Your take on this is wild to me, and while TFA as whole is somewhat more balanced, I'm pretty surprised at this whole train of thought. An emperor was a stoic, and so was a slave. Epictetus is only mentioned twice in passing in the article, but it does say that
> Some stoic authors were slaves themselves, like Epictetus author of the beautiful stoic handbook Enchiridion, and many stoic writings focus on providing therapies for armoring one’s inner self against such evils as physical pain, illness, losing friends, disgrace, and exile.
Seems like people from all walks of life thought maybe it was a useful point of view, and that it's universal because people from all walks of life have their own suffering to deal with.
I get that in an inevitably political world that's increasingly polarized, philosophy always becomes a sort of fashion show where it's not about what's being worn but who is wearing it lately. But this is really pretty silly. Stoicism predates silicon valley and will still be around after it's gone, and there is substance that goes far beyond "deeply hollow, dissociative, nihilistic".
If it sounds that way to you, I assume maybe you are just in a situation where you have someone that you kind of hate preaching it at you.. in which case adding some distance makes sense no matter what they are evangelizing. Quoting TFA again
> [stoicism] reminds me of the profession of wealth therapists who help the uber-wealthy stop feeling guilty about spending $2,000 on bed sheets or millions on a megayacht.
So there it is, that's what's really bothering the guy.
I'm glad they wrote several more comments. The first comment was intriguing, but the more the wrote the more wild it got. Especially the part about being connected to life like a person in a fall airplane.
I think they've mixed up Stoicism with some other philosophy entirely. They think Stoicism means feeling nothing, doing nothing. Almost like the Hindu concept of sanyasi.
> Some stoic authors were slaves themselves, like Epictetus author of the beautiful stoic handbook Enchiridion, and many stoic writings focus on providing therapies for armoring one’s inner self against such evils as physical pain, illness, losing friends, disgrace, and exile.
Seems like people from all walks of life thought maybe it was a useful point of view, and that it's universal because people from all walks of life have their own suffering to deal with.
I get that in an inevitably political world that's increasingly polarized, philosophy always becomes a sort of fashion show where it's not about what's being worn but who is wearing it lately. But this is really pretty silly. Stoicism predates silicon valley and will still be around after it's gone, and there is substance that goes far beyond "deeply hollow, dissociative, nihilistic".
If it sounds that way to you, I assume maybe you are just in a situation where you have someone that you kind of hate preaching it at you.. in which case adding some distance makes sense no matter what they are evangelizing. Quoting TFA again
> [stoicism] reminds me of the profession of wealth therapists who help the uber-wealthy stop feeling guilty about spending $2,000 on bed sheets or millions on a megayacht.
So there it is, that's what's really bothering the guy.