I want to respond to this but I’m on mobile. I’ll say this here to remind me at home when I have my full keyboard
kk. Home!
What drew me to Stoicism was it’s emphasis on emotional self-reliance. I’m just gonna say straight up: I think this was bad.
We’re more connected in the modern day in every way except emotionally. Stoicism was attractive to me because it allowed my anti-social teenage/twenty-year old self to be aloof, to feel like not engaging in society was the cultivation and practice of virtue.
To the extent that Stoicism is used that way today, then I don’t think it should have any role in modern masculinity.
Instead, I believe men need to be much, much more emotionally available. And to the extent that Stoicism helps men cope with our fear of failure in socializing, helps cope with the stress of socialization, I think that’s where it has the best role.
Because I’m still aloof, but that’s because I’m scared of being rejected. And, in my personal anthology, I have the ever-useful quote:
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.
And it helps when I’m like, “Fuck it…let’s go see what happens” and I go talk with people, usually at work where I have to talk to people anyway. And I connect with people and it’s rejuvenating in a sense.
So, I think Stoicism’s role is in helping the modern man being a more emotionally connected man and helping us navigate the difficulty of that endeavor.