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Stoicism and Politics
If you hate Trump, read this. If you love Trump, read this.
At the start of this month, close to 150 million Americans voted in what “everyone” said was “the most important election of our lifetimes.” Funny how every election is “the most important election of our lifetimes.”
Typically, both candidates make promises they either won’t be able to keep or don’t plan to keep. Both have large contingencies that see them as savior.
Political figures aren’t saviors. They’re human beings with flaws, like all of us. They’re not heroes (or heroines). They just happen to be a lot more ambitious than the rest of us. And maybe living proof that ambition unbridled is not a good thing.
Why We’re So Fascinated by Politics.
Why are we so fascinated by politics? If indeed we are. Not everybody is.
Well, for one thing, we’re social beings. This means figuring out how to get along with one another. Neat trick, if we can do it?
Many have looked to sacred texts such as the Old and New Testaments. Regardless of what your religious convictions are — or aren’t — you might find good ideas in such works, a few rules and best practices. Modified for today: don’t steal. Don’t covet. Don’t hurt people. Don’t curse at them (yes, one of the deadliest weapons in civil society is the mouth). Don’t sleep with someone else’s wife or husband (“commit adultery”).
Treat others as you’d like to be treated. See them as persons with their own life story, goals, feelings, aspirations.
The point being: without generally agreed-upon rules, we have a Hobbesian battle of all against all, or interest group against interest group. Usually the strongest and most ruthless come out on top. Or, in our culture, the richest.
Some would say, that’s what’s happened to the West even with rules and best practices.
So let’s back up.
Can philosophy help? Philosophy, the Stoics said, offers counsel. It continues to offer counsel in tough situations. Not the cubicle-land philosophy of academia, of course. I’m talking about battle plans for life in a sometimes hostile world.
