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I can’t help but think that the rise in stoicisms popularity among manosphere types because it lets them repackage a lot of more undesirable masculine traits un

I can’t help but think that the rise in stoicisms popularity among manosphere types because it lets them repackage a lot of more undesirable masculine traits under a legitimate label— You’re not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak. Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up. Whether those traits a “real stoicism” or not doesn’t matter, because that’s the way it gets spread through TikTok length discourse

vannucci 9mo ago
This is the exact phrasing I was just searching for, and I fear the same thing that this pop stoicism revival is trying to formalize some really asocial behaviors.
- prox 9mo ago
  Reminds of “We belief something first, and then we pick our reasons for it.” People aren’t really engaging with their philosophy (“love of wisdom”) but pick and choose so it reinforces what they already believe. They don’t exactly think about it they stay mildly glossing some concepts in the popular amateur/ social media sphere.
  - aquariusDue 9mo ago
    In some ways I always wonder if this Build-A-Bear thingy we've developed in the last 100 or so years regarding spirituality, morals, principles and all that as an alternative to traditional religious practices isn't just as lame as what it's meant to replace but in its own kind. I'm not advocating for religious institutions or theocracy, mind you, I'm trying to formulate an argument how someone talking about how living life in accordance to Stoics on YouTube or Christ in a church is more of an aesthetics issue than a virtue one. Though I feel by the time I successfully formulate that argument I'll have multiple groups clamoring for my head.
- fc417fc802 9mo ago
  It's not just pop stoicism. For years now it seems to me that a lot of memes regarding personal conduct spread on social media that essentially try to dress up toxic behavior in a positive light and encourage it. I'm aware that society had these same sorts of issues prior to social media but it's still depressing watching it play out.
SirFatty 9mo ago
"Just suck it up and power through" I don't feel that is a "undesirable masculine trait", I live by that and still "feel things" and have emotions.
- everdrive 9mo ago
  One thing that's worth noting is that Epictetus himself was a slave, and I think it's informed a lot of his thoughts. For him, true freedom is being able to overcome the events of the world. You may not be able to control whether or not you're a slave, but (to Epictetus) you can control how you feel about being a slave, and that is true freedom. ie, he saw the world as full of misery and difficulty, and saw modifying your internal experience as the only possible path forward.
  - s1mplicissimus 9mo ago
    Huh, I never saw it that way but it makes sense. I guess the cruelest thing to do to Epictetus would then be to make him believe he could be anything other than a slave, if only he worked hard enough. Oh...
  - exe34 9mo ago
    Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world and adopted the same outlook. there were people along the whole spectrum between slave and emperor who also did.
- jasonlotito 9mo ago
  That slave mindset is not good, though. It's not about not having feelings. It's about ignoring your feelings. Why do your opinions not matter?
  - fc417fc802 9mo ago
    Conversely, why should they matter? I'm not saying they shouldn't but I think it's worth pondering.
  - exe34 9mo ago
drakenot 9mo ago
I think that’s more a critique of the modern caricature of stoicism than of Stoicism itself. Classical Stoicism isn’t about suppressing emotions. It’s about understanding your emotions, examining where they come from, and choosing how you respond rather than being ruled by them.
- confounder 9mo ago
  I think this is the most concisely accurate description of Stoicism I've yet seen; well done.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- iammjm 9mo ago
  Also it's about learning to distinguish between stuff we can influence vs stuff we cannot. Like I cannot influence if the sun rises tomorrow or not, so there's not point in worrying about it
- raffael_de 9mo ago
  understanding, examining and choosing are all thinking based. and that's why stoicism isn't really working well for humans. emotions are neuropsychologically lower level than thoughts/logic/ratio. having said that, lectures about stoicism might well be excellent instructions for language models on how to handle communication with humans.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 9mo ago
