Stuff You Should Know - Selects: What exactly is stoicism?

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

The word stoic has taken on its own meaning apart from the philosophical movement which gave it life. In this classic episode, learn all about the early stoics, what the philosophy is all about and where the movement stands today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everybody. I'm feeling very stoic today, so we're going to use what exactly is Stoicism as our weekly select selection. This one was released in July, July 4th, in fact, 2017. What a great 4th of July topic. Learn all about Stoicism right here, right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, guest producer Noel. Jerry's been out a lot lately, Chuck. Have you noticed? No. No, I haven't really either. Jerry's been out a lot lately, Chuck, have you noticed? Uh, no. No, I haven't really either. Of course, Jerry's got big life things going on. She does. Buying and selling houses, she's like a real estate mogul.

Visiting the mall, doing all sorts of stuff. Uh, we're just a couple of deep thinkers hanging out on the stoa. Yeah. Specifically, what is it, the stoa? Did you practice the word, the pronunciation at all? I tried to pronounce a lot of this, but you know, ancient Greek, you know the phrase, it's all Greek to me. Yeah. It comes from not being able to pronounce these things.

It's quite literal. The stoa poikili. I think that's probably pretty close, man. So can I start this with a couple of quick thoughts? Sure. First of all, I took four different philosophy quizzes before we recorded. Like what kind of philosophy do you subscribe to type quiz? Yeah, you know, the ones that are super accurate.

Right. Because they can figure that out in 8 to 15 questions. Sure, and then you can move on and find out what Muppet you are. So here's my results here. For the first one, I was Epicurean. Okay. The second one, existentialism. All right. Third one, atheist existentialist.

Oh. And the fourth, Nietzsche slash stoic. Nietzsche was a huge critic of stoicism. I'm surprised they put those two together. Well, that is Chuck though. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you're what I'm saying? Yeah, you're a contradiction in terms, you're yin and yang. Well, I am. The reason why I took these is because when I was doing the research on Stoicism, I found

myself a lot of times going, yep, yep, totally, and then a lot of times going, no, that's really not me. Same here, same here and I think The even the stoics from back in the day realized that there were very few very very few actual what they called sages walking around stoic sages who really Fulfilled every aspect of this to a tee. Yeah, and I think And I think one of the reasons why Stoicism today is making a comeback and it's so appealing is because, well, there's two reasons. One, more than kind of a navel-gazing type philosophy where you're trying to figure out

the nature of existence or something like that. It's more a blueprint for existing day-to-day in a useful, happy way. Sure. And then secondly, it's a, you can kind of pick and choose. It's almost like a buffet. You can pick and choose what aspects of it you want to adopt or use and no, you know, Greek ghost is going to come along and spear you in the face. With a trident.

Right. Poseidon punch. Yeah, and I think that's, I mean, first of all, the Age of Reason fascinates me to no end. And second, I've kind of wanted to cover some of the great philosophies of all time. This sounds like a good start. Well, it is, but it's just kind of daunting because people spend, like, that's their life's work, you know. And for us to try and summarize any of them in 30 to 45 minutes is kind of like, you know, I don't know what philosophy you would liken that to, foolishism?

Duntism? But that's what we do, you know? Well, how about this? If this one goes well, maybe we'll take it as a sign that we can tackle some other ones. But you're absolutely right. Like even just like say the internet encyclopedia of philosophy, which is meant, you know, it's sharp and it's detailed and it's exhaustive, but it's also clearly meant for lay people interested in philosophy, right? It's just stoicism is so involved that it's not possible for us to like really capture all of it, even in an overview, you know? Or giving it, just hitting the highlights.

We can't possibly hit all the highlights. There's just too much to it. And that's just Stoicism. I still say it's worth talking about though, just because it's so interesting. So if I get up in the middle, you're going to pull me back up. I'll just keep going. Well, I like the urban dictionary definition.

Yeah. Stoic is someone who does not give a beep about the stupid things in this world that most people care so much about. Stoics do have emotions, but only for the things in this world that really matter. They're the most real people alive. And then in their little example is a group of kids sitting by the porch. Stoic walks by.

One kid says something very mean. Hey, you're a blankety blank and you blank blank. And the Stoic says, good for you, and keeps going. So part of me really, like I hear that and I'm like, man, I am so that person on so many levels, but then sometimes I'm totally not. And I think what the difference is or what matters is, well, it depends on if they say something that matters to you. Or if something does matter to you, like, I might get really riled up about some stuff. Right. Well, that would make you not stoic.

That doesn't rile anyone else up, but I also, some things that really make other people irate, I'm just like, man, can't change it. It is what it is. And I only can get upset about the things I can change. Yeah, if you could apply that to everything, you'd be pretty high up there in the stoic pantheon. I'd be a stoic five-star general. Pretty much. Five-finger punch guy.

All right. So we beat around the bush. I mean, that was a pretty good definition,, even though it was from the urban dictionary. But we should say we picked that one up from an Aon article, why Stoicism is one of the best mind hacks ever devised. Yeah, it was a good one. By Larry Wallace. Yeah. You did a good job kind of giving an overview of the whole thing.

