Conclusion

Four months ago we started series one of Publish and Be Damned by posing the question:

‘Can stoicism be the key to processing and adapting to the challenges we face in our own time and in understanding our own ability to influence them? Or is stoicism merely copium for the masses, only fit for those who have never done anything courageous or powerful in their entire lives?

During those four months we have explored the origins of stoicism, from its humble roots in opposition to epicureanism, nurtured by Zeno underneath the Stoa Poikile, in Athens, to its heyday in the Roman Empire, prior to the rise of Christianity.

We have read from 3 of the major thinkers of late-Stoic thought, Epictetus, Seneca and Aurelius, a slave, a statesman and an emperor, and seen how they lived their philosophy and interpreted the world in their own day. 

Thanks to guests we have been able to draw comparisons to the modern world in which we live and note that, as Aurelius in particular asserts: there is nothing new under the sun. The challenges, excesses, vices and virtues of 2000 years ago are in just such abundance today. Whether we refer to it in these terms or not, the battleground between Stoicism and epicureanism remains, in my view, as alive as ever it has done so.

In determining what constitutes a ‘good life’ we are increasingly being encouraged to engage with the idea that personal pleasure is all that counts, that what is moral and ethical is that which makes us feel good. It is a view that tends toward short-termisim, to revolution and destruction. Opposing that we have a brutal rationality, one which asserts that the only good is an ordered mind, one in harmony with the motivating force of the universe, whether that be a God, gods or simply the spark from which all else is derived. Living a life in accordance with the Whole, and each constituent part of it in microcosm. 

In epicureanism there is one end: dissolution without sensation, so eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. In Stoicism you recognise that such a dissolution is as a very real possibility but also consider the possibility of something more, noting at the very least the continual cycle death and rebirth; the constituent parts of your body returning to the Whole in order to be remade in the image of the Whole.

In Christianity this promise of something more becomes the prime mover, propelling people from a life of woe into a life of heavenly transcendence, if only they believe, to live once more with the Origin. It’s no surprise to me that to the common man this idea that there is something more to life was so attractive for so long. Nevertheless we are in a world turning on its end and rejecting the notion of God, placing man as the chief determiner of moralistic virtue. To my mind, it is again this counterpoint of pure, logical, reason which must form the counterweight against modern Epicureanism.

I think it is possible to make the case that we see this most keenly in our political sphere, where socialism embodies epicurean thought and stoicism can be best represented by conservatism.

The original question asked whether stoicism was copium for the masses, fit only for degenerates, my answer is unequivocally: NO. In fact it is the opposite that is true. Stoicism encourages self-reflection, identification of one’s own faults and failings, and promotes regular introspection, acceptance of reality, pure reason and community. It is long term in approach, even if it doesn’t appear so at first blush, and espouses a focus on inner strength and self actualisation, it isn’t outward-looking in any desire for acceptance, for baseless truth or praising of flaws.

Having been on this journey with some of you, I have tried to emulate the philosophy that we have been reading, to make changes in my life and, most importantly, in myself. My desire is to try and recognise, wherever possible, that true power lies in the control of one's own mind, not in external events which are, very often, beyond the control of any one individual. I am also trying to prioritise the importance of the value of the present, this extends to being more present with my family and spending far less time arguing with those who refuse to relinquish their ignorance. I refuse to spend all my time living in the past or fearing for the future. Whilst I do place an importance in both the yesterday and the tomorrow, neither are real and tangible in the same sense as today is. 

I hope you have grown as we have traveled in well-trodden paths. It would be great to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or disagree with my conclusion or whether you have any experience of embodying stoicism in your day to day life.

A playlist of Series one can be found on our youtube channel and the introductory episode is repeated below:

Series 2

Publish and Be Damned will return in the new year for series two. In this series we will be focussing on two of Enoch Powell’s many literary works, rather than beating the same dead horse on immigration I wanted instead to focus on his views on Christianity. 

Having grown up as a Nietzschean atheist in his early years, he would later embrace Anglicanism and both Wrestling with the Angel and No Easy Answers, represent his thoughts on the interactions between religion and ‘reality’, secularism and spirituality. In them he covers both the miraculous and the mundane, from the feeding of the 5000, to adultery, resurrection and beyond. Many people have read and regurgitated fragments of a single speech delivered in Birmingham, many of those words being those of his constituents, and think to know the man. Come on a journey with us and learn a little more about the logical mind that animated possibly one of the greatest, and certainly one of the most divisive, politicians of 20th Century Britain.

See you on January the 6th at 9.30pm.