    It's more to separate the feeling from the reaction to the feeling by a layer of understanding & examination. Feel first, understand the feeling, examine whether the feeling is appropriate for the situation that caused it, determine how to react, react. It's an OODA loop applied to one's own emotions: Observe the feeling, Orient on the situation, Decide on a response, Act as decided. If you pre-decide to always suppress any reaction you're missing the point. Stoicism is quite similar to modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. If you just react without thinking you'll often react to your learned habits rather than the actual situation at hand.
drcongo 9mo ago
That's so far away from what stoic practice is. Is that really what TikTok tells you?
- parpfish 9mo ago
  The modern/online resurgence of stoicism isn’t driven by people that have studied actual books. It’s being driven by people that are making tiktoks after they learned about it by watching a five minute YouTube video. It’s a very lossy game of telephone.
  - drcongo 9mo ago
    Well that's pretty depressing, I had no idea.
  - alansaber 9mo ago
    Pop philosophy being turned into AI audio transcribed by a cool video game character (also being mostly AI generated) is clearly the crowning jewel of our civilization.
    - senko 9mo ago
      Where can I find this AI generated cool video game character spewing out pop philosophy? Sounds like fun!
      - alansaber 9mo ago
        Don't ask me how I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma0clpGdQHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma0clpGdQHI
  - aquariusDue 9mo ago
    Only because Freud and Jung fell out of fashion, these TikToks are the pop-psychology books of yesteryear.
- tclancy 9mo ago
threethirtytwo 9mo ago
I’m tired of the whole “toxic masculinity” framing. First, it’s sloppy. Plenty of genuinely harmful traits exist, but trying to pin them to “masculine” or “feminine” archetypes is more ideology than analysis. If the problem is bad behavior, just call it bad behavior. Adding a gender label doesn’t improve clarity, it just adds noise. Second, it’s selectively applied. Many traits that are equally destructive are rarely labeled at all, usually because they’re expressed indirectly or through social maneuvering rather than overt force. That doesn’t make them less harmful, just harder to name without breaking the narrative. More broadly, labeling a negative trait as inherently “masculine” is simply rude and unnecessary. “Undesirable traits” works fine and doesn’t require turning half the population into a rhetorical prop. As a non-toxic and extremely moral male biological specimen, I’ll just note that attaching moral failure to the male gender category feels oddly out of step with modern norms around inclusivity. It’s as vile and disgusting as referring to a person by the wrong pronoun.
- jezzamon 9mo ago
  I think you should understand the terms as "toxic masculinity" as opposed to "positive masculinity". It's not saying masculinity is toxic. Or if you want, as opposed to "true masculinity" - reframing masculinity as a positive thing when expressed correctly.
  - naasking 9mo ago
    Why do undesirable or desirable behaviours need a sex/gender label at all? Asshole behaviour isn't gender-specific. Maybe people should just focus on criticizing specific undesirable behaviours, and praising specific desirable behaviours.
    - zxcvasd 9mo ago
      The group of traits often described by "toxic masculinity" are overwhelmingly displayed only by males, so... it makes sense? If you aren't someone who displays that specific bundle of traits/behaviors, I would suggest being stoic about it and not taking the term personally.
naasking 9mo ago
> I can’t help but think that the stoicism is so popular among manosphere type Is it actually though?
lern_too_spel 9mo ago
No, the new wave of popularity for Stoicism can be traced back to Tom Wolfe's 1998 bestseller, A Man in Full. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tom-Wolfe-s-Book-A-Man-in-Full-Brings-Surge-of-2942024.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tom-Wolfe-s-Book-A-Man-i...
stackedinserter 9mo ago
"undesirable masculine traits" haha Who un-desires them? You?
vcanales 9mo ago
> You’re not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak. Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up. Yeah, none of that is "real stoicism", but just the hydroponic TikTok version of it, as you say. This can happen to anything if TikTok is your main source of information; everything becomes life hacks, "tricks", and "did you know that <insert biased misinterpretation of well known thing>" types of knowledge bites. Philosophy is unfortunately not the only victim of short-length "edutainment". I think that Stoicism might be particularly vulnerable to this because of its built in flexibility, which makes it easy for people to divulge their interpretations of it with little pushback. If you haven't read much of it, and without a clear rirgid "rule set" for what Stoicism is (other than its tenets in the cardinal virtues and dichotomy of control), you might believe me if I tell you that it is a Philosophy that encourages suicide and tells you that being sad because a family member passed is stupid.