I think Larry Wallace is one of the great modern Stoicists. Maybe. There's plenty of them running around these days. Yeah, but we're, I mean, we'll go back in time and study the beginnings of Stoicism because we're talking about, like you hear the word Stoic today, and it means, it was taken from this, but it's kind of someone, like sort of a grim face Stoic doesn't say much. And that's not what Stoicism, and they say in our article several times, with the capital S, really is all about.

Right, yeah. To these days, people typically, or I should say these days up to about three years ago, people thought of Stoics as somebody who could watch their dog get hit by a car and, you know, their reaction was to raise their chin a little higher up in the air, you know, like just grin and bear it. As Larry put it, I'm on a first name basis with Larry Wallace. Lair. That it's a philosophy of grim endurance,

tolerating rather than transcending life's agonies and adversities. Just kind of trudging through, just taking hit after hit from life, as it deals them to you, right? That was the idea of Stoicism. You can kind of like, it's not like that's just radically unlike actual Stoicism, but it's an outsider's interpretation of what the Stoics are actually doing, what's actually going on, the purpose of the whole thing, that outsider's view that doesn't really

fully understand it became the popular view until recently, until it started to kind of gain some traction lately. Yeah, and you know throughout the years Stoicism has informed some religions. These days there are a lot of atheists that are stoics. But I like how our article says it, it's above all, it teaches the value of emotional control in living one's life fully. Yeah. So here's the basis of it. The basis of it is, if you can detach yourself from emotional responses to things, then something that comes along, whether good or bad,

is not gonna get your goat. Stoicism is all about protecting your goat and not letting anything get it. And the way that they do that is by saying, there are very few things that I can control in life and everything that I can't control, I'm not gonna get riled up over. Lose my job, oh well, it happens.

It doesn't mean I'm any less of a person. I just need to go out and get another job. Dog gets hit by a car, well, that's really awful because I really like that dog, but I'll just go get another dog, or maybe I'll just learn to live without the dog. Maybe I was becoming too attached to the dog. Things like that. That's stoicism.

The whole point of it is, it's not just to get your goat, or to protect your goat from being gotten. It's about living a moral life where you're a very good human being. And the idea is that the only way to really do that is through things like rationalism and investigating the universe and being understanding of knowledge and then pursuing ethics, specific ethics. And they figured out the best way to do that is dispassionately. Yeah, I think my bumper sticker would say, on board colon part-time Stoicist, full-time dreamer. Okay. That is a specific bumper sticker.

I used to have a lot of bumper stickers in high school, and now I loathe them so much. Really? What did you have? Oh, I had an old Volkswagen Beetle that was my family actually bought brand new in 1968 and was passed down from kid to kid to kid. It's an heirloom. It was, it was very cool I thought at the time.

Well, it is cool, I love those old Beetles. But I just went through one of those phases where I was like, here's a Native American saying and here's something about Mother Nature and Bob Marley had this to say, and... Oh. Just, yeah, I was one of those. And now I see those cars with all the things,

and I'm just like, shut up, nobody cares. It's funny. Maybe I'm a cynicist too. Yeah, for sure. I mean, did you have a 311 sticker? No, this was pre-311 actually. Okay, gotcha. So did your mom come out and be like,

what'd you do to the family heirloom? No. You put stickers all over it. No, it's funny that that car had a, the rear floorboard was missing on one side. My dad had a car like that, a Malibu. So you could like see the street. Uh-huh.

I had a piece of wood there. Now that I look back street. Uh-huh. I had a piece of wood there. Now that I look back, oh, he didn't even have a piece of wood. Now that I look back, I'm like, that was extraordinarily irresponsible to be driving around with kids in the backseat with the street visible. Yeah.

I love that your dad was just like, watch your feet, kids. Yeah, easy does it. All right, so you wanna go back and talk about the history a little bit? No, I want to keep beating around the bush. All right, let's get in the way back machine. We need to really juice it up because we're going way back. Got some kerosene, got some banana peels, and got some airplane glue, but that's just for us.

That's right, because it's a long ride. Ancient Greece is where we're headed, to the time of the great philosophers, and like we said earlier, sitting here on the Stoa, that was a joke, but it wasn't. And you said Stoa, you going to try it again? The Stoa of poikili. Yes, or painted porch is what it means, and that was a public space in Athens, Greece. It was like a portico. Yeah, where people would hang out and talk and chew the fat,

and that's what I love about this time, was people would just, they were just alive with ideas, these philosophical ideas of trying to figure it all out. Yeah, but don't you think like every once in a while you just be like, oh, everybody shut up and just live. I go do something useful. Yeah, just stop talking. Yeah.

No, but I agree with you. Overall, it was a pretty thrilling time. Did you take philosophy in college at all? No, no I didn't. I really did not. I don't think I took a single philosophy class now that I think about it, not even a survey. I took the one kind of general class, I guess it was the 101, and I actually made an A, which I didn't make a ton of A's in college. And I remember at the time, kind of the same thing, about half the class I was like, man, so fascinating. And then the other half I was just like, oh man, what a waste of time. Like do something useful. Go like volunteer for a charity.

