I agree with your comment that the history, and how that history has affected marginalized groups, specifically, is important to learn and recognize–and I think this is true of most of western culture.
Like !DrBob said, this article doesn’t feel like that. It cherry picks its sources and the author seems to fundamentally misunderstand Stoicism. In fact, it seems to me that the author is misattributing the failings and misunderstandings of some of Stoicism’s bad actors to the philosophy itself.
I have personally found Practical Stocism to be a useful tool in my own mental health journey, especially where it relates to recognizing and controlling my responses to things other people do or say in my relationships, why my responses are what they are and what I can do about those responses. It has never been taught to me as a tool of suppression, but of experience,acceptance, and, ultimately, control. If I am able to recognize what I am feeling and why, I am better able to decide for myself whether or not it would be valid to respond out of that emotion, or if doing so would perpetuate a cycle it would healthier to break. It’s not about not feeling, it’s about giving me the tools I need to decide how best to respond to what I’m feeling.
That being said, I fully recognize that language evolves and changes and that the word stoicism without the illumination now has negative connotations for mental health, and is mostly associated with unhealthy coping mechanisms and behaviors. Perhaps it would be more useful to ask where the disconnect between Stoicism and stoicism truly lies, and how we, as men (or as humans, since a lot of this ties into basic concepts of emotional maturity) can display different and better behaviors to change the association (if, indeed, we’re even interesting in doing so?).
The conflation of Stoicism, an established and codified philosophy, with the more general idea of bog standard stoicism is precisely my criticism. The author is not using the term differently from me, they are using it incorrectly by conflating it with a more general, and more modern, term–a term without established codification, and vastly different connotations.
Which leads directly to the point I actually made–which you entirely ignored with your reply–that anyone who uses the terms interchangeably, conflates the two, or teaches one as the other fundamentally misunderstands the terms they’re using. Thus my statement that the author is laying the connotations of one term at the feet of another, different and distinct, term.
Stoicism (capitalized) and stoicism (the more general, more modern term) are not the same thing, which is why this article, in my opinion, misses the mark.
I’d be very interested to explore this idea further with more historical discourse / critiques, if you have any sources, as it’s my understanding that modern Stoicism is based primary on Seneca’s work, and treats Seneca’s ideas of the Stoic Sage as a both a blueprint for modern Stoicism and the evolution of the ideas of prior Stoics.
I appreciate your perspective, and it’s clear we’ve been educated on these topics quite differently. I’d love to learn more!
Of course it’s just more performative MAGA nonsense, cutting off the nose to spite the face and calling it “owning the libs.”
These people wouldn’t know Marxist ideology if it slapped them across the face, it’s just another buzzword in the same vein as “socialist” and “leftist” and “communist” (read: “anything I don’t like”).
The constant aggressive anti-intellectualism is exhausting.
How Stoicism could lie at the root of men’s health issues ( imsmagazine.com )
Montana State Library withdraws from national association ( montanafreepress.org )