Our non-caring ways

A few days ago, I retweeted an all-toocommon and off-base sentiment expressed by someone about Stoicism, writing for my part: “Looks like we’re back on that bullshit again.” You’ve likely seen all the variants, sometimes emphatically asserted, other times presented as a question, of a mistaken equation. On the one side is “Stoicism”. On the other is “not giving a [ ],” and you can fill in the blank with everything from “f**k” to “crap,” and anything in between.

Stoicism is about caring

Any reader who has spent time with any Late or Roman Stoic authors whose works we possess, particularly Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, but also Epictetus, Musonius Rufus, or Hierocles knows that Stoicism as a philosophy of life is the opposite of not giving a crap. There are a number of matters, and people in particular, that you can’t be a good or even mediocre Stoic without caring about to some extent. It is true that Stoicism will wean a person away from caring too much, or even in some cases, at all, about some things. But a global attitude of not giving a crap is really anti- Stoic, in several important respects.

Be attentive

The first of these turns on the wording. Not giving a “whatever” is an unqualified, extreme, and hyperbolic way to express whatever one has in mind. One key dimension of Stoicism is attentiveness (prosokhń), paying attention to one’s thoughts, reasoning processes, assumptions and judgments, delving into the desires, aversions, values, feelings, and emotions that motivate us. Claiming “I don’t give a crap”, let alone advocating a universal comportment along those lines, especially engaging in these performances with total strangers... what intentions, what thoughtprocesses, what intellectual carelessness, what desires bearing on how others see one does this betray?

It could be hollow bravado. It could be a desperate desire to appear tough, independent, or confident. It could foolish oversimplification, stemming from intellectual laziness. It could just be a wish to impress by trolling. It could be a lack of adequate self-control that might otherwise hold one back from saying silly things. There’s no one single most likely reason for any given person to make such a claim. But there is one thing to say about these wouldbe- definers: They won’t have any good reasons for insisting on their mistaken take on Stoicism.

There are a number of matters, and people in particular, that you can’t be a good or even mediocre Stoic without caring about to some extent.

Shift to the positive

We can shift our considerations to the positive, rather than simply (though rightly) criticizing this erroneous posturing. If you are a Stoic, if you study the philosophical teachings and try your best to consistently apply them, there are a lot of things you will give a crap about. To the extent that you don’t, you’re deviating from the Stoic path. Of course, these things we should care about, or if you like, that we ought to be invested in both emotionally and intellectually, have to be arranged in right proportion to each other. That proportionality and correct prioritization is something that each of the cardinal virtues – prudence, justice, courage, and temperance – bear upon in their own ways.

Care about things that are “up to us”

What should we care about? What should we give a crap about? One place to start is with the distinction that has come in recent decades to be called (a little misleadingly) the “dichotomy of control”. We should definitely give a crap about – indeed a whole crapload! – the things that are “up to us” (as Epictetus calls them) or that lie within the scope of our power (as Seneca would put it). These include our own overall character, the faculties we are endowed with (particularly that of choice), our desires and aversions, choices and refusals, habits, emotions, well... you know the drill here right?

Don’t ignore what is not “up to us”

But we should also care to some extent about those things that Stoics called “externals” or ‘indifferents”, things that are not directly up to us. Wealth, reputation, even our bodies fall into this class for the Stoics. We should still take care of them, use them justly and prudently, value them to the right extent. Our relationships with other people, and those people themselves, likewise fall within our circles of concern, particularly if we are responsible for those other persons. It would be anti-Stoic, indeed inhumane, to adopt a stance of not giving a crap about these matters.

Greg Sadler of ReasonIO is an educator and the editor of Stoicism Today (ModernStoicism.com).

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