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Should Stoics Do Politics? (Episode 103)
614 Plays11 months ago
Caleb and Michael debate the role of politics in the modern Stoic life. Caleb argues that Stoics should stay away from politics – like the Epicureanism. Michael thinks this couldn’t be any more wrong. Heated, if Stoic, debated ensues.
(05:18) Arguments Against Politics
(25:49) The Wisdom of Epicurus
(33:52) Justice Without Politics
(37:57) The Stoic Case for Politics
(51:33) The Norms for Engaging Well
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Transcript
Introduction to Roles in Society
00:00:00
Speaker
So Epictetus provides a list. He says we are roles, some examples, we can be son, father, brother, citizen, husband, wife, neighbor, fellow traveler, and then ruler and subject, which is again, this, this actual political relationship of ruler and subject. And so the point is that the ruler has a role, someone like Marcus Aurelius, maybe someone like Seneca in terms of being part of that ruling class, they have a,
00:00:25
Speaker
To act with justice, they have a certain way they should act towards their subjects. Or, you know, in our case, we don't have subjects today, but, you know, citizens. And I would say the citizens then have an obligation, a relationship towards government.
Role of Politics in Life
00:00:38
Speaker
Hi all, welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros. And in this conversation, Michael and I discuss the case for and against engaging in politics.
00:00:51
Speaker
It's an example of conversation where we're thinking through what do these ancient and modern perspectives have to say about the role of politics in the good life.
00:01:04
Speaker
Before jumping into that, we do have two upcoming events. First, there's a free virtual workshop this December 19th on how to think like a stoic.
Upcoming Events and Courses
00:01:17
Speaker
Register at stomeditation.com slash workshop. We just extended the size of the event. So if you weren't able to join previously, you should be able to do so now.
00:01:28
Speaker
Second, Michael and I are running another cohort of our Stoicism Applied course in January. If you'd like to start your year with us and with others who are seriously focused on walking the Stoic path, learn more about our course at stoameditation.com slash course.
00:01:53
Speaker
Here is our conversation.
Engaging in Politics: Ancient vs Modern Views
00:01:56
Speaker
Welcome to Stowe Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros. And I'm Michael Trombley.
00:02:02
Speaker
And in this conversation, we are going to be chatting about politics. So we're going to be talking about different ancient views about whether one should be engaged in politics at all and what that looks like in the modern world. Our takeaways should be for moderns in terms of how we engage in politics.
00:02:31
Speaker
I think for a lot of people, sort of political news, debate, discussion is just sort of the water we swim in. It's very easy for some people to say, be engaged, whether that looks like voting, some forms of activism and debate with others.
00:02:55
Speaker
But for others, they may not be so involved in politics at all. It may not be a consideration, a life consideration in their life. So there's an interesting question. What should the role of politics be in a life? And of course, that's something the ancient philosophers
00:03:14
Speaker
talked about.
Should We Engage in Politics?
00:03:16
Speaker
So I'm going to put forth a case against engaging in politics, sort of grounded in Epicureanism, but I'll of course tie it to the Stoics as well. And then Michael's going to push back against that and we'll see how that goes. Yeah, I'm going to try my best. Another reason why I think this conversation is interesting is
00:03:39
Speaker
I think if you think of something like utilitarianism or consequentialism as being very other oriented, you think of those as very political philosophies. What policy can we put in place that maximizes happiness the most? Then if you think of philosophy on a continuum, on one side you have the utilitarianism, the consequentialism, and then maybe you think on the other side you have something like virtue ethic, which is just like
00:04:02
Speaker
individual focus, perfecting your character, looking at your own happiness. And I think whatever answer we end up on, at the very least, the truth is more nuanced than that. And I think that even if you believe in virtue ethics, even if you were studying Stoicism, you should at least have a position on politics, whether that's one of intentional passivity or intentional involvement.
Stoic Perspective on Political Passivity
00:04:28
Speaker
I don't think it's something you can kind of
00:04:31
Speaker
Abstain from thinking about just because you're doing a virtue ethics Yeah, that's right. So That's a what that last point is I think is especially important which is that
00:04:42
Speaker
The Stoics, if they support political passivity, it's going to be a reflective version. One needs to have good reasons for deciding to not engage in political activity. It's not a matter of
00:05:01
Speaker
simply abstaining from political activity because that's what feels right or what strikes one as the right thing to do with minimal reflection.
00:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, let's do it. All right, cool. So I think it's useful to ground the case against political engagement in the rival Stoic school of the Epicureans, and then we'll see whether there's that much disagreements between a modern Stoic view and the Epicurean considerations.