Go make something out of wood. Anything. All right, so back to the Stoa. We're on this painted porch, this portico as it were. People are everywhere running their mouths about what they think is important. And then this dude wanders up, a Zeno of Sidium. Yeah, who had recently been shipwrecked. And there were other Zenos, not to be confused. I know, that is confusing. There should be one Zeno.

There can be only one. In all of history. There were Zenos of other things, but this is Zeno of Sidium. And you're right, he was shipwrecked and he was wandering around after a trip from Cyprus. Did you say we're in Athens? Oh yeah, not Georgia. No.

Although we did our fair share of sitting around on porches, talking nonsense there as well. But that's a porch porch. Yeah. Not a Greek porch. And so Zeno took a little bit of insight from the cynics and then eventually said, you know what, I got my kind of forming my own thoughts here and I think everyone else is doing it. I have my own philosophy. Yeah.

And it's called Stoicism. Yeah. Named after later, I don't think he called it that. I'm not sure. He probably called it Xenoism. They're like, nah, that sucks. We're gonna call it Stoicism after the porch. Yeah. But this is, I mean, like the Stoicism very quickly

became one of the big philosophies at the time. Oh yeah. And it rivaled some of the philosophies that it grew out of, like, Socratic philosophy, and like you said, cynicism, the cynics. And actually, if you look at Stoicism, it's kind of a compromise between Socrates or Socrates, as Bill and Ted call them, philosophy, which was that to lead a good life, and this was the point of all of the philosophies at

this time during this age of reason, was achieving what was called eudaimonia. And eudaimonia is a life worth living. It's thriving, it's flourishing, it's being happy, like real happiness, right? That was the pursuit of all of these different ideas that were floating around at the time was how to achieve that. Socrates had the idea that you achieve that through like 12 cardinal virtues. And some of them were things you could cultivate in yourself like courage, a sense of justice, that kind of stuff. But then there are other ones too that had like everything to do with luck like being good looking was one of them, right?

If you weren't good looking, if you were ugly, sorry buddy, you could never achieve you, Diomonia, right? On the other end of the spectrum were the cynics. And the cynics believed that earthly trappings like wealth and fame and glory, anything like that, was the path to ruin. And that the true path to youudaimonia was living simply and

living in poverty. And so Zeno comes along and hears all these and as he's formulating his own ideas he's like Socrates makes some sense over here and so did the cynics a little bit but I'm gonna put them together and that's where Stoicism came from. It was a compromise between the two where you live a life of Pursuing eudaimonia through these virtues for virtues. I think there's justice courage Wisdom and then temperance, right? Yeah, you're practicing those four virtues. So that's that's kind of a nod to Socrates and So that's kind of a nod to Socrates. And you don't have to live in poverty. You can be wealthy because if Stoicism is anything,

it's wealthy people who got into philosophy that weren't quite sure how to feel about being wealthy. Yeah, to say, to kind of come to the point that like, having money is not a bad thing. Right, right. And so what they came up with was, sure you can be wealthy, and that's okay. You can prefer to be wealthy, but you just can't be attached to it.

You can't desire to be wealthy, because you can't control being wealthy. And if you pursue being wealthy, you're pursuing something beyond your control. So if you just happen to be wealthy, that's great. You can be happy with it, but also be prepared to lose it at any given time. And that's a big part of Stoicism. Yeah.

I think it's so funny, though, to think about, like, thousands of years ago in ancient Greece, like they spent so much time thinking about living this, all these schools of thought of living this life. So like, putting so much thought into living life to its fullest and all the different ways that they defined it. And eventually, like over the years, like as recently as like the generation of our parents and grandparents, the United States, like the philosophy of life was like, you just go to work and you work hard until you die, and that's the only thing that matters.

Exactly. Like all that other stuff is garbage. Yeah, well I think that's one of the reasons why stoicism is becoming appealing again, is this idea that like work seems to be kind of going through a weird transformation, doesn't it? Yeah. Like it's not like that anymore. Like that ethic is still around for sure, but like how many people do you know work from home?

Like almost entirely? A lot. A lot. And that's fairly new. So I wonder if like this changing work dynamic is leading to this resurgence in stoicism that you can find happiness through other stuff. I mean, part of me thinks this is all super worthwhile, and part of me thinks it's sort of indulgent.

And a bit, like you said, navel-gazy. And just start practicing good things instead of sitting around thinking about the best way to live life. Well, we'll talk about criticisms of them later on, but I think you hit a big one though, Chuck, is the idea that it's self-indulgent because it demands introspection almost every moment of every day. Yeah. You want to take a break and then get back to it? Yeah, I got to get my head together. Where's that airplane glue? Here you go.

All right. to it? Yeah, I gotta get my head together. Where's that airplane glue? Here you go. Alright. Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be, an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm going to tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry, where we're breaking down why open AI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job. I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer.

Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebene, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that will challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all, childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the strength to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't

shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford. And in session 421 of Therapy for Black Girls,

I sit down with Dr. Afiya Mbili-Shaka to explore how our hair connects to our identity, mental health, and the ways we heal. Because I think hair is a complex language system, right? In terms of it can tell how old you are, your marital status, where you're from, your spiritual belief. But I think with social media, there's like a hyper fixation and observation of our hair, right?

