An Introduction to Stoicism
Men are not moved by things but the views which they take of them.
Epictetus
*****************
Stoicism Creeps Into our Culture
Why am I talking about this?
In Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience, Nancy Sherman calls Stoicism the “new Zen.”
As a student of Buddhism since the days of “beats,” like Jack Kerouac, Alan Watts, and Gary Snyder, I have watched mundane aspects of Buddhism stealthily invade western culture and flourish. Mindfulness, meditation, mantras, the role of attachment in emotional suffering were once only the focus of this esoteric self-help program called Buddhism.[1] Now they are mainstream in western psychology.
Thanks to pioneers like Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn,[2] we have learned that mindfulness is not just some spiritual exercise for people living in the Himalayas; it has real, practical healing effects for skeptics with chronic pain and disease.
Ekhart Tolle published a blockbuster book called The Power of Now. That landed him a spot on Oprah. If you do a Google search for “mindfulness,” you now get over 484 million results.[3]
Hinduism invaded our culture through yoga and transcendental meditation with thanks to George Harrison (the Beatle)[4]. I could go on, but this article is about Stoicism.
Like Buddhism and Hinduism, the principles of ancient Stoicism have seeped into our culture, eroding our cast-iron views of reality in almost silent dribbles and trickles.
Just a couple of examples for now:
The Serenity Prayer is attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr in the 1930’s:
God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
the courage to change the things we can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Around 50-135 AD, a lame, former slave named Epictetus became one of the great teachers of Stoicism and built the foundation of it on:
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can’t control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.[5]
I am not the first to notice this similarity (or rip-off). Cognitive behavioral psychologist and contemporary Stoic philosopher, Donald Robertson, posted this ten years ago:
https://donaldrobertson.name/2012/12/20/the-serenity-prayer-and-stoicism/
Indeed, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the second example. CBT has become one of the most popular forms of modern therapy, especially for treating people with depression and anxiety.
As you may have heard me say before, in his seminal book, Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders, Dr. Aaron Beck states in the introduction:
The philosophical underpinnings of this approach go back thousands of years, certainly to the time of the Stoics who considered man’s conceptions (or misconceptions) of events, rather than events themselves as the key to his emotional upsets.
How did Stoicism begin?
There was this guy named “Zeno.” He was born about 300 years before Christ and about 200 years after the death of Socrates.
His friends called him Zeno, but his more formal name was “Zeno of Citium.” In those days, Mediterranean people did not have “last names,” and there were a lot of Zenos floating around, so the place of origin was how they discerned one from another.[6]
Our Zeno was probably a Phoenician. When our story begins, he was definitely a wealthy merchant. He sailed across the Mediterranean to deliver a shipment of salts or silks or stuff like that. One of those New Orleans-style hurricanes blew through. Zeno survived, but his loot is at the bottom of the sea waiting for some future Jacques Cousteau like an unclaimed lottery ticket.
Legend has it that Zeno washed ashore and meandered to Athens. The first thing he did is what I would have done. Stopped for falafels, pita bread, feta cheese, and hummus? No. He walked straight into a bookstore and picked up a book on philosophy. For those of us who humbly call ourselves philosophers[7], we know that when the philosophy bug bites, it can hook you faster than crack.
Zeno asked the guy behind the counter of the predecessor of Barnes & Noble, “Hey. How do I find one of these philosopher guys?” The guy behind the counter, figuring Zeno is not staying for a latte’ anyway, says, “There goes one now,” pointing out the window. And lo and behold, there walked Crates of Thebes[8], the most famous Cynic philosopher living at that time in Greece.[9]
Zeno followed him, became his student, and developed his own brand of philosophy. At first, they called it “Zenoism.” Zeno understood that to be a sage required a certain degree of humility[10], so he and his followers called it “Stoicism” because he lectured under the “Stoa” (or painted porch).
What is Stoicism?
This will be more my opinion than anything scholarly.[11]
Stoicism began as a comprehensive philosophy. It evolved into a highly practical philosophy as it moved back and forth from Greece to Rome and back over several hundred years.
The main premise of Stoicism[12], as stated above, is that external events matter little, if at all. It is how we interpret them that defines the quality of our lives. You do not have control over “external events.” External events include wealth, fame, how people respond to your opinions, and, in many instances, your health.