00:05:38
Speaker
So, of course, we always need to decide what are we talking about when we're talking about politics. Here, I'm especially concerned with engaging in political activity, whether that's voting, running for office, discussing politics, consuming the news, and
00:05:57
Speaker
We'll talk about ancient cities, ancient states, but keep in mind we're talking about whether one should engage in politics today. That's the ultimate consideration. We're not doing some sort of historical review.
Pursuit of Glory in Politics
00:06:16
Speaker
Voting is the paradigmatic activity here. That's how people in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere engage in politics. That's what we'll use as our baseline. I know some listeners might be in a different political arrangement.
00:06:35
Speaker
So that might maybe some difference, but that's what I'll use as the sort of the paramedic activity that most people use to sort of orient themselves in politics. Why do they discuss political matters? Why do they consume the news? It's to ideally inform how they vote and how they interact with others and influence them to vote in particular ways or not. So that's what we're talking about.
00:07:03
Speaker
The Epicureans, this is a rival school to the Stoics. We have a past episode on Epicureanism. I also have a discussion with Emily Austin, where you can learn more about Epicureanism in general. But they have this view that was generally negative on engaging in politics. Epicurus has this line that he advised his followers to live unnoticed.
00:07:33
Speaker
And what he is doing there is pushing back against the norms of using politics to pursue glory, pursue reputation. So especially if you think about from the Stoic perspective, we have
00:07:50
Speaker
indifference like wealth, power, status. Well, politics is one of the best ways to get status and power and perhaps wealth as well. And Epicurus doesn't have that framework, of course, but he notes that
00:08:07
Speaker
pursuing wealth, status, reputation through politics just is a source of delusion and suffering. So it's better to abstain from it in his view.
00:08:23
Speaker
So we need to flesh that out some more. The main reason that engaging in politics is less than ideal for Epicurious is that it's bad for us. And I think we can also add that it's bad for the city or the police.
00:08:41
Speaker
It's bad for us because politics is essentially a domain of conflict and delusions. It's people pursuing glory, pursuing higher status, pursuing advantages for their own group. Many seek meaning from politics, but political engagement does not lead to happiness in any robust sense.
00:09:07
Speaker
And that's true for the Epicureans because for them the happy life is a tranquil one. It's the one full of pleasure. But one can also plausibly argue that it's true for the Stoics. So we'll get into some complications for that, of course.
00:09:25
Speaker
So that's the idea. One argument, it's bad for us. Why is it bad for us? Because it's this domain of conflicts. Delusion, in particular, delusion is overvaluing things that do not lead to happiness, what the Stoics would call indifference, whether that's wealth or status. The second argument is that it's bad for others, for most people, to engage with politics.
00:09:52
Speaker
One way to think about this is when we select juries, we require people who are on that jury to be competent because they're making decisions about how much punishment someone is owed. And in some cases, you know, they're going to be making decisions that concern matters of life.
00:10:13
Speaker
and death and as such we have strict requirements for someone to be on a jury and so we should expect the same for anyone who engages in political activity.
Competency in Political Engagement
00:10:29
Speaker
And the fact of the matter is that most of us citizens are ignorant or irrational when it comes to political matters. There's a sense in which this is just incentivized by democracy. We don't have people
00:10:46
Speaker
looking over our shoulders to ensure that we are behaving as excellent citizens. Instead, we have effectively a candy store of different forms of political entertainment that we get to consume, that we get to feel good consuming.
00:11:05
Speaker
And these forms of political entertainment, whether it's online TV or fun conversations with others, are not oriented around political expertise in the best sense. They're not oriented around producing true views about politics. And as such, we should expect most people to not be experts when it comes to coming to decisions about
00:11:33
Speaker
You know, what's the optimal policy? What's the optimal candidate? What's the most virtuous candidates for a given role? So this is not a full ban on politics by any means, but it's a consideration that I think should push people towards, you know, maybe the view that politics is a special domain. It's sort of like,
00:11:59
Speaker
You know, being an excellent doctor, being an excellent lawyer, computer programmer, what have you. Some people are going to be suited towards political engagement, but others are not. So that's that quick argument.
00:12:18
Speaker
politics, engaging in politics, bad for us, first argument, second argument, it's bad for the polis, in particular what's bad, having this norm that everyone should be engaged in politics instead should think of it more as a specialized career. So I think I'll wrap up there with those first two salvos, if you will. What's your take on those, Michael?
