods to be happy. I like the idea that one must imagine Sisyphus happy!
Matthew, the Stoics never say that the sage on the rack is happy. They say he is eudaimon. The trick is how to translate that word. "Happiness" is now acknowledged to be a bad translation, because the word is vague and invokes feelings rather than a reason-based approach to things.
Sometimes eudaimonia is rendered as "flourishing," but that slants things in favor of the Aristotelian interpretation. Of course someone being tortured is not flourishing, the Stoics were not crazy!
That's why my preferred translation is "a life worth living." This does encompass a life of flourishing, but also extreme situations, like Nelson Mandela spending 27 years in prison while fighting for justice. He wasn't flourishing, but he was eudaimon.
Ah, that is a good point and does make the Stoic position more sensible. A lot of things get lost in translation when reading the ancients. To be honest, I’ve definitely heard that distinction before, so I don’t know why I didn’t just apply it here! 😅
I am working hard to train myself to live according the Stoics ethics.
Reading that passage though, it reminded me so much of the values our society embraces.
TV shows displaying the life of the rich and famous are so popular. Kids are aspiring to be influencers because they see as achieving money, fame and all these “good things” with minimal work….
It seems that at some point society - I don’t know when- stopped valuing a virtuous life and that’s a shame.
Rafael, exactly. I think in the US that turning point was the '80s and early '90s, first with the so-called Reagan revolution, then with the movie Wall Street and its famous tagline, "greed is good."
Good stuff Massimo, and I also like the Stoic take over Aristotle. But I think best yet is that of their predecessor, Plato. He laid it out in the Republic. In the first few lines he asks Cephalus if growing old is a rough or easy path to travel. There is a discussion about different goods in life, such as wealth, sex, reputation, family, and Cephalus' take is that these things make it easier or harder, but it comes down to a person's character to determine their relative happiness. All of the rest of the book Plato has the characters try to figure out what it means to have a good (Just) character, and how we can pursue that. The book ends with the Myth of Er, that summarizes it all, taking into account the Tyche (fate) or role of the dice (chance): “Yet if at each return to the life of this world a man loved wisdom sanely, and the lot (klēros) of his choice did not fall out among the last, we may venture to affirm, from what was reported thence, that not only will he be happy here but that the path of his journey thither and the return to this world will not be underground and rough but smooth and through the heavens.” (Republic 619d-e)
Chester, the Stoics were influenced by Socrates (and therefore Plato), especially by his argument in the Euthydemus that wisdom is the chief good because the correct use of all other goods depends on it.
I try to give Aristotle a kinder spin and hope if he was speaking today this would sound more like the Buddhist concept of interbeing. But as written I disagree completely. In fact I think many of the preferred indifferents easily tip into vices, wealth being the one that comes first to mind.
Andrew, I'm all in favor of charitable reading of anything. But it's really hard to read the Nicomachean Ethics and not come away with a strong whiff of elitism.
I don't consider myself beautiful and that never bothers me. Whatever beauty I have comes from within me. I am not rich and I do not care. I live sufficiently with what I have. Envy and jealousy of others is pointless and a waste of my time. My influence in the world is limited but I always try to reflect the cardinal virtues. Every day I am grateful for what Stoicism has given me and enables me to be.
Damn it sure is hard to be happy by Aristotle's standards! Almost as hard as living a "normal" life.
In reality, life is full of abnormalties: few of us can confidently say we are always beautiful; many career women are childless these days due to choosing to start families late in life, let alone ensuring nothing bad would happen to the precious children they do have; money is something that is never enough - there is always a better and more expensive private school to send your children to and always a nicer house to buy or a fancier neighbourhood to live in!
I used to really want a "normal" happy life, only to realise that "normal" is actually an extraordinarily blessed life after giving birth late-ish in life to a child who has a disability.
By Aristotle's standards I should be not that happy lol 😂, but I guess I will just "shake it off" (who else is a Swiftie here?).
