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Why I am a Stoic (even if Mark Manson isn’t)
Mark Manson, the author of the best-seller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, has finally made it clear: he is not a Stoic. Indeed, he is annoyed by the number of people who read his books and come away with the notion that they are basically about Stoicism, with the addition of “a couple of cool stories and F-bombs thrown in to spice things up” (his words).
In an essay he posted on his web site, Manson details what he finds to be right about Stoicism, what he thinks is wrong, and why he prefers an eclectic approach that includes elements of Stoicism, Buddhism, and Existentialism, with a major emphasis on the latter. Here I’d like to respond to the criticisms Manson levels at Stoicism, as well as to suggest that one ought to be really careful when mixing and matching philosophies of life: eclecticism may sound cool, but a closer look shows why it is fraught with problems.
I. What Stoicism gets right, according to Manson
Manson begins his essay with the gracious acknowledgment that Stoicism gets quite a bit right. The first item is the dichotomy of control. Focusing on what is up to us, as Epictetus puts it, and developing an attitude of equanimity toward everything else, is both rational and — according to modern psychological research — conducive to happiness.
The Stoics were also right, says Manson, when they told us to accept pain and to cease chasing pleasures. Many people insist in going after externals like status and wealth, without realizing that this often backfires, and that, in the end, it doesn’t make them happy. By contrast, some pain may be a necessary condition to achieve things in life that are truly satisfying and worth pursuing, like becoming a better person and developing good relationships with others.
Manson also agrees that a good life is a virtuous life. Human beings are naturally prosocial, and we flourish, both individually and as a group, when we cooperate with others and exercise virtues like honesty, integrity, courage, and so forth.
The fourth point in favor of Stoicism is its materialism, understood in the sense of a philosophical position that says that everything capable of causing effects must be made of stuff. No transcendental entities, no Cartesian dualism. Moreover, this sort of…