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, I guess two things. I mean, when you started explaining this at the curing position, I wasn't very persuaded. I mean, it felt to me a bit like, you know, food, like saying food is bad for you. And then giving this example of like candy, like only eating candy all day or something. And it's.
00:13:01
Speaker
It seems to me to become this much weaker position that politics can be bad for you. And I think everybody agrees politics can be bad for you, kind of political rhetoric, kind of this strong attachment to identity that leads you to not thinking about what's right or wrong, but just thinking about what the party line is, this tendency for it to make you kind of
00:13:25
Speaker
rile you up either in terms of like anger or fear these extreme emotions I'm very on board with this idea that politics can be bad for you and needs to be engaged with a certain way I guess I'm just not getting this like stronger claim that it is bad for you but maybe the position correct me if I'm wrong here Caleb at the end there was something along something like
00:13:44
Speaker
What I was taking you to say at the end was that because it can be bad for you, it's only the kind of thing you either really commit to or you don't do at all. You know, something like, I don't know, rock climbing or her adventurous camping. It's like, this is a dangerous thing. So be very, you know, there's some people that love it and it's good for them and it's beneficial, but don't feel pressured to do this dangerous activity. It's totally fine to abstain from it. And if you do do it, commit to it.
00:14:13
Speaker
That's the position, the position is something like that. Not that it's always bad for you, right? Yeah, I think so. I think maybe the, to be clear, the position that I'm aiming to argue against is this view that part of the
00:14:30
Speaker
you know, good life is to fulfill your roles. And one of those roles that every citizen has in a modern state is being an excellent citizen. Got it. And what is being an excellent citizen involves, well, at minimum it involves some level of political engagement. So that's the view that I'm aiming to argue against. So it's okay to
00:14:55
Speaker
Not that in all cases you shouldn't engage in politics, but rather that in some cases it's totally fine if you're politically passive. And you can still have a great life by both like a happiness and morality sense. Yeah, that's right. So I think, you know, some people have a general view that it's good to engage in politics and that you're making a mistake. You're being a bad citizen when you're failing to do so. And that's the sort of thing I'm trying to push against.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah, I can say more about the first argument, but is there any, anything else you want to say by way of a reaction? I guess going to the second, the second argument, why would it be bad for the state? I mean, it would be bad for the state. You think the, the polis or the country or the city would be better off if fewer people were politically engaged. I guess that seems very unintuitive to me. Not that I necessarily disagree, but could you say more to that point?
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, sure. So one is for that line of thought, I suppose we have two lines of thought on the table. One is the thought that politics can be bad for you or politics is bad for us. And I need to be a little bit more precise there. It's not necessarily always bad for us, but the claim is nonetheless stronger than merely the fact that it can be bad for you, but that it has these features that
00:16:23
Speaker
make it especially likely to be bad for many people and you know it's a sort of thing where for some people it's better not to go to bars at all than sort of risk attending to going to a bar when they know they're the sort of person who is better off not drinking at all than trying to risk a drink well. It's dangerous maybe something like this.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but it's even so it's got to be can't just be that it's dangerous. That's got to be a little bit stronger than that. But because I think I think everyone would certainly agree that politics is dangerous, although sometimes it's not maybe hard to remember.
00:17:08
Speaker
But I think what the anti-politics view needs to do, what the Epicurean person needs to do with someone in a modern state now needs to show is that give more empirical evidence for why politics would be bad for someone. And I think that's the same kind of thing I need to do.
00:17:29
Speaker
to answer your other point. Why would it be bad for the state to have more people engage in politics? Why would it be good for the state to have fewer engage in politics?
00:17:44
Speaker
I think the main response is that the typical citizen in modern states, at least like America, tends to be ignorant and irrational of basic political facts.
00:18:01
Speaker
in a way that we don't accept for other domains. So there's a decent literature on how politically informed people are. And in general, the answer is people are not politically informed.
00:18:21
Speaker
There's Brian Kaplan's book entitled The Myth of the Rational Voter. That sort of is what was pretty influential for me. I think it came out mid 2000s or something of that sort. And then there's been a slew of books trying to update that picture. But in general, they find that voters are not so informed. They often disagree with
00:18:46
Speaker
Experts, experts themselves, often have serious blind spots and may not, in fact, be actual experts in many cases. So, yeah, go ahead. Is this a philosopher-king argument then, basically? Like, we should leave the philosophy up to the people who are very well equipped to do it and everybody else should just leave it alone?
