The Stoic Magazine Library

There’s no straightforward answer to the question

Is the Joker Stoic? Is Batman?

Widespread shutdowns 

At the time that I write this, midway through March, responses to COVID-19 have shut down a good part of Milwaukee. As in many other places, students have been sent home from schools, colleges, and universities and classes have shifted online. Concerts and sporting events have been cancelled. Libraries, community centers, health clubs, even courthouses have been closed. Many office buildings have emptied, allowing employees to work from home. 

The Stockdale paradox 

Last month, I was interviewed by a reporter who was writing about the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, what resources Stoic philosophy can contribute, and what has come to be termed the “Stockdale paradox.” Jim Collins came up with that term in his management book, Good To Great, and used it to describe something that isn’t really a paradox in any genuine sense of the term. 

“Each occasion of failing offers an opportunity to exercise those dimensions of the virtue of courage that the Stoics called perseverance and industriousness.”

“I still grieve for my cat companion, to the point of feeling sadness and shedding tears, but I can also deliberately choose to shift my mind’s focus to the wonderful memories of the life we shared together."

“Regret and remorse aren’t good in themselves, but they may be a sign that there’s more work to do.”

“If you do desire possessing quotes that you can stock up within your mind, the best, the most reliable, the most intelligent way to do that is. . . don’t focus primarily on quotes."

You can practice Stoicism and also have a good time... For a Stoic, these sorts of things are all matters of rationality and proportion.

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.

Caring about and being concerned for our fellow human beings is an integral part of what the Stoics assert to be our rational and therefore social nature. It’s not a question of whether or not Stoics can or should care about others. Instead, it’s a matter of HOW.

From a strictly and literal Stoic perspective, that is a negative emotion, something bad for us to feel, not something to be encouraged or indulged in. But my experiences make me wonder whether there isn’t something also good to be gained when these emotions are felt in connection and conjunction with joy.

When you reduce Stoicism to sound-bites or life-hacks, what you think you’re working with ceases being Stoicism, and you’re likely to make yourself worse in the process.

An ancient Stoic ideal

“Living in harmony,” “in agreement,” or “in accordance” is an ideal of the Stoa from the beginning of that school onward. In his Epitome of Stoic Ethics, Arius Didymus indicates Zeno was first to frame the goal of life along those lines, as to homologoumenos zen  in Greek.  He adds that Zeno means “to live according to a single line of reason [kath’hena logon] and in harmony [sumphonon]”, explaining that “those who live in conflict [makhomenos] are unhappy”.