Is It Okay For Stoics To Cry?

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In this week’s edition I’m going to discuss the “stoic” vs “Stoic” dichotomy. Stoic, capital “S”, being the philosophy, and stoic, lowercase “s”, being a feigned disposition of emotional detachment.

Please pay close attention to the use of capitalization throughout what follows (I will regularly remind you of it, just in case).

What it means to be stoic (lowercase “s”)

To be “stoic” (lowercase “s”) is to possess a battery of psychological “skills” that make the compartmentalization of duty from emotions easier than would otherwise be possible without these skills.

To be this kind of stoic is, depending on the context, not a categorically bad thing

For example, consider someone in a leadership position on the frontlines of a bloody and brutal war.

Having the ability to separate one’s emotional response (to the carnage surrounding them) from the logical responses required to find a strategic way forward that ends a specific battle or, at least, minimizes casualties on their side, is, unquestionably, an ability of great preference.

To frame the “stoic” mentality to useful, though, we need not imagine only the most dire and extreme of scenarios.

Anyone who finds themselves in a scenario where action is needed, under pain of harm to others especially, can easily understand (and, no doubt, already understood) the value of this compartmentalizing mentality.

We all, to some extent, exhibit this sort of “stoicism” in our daily lives.

I practice it, as a new parent, when, after spending two hours getting my infant child ready to travel, and being dangerously close to missing our train, he suddenly — whilst we are (finally) crossing the the threshold of our front door to set out toward our destination — giggles, shits his pants, and then starts screaming like a Hogwarts Mandrake.

In a moment like that (and, if you’re a parent, are laughing right now because you’ve been in exactly such a moment) an emotional response isn’t the required one — let alone the most useful one.

The sort required is, instead, a reaction of calm, efficacious, and focused action.

What matters in this hypothetical moment isn’t the expression of the frustration we feel but, instead, the responsible care of our child (who is too young to choose when to defecate, and deserves none of our anger directed them) and a “roll with the punches” attitude so that we might still have an opportunity to avoid both rescheduling our trip and screaming at our innocent child.

Lowercase “s” stoicism isn’t really a thing

When we attach the -ism suffix to a word, we’re suggesting (of it) a sort of, and this perhaps not the best word but, grandness. Take a look a this snapshot of the definition from MW:

The -ism we append to capital “S” Stoicism is the sort in 3b (and please be assured that I just stopped writing this edition, mid-sentence, to email the editors of this dictionary to tell them that the “s” in this definition ought to be capitalized, as lowercase “s” stoicism does not have a system or class of principles — you see what I have to put up with? It’s like pushing a cement truck up a hill some days 😭 ).

The -ism we append to lowercase “s” stoicism, however, is more like 1a’s.

And, now that I’m a bit hopped up on fighting the “English-industrial complex” 🤣, I would argue “stoicism” isn’t actually a word so much as it is a non-word resulting from a centuries-long misunderstanding of Stoicism — but I’m going to take a deep breath and try to get over my “pedant’s rage.”

Somewhere along the way, though, what we, now, sometimes call “stoicism” (but which is more like the suppression of emotions for the sake of not getting “hysterical” at inappropriate times), became associated with the philosophy of Stoicism and, as a result, the two are, it seems, forever linked.

This (entirely wrong) concept of “stoicism” is, for better or worse, at this point, real enough, at least for us to be discussing it at great length.

And this “real enough stoicism” can bring great benefit to us, as described in the bloody and brutal war example earlier in this edition.

Then why is “stoicism” a problem?

Why would anyone take issue with lowercase “s” stoicism” if this sort of stoicism is still practical and helpful in navigating one’s life?

I’ll get to that a little later on. First…

What it means to be a Stoic (capital “S”)

To be a Stoic is to be a practitioner of an Ancient Greek philosophy which is, all at once:

1. A virtue ethics framework

2. A cosmological theory informed by the observation of nature and a logical framework, which is item number…

3. A framework for logical thinking

If someone is a Stoic, it means they have a fully-fleshed out, long-vetted philosophy guiding how, why, and to what ends they ought to strive to live.

