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As someone who has been reading about the stoic philosophy recently, this article has a good sense of the “discipline of assent”, where we should not be caught
by pixelatedindex 4y ago
As someone who has been reading about the stoic philosophy recently, this article has a good sense of the “discipline of assent”, where we should not be caught up in the storm of illogical and emotional thinking. A lot of doomerism that’s prevalent these days (on both sides of the political spectrum, to a lesser or greater degree) really try to prey on our irrational or emotional aspect of how we react to events around us (which is further compounded by how easy and fast information travel).
All that to say, this was a good read - so thank you for posting.
- troyvit 4y agoThat's a good way to put it. I think the fact that he used tweets to illustrate examples of doomerism exemplifies that. Twitter was written from the ground up to prey on our irrationality and emotions.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoI truly abhor this trend that views authoritative detachment as a virtue. Do you read things the stoic philosophers wrote on other subjects? Do you read about the actions of their lives? This article claims it's not endorsing passivity but it is. It is reassuring you that doing nothing is the correct course, and that you are noble for having the detachment and self-knowledge to choose not to act. It's no different and no better than the appeals to emotion that you believe you're above.
- pixelatedindex 4y ago> It is reassuring you that doing nothing is the correct course That was definitely not my take. It is reassuring me that things will be ok, and that definitely doesn’t mean I should be doing nothing. Quite the opposite actually - I should vote, organize and protest - do things that are in my control. It is moot to worry about things that may happen in the future, which is what doomerism tends to be.