Posted: Feb 09, 2012 11:51 pm
logical bob wrote:Stoicism generates nice quotes for sure, but it would be very difficult to be a Stoic in the modern world. Stoicism ties the whole of philosophy together in one system that includes an understanding of logic and physics that has been long superseded. It's interesting, but interesting in a historical way.
A similar phenomenon probably has been involved when eastern religions got popular in the west. Especially Buddhism seems to be good at generating nice guotes. The specifics things you get along with buddhism may not be exactly of the same kind as in Stoicism, but there's still a large context involved in Buddhism, various forms of Hinduism, etc. Contexts that a lot of the more superficial western fans of these religions seldom have even the faintest clue about.
You have to put the quotes in context. The Zeno quote you have there sounds almost environmentalist, but when the Stoics talked about nature they were talking about their belief that all matter is suffused with pneuma, a sort of life force composed of fire and air, and structured by the logos or universal reason. These would not be easy beliefs to hold today.
One could probably reinterpret "universal reason" as "the set of laws of nature that govern things" and pneuma could easily be reinterpreted in those terms as well - but then again, we're creating a new pseudo-Stoicism, with words that mean things that are different enough not to warrant being considered proper Stoicisim.
I suppose that if you wanted a bad point it would be that Stoicism would suggest that people in bad situations should learn to accept their situation rather than change it. The social ramifications of this aren't great.
On the other hand, in some situations it is better to accept your situation than to worry about it. Personally, I kind of think failing to realize this has caused a fair bit of suffering as well - although less so than passiveness has in situations where either resistance or just work would have worked wonders.