That this is sometimes the first thing someone sees when we make a post or a reel, is how our hair is styled. We talk about the important role hair stylists play in our communities, the pressure to always look put together, and how breaking up with perfection can actually free us. Plus, if you're someone who gets anxious about flying, don't miss Session 418 with Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett,

where we dive into managing flight anxiety. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["Poetry for Black Girls"] Nothing like airplane glue to get your head back on straight, is it? Just kidding, of course, everyone. Sure. We're smart guys.

We don't do that kind of thing. No, it's pretty tough to be smart and Huff model airplane glue. Yeah. You're pretty much making a choice between that and being smart. That's what they teach you early on. You want to go somewhere in life, you want to huff airplane glue. It's the one thing Nancy Reagan didn't lie about. All right, so Zeno got things going.

Peace of mind that comes with living a life of virtue in accordance with reason and nature. And then other dudes got on boards. And of course, got on boards, got on board, and they were all dudes back then because everything was from the man's perspective. Just want to point that out. Yeah, because it's changed so dramatically since then. But some of the other early Stoicists, Kleanthes, Kato. Kato the Younger or Elder? Younger, right?

Cato the Caelan. Oh man, I forgot about him. I'm not sure which Cato. I think it's the Younger. Yeah, we'll find out from two people who email in to let us know. Seneca and then a very important Stoicist. Well, I'm going to pronounce it. Epictetus.

Epictetus. It sounds like a vaccine shot. It does. E-P-I-C-T-E-T-U-S. It's that C going into a T that's getting you. I think it's just Epictetus or Epictetus. I think Epictetus is what we should go with. I want another C in there. I want it to be Epictetus, but it's not. No, it's just Epictetus or Epictetus. I think Epictetus is what we should go with. I want another C in there.

I want it to be Epictetus, but it's not. No, it's not. It's Epictetus. All right. So... Oh, and don't forget Marcus Aurelius, man. Oh, well, sure. I mean, he comes a little bit later.

Like, he was the ruler of... Amphint? Man, what is my problem today? It's okay, man. Everyone knew what you meant. He was the philosopher king. And that was when Stoicism was kind of the most popular thing going. Yeah. Yeah, apparently they moved from Athens to Rome, which I didn't realize this. I always had the idea that Rome venerated Hellenistic Greece hundreds of years after,

basically the Greek civilization had just kind of, you know, gone into a bit of a twilight or had gone out of its heyday. Right. No, there was total cross-pollination, including some of these early Stoics who traveled from Athens to Rome, and basically with that move transferred the seed of philosophy from Athens to Rome, from Greece to Rome. I didn't realize that they were actually like cross-pollinating one another at the time. Did you know that?

I think I recalled that from deep in my college memory banks. Nice. So Epictetus man, he had a big role in the Stoic movement. He was a former slave, which kind of makes sense in terms of Stoicism. He almost single-handedly gives credence to Stoicism, Because so many other Stoics were extraordinarily wealthy, powerful men that it's like, yeah, it's pretty easy for you to go through life saying, you know, just take what life gives you if life is giving you nothing but gold bullion all the time, right?

This guy was born a slave, crippled in the knee for life, and became a Stoic, one of the great Stoic thinkers, and just through his life proved that Stoicism can work. Yeah, and he wrote a handbook at the time was called an Incaridion, and he wrote the Incaridion of Epictetus. Incaridium literally means handbook. It means ready at hand. So it was a very famous handbook and he attributed, I mean the first

line of it was some things are in our control and others not. Right. And that kind of sums it all up. Like he could have said the end but he decided to dive a little deeper. I agree with you. I think our brand of stoicism has about the same contours.

Because that's right there. That's everything you need to know right there. There's some things you can control, most things you can't control. There you go. Like don't get too high, too low. Don't get too mad about something. Well, ultimately I think that's what it boils down to. I don't really find much of a problem when people are overjoyed. I don't think that's an issue. And technically, with stoicism, that's a problem. You should not become overjoyed.

The experiencing joy is fine, but just being like overcome with happiness or joy or grief or whatever it is, you're violating one of those four cardinal virtues, temperance, which is just being tempered and even keeled. Right. So, but I think if you're saying, don't get upset about something that's out of your control,

don't blame others, don't try to control other people, just know that whatever comes, you can handle it. There you go. That's all you need to know for me. Yeah, and you know, I mean, how many times have you heard me say it is what it is, which is an annoying thing to hear and say. But it's pretty stoic.

Well, it is, but it's also, in my case, like it is what it is until it isn't. It just matters if I personally riled up about something, you know? Yeah, but I think, again though, if like, there's probably some people who subscribe to at least modern stoicism listening to this. And I would guess that they would say that's because stoicism is basically meant to apply to every day of your life. Like, no stoics are really expected to become sages in their lifetimes.

