I’ve thought about it, and I don’t see the appeal of the philosophy as stated. Emotions are a necessary motive force for humans - you can’t fully rationalize yourself out of dilemmas because paradoxes and lack of information are inescapable. And I don’t see a problem with making dwelling on emotion a part (and just a part, like any other aspect) of life. It’s enjoyable. For example, many of the movie I like have sad endings, and I consider the emotions of empathy and profundity I get from such movies important and time well spent.
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So: be independently wealthy, have an ultra-competent manservant, and avoid aunts at all costs?
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This would have been more convincing if he had actually tried to explain it to a five year old, then the analogy with Feynman would make sense, after all Feynman really did explain physics to first year physics students.
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But I…
But you…
D’oh!
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Let me see… should I buy a book on philosophy from someone who seems to despise philosophy?
But, what is Stocism? Is it complicated and boring like most philosophy? Does it have any real application for ordinary people’s lives or is it just a bunch of big words and silly theories?
This advertisement seems really out of place on Boingboing to me, but maybe I’m wrong.
If I was interested in philosophy I might watch the crash course series on philosophy
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I prefer Dalek Relaxation …
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Sounds like a plan. Although I am very fond of my aunt. However, she is splendidly bonkers and would fit into a Wodehouse story rather well.
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I would respectfully disagree.
Yo, dawg, Cynicism is where its at.
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I’ve heard this ‘reaction’ explanation before and I think it misses a greater point. The stoic works to live the best possible life according to what they believe has merit and virtue. It is by living in this manner that the strength to withstand the world and the wisdom of choice is rooted. It is not simply a decision one makes in a reactionary manner to harm that makes one a stoic but rather the life lived before the harm others may cause, and the life the stoic will continue uninterrupted which gives the stoic life beauty.
Personally I like the writings of Epictetus as they seem to present a clarity of thought and purpose writers like Marcus Aurelius struggle with. I highly recommend The Stoics by F. H. Sandbach for a good treatment.
For a work of fiction where a character perfectly exemplifies the stoic life, read A Man In Full by Tom Wolf.
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Philosophically, I try not to touch ‘will’ if I can avoid it; because I know when I’m out of my depth; unfortunately for me, it has a nasty habit of resurfacing in much less avoidable contexts.
“So, is the will an uncaused cause?” is harmless PHIL101 blather; but when you haven’t gotten out of your pajamas for the last week because you don’t have the impetus to do anything at all; the question of ‘so, if it is by will alone I set my mind in motion; how do I set my will in motion?’ stops being philosophical onanism and starts being a rather urgent diagnostic problem.
Unfortunately, while it’s a very old problem(that smug jerk Plato had to admit ‘akrasia’ in order to explain why “to know the good is to do the good” doesn’t…exactly…seem to describe human behavior in reality); we haven’t seen a whole lot of progress. Team psych has replaced ‘akrasia’ with ‘executive function disorder’; and has access to amphetamines and SSRIs; but that’s about the extent of their progress. Thanks a lot, four millenia.
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I think an actual 5 year old could actually benefit from such a lecture in an unintended way: all kids learn there´s no escape when an adult goes into life-lesson mode, so they will accept the speech with serenity while retreating into inner emigration, musing over transformers and monster trucks until it´s over - perfectly stoic. 
On the other hand, it also takes wisdom to distinguish which philosophical insights can be internalized without the experience and the reflective ability philosophy depends upon and which can´t.
If I had the impression it could make a difference, I would claim that this article wasn´t very helpful for understanding stoicism. But as I don´t, I don´t care.
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Nonsense! Sophistry or ‘truth doping’ is a performance-enhancing epistemology that can make the weaker truth the stronger. Beat that, lesser philosophies!
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It appears the central point I came to the thread to make has already been thoroughly addressed.
So yeah, I have five-year-old at home that I do try to explain this concept to. I think most parents I know try to explain this to their five-year-olds. Mostly in the form of things like, “Even if you feel angry it’s still not okay to throw things.”
His hypothetical five-year-old listens to a shitload more sentences strung together than my real-life five-year-old.
Which sort of points us at why this is a farce. You can explain it to a five-year-old but a five-year-old can’t do it. i could explain how to shoot a free throw to a five year old in a few words, but they can’t even throw the ball high enough to reach the net.
Emotions are real experiences we have, and it takes practice to make good decisions while being affected by powerful emotions. Don’t explain the concept of stoicism to a five-year-old, teach a five-year-old an actual practice or process that will allow them to get better at managing their emotions over time.
Plus, stoicism hasn’t held up as well as people like to think.
Most five-year-olds need a lot of help not making bad assumptions about what happened. If their friend was mean to them, don’t tell them that they can’t change the fact that their friend was mean to them but they can choose their reaction. It’s 50/50 their friend didn’t even do anything wrong, and the entire wrong was how they reacted to not getting what they wanted. “My friend was mean to me,” might mean, “I told my friend I was Elsa and she was Anna but she wanted to be Elsa.”
We also know a lot more about emotions than ancient stoics did. We know that our willpower is actually a limited reserve rather than an infinite resource of a magical, atomic mind. We should teach our kids that if they find themselves getting upset they should take a break from what they are doing, have a snack, or go to bed early.
Well, that’s the big problem, isn’t it. Philosophical this-is-the-way-people-are talk is evidence-less and completely sidesteps the diversity that we know exists in people’s minds.
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Ahhhh, but is your five year old thinking about the nascent cultural structures which enable the good life eh? Did you even think about that?
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Right-ho! The trick, you see, is to get a cost-free extra dose of the old philosophy by having a man who’s a Stoic – all the benefits, none of the grim stuff. As for aunts, they’re all well and good and have an improving effect on a chap when he’s in the bloom of his youth, but somehow they always turn on one once one reaches marrying age.
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IIRC, Jeeves is a Spinozist.
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Also, be an idiot.
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