/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21036523]

Can stoicism as a philosophy really be divorced from the religious views of the actual stoics? The whole nu-stoic craze reminds me of white women appropriating Buddhism

[Anonymous No.21036528]

>appropriating Buddhism
perfecting*

[Anonymous No.21036624]

>>21036523
Yes. Humanist philosophers like Montaigne took what they needed from Stoic writers like Seneca without any difficulty, particularly because the Stoics were not that concerned with what was divine outside of human experience; only that which concerned the immediate human being mattered to them. This is why they were small in number, as they didn't care about organized religion as popularly understood.

[Anonymous No.21036633]

>>21036528
Yuppie women perfected Buddhism?
I thought it was the Zen Buddhists of Japan.

>>21036523
You can goof around with anything you want.
Mix in some Epicurus is my advice.

[Anonymous No.21036642]

>>21036523
>Can stoicism as a philosophy really be divorced from the religious views of the actual stoics?

>The whole nu-stoic craze reminds me of white women appropriating Buddhism

Can stoicism still be valid or credible regardless of its shitty adherants who probably act fanatical for 2 weeks then give it up all together?

Can you divorce the association of the subscriber from the subscription? Just because most people who watch Rick and Morty are a bunch of cringey dorks, doesn't mean it isn't a good show.

[Anonymous No.21036664]

>>21036642
On that note, if you are going to attempt Stoicism, perhaps develop your own philosophies within that realm WHICH you can apply to living in the modern world.

To be a stoic is to be a philosopher, so philosophize. Speculate, analyze and come to conclusions which are unique (or at least pretty much aligned with who you are/what you believe in so far), but you can't just live by old niggas books and their archaic beliefs. Respect and admiration for their works, and for making your path easier with the entries left behind - but respect their works by eventually carving out your own.

[Anonymous No.21037043]

>>21036664
This

[Anonymous No.21037055]

No group are more obnoxious than the Instagram pseudo-Stoic quotation-posters of today.

[Anonymous No.21037694]

>>21036642
>act fanatical for 2 weeks then give it up all together?
I'm not sure how you can even give up stoicism. Once you accept that you can only control your attitude about a thing and not the thing itself, it will follow you for the rest of your life.

[Anonymous No.21037821]

>>21036523
Yes. Humanist philosophers like Montaigne took what they needed from Stoic writers like Seneca without any difficulty, particularly because the Stoics were not that concerned with what was divine outside of human experience; only that which concerned the immediate human being mattered to them. This is why they were small in number, as they didn't care about organized religion as popularly understood.

[Anonymous No.21037846]

>>21037821
why?

[Anonymous No.21039256]

>>21036642
>Just because most people who watch Rick and Morty are a bunch of cringey dorks, doesn't mean it isn't a good show.

With some episodes as exceptions, that show is quite mediocre.

[Anonymous No.21039261]

>>21037694

Materialism can easily corrupt and make you weak. Not everyone is Seneca.

[Anonymous No.21039512]

>>21036523
>the religious views of the actual stoics
What do you mean by this?

Insofar as I know there's no 'set' religion of polytheism; the roman folklore and customs were wildly different to the greeks they're constantly conflated with, and the greek states (thrace to pontus to antiochus even) differed wildly themselves.

Still if you mean it factually and literally, and not in the conflationary manner I've come to assume, then I suppose polytheism is the foundation to stoicism; in that polytheism is the foundation to science - in that exact manner of focus upon this aspect entirely, then that aspect entirely, which is pretty much lost entirely when a person conflates everything together as being monotheism.
e.g. the tree, the river, the sun which are knowable vs. the universe (or magic in our brain) which is not knowable (or pretend-knowable through copious drugs and/or brain injury)

lol cope-ious


>>21036642
>regardless of its shitty adherants who probably act fanatical for 2 weeks then give it up all together
heh i think you'll find that's what young people do all the time with absolutely everything they come across.

>>21037694
exactly this. you don't unlearn learning how to go to the toilet after you've learned how. i consider the management of ones own temperament and mind to be this fundamental and habitual.

>>21037821
>Stoics were not that concerned with what was divine outside of human experience; only that which concerned the immediate human being mattered to them.
rather: what was divine in/of/knowable the human experiences

[Anonymous No.21039543]

>>21036523
The whole point or zeitgeist of stoicism is precisely a reaction to the the loss of communal ideals and their virtues losing their place and was never really based on religion. Stoicism was popular in the Roman empire when the idea or effect of city states was vanishing (and their communal hold on people.) At the same time Christianity was not yet mainstream but the conditions were being set for it to replace the communal ideals of antiquity, so the period in-between saw stoicism. Now Christianity is waning in a similar fashion so there's less of community ideals and more individualism, so we have stoicism becoming more popular.

[Anonymous No.21039545]

[Anonymous No.21039551]

>>21039543
>loss of communal ideals
>and their communal hold on people
You've got this backwards; a state 'is' it's people, if they're dead or replaced then new people just aren't built to inhabit the same space (alien laws, alien streets), like putting the wrong shapes into the wrong holes in that kids game.