That it's something you just do every single day is try to not get riled up. But of course, something's gonna come along and get you riled up. That's just human nature. Stoicism is trying to put a bridle on that human nature. Yeah, well, and this is insider stuff. I think you and I compliment each other

because we rarely get worked up about the same thing. Just voter suppression. Well, no, it happens here and there. But just in our personal lives and everything to do with work, like oftentimes I've noticed something that will rile me up, you're calming me down, and the other way around and yeah I mean that I think that's one reason we've lasted so long like if two people were so similar that they're constantly worked up

About the same stuff. Yeah No one you know, you're just gonna be working each other up and no one's gonna be there to say hey, man It is what it is. Yeah, man. Hey mellow out. Here's the Bob Marley bumpers exactly So should we talk a little bit about the areas of study? That's what it is. Yeah, man. Hey, mellow out. Here's the Bob Marley bumper sticker. Exactly. So, should we talk a little bit about the areas of study? Yeah. All right. Well, there are three main ones in stoicism, and this is all, you know, to deal with introspection,

which is kind of like all philosophies. Physics is the first thing, and it's not physics like you think of that you hate studying in high school. Well, it falls under a larger umbrella term, I guess. Yeah, they're talking about the natural world, the natural universe, and also what lies beyond it. And when they say the natural world, they're talking about everything. God, the divine, nature, everything that we know and things that we don't know. Yeah, everything we would view as science or, like you said, nature. Yeah, all that stuff. That's physics.

And all of it, one of the things the Stoics, I think, if they weren't the first to come up with it, they definitely popularized it, was the idea that all of this was interconnected. Yeah. Which is pretty, I mean, you take it for granted today, like everybody thinks that everything's interconnected these days, you know? But to be among the first to kind of point that out or suggest that's pretty significant contribution to Western thought.

Yeah, I imagine that was a pretty deep thing when it first started hitting people. Yeah. Can't you just see George Carlin being like, oh, he just blew my mind. Oh, because he was Socrates? Mm-hmm. Man. Wait, no, he wasn't Socrates.

He was the guy, their spirit animal. Yeah, yeah. What was his name? Oh, man. I'm going to get killed on this. We'll just edit this part out. I didn't know I had to brush up on my Bill and Ted. I didn't either.

I surprised myself. You should have seen my face. You know, they kept talking about remakes, like as recently as a couple years ago, I think. Or not remakes, but sequels. With the originals? Oh, yeah. Like Keanu Reeves is like,

man, I love those movies. I'd love to make another one. Did you see? What is... So was Keanu Reeves Bill or Ted? Why are we even doing this to ourselves? BLAIR LAUGHS Boy, I want to say he was Ted. So the guy who played the other guy. Yeah, Alex Winter?

Oh, geez, Chuck. Wow. Nice job. So, Alex Winter was in... What was the Charles Bronson vehicle? Like his most famous... Death Wish. Death Wish 3. Was what he was in. Which was when Golan Globus got their hands on it. And turned it into like a schlock, violent, like almost post-apocalyptic movie.

Yeah. And he's great in it, but he's also in a documentary on Golan Globus. I can't remember what the name of the documentary is, but it's just about how bad the movies they made were and how gleefully these guys made them, but he's interviewed in it. That guy hasn't aged a day. No.

He looks exactly... He was definitely Bill. Okay, so he's Bill. Yeah. Alright, so... So we got that settled. Physics was done. What's next? Logic, which they wanted to include social sciences, psychology, sociology, history, which I kind of like.

I'm down with that as far as the philosophies go. They wanted to include all this stuff, but collectively they kind of called this all reason. It was a very big deal to Stoicism, perhaps the biggest deal. Right, and they also were engaged in epistemology, which is theories of what knowledge is, how we gain knowledge, what's true, what's belief, what's false, how do we differentiate between these things. And they spent a lot of time investigating this and putting it all under logic, because it was through logic that you could investigate physics, which included investigating God and the nature

of the universe and stuff like that. And then through all that investigation, that introspection, that navel gazing, you were ultimately figuring out how to best pursue and best live out the third part, which was the ethics of the whole thing. Yeah, and you mentioned the four great virtues earlier, courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And the whole idea here is it's not like you want to block out the bad and only embrace the good. You want to consider both the good and the bad, but just don't let any of it get in the way of anything that you're trying to pursue in your life.

Right. Pretty simple. Yeah, and the whole good, bad thing. Where did you find this thing on ethics? Was that the... That was the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy from their entry on it. Yeah. It was pretty good. The whole thing was, dude, you should have seen

how in-depth they go though, but I thought this one was a good snippet. Well, I'm sure, yeah, they dive pretty deep, but I thought this was a pretty good little summation. They're talking about, like you said, money isn't just not good, or AKA bad. Things like this, they called indifference as in INDIFFERENTS

not indifference and it's like not good or bad. It could be either one It's really Kind of all about not letting something like that get in the way of your pursuit kind of all about not letting something like that get in the way of your pursuit. Right. So, and again, it went back to wealth, right? And this person in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy points out that money definitely, being wealthy usually is helpful or beneficial to the individual, but it can also not be beneficial where say you have a big heroin problem,

well the more money you get, the more money you're gonna spend on heroin. So in that case, being wealthy is detrimental to you, not beneficial. And for something to be a good, it has to be good under all circumstances. And to a stoic, there's only four things that are good under all circumstances,

