Stoicism: notes on a much misunderstood philosophy

The Stoics get a bad press. It is thought that to behave stoicically is to suppress emotions; to face all problems with a stiff upper lip; and generally to live like an anaemic soul, instead of a full–blooded human being.

Hardly could a more oversimplified and misleading view of the teachings of the Stoic philosophers be proposed or entertained. Their analysis of the emotions is one of the subtlest ever proposed, and is scarcely equalled – in terms of its use of reason – until the publication of Kant’s The Moral Law. Further, it’s as valid and strikingly original today as it was in Classical Greece and Rome.

For the Stoics, emotion was not in itself bad, or a thing to be avoided, provided its expression was natural, rather than culturally inculcated. It is a good question to ask, “What constitutes a natural emotion?” Well, consider: if you are brought up in a culture where, on the death of a member of a community it is customary for women to weep and for men to flagellate
themselves, it is surprising that a child, on becoming an adult, will behave in exactly the same way? But is this natural? At the time of the death of Princess Diana, Carol Sarler, writing in the Times identified “a new pornography of grief”, which seemed to grip so many of us following the tragic death of a person with whom we have never exchanged a single word.  

There is some savour in this of the great public exhibitions of grief – accompanied by weeping and lamenting – on the death of European kings in the Middle Ages. Common to the historical and contemporary manifestations of the phenomenon, is the sheer unnaturalness and extravagance of emotion, characterised as it is by a willing public immersion in a sea of collective grief. This passage from Huizinga’s perennial classic The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924), wonderfully illustrates the tenor of life in these times:

The frequent processions . . . were a continual source of pious agitation. When the times were evil, as they often were, processions were seen winding along, day after day, for weeks on end. In 1412 daily processions were ordered in Paris, to implore victory for the king, who had taken up the oriflamme against the Armagnacs. They lasted from May to July, and were formed by ever–varying orders and corporations, going always by new roads, and always carrying different relics. The Burgher of Paris calls them “the most touching processions in the memory of men”. People looked on or followed “weeping piteously, with many tears, in great devotion”. All went barefooted and fasting, councillors of Parlement as well as the poorer citizens. Those who could afford it carried a torch or taper. A great many small children were always among them. Poor country people of the environs of Paris came barefooted from afar to join the procession. And nearly every day the rain came down in torrents.  

Was ever there so miserable a picture? I cannot remember all that Huizinga wrote, but I imagine that this encouragement of public mourning and lamentation was a means of keeping the people on side of king and country. But if so, it was cruel policy by any standard, and completely contra to the true spirit of Stoicism.       

But there is another contemporary twin to such imbalance, typified by the kind of extravagant celebration and outpouring of joy that greeted the “triumph” of nomination for the Olympic Games in 2012. “Fever pitch” might be an accurate description of such a state of mind; and its apparent antithesis to the “condition” of public mourning does not rule out a common parentage. But, almost immediately, the pendulum swung the other way—as news first filtered through, and overwhelmed us as we heard of the horrific bombings of tube trains and busses in London on the 7th of July. Our reaction to this was different to that occasioned by the death of Diana (which may perhaps best be described as ersatz). It was, I think, naturally visceral, and truly empathetic towards those who were the innocent victims of these vicious, senseless, and (alas) utterly arbitrary acts of death–dealing, maiming, and traumatising. Nothing good came out of that day. But was not our deep–felt, but quieter reaction to this tragedy more natural?

In the light of the above examples, it is hardly surprising that the Stoics warned of the dangers of excessive emotion: such as occur as a result of socially inculcated (or learned) reactions to events, which have probably become second nature, but which loom out of all proportion, thereby causing an incapacitating disturbance of the mind. “A push may start a log rolling, but the reason it rolls is because it is round.”¹ Likewise, unhealthy emotions are pent up – or primed – such that the smallest incident may unleash them (often with disastrous results, such as are reported daily in the news). So, consider, would it be appropriate for a judge to feel anger when sentencing someone who had committed a heinous act? No; the judge may feel opprobrium – at some stages of the trial – and this may be an unavoidable response; but that natural emotional response will not determine the length of the sentence handed down. Nor will judges carry over such responses to their next case: otherwise they would be unfitted to concentrate on the matter in hand, and might even pass down a harsher sentence (reflective not of the facts of the case, but of the emotional state of their mind).

For the Stoic, high spirits were lauded; pleasures enjoyed – as they came along in the natural course of events; and, as Cicero said, it would be madness not to pursue something that you feel would be good for you. What the Stoics were against was excessive yearning; corrosive envy or bitterness; grief so deeply felt and long extended that a lost friend would be miserable were they able to witness it; ambition which, if unrealised, would seem unbearable; and any emotion which went beyond what was either natural or desirable (to the person who was clear–eyed about the things that really matter). However, to be a Stoic did not mean that you should not try for high office.  For example, Marcus Aurelius (an exemplary Stoic) became emperor. But, for the Stoic, such positions were regarded as “preferred indifferents”, which if not fulfilled would not cause them to become bitter, envious, or irascible (or indulge in any other form self–defeating response).

So, for the Stoics emotions are natural and necessary for a life worth living. But they would endeavour not to be carried away on an emotional tide so strong that it bordered on madness. And if you want to see the results of emotions out of control and generally wreaking havoc, you need do no more that watch Coronation Street, East Enders, or Hollyoaks; and then ask yourself, “Is this the way I really want to live?”

Suppose though that everyone lived the more rational – though still high–spirited, explorative, and risk–ready – life of a Stoic? Would this mean the death of literature – because of an insufficiency of drama in people’s lives? No; this will never happen, because irrationality and illogicality flow like ichors though the minds of multitudes! So we need fear no loss of such plays and novels as Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, King Lear, Madam Bovary, The Clockwork Orange, or The Handmaid’s Tale. And then Seneca’s Medea is as tragic a play as anyone could ask for.

End note:

Stoic thought sometimes seems to turn our normal way of viewing things on their head. In the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero writes “. . . as compassion is distress due to a neighbour’s misfortunes, so envy is distress due to a neighbour’s prosperity. Therefore, the man who comes to feel compassion comes also to feel envy.” How can compassion be put on the same footing as envy? This is made clearer later in the same disputation: “It is urged . . . that it is useful to feel rivalry, to feel envy, to feel pity. Why pity rather than give assistance if one can? Or are we unable to be open–handed without pity? We are able, for we ought not to share distresses ourselves for the sake of others, but we ought to relive others of their distress if we can.” I take it from this that if we feel compassion or pity, we had better turn these emotions into action, otherwise they will become unhealthy, and shrivel into some kind of absurd, useless luxury. And if we find ourselves envying our neighbour, then we had better turn to Emerson: “There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

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¹ This sentence is from Professor Margaret Graver’s Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 (Translated and with Commentary). Chicago, 2002. I could not have written this piece without that book. The Introduction and Commentary are written with great clarity; and the translation reads wonderfully (it is not necessary to know Latin to appreciate this).