Yay, Stoic virtues are being celebrated! About time! I was glad to see you dismiss the 'anger is necessary because otherwise it'll boil over' view of the emotion. On Marcus, though: perhaps you haven't read the right translation. His work is actually full of joy and love, contra the 'miserable Marcus' trope.
As one of the big five personality traits, neuroticism (or sensitivity) is unavoidably common (and it probably was a trait that Marcus had in spades) so no wonder that Meditations speaks to so many of us. I think it is also an expression of depressive realism that we discussed in your post about liberal neuroticism.
List of virtues is missing an important one: empathy.
I.e., compassion for those undergoing misfortune, and also sympathetic delight for those finding success. I’ve studied Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and found no mention of this there either. Perhaps in the West it took Christianity to raise the stature of empathy.
There’s much to learn from the ancient Greek philosophers, and I enjoyed Aristotle very much. Just a caveat there may be significant holes in any one framework.
This sounds amazing. Thanks so much for your review.
Thank you. Adding it to my list.
Yay, Stoic virtues are being celebrated! About time! I was glad to see you dismiss the 'anger is necessary because otherwise it'll boil over' view of the emotion. On Marcus, though: perhaps you haven't read the right translation. His work is actually full of joy and love, contra the 'miserable Marcus' trope.
As one of the big five personality traits, neuroticism (or sensitivity) is unavoidably common (and it probably was a trait that Marcus had in spades) so no wonder that Meditations speaks to so many of us. I think it is also an expression of depressive realism that we discussed in your post about liberal neuroticism.
Great points!
Hey Greg--illegitimi non carborundum. Before Handmaid's Tale passed it off as an original idea.
List of virtues is missing an important one: empathy.
I.e., compassion for those undergoing misfortune, and also sympathetic delight for those finding success. I’ve studied Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and found no mention of this there either. Perhaps in the West it took Christianity to raise the stature of empathy.
There’s much to learn from the ancient Greek philosophers, and I enjoyed Aristotle very much. Just a caveat there may be significant holes in any one framework.