which are those four cardinal virtues. Everything else, like you said, is an indifferent and it can either be preferred or disproperd. Like wealth typically would fall under being a preferred indifferent, whereas say disease, having chronic disease would be a disproperare, disprepare, wow. A dispreferred indifferent. Man, that's tough though. It is. But the point is, is whether it's fabulous wealth or diabetes,

they should affect you about the same. Or you might want one, you might not want to have one, but if you have either one, you can live with it. And that brings up a huge, huge component of Stoicism that's really been blown up and exploded in the 21st century, which is you should take adversity and turn it into an opportunity for growth. That is a huge aspect of Stoicism

that's really being practiced and espoused these days. Yeah, I'm down with that. Like, I don't think, I like being able to take from all these philosophies and different religions to form your sort of pathway through life, you know? Sure. Like when I hear sometimes, I started to read about Buddhism, and the whole thing with Buddhism of like, every day you start anew and you have a new chance.

Like that really appeals to me too. What I don't like is when either religions or philosophies say like, no, like this is the only way and everything else is BS. Sure. You know? Yeah. That just, that's a harsh buzzkill. It really is.

Not only is it BS, but I'm gonna kill you for thinking otherwise. Yeah. So Seneca, who was one of the great thinkers of Stoicism, he was an advisor to Nero. We'll talk about him as criticism of Stoicism later on. But he had a very famous quote where he says, you are unfortunate in my judgment

for you have never been unfortunate. You have passed through life with no antagonist to face you. No one will know what you are capable of, not even yourself. And that kind of shapes the basis of that idea that no matter what life throws at you, you take it and you say, I'm gonna become a better person from this. Like, oh, this happened.

Well, that's great because that means that I can learn to be better at this. So my dog just got hit by a car. I'm gonna practice fortitude and make it through this really hard time and become a stronger person on the other side. Yeah, he may as well have said, you comma trust fund kid comma.

Sure, right exactly. And I mean, that makes a, people turn that on Seneca as well, but a lot of modern stoics come to his defense as like, no, that guy had a harder life than you would think. Should we take another break? Yeah. All right, let's do it. And we'll talk about Seneca and Cicero

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health, and the ways we heal. Because I think hair is a complex language system, right? In terms of it can tell how old you are, your marital status, where you're from, your spiritual belief. But I think with social media, there's like a hyper fixation and observation of our hair. Right, that this is sometimes the first thing someone sees

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Yeah, and Buddhism in some ways. Yeah. Yet atheists embrace it. It's kind of weird that way. But I mean, the early Stoics were definitely, they definitely believed in a divine intervention. It was kind of the basis of the whole thing that this is God's will, so why try to control it? Who are you to try to control it? Just roll with the punches. Yeah, that's a big, when I was taking all those philosophy quizzes, they're all a little bit

different, but you saw through line through a lot of these questions and the free will one was in every single one of them. Yeah. Like Like how do you feel about free will? And hey, there are different ways of asking it, but you know. Free will, what do you think? Exactly, if you want to find out which philosophy that you jive with, you have to answer the free will question. Hey, that's easier to say than do just preferred indifferent

Nice work. So So one of the big points especially today for practicing stoicism is looking at adversity as a growth Opportunity for growth right? That's just a good tool in my panic Another one and this one I really this is where where I big time diverge from stoicism as like a part of a daily practice, is something called negative visualization. Yeah, like try and imagine the worst case scenario. Constantly. Yeah, I'm not into that at all.

No, so say you're at like your child's birthday party, right? And you are, not you specifically, this is you, just a general person. And you're having just the most intense moment of joy and appreciation for your child. According to Stoics, you should follow that up with a thought about how at your child's next doctor's appointment, your child could be diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Yeah. That that is what you should be doing, basically, all the time. Negative visualization.

And the idea is, it's twofold. One, you're preventing yourself from becoming overjoyed at that moment. Right. Don't do that. Yeah, yeah. And then secondly, you're exploring how you will feel if your kid does get diagnosed with something horrible or something bad happens, and that when it actually happens,

you'll say, that's not so bad, I'm already used to it. Or you'll be able to confront it through your imagination and say, this is what I'm afraid of, that's not that bad. But I mean, it's a really extreme, horrific example. But it is, ultimately, it's definitely in step with Stoicism. That you should be visualizing the worst case scenario all the time. Yeah, I mean, and that's one of the reasons Stoicism has such a downer reputation, such that Cicero wrote a stoic, roused enthusiasm.

He is much more likely to extinguish any enthusiasm the student may have to begin with. Burn. Yeah, it was a pretty good burn. And you know, I get that. Who would, if that was one of the first things you learned, if you started to poke around with stoicism, 99% of people would probably be like, man, I don't like the sounds of that.

Yeah. I like the not having to control everything aspect, but the thinking about nothing but negative thoughts all the time. Yeah. And I get the point of it. It doesn't appeal to me. No, I mean, you shouldn't be Pollyanna either. Well, no, it's in direct contradiction to the idea of the power of positive thinking.

