Stoicism as a subversive activity

Stoic philosophy is often presented as “conservative,” yet it is anything but

Zeno of Citium, founder of Stoicism, Wikimedia, CC license.

Is Stoicism a conservative or progressive philosophy of life? To a first approximation, the very question makes no sense. “Conservative” and “progressive” are modern, culturally and temporally specific labels for certain ways of seeing and acting in the world. Nevertheless, it does make sense to ask whether practicing Stoicism leads one to simply embrace the status quo or to consciously attempt to subvert it. Or, perhaps, neither.

Some Greco-Roman philosophies do, I think, inherently favor the status quo. Epicureanism teaches us to disengage from social and political life on the eminently sensible assumption that it is more likely to cause us pain rather than pleasure, and since a life of tranquillity characterized by lack of pain is the goal of the Epicureans, this makes sense.

Similarly, Pyrrhonian Skepticism should be classified as socially “conservative,” since the Pyrrhonists are supposed to suspend judgment on all “non-evident” matters, such as the goal of life, or which society is best, and simply follow the customs prevalent in whatever social milieu they happen to live.

The Cynics, by contrast, were in-your-face subversive, constantly flaunting and ridiculing social customs and reminding people that they were, of their own volition, living meaningless lives. Since Stoicism is a close cousin of Cynicism, we may already have ground to suspect that it is a more radical philosophy than it is often given credit for.

I suggest to proceed by briefly looking at a whopping nine aspects of Stoicism that may be used to build the case that it is a rather subversive approach to living one’s life.

I. No fake news or alternative facts

The Stoics believed that in order to live a good life (ethics) one has to have a minimal understanding of how the world works (science, facts) and has to be able to think well about it (logic, reasoning). One day a student questioned Epictetus about the use of studying logic. Here is what happened:

“When someone in his audience said, Convince me that logic is necessary, he answered: Do you wish me to demonstrate this to you? — Yes. — Well, then, must I use a demonstrative argument? — And when the questioner had agreed to that, Epictetus asked him. How, then, will you know if I impose upon you? — As the man had no answer to give, Epictetus said: Do you see how you yourself admit that all this instruction is necessary, if, without it, you cannot so much as know whether it is necessary or not?” (Discourses, 2.25)

As I’m sure you know very well, we currently live in a world flooded with fake news and alternative facts, thanks largely to the invention of social media and their cynical (with a small “c”) manipulation by companies like Meta, X, and the like. Moreover, an already awful situation is quickly getting much worse because of the advent of generative AI. There is a real possibility that the internet will soon be entirely useless, which may not be such a bad thing after all.

Here, then, is the first way in which Stoicism goes against the grain of contemporary society: a Stoic has no use or tolerance for made up stuff and bad reasoning.

II. Minimalism about externals

“Externals,” in Stoic philosophy, are all those things that are not up to us, and since the only things truly up to us are our considered judgments, values, and decisions to act or not to act (Enchiridion 1.1), externals comprise most stuff people typically care about, including our health, wealth, reputation, career, relationships, and so forth.

While externals are often classed under things “indifferent,” this doesn’t mean we don’t care about them. They do have value (axia). But that value is not intrinsic, it lies in how we use them. Wealth, for instance, is typically considered a good, but for a Stoic it is such only if the individual uses it to help others and make the world a better place. Otherwise, wealth can actually be bad. In this respect, Epictetus explained that we should all “play ball” like Socrates:

“Socrates … was like a man playing ball. And at that place and time what was the ball that he was playing with? Imprisonment, exile, drinking poison, being deprived of wife, leaving children orphans. These were the things with which he was playing, but none the less he played and handled the ball in good form.” (Discourses, 2.5)

What is truly important is not what we have or what happens to us—much of which is outside of our control anyway—but how we handle such things. While Stoicism (unlike Cynicism) has nothing against owning things, it does tend in the opposite direction to the currently prevailing culture of extreme capitalism and blatant consumerism. Epictetus would be very perplexed by the quintessential American concept of “shopping therapy,” for instance.

III. The emphasis is on virtue

As a corollary of the previous point, Stoicism is most emphatically not a life hack that can be used to be successful at one’s career, or to make money, or to win the Super Bowl. Those are all externals, and very much not the point of Stoic philosophy.

The point is, rather, to act virtuously, even at the cost of suffering in terms of externals (losing money, not succeeding by societal standards, and so forth). Here is how Socrates, the chief inspiration for the Stoics, puts it:

SOCRATES: Doing what’s unjust is actually the worst thing there is.

POLUS: Really? Is that the worst? Isn’t suffering what’s unjust still worse?

SOCRATES: No, not in the least.

POLUS: So you’d rather want to suffer what’s unjust than do it?

