/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11788143]

is stoicism the most pseudo bullshit philosophy ever created? Marcus Aurelius was literally an emperor telling poor peasants that it's virtuous to accept their position in life, tricking them into thinking that bootlicking is a philosophy. No don't fight for change, don't gather your pitchforks and guillotine me that's not wise! Accept things as they are!

[Anonymous No.11788164]

stoicism is nihilism intellectualized

[Anonymous No.11788165]

Well, Epictetus was a slave and belonged to the same school. But I do think that stoicism is just an intellectualized form of self-help for losers that want to larp as ancient Romans.

[Anonymous No.11788174]

>>11788143
I don't think that's what Aurelius was saying. I got the impression that he had actually suffered in some way that he didn't really want to disclose, maybe they didn't do that in his society idk, and that book was him trying to be positive about everything.

It is a very reasonable book, it doesn't say to be passive or unassertive, or let people step over you, it's about being able to control your emotions and actions.

The stoics after all are often condensed into the meme about 'courage to change what i can and serenity to accept what i can't' or some such similar formulation and that is not even vaguely 'accept being walked over' as you're making it seem.

[Anonymous No.11788189]

>>11788143
>No don't fight for change, don't gather your pitchforks and guillotine me that's not wise!
Unless you and your posse are morally and spiritually purified all the change you'll engender in the world will result in evil, atrocities and degeneration of dignity, i.e see the communists or the french revolution.
The blind cannot lead the blind.

[Anonymous No.11788195]

>>11788189
>hurr fix yourself before you fix the world

jesus how is this not just jordan peterson level of discourse.

[Anonymous No.11788197]

>>11788189
>morally and spiritually purified
a bit of a meme. No ruling society has ever been this in any real way, yet they conducted their affairs well enough to allow for the growth of the various civilizations.

it's more like you need a really good meme(a religion) that coheres everything together well enough to work, flaws and all. but in the end it remains a meme

[Anonymous No.11788198]

>>11788143
Aurelius wrote the Meditations for himself alone, you complete mongoloid.

[Anonymous No.11788215]

>>11788197
>No ruling society has ever been this in any real way,
Because most weren't based on violent revolution and an inversion of values.
>yet they conducted their affairs well enough to allow for the growth of the various civilizations.
>allow growth
>progress
>advancement
all so-called modern advancement hitherto has been backwards.

[Anonymous No.11788221]

>>11788215
I am talking about for example the Catholicism that cohered western Europe from 900-1500ish and allowed the civilization to grow

There is no way to rationally justifiy the Catholic meme but it worked.

[Anonymous No.11788226]

>>11788215
also lmao at that picture

[Anonymous No.11788233]

>>11788221
I'm fine with that.
Again it didn't come about by violent revolution or an inversion of traditional values (like the commies/french revolution/etc) but was the organic outgrowth of something originally pure. Of course nothing will be perfect or maintain equilibrium in our fallen world, but the point I made was that the blind can't lead the blind when it comes to "revolution" and trying to exact change externally before you work on yourself internally.

And one anon took offense to this for some reason >>11788195

[Anonymous No.11788241]

>>11788143
OP nailed it. As Nietzsche said,
>"You desire to live 'according to Nature'? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves indifference as a power--how could you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do differently? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature falsely, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a part of Nature?"

[Anonymous No.11788248]

>>11788233
>the organic outgrowth of something originally pure.
I see all of reality as being this. The Commies see something, they see God, or whatever we want to call the good thing, they see it, and they want it, but their meme sucks. It doesnt do anything but create problems, death, dissonance.

There is a spectrum of memes and some of them are bettter at making things work, some are more pure, more related to what we want, others are confused. But basically everything wants and in a way is that pure thing.

we are essentially in agreement, my only point was that no society actually ever achieves that totally pure thing. This world is fundamentally composed of both brokeness and goodness. There is a clear rise and fall of civilization, and the 900-1500 was obviously the rise for us, and since then it has been a fall, but everything is still intermingled in a way, good and bad still exist everywhere regardless.

[Anonymous No.11788302]

>>11788143

Marcus is advocating for people(himself) to rule themselves by simple decency & virtue as opposed to animalistically being controlled by their desires. He doesn't want to lament fate and would much rather through toil try to improve the good of humanity. He realises that the majority of people who live would much rather pursue their own interest but he forgives this and tries to be the bigger man. If the slaves and poorer citizens rose up and deposed him would this really free them of their ills, or would endeavouring to improve oneself help a man in the world.

Read more books you commie "pseud".

[Anonymous No.11788381]

the only good part of stoicism is when they say you can kill yourself if you want

suicide is based

[Anonymous No.11788404]

>>11788143
>haha my wife just got fucked by niggicus maximus but i don’t care because I’ve been mentally rehearsing her death all week anyway
stoicism is literally just a religion for cucks

[Anonymous No.11788413]

>>11788143
>le marxist lens of history
is there something more literally plebeian?

