I guess this is more of a note-to-self for another time down the line, but it’s something I really do want to consider.
I don’t know what it was but I’ll put it down to something akin to Walter Benjamin’s “dialectical image”, or Theodor Adorno’s “constellation”. Recently, I’ve been meditating on the theme of Stoicism and its contrasts with Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and especially Taoism.
My reason for doing so is that my mental health has taken a bit of a kicking trying to move past things which I would regard as “outside my self-control”. Now, I use this definition of Stoicism, as I feel it is a relatively popular conception of it. I won’t pretend that I know the philosophy inside out, nor have I read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. It’s typical in philosophy I assume, that the more you think the more you realise you have to read. Lord help us all.
However, as I say, using this popular definition of what Stoicism is: “the letting go of things that are not under your control”, I have a question that plagues me. Namely, at what point are things actually out of our control?
- For instance, if I was due to write an article with a looming deadline and my Wi-Fi connection cuts out; is this out of my control? What if I know that I can go to my brothers’ house, even if it is midnight and he lives one hour away? Is this still sufficiently within my control?
- How about if I can’t find a job and I need to find a way to feed my family? I know I can throw a brick through the supermarket window and steal from it. Is this within my control, or not?
- How about if I have an uncle who is sick for a long period of time? Would the act of me doing well in my school exams and going onto become a world famous researcher or surgeon, constitute his condition as being under my control? Have I made it my concern? Would it then, stoically-speaking, be better to not try to fix it? Or would this course of (in-)action be something in my control which I am actively rejecting? An affront to Stoic principles, it would seem.
I find that something interesting about the modern capitalist world is that it is programmed into us that we are supposed to find a way. If anyone has seen the excellent documentary Fyre, the story of how an influencer-targeted musical festival was so shoddily put together (if it even made it that far), that it fell apart within minutes of people arriving, you’ll probably remember one of the organisers’ disbelief at the co-founder Billy stating, “we want solutions, not problems.”
Those who have watched the documentary will see how Fyre fell into a negative snowball, becoming more drawn out, ugly and impractical as the start date approached. But Billy’s out-of-touch response to his team’s concerns is shared more widely. I would go as far to say that it is the battle cry for entrepreneurs of the 21st century. These people see the problems and just want solutions, whether or not these can be fixed.
There was no a priori reason that Fyre could not have been successful. It wasn’t destined by anything in particular. Mitt Romney saved the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics when it all looked doomed, who’s not to say that someone could have done a similar job here? Super Mitt could have potentially stepped in. Arguably, even postponing the festival until it was ready could have classed as affecting an issue into creating a desirable outcome. Although, then again, this seems to suggest a similar but slightly different, more pregnant question about Stoicism I can talk about another time: what are the parameters of the issue?
Right now, in 2020, it seems that the boundaries over a priori and a posteriori boundaries are shifted by business and capitalism. To the modern business man, everything should be a posteriori – everything should be capable of being fixed, and if not, you’re getting the sack, mate.
With this in mind, how far can we adopt Stoicism for ourselves? It has always struck me as a deeply personal philosophy. You are aware of your limitations and you know when something is out of your control. However in reality, to me, this is part of the problem I face when I am stressed is drawing this distinction myself. Does Stoicism rest on an assumption that we can make these determinations? That we have the courage or agency to say, “no”, even if something states that a responsibility is within our power? Let’s us this as a working example:
What about if one day I say “no” to my boss’ request to work on a project as I feel that the desired outcomes are out of my reach. He, on the other hand, states that it’s well within my grasp, and if I refuse, it would be a dereliction of duty and I would be disciplined. I may say that keeping my job is within my control and could say that “I will do it” knowing it is not possible, yet the project itself causes me more undue stress to take part in.
By widening the contextual net like this, it feels like we’ve fallen onto a contradiction of Stoicism as applied in practice. Seeing ourselves as the object and our boss as the subject and them holding the power in this relationship, we could be unable to apply Stoicism within our life as our boss could be negating its ability. We would be forced into caring; something which on my limited understanding of it would mean it is incapable of being utilised.
But like I say, just a thought!
The Disinterested Philosopher Gets By 