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's similar to that in the sense that we should have almost like a competency requirement for engaging in politics and that there's nothing first. It's a hard bar to meet for many of us.
00:19:27
Speaker
Second, there are many competency requirements. We have a hard time meeting, but that doesn't mean that we cannot achieve happiness in some form or another. I mentioned doctors, lawyers, computer programmers, whatever. So it's competency requirements on political activity. That's the way to think about it.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. I was going to say doctors, lawyers, uh, philosophy, podcasters, these, these types of really skilled skills, you know, think of these skilled professions when you're making your lists. Okay. I mean, that makes it like, I think I'm with you. Um, I guess another question then becomes, so you don't have a competency, but then like, how, well, how do you know if it's right for you? So if it might be wrong for you, it might be right for you. How do you know if it's right for you? Um, what would be, how would you tell us if you should be passive or not?
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it's the sort of thing that one needs to be careful here to not have the kind of argument that thoughtful people respond to and think, oh, that's a reason for passivity, and then exit.
00:20:45
Speaker
politics, and then people who maybe are less reflective about these matters just continue on, resulting in worse, say, performance for a state or resulting in even more injustice. So I think that it's very difficult to answer that broadly, but I suppose on
00:21:15
Speaker
There are a number of considerations here. So one is something like how well do you know basic political facts? Do you have the record of
00:21:31
Speaker
judgments that are accurate relative to others? Or do you think you're the kind of person who can pick out people who would serve as good representatives, good
00:21:47
Speaker
operatives on the political stage. So those are like this a handful of considerations and I suppose you can just keep on iterating through them in a way it's similar to the question you know how do you pick experts at all and then asking am I the kind of person who would be suited if perhaps not for being an expert to be my kind of person who can contribute in a positive
00:22:10
Speaker
manner, so that's a vague response, but I'm curious what your take is even at that level. I mean, yeah, so the argument is something along the lines of like, look, we want smart, qualified, engaged, so people that are like up to date with facts, people engaged in politics as much as possible. So we want to select a subsection of that. And so there's going to be a certain, like,
00:22:41
Speaker
basic capability, but then there's also going to be, I think, a desire, right? So somebody who might have lower capability who says, no, I really care about this and spends time engaging, reading, learning, then that person should be able to enter into that as well. So I think it's a combination of that. I mean, if you think of it something like
00:23:04
Speaker
lawyer, doctor, engineer, the samples you were giving, these are things that we typically do that process through some sort of education. I mean, just sounds again, very platonic for me. So, so those listening read the, the Republic or.
00:23:19
Speaker
In Plato's Republic, he talks about this threefold division between types of people. And one of those people are the philosophers. And we pull out these types of people through an education process. And the philosopher group should be set up to kind of deal with the political matters. It just sounds very much like this. You identify those competencies through some sort of combination of education, which looks at talents, but then also people's effort and how hard they're willing to work and focus on it.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. I suppose one way to think about instead of asking, am I the sort of person who's suited for politics? Perhaps a more useful question is what does producing good political actors look like and how can I push the needle forward to produce people who are better at politics? And that's going to involve some amount of
00:24:16
Speaker
that's going to involve changes to education, changes to systems for selecting people who have a good shot at being political actors.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I think to an extent, we probably already do that to some extent in terms of, at least in Canada, in the non-democratic or the non-electoral part. You go to school, you do political science, stuff like that. In turn, you start working in the provincial or the federal government behind the scenes.
00:24:48
Speaker
so there there is this kind of there is already this kind of like mechanism in place for that for the public service uh but ironically or i mean interestingly not for the not for the elected portion although i'm sure i'm sure there's some sort of internal politics there about you know who gets put forward as party leaders and things like this yeah but i the the thing that i find compelling about this or the thing i guess i want to i want to i i don't like this account of like there's this basic
00:25:19
Speaker
I think whatever the bar is, it seems to me like a bar that most people could pass if they spent time working at it. I don't think the bar should be some sort of unattainable point. I don't think that's, I don't think that seems unjust to me in one way, but it also seems to be unfair. Like I'm, I'm happy with this idea of like democracy, but like kind of qualified democracy where, um, you know, if you're, if you're, if you spend some time educating yourself or learning yourself, that seems to me, um, better.
00:25:49
Speaker
Maybe one way to make progress on that is to go back to Epicurus and Emily Austin in her book argues that it's not Epicureans are of course
00:26:03
Speaker
They care about justice, as should we all, but they argued for, one way to think about this view is that you're arguing that there needs to be a higher bar for political engagement. And what sorts of questions or tests would an Epicurean give for political engagement?
