The Daily Stoic - What Did the Stoics Think About Politics?
Episode Date: February 10, 2021“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.”Ryan discus...ses the Stoic’s obligation to being political, and why they must demand virtue from their leaders, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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What did the Stoics think about politics? So before you get mad, before I've even started,
relax. The Stoics lived 2000 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 Stoicism is not about specific issue-based opinions.
Admiral Stockdale ran for Vice President as an independent.
General James Mattis is a longtime Republican.
Ariana Huffington is a proud liberal.
A Stoic is political. the philosophy obligates us to be,
but it doesn't force us to align with one party or another.
What Stoicism does, however,
is provide a framework for seeing the world
that should shape our beliefs.
The history of Stoicism guides us there,
highlighting what is worth fighting for, living for, 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 and
tipeter and diogenes believed in
sympathy are interconnectedness but
also in the self-correcting mechanisms
of the market in a way that predicts
the later stoic writings of the
economist Adam Smith.
And it was Marcus Arelius who
inspired by Thrasia and Helvides came to believe in a society
of equal laws, of free speech, and most importantly of a ruler who respects their subjects.
We can belong to any party.
We can look for ourselves to decide what we're going to decide about this issue or that issue.
What we can't do is disengage because we think it's somebody else's
problem. What we can't do is give in to 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's advocated for a bad or a selfish person.
In fact, if it is, it should make us question our support for that policy and that party
in the first place.
So it's funny sometimes we do write about politics here or I do, and my personal seven
people get really mad.
But what's so funny about this is that if you actually look at the Stoics, which we did
in the new book, Lives of the Stoics, the Art of Living from Xenon and Marcus Relays, literally
every single Stoic was political, if not an actual politician.
So it's a silly argument, but again, we're trying to zoom out not say hey
Vote for this vote for that. We are trying to say you have to apply
Stillock virtues to whom you vote for and the policies you support. So let's join that today
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