Men's Liberation
This community is first and foremost a feminist community for men and masc people, but it is also a place to talk about men’s issues with a particular focus on intersectionality.
Rules
Everybody is welcome, but this is primarily a space for men and masc people
Non-masculine perspectives are incredibly important in making sure that the lived experiences of others are present in discussions on masculinity, but please remember that this is a space to discuss issues pertaining to men and masc individuals. Be kind, open-minded, and take care that you aren't talking over men expressing their own lived experiences.
Be productive
Be proactive in forming a productive discussion. Constructive criticism of our community is fine, but if you mainly criticize feminism or other people's efforts to solve gender issues, your post/comment will be removed.
Keep the following guidelines in mind when posting:
- Build upon the OP
- Discuss concepts rather than semantics
- No low effort comments
- No personal attacks
Assume good faith
Do not call other submitters' personal experiences into question.
No bigotry
Slurs, hate speech, and negative stereotyping towards marginalized groups will not be tolerated.
No brigading
Do not participate if you have been linked to this discussion from elsewhere. Similarly, links to elsewhere on the threadiverse must promote constructive discussion of men’s issues.
Recommended Reading
- The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love by bell hooks
- Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements by Michael Messner
Related Communities
!feminism@beehaw.org
!askmen@lemmy.world
!mensmentalhealth@lemmy.world
view the rest of the comments
Or rather, is using the word "Stoicism" in a different way than you are. Like when research obviously shows a link between Christianity and intolerance and people come out in droves to say that true Christianity is about love instead of hate.
Yeah, sure, you learned a neater version of stoic values. What the author is referring to is a bit more generalized, a caricature but very real form of stoicism that some people preach, sometimes even without even calling it stoicism themselves.
The conflation of Stoicism, an established and codified philosophy, with the more general idea of bog standard stoicism is precisely my criticism. The author is not using the term differently from me, they are using it incorrectly by conflating it with a more general, and more modern, term--a term without established codification, and vastly different connotations.
Which leads directly to the point I actually made--which you entirely ignored with your reply--that anyone who uses the terms interchangeably, conflates the two, or teaches one as the other fundamentally misunderstands the terms they're using. Thus my statement that the author is laying the connotations of one term at the feet of another, different and distinct, term.
Stoicism (capitalized) and stoicism (the more general, more modern term) are not the same thing, which is why this article, in my opinion, misses the mark.
It is not so much that they are conflating two unrelated stoicisms as you seen to imply but rather that you seem to be specifically trying to distance yourself from historical stoicism. There's good reason for this, stoic philosophy was originally just as tied up in metaphysics as any ancient philosophy. This sense of metaphysics, while easy to discount from a modern perspective, was used primarily to justify existing power structures. Key among them patriarchy and slavery. Ultimately, this has little to do with the particulars of the philosophy. Knowing that, it would seem an easy task to separate the two as you would like to and yet it is still remarkably difficult to find any modern stoic groups that do not recommend Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, etc.
What you call the more general stoicism (lower case) is better understood as the whole of stoic cultural influence as it relates to the modern world. Even the etymology of stoics comes from the school of philosophy. It is not reasonable to try to claim stoic philosophy is best understood as only it's most modern incarnations even as popular stoicism relies on ancient men to be it's primary mediums.
I'd be very interested to explore this idea further with more historical discourse / critiques, if you have any sources, as it's my understanding that modern Stoicism is based primary on Seneca's work, and treats Seneca's ideas of the Stoic Sage as a both a blueprint for modern Stoicism and the evolution of the ideas of prior Stoics.
I appreciate your perspective, and it's clear we've been educated on these topics quite differently. I'd love to learn more!
It is not so much that they are conflating two unrelated stoicisms as you seen to imply but rather that you seem to be specifically trying to distance yourself from historical stoicism. There's good reason for this, stoic philosophy was originally just as tied up in metaphysics as any ancient philosophy. This sense of metaphysics, while easy to discount from a modern perspective, was used primarily to justify existing power structures. Key among them patriarchy and slavery. Ultimately, this has little to do with the particulars of the philosophy. Knowing that, it would seem an easy task to separate the two as you would like to and yet it is still remarkably difficult to find any modern stoic groups that do not recommend Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, etc.
What you call the more general stoicism (lower case) is better understood as the whole of stoic cultural influence as it relates to the modern world. Even the etymology of stoics comes from the school of philosophy. It is not reasonable to try to claim stoic philosophy is best understood as only it's most modern incarnations even as popular stoicism relies on ancient men to be it's primary mediums.