[Anonymous No.11788422]

>>11788241
>As Nietzsche said

[Anonymous No.11788454]

>>11788241
if self-tyranny is needed to get me off my ass, then so be it

[Anonymous No.11788462]

>>11788454
absolutely disgusting

[Anonymous No.11788553]

>>11788189
>the commies are bad!!
how surprising

[Anonymous No.11788563]

Well... philosophy was used to keep the public down in general, and that’s not stoicism’s fault, and certainly doesn’t invalidate it altogether. Honestly it’s the least pseud moral system to come into fruition at that time, and I stand by that Epicurus was one of the best Greek era philosophers.

[Anonymous No.11788569]

>>11788413
Yes. Freudian lens of history. Everyone in this thread has been cursed with mediocre prose.

[Anonymous No.11788741]

Yeah, it wasn't pseud, it was just a product of virile and turbulent times. It may have been shallow metaphysically, but that's because it's point was practical, not theoretical.

[Anonymous No.11788800]

>>11788404
The almighty keyboard jock.

[Anonymous No.11788804]

Epicureanism > Stoicism

[Anonymous No.11788817]

>>11788143
>BEING SUCK A KEKPLEB
LMAOING AT YOUR LIFE

[Anonymous No.11788862]

Why do you always post these threads? You know if you'd actually read Nietzsche instead of youtubing him you'd see that amour fati is pretty much momento mori on the dot. Additionally, living by self-actualizing virtues instead of self-denying laws is exactly what Nietzsche preached.

The two philosophies probably have more in common than they do differently the more I think about it.

Read a book.

[Anonymous No.11788898]

>>11788241
It's a deliberate misinterpretation of stoicism that he used to make a point, as Nietzsche often did. Stoicism isnt a tyranny over the self, it's seeing things as they are so you dont have so much pent up angst that you act in a detrimental manner.

Read the stoics too, almost all of them were involved in politics. Of course they were trying to better things.

The Diyonissian approach to life is just the other side of the same coin that reason finds itself on; they are one in the same at the end of the day. Dealing with a life in a world that is greater than you, and doesn't care about you, in a manner that is mentally healthy and sustainable.

[Anonymous No.11788924]

>>11788404
But that would be in conflict with the virtue of justice, and the stoic would punt his wife to the curb. Unlike you however, he wouldn't let it eat away at him for the rest of his life. He would avoid resentiment and instead fix himself so he could continue to live and flourish in a healthy way, much in the same way Nietzsche would have liked.

Even Nietzsche was against revenge, high school anon. Read Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo.

[Anonymous No.11788926]

>>11788862
NO U

>You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.

[Anonymous No.11788949]

He wasn't telling anyone anything or intentionally philosophizing or asserting an argument which is why the work is so highly lauded, that was all his own advice he was giving to himself.

[Anonymous No.11788976]

>>11788926
Of course sweetie. Do we really need to go down the list of ALL of nietzsche's counter quotes? He hated Socrates but he loved him. He hated Jews but he hated anti-semites.

Nietzsche wanted you to actually think about what he was saying, which is it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what he's actually for versus what he's against. This is the reason why he hated the proto-nazis of his own time; they took his shit at what they thought was face value. Almost as genius as social darwinism right?

The beauty of Nietzsche was in his prose, his engaging, witty, insightful prose. He was the original shitposter of his time. It's not about what he wrote, you gotta read it all to understand what he said (it's only a few books; same with the stoics actually).

You've been posting this shit for years and I have no idea why. Instead of sperging out, why not leave your mom's basement and try applying each of these different approaches in real life and decide for yourself how they relate/are different? There, you dont even have to read, solved your problem for you friend.

[Anonymous No.11788984]

>>11788143
>Marcus Aurelius was literally an emperor telling poor peasants
that was his personal diary you idiot.
its called Meditations because they were his personal thoughts, not a book he published

[Anonymous No.11789001]

>>11788949
Shh, people who haven't read Nietzsche, but for some reason think they understand him from watching biased YouTube vids, are criticizing someone else they also know nothing about

[Anonymous No.11789007]

>>11788241
Listen to daddy Sadler tell you why he's wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt64AWqfFdo

[Anonymous No.11789010]

>>11788143
>Marcus Aurelius was literally an emperor telling poor peasants that it's virtuous to accept their position in life, tricking them into thinking that bootlicking is a philosophy. No don't fight for change
What changes have you made op?

[Anonymous No.11789026]

>>11788226
It's like it was made up by some pro-lifer who wanted to make pro-choice people look shallow and pathetic.

[Anonymous No.11789069]

>>11788804
So modern America >> every other civilisation?

[Anonymous No.11789093]

>>11788143
you are taught how to debate, but not how to live

[Anonymous No.11789118]

>>11789026
Except it's real and unironic and peddled by the uk's national health service.

[Anonymous No.11789162]

>>11789118
Birth control is cheaper than abortion

[Anonymous No.11789216]

>>11789162
Abort OP! It's not too late!!