SOCRATES: For my part, I wouldn’t want either, but if it had to be one or the other, I would choose suffering over doing what’s unjust.

(Plato, Gorgias, 469)

Why is suffering injustice not as great an evil as committing injustice? Because the most precious thing we have is our character, which expresses itself in virtuous (as opposed to vicious) behavior. So if someone does us an injustice, they are first and foremost hurting themselves. And we don’t want to cause self-harm through committing an injustice ourselves. Hard to imagine something more at odds with the current zeitgeist. And yet, there is more, much more!

IV. The emphasis is on duties, not rights

Nowadays we are bombarded with talk of rights. I have the right to do this, or that, or the other. To be sure, a civil society must be founded on the rights of the individual citizens, as it has been since the time of the Roman Republic. And a robust debate can and should be had about which rights ought to be guaranteed and which ones can be questioned or limited.

As I write, for instance, many university campuses, including my own at the City College of New York, have seen dramatic student protests concerned with the unfolding situation in Israel and Gaza. A large part of the debate is how to balance the students’ rights to voice their opinions with the rights of the various campus communities to feel safe and to engage in the normal life at a university, including attending classes, taking exams, and participating to graduation ceremonies.

What is far too often missing from contemporary debates about rights, however, is that they are supposed to come with corresponding duties. I have the right to free speech, but also the duty to exercise it wisely. I have the right to vote, but also the duty to actually vote. And so forth.

The Stoics saw moral duties as a fundamental component of one’s life as well as the glue that holds societies together. Cicero wrote a whole book about this topic, based in part on a now lost treatise by the middle Stoic Panaetius. Near the beginning we find this self-explanatory passage:

“No phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally wrong in life.” (On Duties, 1.4)

Attempting to shift the emphasis from exclusive talk of rights to a talk that balances rights and duties is, again, rather subversive, though—for reasons that escape my comprehension—some contemporary progressives may label this a “reactionary” attitude. As if taking seriously the notion that we owe others as much as they owe us is somehow old fashioned.

V. The primacy of reason

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard, or read, something along the lines of “I can’t help it, I just feel that way.” A good number of people seem to give up on handling their emotions, even considering them the best part of themselves no matter how irrational or disruptive they may be.

Guess what: both Stoicism and modern science (specifically, cognitive behavioral therapy) tell us that we very much can help it. We may not be able to turn on and off at will our emotional responses (nor may we wish to), but we can certainly handle them by engaging in a process of conversing with the more emotional aspects of our self. Consider:

“Make it, therefore, your study at the very outset to say to every harsh external impression, ‘You are an external impression and not at all what you appear to be.’ … In the case of everything that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and see what faculty you have to deal with it. If you see a handsome lad or woman, you will find continence the faculty to employ here; if hard labour is laid upon you, you will find endurance; if reviling, you will find patience to bear evil. And if you habituate yourself in this fashion, your external impressions will not run away with you.” (Epictetus, Enchiridion 1, 10)

An “impression” in Stoic psychology is our immediate, often emotionally mediated, reaction to an external thing or event. Epictetus is advising us not to “just do it,” because we very much can stop and think about it. We can slow down and carefully consider what is going on, taking our time to decide if and how to act. We might be surprised, as he says, to discover that we have the means to deal with a lot of apparently difficult or insurmountable situations. Just give reason a chance.

Of course, whenever I underscore the important role of reason in our life, I get the response that Stoicism puts to much emphasis on that aspect and not enough on our emotions. Setting aside that this kind of thinking makes the mistake of assuming that reason and emotions are sharply distinct (they are not), does it really strike you as if the main problem in contemporary society is that we put too much emphasis on reason? I did’t think so.

VI. Insults do not exist (other than in your mind)

You may have noticed that we live in a world in which it is exceedingly easy to insult or hurt people. Which of course is never something we should do on purpose. From a Stoic perspective we should always act kindly toward others. But I’m not talking about others just now, I’m talking about ourselves. Let us not live a life in which we are inclined to interpret every word as an insult or a micro-aggression, or whatever. Let us live in the real world, warts and all as they say, not in artificially constructed safe spaces.

I’ve actually heard colleagues arguing that, since the brain is altered in response to words, then words are a form of violence, just as much as being physically attacked. Except, of course, that literally everything we do alters the brain, because we are animals, and behavior, in animals, is always mediated by the brain. Here is how Epictetus advises us to deal with insults:

“Bear in mind that it is not the one who reviles or strikes you that insults you, but it is your judgement that these people are insulting you. Therefore, when someone irritates you, be assured that it is your own opinion which has irritated you. And so make it your first endeavor not to be carried away by the external impression; for if once you gain time and delay, you will more easily become master of yourself.” (Enchiridion, 20)

Again, it’s all about how we handle impressions. An insult, from a biophysical perspective, is just someone opening their mouth and moving air around, followed by that air hitting your auditory system and being interpreted by your brain. It is the latter step that is crucial: even if the person in question meant to hurt you (and they may not have meant it!), the response is entirely up to you. If you get upset, you let them achieve their goal. If you just walk away, they lose.