A Stoic is attempting to attain Virtue, defined as the knowledge of how to live excellently, and sometimes short-handed as Eudaemonia — which is all just short-handing for possessing perfect moral knowledge concerning their own choices.

One consequence of this aim, which is fueled both by Stoic physics (the cosmological theory I mentioned a moment ago) and logic, is an approach to Ethics which necessitates the view that no single moral choice can ever be always moral nor always immoral.

Instead, every choice we make must be well-reasoned in order that it be moral within the subjectively understood context surrounding our choosing of it.

That means “stoic” (lowercase “s”) can, given specifically qualified context, be in alignment with Stoicism.

It also means that “stoic” (lowercase “s”) can, given specifically qualified context, be absolutely out of alignment with Stoicism. It is when this is the case that (lowercase “s”) stoicism becomes a wolf in sheep’s clothing, so to speak.

When someone believes stoicism is always in alignment with Stoicism, they have everything the need to feel validated and justified in their un-Stoic choices (and behavior) because they (incorrectly) believe they are following the principles of a brilliant ancient philosophy that everyone else just doesn’t understand… which leads to comments like:

Zeus help me.

When a “stoic” attitude is un-Stoic

Earlier, I proposed the following question:

You should now know the answer: because the choice to be stoic (lowercase “s”) can sometimes be the morally incorrect choice and therefore, since Stoicism (capital “S”) aims to help us make only morally correct choices, be completely out of alignment with Stoicism.

When is it out of alignment? I can’t tell you.

Not because I’m trying to keep a secret, or because I’m only pretending to know in order seem smart, wordly, and sage-like, but because I’m not you.

I will never have your context, and thus can never know, empirically, whether the choices you make are morally correct give your context, your roles, and your individual nature.

However, it’s easy to imagine such a scenario where a “stoic” disposition would be morally wrong

Imagine our most cherished loved one has died, and we’re attending their wake.

This loved one was loved by many, including countless others whom we also consider cherished loved ones. These others are presently discussing and remembering our recently departed loved one, many are crying while sharing emotional stories, and many want us to share a memory of the deceased too.

This is an invitation of solidarity, from people we love.

We’re grieving, there’s a welling-up of emotion in our chest, and we’re going to start crying if we participate in this conversation — but we don’t want to cry because we “identify as Stoic”, and “Stoics don’t let their emotions get the best of them.”

To avoid the tears, and exert our power and control over emotions, we think of something to distract ourselves. We think of baseball, of scary spiders, of our high school bully, and then we stand up and leave the room before losing our composure.

These thoughts stave off the tears, and now we’re away from the emotional stimuli of those other people.

“Thank goodness,” we think, “I’ve successfully practiced Stoicism! I’m advancing as a Prokoptôn!”

But so many un-Stoic things transpired in that example.

First, we’ve identified crying as being a moral bad – and not crying as being a moral good. But crying has no moral value without the context — and what is the context of our example scenario?

Well, that’s the second un-Stoic thing: the context includes a wake, in the company of close friends who are mourning, and who are looking to us, in solidarity, to share in their grief as a means of overcoming it.

Our choice was to abandon them, to leave them to processing their grief without our help or involvement – and not because we felt we couldn’t be useful, and not because we felt there was no grief to feel, or that we didn’t feel any ourselves, but because we valued a warped definition of Stoicism more than we valued the loving action of mourning with our loved ones.

What does it say about the moral character of a person who chooses to walk away from an opportunity to be there for a loved one (let alone a group of loved ones) simply because they don’t want to be seen crying?

At the very least, it suggests that person doesn’t understand the foundational precepts and aims of Stoicism — at the very most it says they are choosing a Vice over Virtue; that they are consciously choosing to turn from the path of the Prokoptôn.

Stoicism doesn’t say, “don’t cry.” Instead, it says…

“Work to acquire the knowledge of perfect moral reason, and, along the way, do your best to model what you think that knowledge might encourage you to do.”

So, is it okay for Stoics to cry? You tell me.

Show me what you’ve learned.

Thanks for reading.