Right. Which is stoic, it's like, you fool, what are you doing? All you're doing is setting yourself up for nothing but letdowns when that doesn't actually come true. Well, but I also agree with that to a certain degree. You know, like the whole like, just you can conjure it up just by thinking positively. I think that's on the opposite side equally BS.

Sure. Sure, I think so too. I'm kind of right down the middle, I guess, when it comes to that stuff. And I think most people are, but I think that's what's fascinating about this kind of thing, is it's like, whoa, there's, are some people actually are to these degrees, these extremes? It's interesting to me. Well, yeah, and the other interesting thing is, you know, you're talking about Christianity and then it's weird how Stoicism, on one hand, like atheists, like I can totally see how they'd be down with Stoicism, but also the whole notion that some believers in God and some Christians, like, give it

all up to God, because only God can control anything. So all we're going to do is pray about it. And that's popular among Stoics as well. Right. So it's just interesting that it has such a wide range as far as from atheism to like, you know, serious, serious, give it up to God Christianity. Right, yeah, no, it definitely, yeah.

It almost, it's kind of like, it's that buffet thing again where people can come along and take what they want from it and it becomes part of their own philosophy or their own religion or whatever. Let's talk about some of the ways that it's been used over the years, Stoicism, right? Okay. So, there have been a lot of people who have followed Stoic thought, like Adam Smith apparently was very much informed by Stoicism when he wrote The Wealth of Nations.

Because one of the big, big, big aspects of it was individual liberty. One cool thing about the early stoics was that everybody's equal, right? Doesn't matter whether you're man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, whatever, everyone is equal. And this was at a time when slavery was rampant. All right. Yeah So that was a big a big that's a big aspect to

That's a big aspect of the wealth of nations is anybody can come along and become a capitalist You just have to compete right? Another place that it popped up kind of famously was in cognitive behavioral therapy Yeah, which initially when I saw that I was like, huh, that kind of surprised me, but then it all made sense. Like exposure to something bad can help you get over it is kind of like that conjuring up the worst possible, it's almost numbing yourself to the worst possible thing if you think about that worst case scenario thing all the time. It's almost a way of preparing for that. Yeah, and it's rooted specifically, one of the founders of CBT, Albert Ellis, was an adherent of stoicism as a younger man. And what's known as the cognitive model of emotion,

which is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, is based on Epictetus' maxim that people are disturbed not by things, but by their view of things. And that's part of that whole stoic philosophy, which is nothing is good or bad. There's only good in the four virtues. Everything else is how you view it.

Whether it's losing your job or winning the lottery, those things aren't inherently good or bad. It's you, the person experiencing that, who bestows good or bad on them. Why label things? Sure. I'm down with that. Yeah. A little bit. Did you hear about Admiral Stockdale? Yeah, I remember that name for sure when he came out with his with his book Courage Under Fire colon testing Epictetus's

doctrines in the Laboratory of Human Behavior in 1993. He was a famous prisoner of war in Vietnam for seven years endured some of the worst of the worst you can imagine in war and what got him through was certainly not Christianity because he thought that's nothing but false hope. Well not not only that he shared the POW camp with people who clung to that and did not make it. Yeah, so he saw it like right up front. Right. So what got him through was his stoic beliefs.

Yeah, he was a huge big-time adherent of Epictetus. He'd studied him in college. Apparently, he'd read everything that Epictetus had written or said that had been written down and attributed to Epictetus twice from two different translators. So this guy knew his Epictetus. And he said, well, I'm a prisoner of war in Vietnam. I've got some broken bones.

I'm starving. I'm being mistreated. I'll be here for seven years. What a perfect opportunity to put Epictetus' teachings to the test in a real life laboratory experiment. And he said, Epictetus passed with flying colors was Stockdale's final report on it. Yeah, he said, if Epictetus' lecture room was a hospital, my prison was a laboratory, a laboratory of human behavior. I chose to test his postulates against the demanding real life challenges of my laboratory. So, man, talk about a strong will like to be faced with that and be like,

well, hey, this is a great chance to work on my philosophy of life. Exactly. What else am I going to do? But that follows in and of itself on the whole too, of turning adversity into a room for growth as well. Yeah, man. Stronger than me, let's just say that. So you wanna talk about some criticisms of stoicism? Well, Cicero certainly thought it was a big downer. Yeah, he said, well, you already said what he said, right?

Yeah. It basically extinguishes enthusiasm in students. Not a good thing, right? Yeah. And then over the years, the fact that some of the great stoic thinkers of all time have been super wealthy and powerful, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome.

He basically ran the free world. I don't know if the free world's right, the Western world for almost 20 years. Yeah. And when you sit there and, yeah, again, if you say, yes, you can turn anything into any adversity into an opportunity, if you're super wealthy, you don't have to worry about where your food's gonna come from.

Like, yes, of course you can be a stoic. And then Epictetus came along and, like we said, kind of erased all of that to an extent for sure. But it is still kind of criticized as like a wealthy person's philosophy. And it kind of smacks of that a little bit today too, Chuck, with its huge resurgence in Silicon Valley. Oh, is that happening?

