PhilosophyTube is usually pretty cool but I think this is kind of an L? She gets into some pretty heavy criticisms of the traditional Stoic philosophy and seem to just dismiss them all at the end. I don't know how someone can say that "You can be in literal chains and be the freest person in the world if you are a sage" with a straight face. I know it's technically true from some perspectives but it just seems so hollow compared to everything else in the video. Mental freedom doesn't help someone when they're doing a daily 12 hour shift that drives them to the edge of exhaustion and takes away everything they enjoy in life.

None of this is me criticizing Stoicism, btw, I don't think I'm smart enough to, just felt like a weird end to the discussion part of the video

Maybe, I'm just not familiar enough with PhilosophyTube's format?

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Yep. There’s value in stoicism as cope, but it’s just not a good politics

    Stoicism in its pop variety is far too often "stop caring about things" which is reactionary bullshit and wreckery.

    • KarlJung [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think it's far better than the baseline beliefs most people follow, but the actual philosophy (not the pop version) still has it's flaws. I wrote a whole thing in another comment chain.

      What doesn't have flaws, though? I guess all we can do is hammer away at the philosophical anvil until we have something vaguely resembling what we want.