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My reasoning is based on the attitude towards emotional self-regulation. Stoicism is rooted in the desirability and moral value of emotional self-regulation, and this puts it in odds with woke because woke is partly about legitimacy of making my emotions your problem to manage.
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Cf discourse around "emotional labor" -- who does the work of emotional self-regulation, and who gets to enjoy emotional free expression is not a neutral thing and an expression of power gradients etc etc. Stoicism can be used as a moral stance to beat up on "snowflakes"
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Ie, the very fact of emotional self-regulation in a stoic mode implies access to a free choice between regulating and not regulating that's revealing of privilege. "The waiter must smile, the diner can be rude" basically.
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that's not disputed. the problem is telling someone else what they can or can't control, esp coming from a place of privilege. stoicism sounds a lot like "just accept your lot" which is good advice in many cases, but reinforces the status quo as a normative theory for living
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The idea that your choices and mine are separable prima facie before moral/ethical considerations are entertained is a basic weakness in all conservative philosophies (and stoicism is one). It implicitly assumes the legitimacy of the status quo so long as you personally can cope
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Basically under sufficient privilege a stoic posture is either naïveté or hypocrisy. If my adversity is trivial, handling it with stoic grace says nothing about whether I’m more moral/stronger etc than someone throwing screaming tantrums under far greater stressors.
Of course not! I think I see the divergence here. Yes, virtue ethics where virtue = bearing something stoically, means virtue is more available to some than others. I guess I just mentally filter that stuff out & try to take the good bits about understanding scope of action.
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In some ways it seems like a category error to call stoicism an ideology or ethic at all under modern conditions. It’s closer to a consumption aesthetic, like minimalism. A performed aesthetic of bearing, composure etc. I honestly find it hard to take seriously. Reads larp to me.
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