Stoic Safe Spaces: A Reader Responds

Pantheism and prevarication

I will do my best to keep it concise.

You wrote over 3000 words commenting on my original 1000-word article.

The Stoic intends to mould his mind into a fortress of solitude, not a 'safe-space.'

A fortress is literally a stronghold, which is a fortified place of security. That sounds pretty safe to me.

They seek to…be able to endure long suffering

Except, for example, when in severe pain - then they tap out, unlike Christ crucified. See Don E. Marietta, Introduction to Ancient Philosophy (Routledge, 1998), pages 153–4.

Using habitual actions following the virtues of Stoicism, one finds reason for everything that he endures out of his control.

Oh really? A reason for everything that he endures out of his control? Cato couldn’t find a reason for enduring life under Caesar. Nor could the other Stoics who killed themselves because of things they couldn’t control.

Stoicism does not dismiss the idea of suffering, or evil. It just seeks to eliminate what is called unneccessary [sic] suffering, which is described as suffering we have the control to avoid.

But I thought Stoics can find a reason for everything they endure out of their control? Make your mind up. And Stoicism does in fact dismiss the idea of all evil except vice:

‘The Stoics maintained, quite controversially among ancient ethical thought, that the only thing that always contributes to happiness, as its necessary and sufficient condition, is virtue. Conversely, the only thing that necessitates misery and is “bad” or “evil” is the corruption of reason, namely vice.’

You must be a dedicated Christian to believe life is eternal, and achieving eternal life is possible, and achieving it is the ultimate good.

No. Islam, Judaism, Hinduism…the list is long.

By the way, you know the Stoics justified polytheism and found a place for divination and oracles, right? In fact, in Stoicism, man’s body and soul are but limited portions of the world body and world soul. The world itself is God or Nature, for these are the same. Stoicism is pantheism. You are a pantheist, just like a New Age Spiritualist.

Based Stoic bro ties himself in knots

I would like to break-down what praying is, it's the act of repetition to influence your sub-conscious narrative and as such is meant to instill [sic] habitual practices that influence your access to life eternal.

No. ‘Prayer is the raising of one's heart and mind to God or the requesting of good things from God’. (Catholic Catechism 2259).

Why are we holding Stoicism against Christianity and acting as if Christianity is the foundation of truth that all other philosophies should be measured against when Seneca lived in the same period as Jesus and Stoic philosophy, such as soft-determinanism [sic], ended up influencing and becoming fundamental to Christian teachings?

Christianity is the fulfilment of truth. The Stoics were partly right about virtue but overstated its importance by saying it was sufficient for happiness rather than merely necessary. They laid important groundwork for Christianity:

‘Stoicism, with its doctrine of the immanent Logos and its "providential" operation in the world, with its noble ethic, was an important factor in the world in which Christianity was implanted and grew. It is quite true that the Stoic philosophy remained theoretically materialist and more or less determinist; but, from the practical viewpoint, the insistence on man's kinship with God, on purification of the soul by self-control and moral education, on submission to the "Divine Will," together with the broadening influence of its cosmopolitanism, served as a preparation in some minds for the acceptance of the universal religion which, while transcending the materialism of the Stoics, insisted on the brotherhood of men as children of God and introduced a dynamic influence which was wanting in the Stoic system.’

- Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Volume 1, Greece & Rome, Part 2 (Garden City, N.Y. : Image Books), 1962, p. 250

We find pleasure and meaning within suffering, by enduring suffering

Except when we feel like killing ourselves when we can’t endure the suffering because it’s too painful and meaningless?

'Right suffering' or Suffering with purpose, is honorable, couragous [sic] and full of virtue. Suffering unneccessarily [sic] and without reason is cowardace [sic], stupidity and ignorance.

But you said Stoics find a reason for everything they endure out of their control. So how can there be suffering without reason?