Assessing Political Involvement
00:26:23
Speaker
Well, here are three candidates. One is, does my political involvement help people get the essential things they need
00:26:34
Speaker
that's sort of the test of necessity, then there's a test on status. Would I be happy to see my project succeed even if absolutely no one knew that I supported it and I received no recognition for my work?
00:26:51
Speaker
That's the second, and then finally there's the chance test. Can I emotionally accept that my project will meet resistance and may even fail, fail to be accomplished, at least in my own lifetime? Very similar to a premeditatio malorum exercise in the Stoic view. So this, I think,
00:27:17
Speaker
doesn't get at what are the features that make someone be competent to be involved in politics, but I think does offer some useful details for would my political engagement be good for me, not just in the sense that would advance my selfish interests, but would it help me flourish? Would it help me live virtuously if I was engaged in politics?
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, so I like this a lot. It's like a three-fold test to see if you're doing politics for the right reasons and doing it in a way that it's kind of emotionally sustainable. So necessity, are you looking for something necessary, trying to get people what they need? Status, are you doing it for kind of social or like reputational reasons? Are you okay if you don't get those? And if you are, then you're not doing it for the wrong reasons. And then the chance test, which is to say, you know,
00:28:09
Speaker
Are you okay with the chance of this failing, which shows that you'll be emotionally robust if it does fail? What do you say about somebody who feels like the necessity test goes up against the chance test? That's what it seems like to me. Let's say if I'm part of some group that doesn't have rights, let's say, and wants rights, I might say, look, my political involvement is a necessity, but I fail the chance test. I can't emotionally accept that my project might fail. That will crush me.
00:28:36
Speaker
But nonetheless, because of the necessity, I'm still going to participate. Yeah, yeah. I suppose I think there's this...
00:28:46
Speaker
One way of getting this question is sometimes modern Stoics might be preoccupied with ensuring that their emotional state is correct before thinking about what actions are right and in some cases
00:29:08
Speaker
doing the right action may be more important than ensuring that you maintain emotional tranquility or something. Exactly what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. So we're not sages. We are progressors. Many of us have emotional vices, but it's, I think would be misplaced to
00:29:36
Speaker
spend too much time preoccupied with someone who stood up for their own rights when they were being seriously mistreated, but did so as someone who was seriously enraged or something like this.
00:29:55
Speaker
It's true that the sage would not feel rage, even if they were, say, enslaved, you know, as in the case of Epictetus, but focusing on that in cases where the harm or rights violation, what have you, is so severe, so obvious, can't be
00:30:18
Speaker
uh misplaced focus I think especially for you know imperfect and perfect beings like us so
00:30:26
Speaker
It always depends on the concrete details. Sometimes in fact, especially as people get into larger groups, the wrath may become so misplaced that the activism becomes itself not effective, even if it's responding to something, a serious need. But I think that as a general heuristic,
00:30:53
Speaker
thinking about the actions in addition to, you know, always need to think about both the action and if you're thinking about that well, then perhaps it's okay if the emotional state isn't ideal.
00:31:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think you just put that really well, Caleb. I've never thought about, I've never thought about that before, but I think that nails it. This idea that as progressing Stoics, we have to worry so much about equanimity, not, not, you know, not going to emotional extremes, but sometimes, you know, if you're in a level of, if you're at a level of progression, you know,
00:31:28
Speaker
virtue might require you to do something that you're not, you haven't progressed enough to do that with like emotional resilience in the moment. And as long as, as you said, you've thought about it carefully, you're sure it's the right thing, then yeah, you're going to have to step outside your comfort zone sometimes. And I think that's better than staying inside that comfort zone and keeping a very small circle of action. Um, so I think that test, that chance test, you know,
00:31:55
Speaker
Am I okay with the chance that I'll fail? That's a good kind of test for making sure that something won't upset you, but it's maybe not the best test for will I do it or not, you know?
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. I think in a way that might be too epicurean for me to support, I suppose. It's important to keep in mind, and I think a good rule of, perhaps a good test for pushing you towards being in an ideal emotional state, but it doesn't seem like it should be a necessary condition.
00:32:32
Speaker
in many cases for at least the fact that your task might not be accomplished for engaging in political activity. Yeah. We can move on. I don't want to stay on this point for too long, but I almost think of the chance test as a type of premeditatio morum. I can think of the chance test as this idea of like, okay, so you've thought of all the good things that will happen if you run for politics, you got elected, and everybody loves you.