VII. Death is to be faced, and it is crucial for good living

We moderns, at least in the West, simply don’t want to be reminded of death. We don’t want to talk about it, we don’t want to see it in our friends and relatives, we’d just rather pretend it doesn’t exist. Unless it’s the sort of very gory and obviously fake death we see in movies and video games. Our billionaires even wish to fund research on radical life extension and immortality, as if they were not privileged enough during the course of their normal lives.

And yet death is not only natural, it is—the Stoics argue—crucial to provide meaning to our life. What gives urgency to what we do, what makes it important, is precisely that it is temporary. Otherwise, we would live a perennial Groundhog Day where eventually nothing would retain meaning and we would be forever desperate. Here is Seneca’s take:

“Those who do not wish to die cannot have wished to live. For life is granted to us with the reservation that we shall die; to this end our path leads. Therefore, how foolish it is to fear it, since people simply await that which is sure, but fear only that which is uncertain! … Always think on death in order that you may never fear it.” (Letters to Lucilius, 30.10, 18)

Not to mention that death is necessary to make room for new people. If those preceding you hadn’t died, you would not have been born at all. It is the pinnacle of egotism and narcissism to want to live forever.

VIII. The selfishness / altruism divide is illusory

We are taught from when we are very young that there are selfish acts and there are altruistic acts. Ideally, we want to maximize the latter and minimize the former. Unless you come from one of those cultures, like the American one, where you are repeatedly told to “look out for N. 1” because helping others is for suckers.

The Stoics, however, make no such sharp distinction between us and the rest of the world or, indeed, the rest of the cosmos. Marcus Aurelius wrote:

“The Nature of the Universe has fashioned rational creatures for the sake of one another with a view to mutual benefit. … For the Nature of the Universe is the Nature of the things that are. And the things that are have an intimate connection with all the things that have ever been.” (Meditations 9.1)

In modern parlance, we would say that human beings have evolved to cooperate with each other because that’s the best way to insure our survival and flourishing. We would also say that our actions ought to be such as not to harm the biosphere because we are interconnected with everything else in nature. This isn’t woo-woo stuff, it’s evolution and ecology, and we ignore it at our own peril. The virtuous person helps others because they are at the same time helping themselves. And they strive to improve as human beings because that will in turn make for a better world for everyone.

IX. We are citizens of the world

Our world is, as always, fraught with conflict. There are wars going on as we speak, and there are millions who are afraid of and hateful toward immigrants, even though their own ancestors did themselves come from a different place.

The Stoic ideal, which our teachers shared with Socrates and the Cynics, was that of a cosmopolis, the universal human family where it doesn’t matter where you come from, what language you speak, what religion you follow, what gender or ethnicity you are. Regardless of all those superficial things, you are still a human being, and therefore my sister or brother (or whatever other gender you identify with). As Epictetus wrote:

“If what is said by the philosophers regarding the kinship of God and people be true, what other course remains for us but that which Socrates took when asked to what country he belonged, never to say ‘I am an Athenian,’ or ‘I am a Corinthian,’ but ‘I am a citizen of the universe’?” (Discourses, 1.9)

Again, this isn’t being naive. It doesn’t mean that a Stoic should advocate the immediate abolition of nation-states and national boundaries. But that ought to be the ultimate goal. We all share one planet, and we all have a vested interest in not wasting its resources, so who cares where you are from, so long as you are willing to work together for a better world?

But wait a minute…

I hope I’ve made a case that Stoicism is, in fact, a rather socially and politically subversive philosophy of life. You may, however, have noticed a somewhat disturbing pattern: the nine points I have briefly discussed above do not simply line up with the modern conservative-progressive divide. They are, rather, an odd mix of what most people might think of as conservative and progressive positions.

If I had to guess I would say that a conservative might especially like III, IV, and VI. A self-styled progressive may prefer I, II, VIII, and IX. And probably most people won’t much care for the remaining points: V and VII.

If this has left you a bit uncertain, good. After all, the main goal of most of the Socratic-Platonic dialogues was aporia, that is, confusion! Because confusion, rather than certainty, is the beginning of wisdom. If we are doubtful about something we may begin to wonder and inquire, rather than pontificate.

Sure, it’s possible that, from a modern perspective, the ancient Stoics were simply incapable of appreciating the conservative-progressive political axis. Or perhaps we are the ones who have difficulty grasping that there are no such neat categories, and that we just have to figure out what the right thing to do is, one step at a time.