The Daily Stoic - What We Accept, and What We Must Never Accept

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

Ryan explains why why we must do everything we can to change injustice when we see it, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.Pre-orders are available for Ryan Holiday’s new book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave - check it out at https://dailystoic.com/preorderSign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target. The new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, for more you can visit us at dailystowett.com. What we accept and what we must never accept. There is this pesky idea that the stokes were apathetic, somehow resigned to the status quo politically. It's an idea that's been propagated in countless modern trend pieces, as well as historical attacks on the philosophy. Like a lot of dismissals from people who are looking for an excuse not to have to engage

or change, it's just preposterously off base, like laughably so. How can you say that the Stoics just accept the status quo when Kato gave his life trying to restore the Roman Republic? When Thrasia and Agrippinus gave theirs resisting the tyranny of Nero, when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson formed a new nation in a stroke, the boldest advances for liberty and human dignity, yet known on earth, largely inspired by the philosophy of Cato and those other Stoics. When Thomas went worth Higginson, a translator of Epictetus,

led a black regiment of troops in the US Civil War. When Beatrice Webb, the creator of collective bargaining in the nascent workers movement, was rereading Marcus Aurelius regularly. When countless other activists and politicians and change makers have turned to Stoicism to steal them through the difficulty of fighting for ideals that mattered.

Perhaps it's because people miss that to create real change one can't be naive, nor can one be sanguine or entitled. Yet they must also deeply believe that an individual can make a difference. Successful activism and political maneuvering requires understanding and strategy as well as realism and hope. It requires acceptance and also a refusal to accept. It was James Baldwin who most brilliantly captured this tension in notes of a native son.

He said, it began to seem that one would have to hold in mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance totally without ranker of life as it is and men as they are, in light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent. For the second idea was of equal power that one must never in one's own life

accept these injustices as commonplace, but one must fight them with all one's strength. So let us forget the small-minded people who reject the philosophy that would help not only make them happier but help make the world a better place. Instead, let us aim all our energy and effort at that seemingly contradictory idea. Accept life for what it is without even a hint of bitterness. Well, we do everything we can to improve and change injustice whenever it is within our collective power.

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From the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lin Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany.

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