The ancient Greeks, going back at least as far as Aristotle, believed that humans had a unique skill: the ability to reason. Because (presumably) only humans had this ability, we should exercise it when deciding how to live our lives. The Stoics fell in line with this way of thought.
Aristotle was also a big believer in “virtues.” The Stoics adopted, but scaled down, Aristotelean virtues.
Preceding the Stoics by at least 400 years, the Taoists believed that the “good life” was one lived in harmony with nature. The Stoics agreed.
The goal of life for a Stoic is tranquility; not getting to heaven; not reaching nirvana; not leading the orderly life of Confucius; not having a direct experience of God, as the mystics attempt; not reaching states of rapture like the Sufis. Tranquility. Peace of mind, and with peace of mind comes a joy and a freedom from not reacting unconsciously to every sling and arrow of outrageous fortune.
How does one do that? He lives “in accord with nature.”
What does that mean? To the Stoic, it means he lives rationally and virtuously. We’ll get to the virtue part below.
Who Were the Stoics?
Unlike other philosophical or religious movements, a cluster of people called “Stoics” never existed for long at one time and place. Indeed, when you look at a list of famous Stoics, such as Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman present in Lives of the Stoics, you find that the numbers are relatively small, spread out over time, and filled mostly with people about whom you have never heard. A few stand out.
We’ve talked about Zeno in 300 BCE. What he began in Athens moved to Rome. He had followers who spread the word, but no Stoic of note surfaces for about 200 years and, then, in Rome. We there encounter Cicero and Cato the Younger[13], minor players.
Another hundred years later, around the time of the birth of Christ, we come upon Seneca, once tutor to Nero. Nero ultimately rewarded his former mentor by condemning him to death by suicide. Seneca is one of the most famous Stoic thinkers.[14]
About 50 years later, Epictetus, a former slave, became the most famous Stoic philosopher to be followed about 70 years later by Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Like Socrates and Jesus, Epictetus never wrote a word. One of his students (Arrian) took notes of his lectures and those “discourses” have been handed down in four slim volumes[15], along with The Enchiridion.[16]
Marcus Aurelius, arguably the greatest of the Roman Emperors, wrote what may be the most famous book of Stoic philosophy, Meditations. It is simply a journal he wrote[17] when he was on the front commanding troops during the Macromannic Wars, defending Roman borders from invading Germanic troops along the Danube River around 170 AD.
That’s about it: not a lot of people and not a lot of written material. Yet, these few philosophers discovered some very practical wisdom along the way, based upon a system of ethics, we can call “virtue ethics.”
Stoic Virtues
Interesting how the meanings of words change over time. For hundreds of years, certainly going back to the days of John Locke, the word “liberal” had a positive connotation. It meant tolerance for others, inclusivity. Now, “liberal” has taken on such a negative connotation, it has been replaced with “progressive.” The word “virtue” had a similar evolution.
In ancient Greece, “virtue” meant excellence (arete’) at certain fundamentals of life. I could spend a lot of key strokes on the subject of virtues.
To the Greeks, and later the Romans, virtue was an unassailable value. Somewhere around the Victorian era, the word took on a sexual connotation, akin to chastity. When you think about it, that is quite a leap of linguistics. And, so it remains.
Society construes the ”virtuous woman” as one who is something like a virgin or a spinster or a very repressed librarian. She does not wear short skirts or perfume or fish-net stockings; she is a prude, or, at least prudish, unlikely to be responsive to a kiss on the first date and most likely not on Victoria Secrets’ mailing list.
What is a “virtuous man?” He probably goes to church, is true to his wife, is not in politics, and, if Hollywood is to be believed, does not work on Wall Street.
Note, how the concept of “excellence” seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.
When thinking about virtue, it is helpful to think about virtuosity.
This reminds us that virtue is linked to habit. Aristotle makes it clear that virtue is a skill, and virtuosity is the result of practicing that skill habitually.
In doing so, the sage reaches a point of what the Taoists call “wu-wei,” which is loosely translated as spontaneous, effortless action (or inaction). In other words, if you practice virtue long enough, it becomes second-nature.
One of the interesting things about virtues is that there is no real consensus of what qualifies as a virtue.
