What is Stoicism, Really?

According to, what seems like, 99% of the social internet, Stoicism is either a psychological magic trick for making oneself not worry or care about all manner of negative goings on in the world, a toolbox of hustle culture productivity hacks for Silicon-Valley-esque entrepreneurs, or a fundamentally flawed ancient philosophy that provides the fuel of justification for the fire of the so-called “red pill masculinity movement.”

Do any of those interpretations or understandings of Stoicism stand up to even minor scrutiny though? Let us turn to the voices of a few ancients to find out…

Musonius Rufus, an ancient Stoic whose Fragments make up a not-insignificant portion of all the primary sources we have on Stoic philosophy, didn’t just believe women should participate in philosophy (and Stoicism in particular) but that it ought to be as primary a focus of their existence as it ought to be for men.

There’s also Athenaeus of Naucratis, a rhetorician and grammarian, who tells us,

Finally there’s Zeno, the founder of Stoicism (these are combined from two separate statements),

These three ancient Stoic philosophers contradict all three of pop culture’s misconceptions about Stoicism. Instead, the suggest that both women and men are meant to pursue Virtue, that love—revered as the ruling deity of the Stoic’s ideal Republic—and active concern for others are central to Stoic practice, and that a major part of Stoicism is aligning oneself with the nature of the Universe.

For those who believe they understand Stoicism, but found themselves raising an eyebrow at any point during the last few paragraphs, their reaction to this strong contradiction should be motivating. If you caught yourself thinking, Wait—this isn’t Stoicism, I have news for you: it absolutely is Stoicism, and I wrote this article, specifically, with you in mind.

What is Stoicism?

Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy (and Virtue Ethics framework) that says the entire point of a human being’s life is to acquire a specific kind of knowledge: Virtue. Virtue, defined by the Stoics as perfect moral knowledge or moral excellence, is the key to aligning oneself with nature and the Cosmos.

For the ancient Stoics, the Cosmos was a providential living entity (of which were/are a part), but I will talk about it, instead, as nothing more than a self-sustaining system – a self-sustaining system so stable and reliable that there’s an appearance of logical design to it.

All living things, as far as we know, act in accordance with this so-called “logic” of the Cosmos (the Logos) without actively choosing to do so. Grass grows, planets orbit, cows moo, stars are born and die, dung beetles roll dung, and trees do what trees do. The balance of energy in the Cosmos remains ever the same and the system, reliably, keeps on keeping on.

Then there are human beings…

The Ancient Stoics reasoned that a human being couldn’t be in alignment with Nature without possessing Virtue because, as “the rational animal”, human beings have a unique kind of control over themselves. Human beings can freely choose and, if human beings can freely choose, that means they are able to choose to act out of alignment with Nature.

Since, according to Aristotle (and the Stoics), one only does what one believes to be the right thing to do, one acting out of accordance with Nature isn’t the result of some amorphous notion of one’s base moral quality – it’s not that some people are good while other are bad and that’s their unchangeable nature – it is, instead, a problem of ignorance.

Perfect moral knowledge – Virtue – is required for one to come into sync with the “divine” or “providential” logic of the Cosmos. Thus Stoicism is a philosophy that guides human beings along their path to moral excellence through the incremental improvement of both their character and their comprehension of Virtue.

Yet, even with this being the case, here we are, in the 21st Century, with a widespread and persistent misunderstanding of “Stoicism” that doesn’t just get it wrong, but that cheapens it, disgraces it, and warps it into something of a mind virus that is having an especially negative impact on young men by encouraging them to turn away from a truly Stoic lifestyle and toward one of malaise and nihilistic hedonism or isolationism.

Some of pop culture’s most common misunderstandings about Stoicism

Indifference

Stoics don’t practice indifference. Instead, we view things which are incapable of forcing us to make immoral (vicious) choices as indifferent things.

Poverty doesn’t force us to make immoral or unjust choices.

We also view things which are incapable of ensuring we make moral (virtuous) choices as indifferent things.

Wealth doesn’t ensure we’ll make moral or just choices.

The only thing capable of making our choices for us is us, therefore the only non-indifferent things that exist are our choices since our choices are what habituate and mould our character.

The source of this misunderstanding, in contemporary society anyway, is the pluralisation of the word indifferent (indifferents), which sounds exactly like the word “indifference.”

Stoicism is for men only

This is incorrect. Stoicism is the pursuit of perfect moral knowledge, thus it cannot be a gender-exclusive philosophy. It is manly to be virtuous, to possess perfect moral knowledge and a just character, but it is also womanly (the manliest man is a virtuous man; and the womanliest woman a virtuous woman).

The source of this misunderstanding is the word Virtue, which contains the Latin root vir- meaning “man” and denoting things related to masculinity and manliness.

However, Stoicism is a Greek philosophy and the Greeks certainly didn’t write their philosophies in Latin. Virtue is simply the closest Latin equivalent to the Greek word “Areté” – which means “excellence.” It (Areté) was also, to put an ironic nail in the coffin of this “men only” nonsense, a concept represented by a major Greek goddess by the same name (Areté).

The idea that a woman would be unable to pursue a thing represented by a woman is, flatly, untenable.