You talk as if there are Stoic sages we can follow and learn from, people who had actually mastered their minds and as such wrote the Philosophy to teach us the right way. This is a misconception. Stoicism believes in Sages but as an ideal to achieve, similar to Jesus but without having lived. They put the ideal Stoic in the form of the Sage as the unobtainable endgoal [sic] to constantly strive for.

No. See here: ‘Although the wise man or sage was said to be rarer than the phoenix, it is useful to see the concept of the wise man functioning as a prescriptive ideal at which all can aim. This ideal is thus not an impossibly high target, its pursuit sheer futility.’

Next is addressing the mess with David Stove. Firstly to put it lightly, he wasn't a Stoic and had nothing to do with Stoicism. Just because he committed suicide and it's permitted in Stoicism doesn't mean he's a representation of a failure within Stoicism.

He’s the fulfilment of Stoicism.

Ontop [sic] of his abusive behaviour and inability to take responsibility for his own life, refusing to speak truth and living selfishly without virtue, gives me little reason to take anything about him as a slight against Stoicism. Third, he wished himself stoic, not believed he was 'A Stoic’.

You have misread the article. Stove displayed ‘ostentatious tough- mindedness’ - you know, fortress of solitude and all that - and was ‘convinced for decades of his stoicism’.

No doubt you are convinced of yours.

He has no Stoic works written

Neither do you.

Really, there are only two great Stoic classics: the Discourses of Epictetus and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

You said yourself that Stoicism is a way of life. It’s not about writing books.

Now then I would like to address your attitude towards Suicide as a cowards [sic] way out, exuding weakness and only being sought after when they felt life was too much to bear.

Note here that you say they didn’t resort to suicide because life was ‘too much to bear’. See below.

Well firstly we can look at the lives of each Philosopher who killed themselves and see they endured a lot, for a long time without wavering, all the time time [sic] they openly talked about being willing to die instead of bending the knee or giving up their control over themselves and their minds to someone else.

Ah, the mighty fortress of solitude falls. Someone else controls their minds! The entire Stoic project of controlling what’s controllable fails!

Suicide is not meant to be a scapegoat to avoid purposeful suffering, or suffering that can be endured, but as a reason to find peace in lifes [sic] ills, for if it becomes unbearable you always have a way out. but if you choose to stay as Epictetus says 'Do not complain about what happens after that’.

So if suffering ‘becomes unbearable you always have a way out’ if you’re too weak to cope. And what are these ‘ills’? The ones that the theory says are just ‘indifferents’? This is precisely Augustine’s point: why kill yourself over them if they aren’t genuine ills?

We know Jesus expresses love by telling the truth, so then why can't a Stoic express love by speaking his truth?

Don’t start with this postmodernist nonsense about the Stoic having ‘his truth’. Does the Epicurean have ‘his truth’ as well?

I feel this should suffice for an objection to the article.

As a Stoic, you should know to be suspicious of your feelings.

I have a feeling with the current situation of lockdowns and suicides increasing by a lot, that you may have gone through losing someone close to you and as such feel preaching suicide as an option might lead to more people close to you dying, but that doesn't change the fact you want them to live because you want them to live, and not because that is whats best for them.

Suicide is the biggest killer of young men. Stoicism has a dark side to it. That is why I’ve bothered responding to your objections, which otherwise - for the careless spelling mistakes alone as indications of careless thinking, to be honest - wouldn’t have met the threshold for being worth my time.

Perhaps this article might help someone one day. Maybe it will be you.

Sadly, Stoicism is appealing today for the same reason it was in ancient times:

‘When the life of the City-State, compact and all-embracing, as Plato and Aristotle had conceived it, had broken down and citizens were merged in a much greater whole, the individual was inevitably cast adrift by himself, loosed from his moorings in the City-State. It was but to be expected, then, that in a cosmopolitan society philosophy should centre its interest in the individual, endeavouring to meet his demand for guidance in life, which he had to live out in a great society and no longer in a comparatively small City-family…’ (Copleston, ibid., p.126)

I hope you find some peace in life.

‘The life of man upon earth is a warfare.’ Job 7:1.