The wishful thinking of having people or a portion of them adopt a specific creed to have them emulate some parts of the desirable qualities that were lost was in large part, anyway, why Constantine adopted or found useful Christianity.

[Anonymous No.21039553]

>>21036523
>Can stoicism as a philosophy really be divorced from the religious views of the actual stoics?
Yes? Who's going to stop you, the stoicism police?

[Anonymous No.21039552]

>>21036523
Cont.

White women appropriating Buddhism is similar to the joining of cults (especially of foreign origin) with the loss of communal ideals in imperial Rome. They are symptomatic of the same condition, but not quite the same. The cultist wants to replace communal ideals, the stoicist is attempting to cope.

[Anonymous No.21039582]

>>21039551
It doesn't matter forwards or backwards, I'm saying stocism is popular in the transitional period from one set of virtues to another. The period between classical virtues and Christianity saw foreign cults and stoicism rise. For us we see foreign cults (Buddhism) and stoicism/individualism on the rise again as Christianity wanes. As something else takes its place we will see these foreign cults and stocism recede again.

[Anonymous No.21039824]

>>21039582
Christianity is a foreign cult.

[Anonymous No.21039876]

>>21036523
>reminds me of white women appropriating Buddhism
That's because it's the same exact thing

[Anonymous No.21039878]

>>21039543
>a reaction to the the loss of communal ideals
It's a response to the fact that people used to have to spend all their energy working, and now you have a welfare system where a lot of young men can get neither a job, nor a life, and so they seek for meaning. And since the educational system is shit, they will jump either on /pol/ or whichever other meme philosophy of the hour is in vogue

[Anonymous No.21039887]

>>21039543
/thread

[Anonymous No.21039905]

>>21036523
Why does it matter whether you're being "authentic" regarding the beliefs of people that have been dead for 2,000 years? Are they going to laugh at you or something? Grow up.

[Anonymous No.21039944]

>>21036633
this, whatever works works, stoicism was made up by people trying to refine things to the best of their ability and understanding, you can do the same thing

[Anonymous No.21039956]

>Neo-Stoicism
My suspicion is always that movements like this, the reformulation of some older idea (also see neo-paganism) are just another way to smuggle in liberal ethical views, pro-LGBT, diversity, etc.

[Anonymous No.21040002]

Stoicism isn't even a philosophy. It's just an ancient "self-improvement" scam for Greek incels. Stoicism never touches topics like epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics or meta-ethics. We should delete the t from stoicism since it is quintessentially soi.

[Anonymous No.21040316]

Yes. Philosophies are always re-appropriated. That said, socialism, communism, fascism, traditionalism, and the various strands of existentialism, all of these things are closer to us than stoicism can ever be.

[Anonymous No.21040322]

>>21040002
ethical philosophy is philosophy and actually has always been philosophy more than any of these things

[Anonymous No.21040350]

>>21040002
>Stoicism actually teaches you something practical rather than a bunch of useless made-up bullshit
Really makes you think

[Anonymous No.21040361]

>>21036523
>>21036624
>>21039543

Basically this. Stoicism was like 18th century deism.

> Even in ages when doubt and scepticism about a popular religion have been most rampant, the very sceptics and doubters have been disposed to seek some object outside of themselves to which they might pay reverence. For example, in the early centuries of the Christian era, when Graeco-Roman Paganism was losing its hold upon the intellectual classes of the Roman Empire, there was a notable tendency to find an outlet for the religious sense, on the one hand, in Stoicism and other philosophies that proclaimed a truer and higher divinity in Duty or in Reasoned Pleasure, and, on the other hand, in mystical communion with strange and somewhat bizarre gods, with Isis and Osiris, with Mithra, or with the “spirits” of Neo-Platonism. The resultant unsettling and diversification of religion was in that instance only transitional and not at all irreligious; it inspired quaint attempts to mingle and reconcile heterogeneous objects of worship; it presently produced a kind of religious syncretism; and thereby it prepared the way for the eventual widespread diffusion and acceptance of Christianity.

[Anonymous No.21040864]

>>21036664
>, but you can't just live by old niggas books and their archaic beliefs.
Cato did.

[Anonymous No.21041823]

>>21039582
>It doesn't matter forwards or backwards,
apes learning to be babboons or vi versa i guess lol - kinda does matter though; the desired values being easily demonstrated to have existed 'before' amongst the romans which the christians, presumably, were trying to emulate in a best cas scenario. teaching meth heads how to be like baboons at that point, i guess.

>For us we see foreign cults (Buddhism) and stoicism/individualism on the rise again as Christianity wanes.
well peoples opinions are meaningless; if A was the first and B follows A then C doesn't become A. The original is the obvious superior.

but yea i know,cycles and all that

[Anonymous No.21042284]

>>21036523
Stoicism was founded by a Buddhist larper/"appropriator" who learned shit from Buddhists.