00:33:00
Speaker
Okay, now imagine the bad parts of it, right? You quit your job, you spend all this money to run, you fail miserably, everybody thinks you're a terrible politician. Do you still want to engage in it? And it's kind of a premed attachment where you can get to the root of why you care about it, why it matters to you. And I think in that sense, super valuable, helpful exercise.
00:33:23
Speaker
But I think there's this other category of pre-matic tattoo malorum. Wow, that malorum, that bad really still freaks me out, but I'm going to have to do it anyway. Uh, because, you know, in this case, as you said, it involves, you know, standing up for something that's right or standing up, you know, for, for again, neither myself or a group of people that require justice. Yeah. So, but, but, but I really liked those, he knows that, that three-part test, that Epicurean strategy is really, really helpful.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. So one other aspect I should add to the Epicurean case is just to emphasize again that as these tests show, the Epicurean can still make a strong case that they care about justice. It's just that justice may not always be realized through political activity.
00:34:18
Speaker
And in some regimes, this isn't not the argument I'd make for modern democracies. In some regimes, the game might just be so corrupted, it's better not to play. And I think that might be a good one-line way of capturing how Epicurus, in fact, saw the politics of his time, where
00:34:43
Speaker
Ultimately, he saw it largely as a pursuit of power, not always through legal means. And as such, it might be better to isolate oneself in one's own community and create a just community amongst your friends, family members, and strangers you encounter.
00:35:09
Speaker
instead of playing the game at the larger scale of a city in ancient Greece. Yeah, I think that's charitable. So this idea of still caring for others. But look, if I can do this in a more effective way with less emotional turmoil by doing it maybe at a community level, then the Epicureans are recommending that.
00:35:37
Speaker
The problem here though is when those things intersect right when you get community politics or you get larger political issues that are affecting you at the community level, then that becomes an interesting point about when to get involved. But I'm pretty compelled by this picture of, you know, there's this idea that like not everybody should go to university if they don't want to go to university like there's a lot of stress and
00:35:57
Speaker
pain that comes if you get forced into a certain path because you think that's the right path for you. I'm very partial towards this. I like that idea of thinking about politics the same way. This idea that, you know, this is not necessarily a game you have to play. And if you do play it, take it seriously because it's a, it's a dangerous one. And it's one that is filled with people that are, you know, in it for the wrong reason. Um, and so, so you take that job seriously, pay attention, educate yourself.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's well put. That's a little bit less strong than the initial case I was representing, but seems closer to the truth, which is
00:36:40
Speaker
demoting a citizen as a necessary role, I think, at least if you understand the citizen in the case that you need to vote or something at that level. Of course, you should be a good citizen in other respects in which we use the term. Be a good community member, a good neighbor, and so forth.
00:37:02
Speaker
But the view is demote that from something that's a required role and ensure that you're the sort of person who engages in politics, then you ought to do your best to take it seriously. It's a dangerous enterprise. As you said, it's one in which thinking well is difficult for a number of reasons.
00:37:26
Speaker
So one should, as an individual, try to cultivate thinking well about those matters and do the same for whatever groups you might happen to be involved in as well. Cool. Cool. Always good to have some of that peculiar perspective here. Should I attempt a stoic case for politics?
00:37:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's hear the, the Soviet case. Do you think the Soviet case pushes against that less ambitious, a case against, against politics or, uh, or not? Yeah. I mean, I think so. I think that. Hmm. I think stoicism would demand that you act in a way within your power to help people in your community and fulfill your roles and your, and your, um,
Citizens' Roles and Obligations
00:38:12
Speaker
obligation. So those people in your community. And I think you're going to be hard pressed.
00:38:18
Speaker
to argue that some form of political involvement doesn't fall in that. So when you say voting is the paradigmatic behavior, then you're going to be hard. I don't think, I don't think stoicism requires you to go and run for government, but I think you're going to be hard pressed to say that the stoic has a justification for not voting, which is such an example of something that is, you know, falls within your power.
00:38:41
Speaker
It's totally up to you to educate yourself and to be involved, at least in these small, incremental ways that cumulatively make an impact to help yourself and to help others. So the way to ground that in the actual theory, stoicism has these four cardinal virtues. So obviously, you're supposed to act in accordance with nature and act in a way that's right, but you say, well, what does that look like? And so the stoics appeal to these four cardinal virtues.