Oh yeah, most of the stoic revival is taking place there. That's where its cradle is right now. Oh. Well, our own article has a couple of good points to talk about it. Not being as appealing because it lacks the mystique of Eastern practice. And then they also said this, it's also regarded as a philosophy of merely breaking even while remaining determinedly impassive. Yes. I don't know if that's entirely fair, but it kind of catches it a little bit. Well, yeah, because the very next sentence is, this attitude ignores the promise proffered

by Stoicism of lasting transcendence. And that one article that you sent talked about the power of indifference. Right. Which I thought was interesting. It's not about just like not caring about anything. It's about caring about only the right things that you have the power to change. Yeah, and also though, I also see that even keel aspect, being indifferent, the power of it. I mean, think about how much time whenever you are

like super happy about something going right or super upset about something going wrong, ultimately you're being distracted from keeping on, keeping on. Oh yeah. And then you go back to eventually get back to that middle again, which is the baseline anyway. And so I guess what stoics are doing is staying on that baseline and not being distracted

so they can get further along faster or at a more steady pace. Yeah, I mean there's definitely something that's really frustrating in life, which is when you look back and say, man, I've spent two days stressed and worried about something that I have no control over. Right. And what a waste of time that was when I could have done X, Y, and Z. One of the big questions I have, it's not necessarily a criticism, I guess it depends on what the answer would be, but my big question for Stoicism, since it's so, it places so much emphasis on the individual and self-exploration and introspection,

how would a Stoic suggest enacting massive social change where something, some ill is happening to some large group of people, but nothing's going to change unless you go out of your own personal sphere and work to make others change. How do you do that? Or do you just say, well, whatever, it's God's will that these people suffer and be put down by the majority forever?

Or is there some way that that can be addressed through the stoic you know philosophy I'm very curious so anybody who knows that write in please yeah maybe that's why it appeals to Silicon Valley right well that's the other thing too right so it also very much smacks when when you hear of it from like wealthy people espousing it to anybody, it smacks of that whole aspect of Christianity where, hey, medieval peasant, you know how your life is terrible and you're gonna live to 35 and all you do is work all the time

and you give most of the spoils of your effort to your king? Well, there's such thing as Christianity and your treasure is in the afterlife. So don't worry about this life. It smacks of the same thing where you can keep a population placated and not searching for larger social change by saying, hey, just focus on these four things

and everything else is just, it just happens and you don't need to get worked up about it at all. It seems like a bit of a pacifier too. Yeah. Depending on how you look at it. It's fascinating. Are we done with stoicism? I'm finished with it.

Okay. I think that was a good overview. I think so too. It's a good thought starter. If you want to know more about stoicism, bud, there's a lot more out there than this. Just dive in and see what it means to you and again. It's a buffet. Take what you like, leave what you don't want.

Leave the curdled pudding behind. Take the perfectly garlic green beans. Yum. If you... What else did I already say that one part? Oh, since I said green beans, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this Beagle Brigade slash Police Dogs. People love that one.

Man, who doesn't love Beagles on Brigade on Parade? No one. Even people who get busted with whole pigs still are like, that beagle's adorable. So this dude, Eric Stover, is a sandwicher, meaning he follows our advice, which is to listen to the newest episode as well as whatever from our back catalog he chooses to. Yeah. He's doing it right. Yes, he is.

Hey guys, I work in the sports and entertainment business in New York and after 9-11 the use of bomb sniffing dogs, mostly German Shepherds, became standard operating procedure for all events. A few hours prior to a concert one night, the K-9 units were sweeping all the backstage areas and one of the bomb dogs hit on an employee locker. As you can imagine, it caused an immediate and serious response. The bomb squad was dispatched and that portion of the arena was evacuated. Plans were even made to cancel the show.

He doesn't say what show, which I was very curious about. I'm going to say... three doors down. Okay. After some very tense moments, the police officers open the locker. Those guys are super brave. Thankfully, they didn't find a bomb, but did find drugs. An employee must have brought in an extra bump for the show. Oh man, it was definitely Three Doors Down. You might be asking yourself,

no this wasn't the band's green room, this was an employee. Oh no, I know, Three Doors Down's fans are among the most drug-addled of all music fans. Are they? Sure. I thought that was the Juggalos. No, they put the Juggalos to shame. Juggalos take time off once in a while, you know what I mean?

Yeah, that's true. You might be asking yourself, how does a bomb dog find drugs? As it turns out, the dog had failed out of drug school and was retrained as a bomb dog. Poor guy. That's hilarious. Poor guy. Which one? The dog or the guy who just happened to run across the failed drug dog?

I guess everyone. He still remembered something. There are no winners here. I guess he didn't completely forget his drug training though and he set off a chain of events It scared the crap out of us The story ends with the employee getting arrested the show went on and the fans none the wiser My guess is the dog was reassigned to crowd control Just parking up people get back in line. Thanks for everything you guys do Please let me know if you ever need anything in New York City

Is that a hint? We don't do drugs, Eric. Yeah, we're terrified of dogs. That is Eric Stover in New York, and I guess he's still in the sports and entertainment business. Yeah, he's like, you need some sports? Come see me.

I could use some sports. Thanks, Eric, that's a pretty great story. Right? That's right. If you want to get in touch with us like Eric did, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death

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