/lit/ - Literature

>spoiled rich emperor that committed genocide tells everyone that they need to live like saints

>>19273905
you got every part wrong except emperor, but this is a bait thread anyway

>>19273905
based take. i burned my copy of this for the hell of it

i've always wondered about this. how can one be so detached from his own reality

>>19273905
I don’t even like this book but he was writing these notes for himself

>>19273916
i feel like the guy making these "hurr durr stoicism" threads is a troll. it's always the most banal, obviously misunderstood, ignorant shit every week for over a year now

>>19273937
>obviously misunderstood

how is calling out such oblivious hypocrisy misunderstood?

Stoics are worse than cucks. At least cucks derive some pleasure over getting fucked over.

Theres literally nothing wrong with genocide

https://voca.ro/1bNFuBYIMHZD

>>19273940
if you've actually read the meditations you will have understood that he's not advocating for anyone else to follow the instructions he has set out for himself IN HIS OWN JOURNAL, you absolute cretin

you are undoubtedly a troll. that is all you will get from me, bye

>>19273937
>all the threads I don't like are one guy messing with me
open wide, here comes the meds plane

>>19273947
who the fuck starts a journal off with dedications? the whole "he wrote it for himself and didnt want it published" thing is a legend

>>19273947
he completely failed to heed his own instructions tho

spoiled rich emperor that committed genocide recycles thoughts from people greater than himself

>>19273956
So do most philosophers. What's important is whether the ideas themselves have value in them

>>19274027
>So do most philosophers. What's important is whether the ideas themselves have value in them

holy cope

If you think an idea is valuable, you live by it, otherwise it's just mental masturbation you wrote down in an effort to be immortalized as some "deep thinker"

>>19273905
Lol

>>19274043
>>If you think an idea is valuable, you live by it
That's always the plan, but to live by a philosophy is a process; not just a switch that's flipped on and stays on immediately.
Besides, Marcus did a decent job following his own advice and didn't write his journal with an intent to be immortalized

>>19274043
That's not actually necessary, anon. Ideas have there own Darwinian nature to them and the ones that stand up to continued scrutiny and inquiry are ultimately what prevail. I mean there's also an issue of preservation and accessibility but generally speaking the former statement is true. People don't have to practice what they preach for the idea to have merit. An alcoholic might advise you not to touch liquor, for instance.

>>19273905
BASED

>>19273937
It's basically a feature of /lit/ to at all times have at least one thread of anti-stoic tirade, full of misunderstood strawmen and foolish, uninformed opinions.
I see how you can think it must be one person, I remember that thread which claimed that the meditations was just a piece of propaganda, despite the fact that he intended to have it burnt with his body on the funeral pyre and the first mentions of its survival were made nearly a century after his death, and only really became widely known during the byzantium age, but I really do think it is just retarded /lit/izens being filtered

>>19273937
It's basically a feature of /lit/ to at all times have at least one thread of anti-stoic tirade, full of misunderstood strawmen and foolish, uninformed opinions, up on the catalogue.
I see how you can think it must be one person, I remember that thread which claimed that the meditations was just a piece of propaganda, despite the fact that he intended to have it burnt with his body on the funeral pyre and the first mentions of its survival were made nearly a century after his death, and only really became widely known during the byzantium age, but I really do think it is just retarded /lit/izens being filtered

>>19274043
>The point of philosophy isn't the value held by ideas.
midwit cope.

>>19273905
There isn't necessarily anything stoic that takes issue with genocide, or killing, if in the service of your state, you are ascribing your delicate modern sentiments and the modern sense of "morality" onto it. The Marcomanni were the most disruptive of the barbarian tribes and were the most dangerous to Rome, they had even entered Italy with a force. Aurelius intended to subjugate the tribe and to create a formal province out of their territory. Destroying such a tribe may well have been to the benefit of Rome, and to Aurelius that was his ultimate duty

>>19274019
>spoiled
He probably lived a life more frugal and austere than your own

>>19273956
Name one

>>19273956
such as?

>>19275372
>the emperor of Rome lived more frugally than me because he didn´t have a smartphone
Boomer tier thinking

>>19275381
>>19275474

Probably not one of "his instructions," but didn't M.A. put an end to the adoptive emperor model that was working so well (i.e., Trajan, Hadrian, etc.)?

>>19275495
That's not why he lived a more austere life than you, you'd know exactly why if you read the book and understood his attitude and philosophy

>>19275511
Aurelius never wrote a book.

>>19275501
Yes but the previous emperors didn't adopt heirs to succeed them because it was some system that they thought led to a much better, virtuous type of emperor (rather than some spoilt, prince etc), which Aurelius decided to leave behind out of some naïve, sentimental familial affection for his son, or anything along those lines.
The first of the last of the five good emperors didn't have any biological alternative, they were forced to select an heir for the sake of orderly succession, otherwise it would likely be civil war to decide it if no one had been specifically designated in advance, and Aurelius' son being his Caesar and succeeding him was just the natural order of the imperial office

>>19275535
Pseud point, I referred to the book in OP's image and what has been the subject of the entire thread. Call it a journal, his diary, private notes, today it stands in the form of a book you can purchase and read. Or is there some substance behind what you're saying, do you mean he didn't write the so-called Meditations at all, or did you just have nothing substantial to say?

>>19275569
*The first of the four Five Good Emperors didn't have any biological alternative

>>19273956
>he completely failed to heed his own instructions tho
Read Seneca; humans aren't automatons. Knowing what is good and being able to do it are two different things; good virture must be cultivated by good habit, produced via self-discipline. Actually read the people you're criticising.

he was also an opium addict lol

>>19275761
So? What's your point?

>>19275761
Aurelius was prescribed the medicine by his physician, Demetrius, because he had a stomach ailment, it was called theriac and it contained poppy juice among many other ingredients, which made him drowsy initially, but he was forced to keep taking it because he otherwise couldn't sleep (presumably due to the issues with his stomach I suppose). After Demetrius was replaced by Galen as Aurelius' physician, he used weakened and aged poppy juice, which no longer caused any drowsiness and each daily dose contained 0.033 grams of opium which is not sufficient for addiction

>>19274043
holy based

>>19273905
What genocide?

>>19273905
>>19273913
>>19273916
>>19273920
Sorry, OP, your thread was cursed from the start.

>>19273905
wasnt it his diary?

>>19273905
>genocide
G*rms aren't human.

>>19273905
>he thinks Marcus not only wrote his journal with others in mind but with the intention of millions reading it and making it their own self help book thousands of years later

>>19274019
Imagine writing your own journal which you never intended another pair of eyes to read, then when you've died to then have your journal taken and published, only for pseuds two thousand years later to turn their noses up at you and complain about you writing down the ideas of the philosophers you revered which you wrote only for yourself

>>19274043
i've never heard so many midwit takes coming from the same person

>>19273951
In order to understand who you are, you must know who influenced you, who are the ones that shaped you. If you don't know how your mother, your father, your friends and teachers affected you, how do you know yourself at all?

>>19273905
>Ad hominem