00:39:07
Speaker
courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice. Justice is about people getting what they do. It's about treating others appropriately. So it's about this kind of social participation. So one way in which you're not going to be wise, unless you're acting or you're not going to be virtuous, unless you're acting in a way that embodies justice,
00:39:34
Speaker
And so one of the ways that we embody justice is we fulfill, the Stoics talk about our roles, we talk about role ethics, so we fulfill our roles. So the idea is, you know, you have certain relationships with the people in your community. You're not an island, you don't exist separate of these people, you exist as part of a broader community, and you have rules and relationships with those people. So Epictetus provides a list, you know, he says we are roles, some examples we can be son, father, brother, citizen,
00:40:02
Speaker
husband, wife, neighbor, fellow traveler, and then ruler and subject, which is again this actual political relationship of ruler and subject. And so the point is that the ruler has a role, someone like Marcus Aurelius, maybe someone like Seneca closer to Seneca in terms of being part of that ruling class, they have a
00:40:21
Speaker
to act with justice, they have a certain way they should act towards their subjects. Or in our case, we don't have subjects today, but citizens. And I would say the citizens then have an obligation, a relationship towards government, which is to say, if you don't agree with something, vote opposite to that. If you can get involved in a certain capacity in a way that
00:40:46
Speaker
fits your other roles and matches your character than to do that. And so I think engaging in politics is one of those key roles, is the way that you are a good citizen, it's the way that you are a good member of your city, state and country or whatever level it is. I think if anything, probably stoicism encourages more
00:41:08
Speaker
municipal politics, more kind of focus at a neighborly level, at a smaller level. So maybe if there was a stoic politics, maybe the shifting away from being outraged at something you can't really control at a macro level and being consciously involved in what you can control or have a stronger influence on on a micro level, which is the policies in your city, the policies in your neighborhood and things like that.
00:41:36
Speaker
You can consider all of these Stoics who have been involved in politics, right? Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, obviously. And I think in their case, they used Stoicism to navigate these roles that they found themselves in. So not everybody has to try to be Marcus Aurelius. Not everybody has to try to be emperor. That doesn't make any sense. But I think that Stoicism requires you to participate in that process the same way it has restrictions on Marcus Aurelius' behavior as emperor.
00:42:06
Speaker
it has kind of obligations on your behavior as citizen and everything's going well when when both sides are playing that role and both sides are playing that part and if you abstain from your part well you know it doesn't really matter how good the people in government are if you're not really participating when you're not playing that role to keep this system working that would be that would be my counter argument and so I think I think that
00:42:31
Speaker
If I was a stoic responding to the Epicurean, I would say, great point that politics is dangerous. Great point that people often get into it for the wrong reasons, and you shouldn't be naive about why you're attracted to it. You should be there. You should nip it in the bud if you're interested because you want power, or you want money, or you want influence or reputation. Those are all dangerous temptations, and this isn't even a good place to get it. So you got to be really careful about that. You got to really be honest about that.
00:42:59
Speaker
That being said, what are your relationships with the people in your community? What are your obligations in the community? How can you help fulfill those in ways that are in your power and achievable? That's obviously probably going to look a bit like voting. It's going to look like getting involved at a local level and maybe having some involvement at a larger level like that. If you have the specific talents and equilibities, that's another thing about rule ethics.
00:43:23
Speaker
And I'll let you respond in a second, Caleb. But another thing about role ethics is really paying attention to your talents and your skills. So stoicism, what we were talking about is only get involved in politics if you're talented at it or you have the disposition for it. And I think stoicism, it's more nuanced than epicureanism because it allows both those options. Like, yeah, if you're talented at it, get involved at a bigger level. Make that your life. Run for government. Work in the government. Get involved in politics. Do that kind of work.
00:43:52
Speaker
But if you're not talented at it, or you're not disposed towards it, you don't like it, still do your part at the smaller level. So that would be my stoic view. And I think the stoic view would be that, look, you're...
00:44:03
Speaker
But by procuring your right to be cautious, your right to not throw yourself headlong into something that's dangerous, but to detach yourself completely is to be selfish, to be self-oriented. It's to focus on your pleasure instead of focus on your equanimity. You're not running the risk of being disappointed or frustrated in an exchange. You're not giving people what they deserve, which is a proper citizen to citizen relationship. What do you think about that?
