/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12405488]

What works of literary merit argue against stoicism?

[Anonymous No.12405516]

Proclus On Providence.
>"The universe is, as it were, one machine, wherein the celestial spheres are analogous to the interlocking wheels and the particular beings are like the things moved by the wheels' and all events are determined by an inescapable necessity. To speak of free choice or self determination is only an illusion we human beings cherish."

>Thus writes Theodore the engineer to his old friend Proclus. Proclus' reply is one of the most remarkable discussions on fate, providence and free choice in Late Antiquity. It continues a long debate that had started with the first polemics of the Platonists against the Stoic doctrine of determinism. How can there be place for free choice and moral responsibility in a world governed by an unalterable fate?

[Anonymous No.12406942]

>>12405488

Note that the woman's idea of crying is performative and masturbatorial.

[Anonymous No.12406950]

>>12405488
Stoner, a man who's stoicism only dug him deeper into suffering

[Anonymous No.12407023]

>>12405488
They aren't even trying to hide it anymore are they?

[Anonymous No.12407030]

Woman cry to attract attention and force empathy, men cry to liberate steam.

[Anonymous No.12407085]

Plutarch, On the contradictions of the Stoics (or something like that).

[Anonymous No.12407174]

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 endeavouring 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 stageplayers 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.12407182]

>>12405488
for a very concise read, and a read contemporary to stoicisms height, read Cicero's Pro Murena where he talks about Cato (chapters 60-64)

[Anonymous No.12407200]

>>12405488
i dont remember people being forced into traditional masculinity except me and my neighbours, but i was born in a tiny backwoods village
what ive seen is 95% of people acting like fags and thinking traditional gender roles are outdated and ridiculous
i cried all my life normally as a man without fearing it and nobody gave a fuck
so where exactly do these people live that they are forced to behave like some kind of a 50s meme man

[Anonymous No.12407237]

>>12405488
The Stoics themselves.
btw it's poor form to argue against scientific findings on the basis of feelings and "common sense".
>>12407200
You are not normally forced. You are pressured by social expectations and your own desire to fit the norm.

[Anonymous No.12407248]

>>12407237
>btw it's poor form to argue against scientific findings on the basis of feelings and "common sense".
id usually agree, but science today is so full of shit and with prepaid research results that i cant
>You are not normally forced. You are pressured by social expectations and your own desire to fit the norm.
maybe i just never had this desire or cared about pressures, who knows

[Anonymous No.12407457]

>>12406942
I can't really blame them. Crying can feel good sometimes (tears of joy especially).

I don't understand where the "men don't cry" meme came from personally. Every single piece of "manly" fiction I've ever consumed has a masculine character cry at something.

[Anonymous No.12407461]

>>12407237
>scientific findings
>say top psychologists
lmao

[Anonymous No.12407472]

>>12407457
Yeah the men don't cry thing is bullshit. I come from a really blue collar background, like coal mining blue collar, and most of my male relatives cry all the time. A sentimental song, a picture of their kids, their kids doing anything impressive really. The women though, they're all tough as shit.

[Anonymous No.12407581]

>>12407472
I'm also from a working class background, and I see the same thing. The women are hardcore and are practically the head of the household, whereas the men tend to have more emotional baggage.

I wouldn't be suprised if the "men don't cry" meme was entirely the invention of sheltered, upper class snobs who never even looked at the works of "toxic masculinity" they claim to criticise.

[Anonymous No.12407679]

>>12407472
>>Yeah the men don't cry thing is bullshit. I come from a really blue collar background, like coal mining blue collar, and most of my male relatives cry all the time. A sentimental song, a picture of their kids, their kids doing anything impressive really.
estrogenized by drinking beer their entire lives

[Anonymous No.12407709]

>>12407581
I was surprised by how much crying there was in the Iliad, even though I knew that epics didn't hide away from masculine tears.

[Anonymous No.12408124]

The people who complain about "toxic masculinity" are just Americans who got mogged by frat boys their whole undergraduate degree and project that behavior onto all men who are virile

[Anonymous No.12408178]

>>12407472
What the fuck is this shit I've only seen men cry in the event of the loss of a loved one. (((Men))) crying all the time is honestly feminine as fuck.

[Anonymous No.12408346]

>>12408178
Well you're obviously a big tough guy who we all look up to. But try this experiment. This Friday, go to your local dive bar, the kind of place where truckers drink. Go to the jukebox and play 'He stopped loving her today' (trust me, if you've gone to the right bar the jukebox will have it). Then go round telling everyone they're effeminate

[Anonymous No.12408377]

>>12406942
>masturbatorial

You're retarded.

[Anonymous No.12408392]

Humanitarianism is culling individuality

[Anonymous No.12408439]

>>12407174
>endeavouring to be
>different

[Anonymous No.12408465]

>>12408377
Cry (performatively and masturbatorially, naturally) more.

[Anonymous No.12408522]

>>12405488
Have you looked into Epicureanism, a rival ancient Greek school of philosophy?

LETTER TO MENOECEUS
http://www.epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html

[Anonymous No.12408553]

>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.12408559]

>>12408522
>And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but will often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure. While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is should be chosen, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good.

[Anonymous No.12408566]

stoicism is the new zoomer meme, I take it

[Anonymous No.12408569]

>>12407679
t. armchair biologist

[Anonymous No.12408573]

>>12407472
Middle class background here, never seen men cry.

[Anonymous No.12408580]

>>12407174
>year 2561 AD
>You have 2 new messages.
>1st message. Beep.
>'yo, JD just sent everyone a diss track about you. Shit is brutal man, why don't you kill all his fembots? that will teach him to keep his bitch mouth closed.'
>Second message. Beep.
>'Hello Dear Customer. We are contacting you to inform you of our new product, Soma™. Come join our launch party at the Rave™. Male and female sexbots free of charge! Soma™, because humans deserve to feel content 24x7, a product of JuiceKhenazi'.

Nietzsche:- It's ALL nature, bro, lmao

Fuck this dumb shit.

[Anonymous No.12408603]

A certain austere philosopher of Scythia, wishing to follow a pleasant life, travelled through the land of the Greeks, and there he found in a quiet spot a sage, one such as Virgil has written of; a man the equal of kings, the peer almost of the gods, and like them content and tranquil.

The happiness of this sage lay entirely in his beautiful garden. There the Scythian found him, pruning hook in hand, cutting away the useless wood from his fruit trees; lopping here, pruning there, trimming this and that, and everywhere aiding Nature, who repaid his care with usury.

"Why this wrecking?" asked the philosopher. "Is it wisdom thus to mutilate these poor dwellers in your garden? Drop that merciless tool, your pruning hook. Leave the work to the scythe of time. He will send them, soon enough, to the shores of the river of the departed."

"I am taking away the superfluous," answered the sage, "so that what is left may flourish the better."

The Scythian returned to his cheerless abode and, taking a bill-hook, cut and trimmed every hour in the day, advising his neighbours to do likewise and prescribing to his friends the means and methods. A universal cutting-down followed. The handsomest boughs were lopped; his orchard mutilated beyond all reason. The seasons were disregarded, and neither young moons nor old were noted. In the end everything languished and died.


This Scythian philosopher resembles the indiscriminating Stoic who cuts away from the soul all passions and desires, good as well as bad, even to the most innocent wishes. For my own part, I protest against such people strongly. They take from the heart its greatest impulses and we cease to live before we are dead.

Jean de La Fontaine.
(The French original is better.)