> Proper Stoicism is not about dodging your emotions, it's very much about dodging the adverse behavioral effects of your emotions.
I’m not disagreeing with this. I understand classic stoicism, but I’ve also seen the effects of modern pseudo-stoicism as pushed by influencers and social media.
Focusing on stoicism and trying to dodge the effects of your emotions is a reasonable strategy for someone who is truly stuck in a situation, like the prisoners or warriors cited in the article.
But it becomes a self-defeating action when the situation you’re dealing with is something that should be addressed or changed rather than dealing with it like you’re a prisoner and helpless victim. The common example is someone in a toxic job who is furiously consuming stoicism social media and trying to act stoic in the face of a job they hate instead of using that energy to apply for another job.
ISTM that improving one's emotional self-regulation is an excellent first-line response to being in what seems to be a toxic job. It may be that leaving that job and applying for another is still the right thing to do, all things considered, but we cannot know for sure unless we are in that situation ourselves and can de-stress enough to do a proper evaluation of it.
I agree that improving emotional regulation is a first step to building up the energy to change a situation.
My issue with modern internet style pseudo-stoicism is that it's fixated on becoming indifferent (the title of this article, even) and breeds a sort of learned helplessness. The article's sub-heading is about prisoners and warriors, but using techniques optimized for being a prisoner or stuck in a war isn't quite right for someone navigating a toxic relationship or toxic job where you're not actually entirely helpless.
I'd recommend something like Breakfast with Seneca. It's an awesome read, and should hopefully help to differentiate the philosophy or school of stoicism and whatever we have now.
We're still human, and the collaborative problem solving the ancients did still applies today. That much of the concepts survived and maintained relevance from ancient Greece, to Rome, to now lends them a certain 'time tested' quality.
I’m not disagreeing with this. I understand classic stoicism, but I’ve also seen the effects of modern pseudo-stoicism as pushed by influencers and social media.
Focusing on stoicism and trying to dodge the effects of your emotions is a reasonable strategy for someone who is truly stuck in a situation, like the prisoners or warriors cited in the article.
But it becomes a self-defeating action when the situation you’re dealing with is something that should be addressed or changed rather than dealing with it like you’re a prisoner and helpless victim. The common example is someone in a toxic job who is furiously consuming stoicism social media and trying to act stoic in the face of a job they hate instead of using that energy to apply for another job.