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"- The emphasis on accepting what life has given you because that’s what logos/tao/gods have willed is a lot more palatable if you’re an emperor than his slaves. It’s great to accept what you can’t change. It’s not so great to accept the bad things you could change if someone hadn’t convinced you it was the way things were meant to be."

This is often read as a critic against Stoa. It's not really true though (though you might find a quote of some stoic somewhere that does agree). The tricky thing here is deciding what you can change and what you cannot change. Or in which way you can change things and how attainable that is and how much effort you want to spend.

Many situations and problems are not clear cut and require some attention devoted to them. Sometimes levers to change something are available where you didn't expect them. And sometimes you think you can change something, but it turns out to not be true.

Stoicism is not about being passive, it is about being active. See what you would like to have changed, and in which way can you change things. And no, complaining endlessly, as is common in our society, does not bring much change ;) That is passive behaviour where you set out to be dependent on someone else bringing change.

Fair point. What I know of stoicism comes from that book, and I’m certain this has been debated a million times elsewhere.

I think the “serenity prayer” is a powerful distillation of stoicism as you describe it:

> God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.

I’m not religious, but that’s beautiful.

Given that our other principal source of extant stoic writing is from a former slave, Epictetus, I’m inclined to agree that the criticism is baseless.

I didn't mean that as a criticism. Those were just my thoughts as I read the book. I lack deep knowledge on the subject, and I'll leave meaningful debate to the experts. However, if "Meditations" were the root source of stoicism, I think I'd take issue with it as described here alone.

I do disagree with your specific reasoning, though. Humans have an enormous capacity for adapting to horrid conditions by convincing themselves that it's not that bad. That's true in big society-level situations, and small personal ones: "Cut off my arm? I can survive with just one!" "This cancer isn't going to beat me!" "One day we'll rise up!" I'm not talking about Epictetus specifically. It's likely you know more about him than I do. I'm certain his condition as a slave was far different than that of a stolen African person in the Civil War-era American south, or people today in current places around the world. However, in general, I don't think "Epictetus is a former slave" is by itself strong evidence that his philosophy didn't allow for resignation to slavery.

> - The emphasis on accepting what life has given you because that’s what logos/tao/gods have willed is a lot more palatable if you’re an emperor than his slaves. It’s great to accept what you can’t change. It’s not so great to accept the bad things you could change if someone hadn’t convinced you it was the way things were meant to be.

Funnily enough, the founder of stoicism was a slave.

> - I couldn’t go along with the how-tos on not enjoying yourself. “Here’s how you deaden yourself to music: …” Uh, no thanks.

Which is what actually makes it very unlike taoism.

Hindu text Gita has a similar message. You shall act as per your Dharma (roughly between job profile and life principles) and accept the result as will of God.

Which is not surprising, there was a continuous trade/communication between Chinese, Indian, Romans and ready of world. Slow paced but over decades ideas will spill over different cultures.

> The emphasis on accepting what life has given you because that’s what logos/tao/gods have willed is a lot more palatable if you’re an emperor than his slaves.

My dude, one of the most famous Stoics (Epictetus), who was one of the influences on Marcus Aurelius, was a slave.