vannucci 9mo ago

This is the exact phrasing I was just searching for, and I fear the same thing that this pop stoicism revival is trying to formalize some really asocial behaviors.

prox 9mo ago
Reminds of “We belief something first, and then we pick our reasons for it.” People aren’t really engaging with their philosophy (“love of wisdom”) but pick and choose so it reinforces what they already believe. They don’t exactly think about it they stay mildly glossing some concepts in the popular amateur/ social media sphere.
- aquariusDue 9mo ago
  In some ways I always wonder if this Build-A-Bear thingy we've developed in the last 100 or so years regarding spirituality, morals, principles and all that as an alternative to traditional religious practices isn't just as lame as what it's meant to replace but in its own kind. I'm not advocating for religious institutions or theocracy, mind you, I'm trying to formulate an argument how someone talking about how living life in accordance to Stoics on YouTube or Christ in a church is more of an aesthetics issue than a virtue one. Though I feel by the time I successfully formulate that argument I'll have multiple groups clamoring for my head.
fc417fc802 9mo ago
It's not just pop stoicism. For years now it seems to me that a lot of memes regarding personal conduct spread on social media that essentially try to dress up toxic behavior in a positive light and encourage it. I'm aware that society had these same sorts of issues prior to social media but it's still depressing watching it play out.

SirFatty 9mo ago

"Just suck it up and power through" I don't feel that is a "undesirable masculine trait", I live by that and still "feel things" and have emotions.

everdrive 9mo ago
One thing that's worth noting is that Epictetus himself was a slave, and I think it's informed a lot of his thoughts. For him, true freedom is being able to overcome the events of the world. You may not be able to control whether or not you're a slave, but (to Epictetus) you can control how you feel about being a slave, and that is true freedom. ie, he saw the world as full of misery and difficulty, and saw modifying your internal experience as the only possible path forward.
- s1mplicissimus 9mo ago
  Huh, I never saw it that way but it makes sense. I guess the cruelest thing to do to Epictetus would then be to make him believe he could be anything other than a slave, if only he worked hard enough. Oh...
- exe34 9mo ago
  Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world and adopted the same outlook. there were people along the whole spectrum between slave and emperor who also did.
jasonlotito 9mo ago
That slave mindset is not good, though. It's not about not having feelings. It's about ignoring your feelings. Why do your opinions not matter?
- fc417fc802 9mo ago
  Conversely, why should they matter? I'm not saying they shouldn't but I think it's worth pondering.
- exe34 9mo ago

drakenot 9mo ago

I think that’s more a critique of the modern caricature of stoicism than of Stoicism itself. Classical Stoicism isn’t about suppressing emotions. It’s about understanding your emotions, examining where they come from, and choosing how you respond rather than being ruled by them.

confounder 9mo ago
I think this is the most concisely accurate description of Stoicism I've yet seen; well done.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
iammjm 9mo ago
Also it's about learning to distinguish between stuff we can influence vs stuff we cannot. Like I cannot influence if the sun rises tomorrow or not, so there's not point in worrying about it
raffael_de 9mo ago
understanding, examining and choosing are all thinking based. and that's why stoicism isn't really working well for humans. emotions are neuropsychologically lower level than thoughts/logic/ratio. having said that, lectures about stoicism might well be excellent instructions for language models on how to handle communication with humans.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9mo ago
  It's more to separate the feeling from the reaction to the feeling by a layer of understanding & examination. Feel first, understand the feeling, examine whether the feeling is appropriate for the situation that caused it, determine how to react, react. It's an OODA loop applied to one's own emotions: Observe the feeling, Orient on the situation, Decide on a response, Act as decided. If you pre-decide to always suppress any reaction you're missing the point. Stoicism is quite similar to modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. If you just react without thinking you'll often react to your learned habits rather than the actual situation at hand.