Victoria. Exactly, shake it off and practice Stoicism... 😃
I much prefer the Stoic take on this position, that it is possible for someone without external goods to be happy. I admit Aristotle has some points (it’s hard to say someone being tortured for life would be happy), but I think he goes too far in thinking you need so many external goods to be happy. I like the idea that one must imagine Sisyphus happy!
Matthew, the Stoics never say that the sage on the rack is happy. They say he is eudaimon. The trick is how to translate that word. "Happiness" is now acknowledged to be a bad translation, because the word is vague and invokes feelings rather than a reason-based approach to things.
Sometimes eudaimonia is rendered as "flourishing," but that slants things in favor of the Aristotelian interpretation. Of course someone being tortured is not flourishing, the Stoics were not crazy!
That's why my preferred translation is "a life worth living." This does encompass a life of flourishing, but also extreme situations, like Nelson Mandela spending 27 years in prison while fighting for justice. He wasn't flourishing, but he was eudaimon.
Ah, that is a good point and does make the Stoic position more sensible. A lot of things get lost in translation when reading the ancients. To be honest, I’ve definitely heard that distinction before, so I don’t know why I didn’t just apply it here! 😅
Happy to be helpful!
It's good that Aristotle warned us that we'd need the Internet--and Figs in Winter!--to be happy.
😆
I am working hard to train myself to live according the Stoics ethics.
Reading that passage though, it reminded me so much of the values our society embraces.
TV shows displaying the life of the rich and famous are so popular. Kids are aspiring to be influencers because they see as achieving money, fame and all these “good things” with minimal work….
It seems that at some point society - I don’t know when- stopped valuing a virtuous life and that’s a shame.
Rafael, exactly. I think in the US that turning point was the '80s and early '90s, first with the so-called Reagan revolution, then with the movie Wall Street and its famous tagline, "greed is good."
I remember watching that movie as a kid when it came out. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Who knew it was going to become so influential?
Good stuff Massimo, and I also like the Stoic take over Aristotle. But I think best yet is that of their predecessor, Plato. He laid it out in the Republic. In the first few lines he asks Cephalus if growing old is a rough or easy path to travel. There is a discussion about different goods in life, such as wealth, sex, reputation, family, and Cephalus' take is that these things make it easier or harder, but it comes down to a person's character to determine their relative happiness. All of the rest of the book Plato has the characters try to figure out what it means to have a good (Just) character, and how we can pursue that. The book ends with the Myth of Er, that summarizes it all, taking into account the Tyche (fate) or role of the dice (chance): “Yet if at each return to the life of this world a man loved wisdom sanely, and the lot (klēros) of his choice did not fall out among the last, we may venture to affirm, from what was reported thence, that not only will he be happy here but that the path of his journey thither and the return to this world will not be underground and rough but smooth and through the heavens.” (Republic 619d-e)
Chester, the Stoics were influenced by Socrates (and therefore Plato), especially by his argument in the Euthydemus that wisdom is the chief good because the correct use of all other goods depends on it.
I try to give Aristotle a kinder spin and hope if he was speaking today this would sound more like the Buddhist concept of interbeing. But as written I disagree completely. In fact I think many of the preferred indifferents easily tip into vices, wealth being the one that comes first to mind.
Andrew, I'm all in favor of charitable reading of anything. But it's really hard to read the Nicomachean Ethics and not come away with a strong whiff of elitism.
I don't consider myself beautiful and that never bothers me. Whatever beauty I have comes from within me. I am not rich and I do not care. I live sufficiently with what I have. Envy and jealousy of others is pointless and a waste of my time. My influence in the world is limited but I always try to reflect the cardinal virtues. Every day I am grateful for what Stoicism has given me and enables me to be.
If beauty was a virtue or necessary for virtue I'd be in trouble!
😆
It is good that the Stoic perspective places eudaimonia within reach for everyone.
Yes, I find it one of the best features of Stoicism.