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Comment by steve19 | Hacker News Reader

> "Stoic philosophy, Sherman tells me, isn’t a “black and white picture.” “You can cherry-pick as much as you like in order to get the picture you want,” she says. “But to use Stoicism for a political agenda... "

Which is exactly what this article and author is doing.

Sotcism isn't about expressing emotion (cry when appropriate, then stop would be the stoic message, and don't encourage grief in others)

It isn't about red pill philosophy.

It is, as expressed in the classic texts, almost exclusively about not worrying about bad circumstances, such as being exiled, being a cripple or being the ruler of the world but being surrounded by terrible people.

It is probably applicable to every woman and man alive. We all suffer set backs, sadness, mortality and loss.

Throughout history people have tried making it into other things. Fortunately we have the classic texts and they are amazing. My favorite being Senecas letters to his brother.

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This! ^^^ The author paints an overbroad cartoon picture of a complex philosophy in order to fabricate a tale of 'toxic masculinity'.

Self control is not the act of not displaying or feeling one's emotions or drives. Rather it's the act of moderating one's behavior in response to those drives and emotions.

The only actual example of the author's straw-man "Stoicism" given in the article was his own attitude as a 14 year old.

The thesis of the article is that one shouldn't conflate "stoicism" with "Stoicism". And some people conflate other things with Stoicism in ways that exclude women and children.

You're basically in agreement with the author.

>The thesis of the article is that one shouldn't conflate "stoicism" with "Stoicism"

He may have asserted something like that at some point, but the article contains no cohesive argument to that effect.

Read the classics, screw the internet media, as Seneca said.

In other words, stoicism is completely dependent on morality, and being a moral relativist, that means stoicism is not only useless to me, but completely wrong.

There is no morality but the one you absorbed from your parents and culture, and then imbued with your own God authority by believing, whether that was a conscious choice or not. Moral relativism may be useless in your paradigm, but it is the absolute Truth that you made it up!

I've never actually suffered immortality to tell you the truth!

heh, that was a typo. I fixed it.

That's the trick, you're suffering immortality right this moment, but in order for you to actually know what that's like rather than having no perspective, you had to forget that you're everything else, narrow yourself down, and forget you're dreaming, and then boom, you're under the illusion or mortality, the illusion of death looming in an illusory future. But you're actually everything, you're actually God. False self is a bitch to shake though, the self-deception is total.

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