What do I mean by that? Warning: I can get way off into this!
The general concept of “virtue” is an ancient one. Both Confucius and Lao Tzu (circa 8th Century BCE) emphasized the concept of “De” or virtue. The Chinese, however, did not break this concept down into specifics, as we did in the west.
Aristotle, one of the great sages of ancient Greece, whose work lives on today (although not his astronomy), developed a list of 11 or 12 specific virtues (depending on who you believe), based upon a system that became known as the “Golden Mean”[18]:
1. Bravery
2. Temperance
3. Generosity (or liberality in spending)
4. Honesty
5. Wit
6. Friendliness
7. Even-tempered
8. Conscientious
9. Justice (appropriate indignance)
10. Benevolence
11. Industrious
Compare that to Benjamin Franklin’s famous self-help list in his Autobiography:
1. Temperance (agrees with Aristotle)
2. Silence (diverges)
3. Order (diverges)
4. Resolution (diverges)
5. Frugality (diverges)
6. Industry (agrees with Aristotle)
7. Sincerity (diverges)
8. Justice (agrees with Aristotle)
9. Moderation (everyone’s favorite)
10. Cleanliness (by then, “next to Godliness”)
11. Tranquility (borrowing from the Stoics and the Buddhists)
12. Chastity (from what we know about Franklin, especially his later years in France, he must have abandoned this somewhere along the way)
13. Humility (an excellent addition)[19]
In his excellent book, A Small Book on Great Virtues, Andre’ Comte-Sponville lists 18.[20]
In his discourse on positive psychology, Marty Seligman lists six[21]:
1. Wisdom
2. Courage
3. Humanity
4. Justice
5. Temperance
6. Transcendence
and breaks them down into 24 “character strengths.”
The Stoics have only four:
1. Wisdom
2. Temperance
3. Justice
4. Courage
As I see it, transcendence is a characteristic of wisdom. The concept of “humanity” deserves more time than I have allowed myself.
We could spend a lot more time on virtues and how they relate to “values.”
To the Stoics, it is enough if you strive for excellence in the four virtues (much easier to remember), make decisions based upon reason, as opposed to superstition or intuition, and discern what you can and cannot control.
Otherwise, Stoicism is largely a collection of techniques (or therapies) for interpreting (or reframing) reality (or phenomena or impressions) in a way that produces tranquility.
Next time, I will give you examples of Stoic techniques and some research sources for the driller-downers.
[1] I don’t think of Buddhism as a “religion.” It is non-theistic and its goal is to help people eliminate emotional suffering in their lives – no days of judgment, no heaven or hell (except those mental states we create for ourselves).
[2] Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness (2005)
[3] If you do a Google search for “Stoicism,” you get over 52 million results.
[4] That makes me wonder what happened to the Hari Krishnas. I enjoyed the free incense at the airports while it lasted.
[5] The Art of Living: the Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness by Sharon Libell, at 3.
[6] Another famous “Zeno” was Zeno of Elea who lived around the time of Socrates and became famous for his paradoxes, aimed to prove that motion is not real. Really! A good topic for further study.
[7] By definition, you can’t call yourself a philosopher unless you are humble. “Philosopher” merely means “lover of wisdom.” I believe that “student of wisdom” would be more accurate.
[8] See what I mean about the last names?
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Citium
[10] If you are reading the footnotes, you already know that. If not, you are not reading this one either, so, well, never mind!
[11] Maybe some of both, but there is that humility thing again.
[12] Yes. This is a bit redundant.
[13] The Romans had a different way of expressing last names.
[14] Possibly because some of what he wrote actually survived him.
[15] Another four were lost.
[16] Translation: “The Manual” or “The Handbook.”
[17] As I will discuss in future articles, Lord willing, the Stoics were big on journaling.
[18] A virtue represented the middle way between extremes. Buddha had promoted the middle way in India a couple of hundred years prior. There is no evidence that I know of that Aristotle ever studied Buddhism.
[19] In case you have been skipping the footnotes …
[20] For the sake of brevity, I will not list them here.
[21] https://positivepsychology.com/classification-character-strengths-virtues/#:~:text=Martin%20Seligman%20and%20his%20colleagues,all%20cultures%20across%20three%20millennia.