drcongo 9mo ago

That's so far away from what stoic practice is. Is that really what TikTok tells you?

parpfish 9mo ago
The modern/online resurgence of stoicism isn’t driven by people that have studied actual books. It’s being driven by people that are making tiktoks after they learned about it by watching a five minute YouTube video. It’s a very lossy game of telephone.
- drcongo 9mo ago
  Well that's pretty depressing, I had no idea.
- alansaber 9mo ago
  Pop philosophy being turned into AI audio transcribed by a cool video game character (also being mostly AI generated) is clearly the crowning jewel of our civilization.
  - senko 9mo ago
    Where can I find this AI generated cool video game character spewing out pop philosophy? Sounds like fun!
    - alansaber 9mo ago
      Don't ask me how I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma0clpGdQHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma0clpGdQHI
- aquariusDue 9mo ago
  Only because Freud and Jung fell out of fashion, these TikToks are the pop-psychology books of yesteryear.
tclancy 9mo ago

threethirtytwo 9mo ago

I’m tired of the whole “toxic masculinity” framing. First, it’s sloppy. Plenty of genuinely harmful traits exist, but trying to pin them to “masculine” or “feminine” archetypes is more ideology than analysis. If the problem is bad behavior, just call it bad behavior. Adding a gender label doesn’t improve clarity, it just adds noise. Second, it’s selectively applied. Many traits that are equally destructive are rarely labeled at all, usually because they’re expressed indirectly or through social maneuvering rather than overt force. That doesn’t make them less harmful, just harder to name without breaking the narrative. More broadly, labeling a negative trait as inherently “masculine” is simply rude and unnecessary. “Undesirable traits” works fine and doesn’t require turning half the population into a rhetorical prop. As a non-toxic and extremely moral male biological specimen, I’ll just note that attaching moral failure to the male gender category feels oddly out of step with modern norms around inclusivity. It’s as vile and disgusting as referring to a person by the wrong pronoun.

jezzamon 9mo ago
I think you should understand the terms as "toxic masculinity" as opposed to "positive masculinity". It's not saying masculinity is toxic. Or if you want, as opposed to "true masculinity" - reframing masculinity as a positive thing when expressed correctly.
- naasking 9mo ago
  Why do undesirable or desirable behaviours need a sex/gender label at all? Asshole behaviour isn't gender-specific. Maybe people should just focus on criticizing specific undesirable behaviours, and praising specific desirable behaviours.
  - zxcvasd 9mo ago
    The group of traits often described by "toxic masculinity" are overwhelmingly displayed only by males, so... it makes sense? If you aren't someone who displays that specific bundle of traits/behaviors, I would suggest being stoic about it and not taking the term personally.

naasking 9mo ago

> I can’t help but think that the stoicism is so popular among manosphere type Is it actually though?

lern_too_spel 9mo ago

No, the new wave of popularity for Stoicism can be traced back to Tom Wolfe's 1998 bestseller, A Man in Full. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tom-Wolfe-s-Book-A-Man-in-Full-Brings-Surge-of-2942024.php https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tom-Wolfe-s-Book-A-Man-i...

stackedinserter 9mo ago

"undesirable masculine traits" haha Who un-desires them? You?

vcanales 9mo ago

> You’re not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak. Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up. Yeah, none of that is "real stoicism", but just the hydroponic TikTok version of it, as you say. This can happen to anything if TikTok is your main source of information; everything becomes life hacks, "tricks", and "did you know that <insert biased misinterpretation of well known thing>" types of knowledge bites. Philosophy is unfortunately not the only victim of short-length "edutainment". I think that Stoicism might be particularly vulnerable to this because of its built in flexibility, which makes it easy for people to divulge their interpretations of it with little pushback. If you haven't read much of it, and without a clear rirgid "rule set" for what Stoicism is (other than its tenets in the cardinal virtues and dichotomy of control), you might believe me if I tell you that it is a Philosophy that encourages suicide and tells you that being sad because a family member passed is stupid.