Some of you are mad before you’ve even read this email. Relax. The Stoics lived 2,000 years ago. They had little in the way of policy beliefs that are relevant to us today.
Even of the modern Stoics, it’s clear that the Stoicism is not about specific issue based opinions. Admiral Stockdale ran for vice president as an Independent. General James Mattis is a longtime Republican. Arianna Huffington is a proud liberal.
A Stoic is political—the philosophy obligates us to be—but that doesn’t force us to align with one party or another. What Stoicism does do, however, is provide a framework for seeing the world that should shape our beliefs. The history of Stoicism guides us here too, highlighting what is worth fighting, living and even dying for.
For instance, Cato was deeply committed to the idea of Roman libertas. Yet equally fervently, he cherished the idea of moderation—the natural and obligatory but self-imposed check on freedom. Seneca believed in kindness and mercy. Antipater and Diogenes believed in sympatheia—our interconnectedness, but also in the self-correcting mechanisms of the market in a way that presaged the later Stoic writings of the economist Adam Smith. And it was Marcus Aurelius who, inspired by Thrasea and Helvidius came to believe in a society of equal laws with free speech and a ruler who respects their subjects.
We can belong to any party. We can look for ourselves to decide what we decide about this issue and that issue. What we can’t do is disengage because we think it’s someone else’s problem. What we can’t do is give into partisan radicalization, the silly team-sport mentality that has consumed American politics along with many other countries. Finally and most importantly, what we have to demand from ourselves and our leaders more than anything else is character and competence.
Because the policy doesn’t matter if it is advocated for by a bad or a foolish man. In fact, if it is, it should make us question our support for that policy in the first place.
P.S. This was originally sent on February 9, 2021. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.