Stoics don’t care about things they cannot control

Stoics must care deeply about things they cannot control.

A Stoic can’t control whether their mother or father survives a battle with cancer, but it wouldn’t speak well of that Stoic’s understanding of moral excellence (and thus their moral character as a whole) if they didn’t care at all about their mother or father surviving a battle with cancer.

The truth is that a morally just individual must care about everything they become aware of in order to give it the appropriate amount of attention necessary to reason out an appropriate moral response to it.

A genocide in a far-off country that is not our own? It might not be every Stoic’s moral responsibility to bring an end to it, but it would absolutely be every Stoic’s moral responsibility to ask what their moral responsibility (to it) was and to then reason to a morally appropriate answer.

Stoic Ethics decry, in no uncertain terms, “not my people, not my problem” as an appropriate justification for inaction. In fact, in most cases, Stoic Ethics would decry inaction entirely.

Stoics prioritise themselves before and above others

Stoics do not prioritise care in a unidirectional manner. Stoic Oikeiôsis (which refers to the process of appropriating as one’s own what is appropriate for one to care about) is a theory of moral development, not prioritisation of care.

As children, we are immediately aware that it is appropriate to care about our well-being and survival. As we grow, this awareness expands to include our family. Then it expands to our neighbourhood, our city, our state, country, and, eventually, the whole world.

The fully care-actualised – or wholly “Oikeiôtic” – individual, understands that it is morally appropriate to care for the well-being of everything (albeit in an appropriate manner, which is up to our rational faculty – we must reason to what is “appropriate”).

Stoics repress their emotions

Stoics don’t repress their emotions, they endeavour to prevent their emotions from justifying vicious choosing (which is emotional management, not repression).

In Stoicism, the word “justice” doesn’t refer to legal justice, it refers to the “just treatment of others” where “just” means “fair.” The fair thing to do is, by Stoic definition, the just thing to do – and that means what is just is not necessarily what is legal or what has legal precedence.

If we, as Stoics, are not careful when assenting to our initial impressions and unproven understandings about reality, we risk justifying unjust/vicious choices and actions.

If, for example, we catch someone stealing bread and immediately assent to the impression that this is both something worthy of being angry about and that the action of stealing bread is unjust no matter the context, we risk locking someone in prison for what might well be an unjust (because it is contextually unfair) reason. Is it just to punish a homeless person for needing to eat?

I’m not saying it is or isn’t, I’m saying the reason we Stoics attempt to keep a lid on our knee-jerk emotions is so we have the time and presence of mind required to responsibly reason these sorts of things out.

Why does any of this matter?

I don’t care if academics get Stoicism wrong. Stoic academics have pedantic arguments about highly specific and nuanced details and then write competing hundred-page papers that call into question the legitimacy of a four-decade-old translation of some obscure Ancient Greek word and, in the end, both abstracts are close enough to the right answer that it doesn’t practically matter much (to “Main Street” people, I mean).

What I do care about is when the Stoicism communicators get it wrong.

÷jl Communicators are who people listen to – very few people outside of other academics listen to academics (just ask them, they’ll tell you the same).

Take Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson for instance.

No one knew who Neil DeGrasse Tyson was until he stepped (functionally) into the role of Science Communicator, but Bill Nye has been a household name for near 40-years. And while Tyson has no doubt done more to advance the scientific frontier, Nye has done far more to develop young minds toward an interest in Science.

Similarly, Ryan Holiday and Donald Robertson have done more to make people aware of Stoicism than John Sellars or A. A. Long (most people have no idea who John Sellars or A. A. Long are, whereas Ryan and Donald are widely known New York Times and Amazon Best Sellers).

In the age of viral social media influencers (whose primary aims are, most usually, monetisation), the number of unvetted, unidentified, unqualified, and uninformed communicators of Stoicism (and countless other specialised matters of interest) has increased by orders of magnitude. Most concerning? The better one is at marketing the more effective a communicator one is (be they right or wrong, informed or ignorant), and marketing is a far easier field to become proficient in than, say, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Economics, or Psychology. Which means it’s easier to become a terribly uninformed influential communicator than to become a great one – which means most influential communicators are terribly uninformed.

Getting Stoicism right matters because the right version of it is immensely helpful and highly capable of turning lives around for the better – while getting it wrong strengthens the influence, and emboldens the efforts, of characters like Andrew Tate (someone who, sickeningly, claims to be Stoic).

Why would someone adopt Stoicism as a life philosophy?

In the most dramatic terms: to become a perfect moral being who is nothing but a boon to the wellbeing of their family, society, the planet, and the Cosmos.

In the more practical terms: to spend a life committed to becoming an evermore caring, helpful, and beneficial part of the world for the brief time they are alive and able to do and be so.

If that’s not what one wants to do, then one isn’t interested in Stoicism… and one needs to stop pretending otherwise.

If you’d like to learn more about Stoicism, consider tuning into the Practical Stoicism podcast, or purchasing Tanner Campbell and Kai Whiting’s book, “What is Stoicism? A Brief and Accessible Overview” available in digital and print formats everywhere books are sold.