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, so I think that's a strong case. That was eloquently put. My reticence about that case is that
00:44:43
Speaker
I think it understates how demanding being a good citizen is. People are making judgments about complicated topics in economics, foreign policy, issues that touch on questions of
00:45:08
Speaker
human nature, science, and getting up to speed on all of those. Being the sort of person who, as a generalist, thinks well enough to make decisions in those matters, I think, is non-trivial. Of course, in modern-day democracies, we often have
00:45:30
Speaker
you know, sort of vote by simple cues or proxy, you know, you're choosing some representative, usually a representative who belongs to some party and you might think, oh, well, I don't need to solve some complex issue of economics. I can just pick the more reliable party and that's not as hard. And the issue with that is that there are multiple people listening to this podcast now who might have that reaction and they only disagree on what that party is, right?
00:45:59
Speaker
They think it should obviously be one, someone else thinks it should obviously be another. I think that's the main kind of pushback.
00:46:10
Speaker
The point about, I think, local politics is interesting. I think I do agree that the stoic might push more for engaging in local politics. One, because perhaps in some sense, it's less demanding to be sort of epistemically virtuous in those matters. And also because if it's a local matter of your neighborhood,
00:46:40
Speaker
city that perhaps is not so large, it's very likely that you're going to have unique information that should be accounted for and hence your judgment might be much more useful in those cases. So to this view, to the view you have is that being a good citizen is exceptionally demanding
00:47:04
Speaker
And if you're thinking about creating an ideal, a just state, you might want strong restrictions on political engagements. And there's this question of scale, so perhaps it's going to be easier for people to contribute at a local level than a national one. That's my reaction to that.
00:47:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think so then there's that idea of like this knowledge point, which is to say, look, yeah, at a local level, you might just know more, might be easier to have a good sense of it. Cause we don't like, not everybody's going to be perfect, right? I don't want to describe it. And Marcus Aurelius wasn't perfect. Like nobody in politics has ever been perfect. The standard can't be one of being the perfect philosopher king.
00:47:45
Speaker
That's just we just can't have too high of a standard either, right? You got kind of shitty doctors. You got, you know, not every lawyer is like, you know, great, but you can't have this, you can't have this unbelievable standard. The other thing I think that is missing is this kind of, um.
00:48:01
Speaker
There, there's a kind of function to voting, which is like a signaling, which is like, Hey, I'm here. Like, Hey, this is what I think. Notice me, you know, pay attention to me when you're having these conversations. Um, and so I think that like, you can have a lot of knowledge on yourself personally, right? Like you can have a lot of knowledge about, maybe I don't have a knowledge about who the best person is to run the country.
00:48:26
Speaker
But I have a knowledge about what I feel and I can kind of signal that through my vote. And that signals to the two people in positions of power, you know, what the demographic of the country is like or how people are feeling. So to abstract that out, trying to get more particular here, there's a there's a type of political involvement that is valid and is helpful, that is not just like
00:48:55
Speaker
incredibly accurate policy decision-making, right? And sometimes that can just be kind of like signaling through a vote your sentiment about something. And I think that's better done because what the vote is, is not, the vote can represent how you feel, right? That can be what you're saying. You're saying, I feel this way. And it doesn't necessarily have to be, if you were the only one doing it, would it be the right thing to do? Does that make any sense?
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think that makes sense, but it's not very compelling to me, I think. You know, you can just fill out a survey. It was the response, I suppose, when you're some phone calling, some polling.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. If you want to have your opinion registered, I think in very subtle ways, even large states, non-democratic ones are responsive to people's opinions. People's opinions do matter. I guess the question is, are you going to take that next level where when you're voting, you're legislating your opinion onto others effectively? And of course, you're not sitting there as a philosopher king, but you are playing a role in saying,
00:50:08
Speaker
you know, this is going to be the policy and this is going to influence how others are impacted. I think it's not merely registering your opinion like maybe a survey might be. So I think that sort of means you're sort of playing the, it's one thing to be sitting in the jury making the decision and another to express your opinion through an editorial or something like that. I think the standards for those are going to be different.
00:50:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. I also think about, you know, in criticism to my own point, I think about something like, um, I don't know much about this, but I think about what I've seen about like Brexit or something. Often people will vote a certain way to symbolize something and then it will go through and they'll realize it's not in their own interests. And they'll be upset about it after. Like you can have, you can have a kind of mismatching going on here.
00:51:01
Speaker
or somebody voting for the underdog and then it's like, it goes through and then it's like, oh no, this is not necessarily what I wanted to happen. So there- No, yeah, I think that's right. I think people's preferences and then their preferences about outcomes are probably divorced.
00:51:17
Speaker
I want to ensure that people have more jobs or something like that. That's my preference for an outcome. My policy preference, however, might be for something that doesn't lead to more jobs or something like that. So I think that's certainly common. Yeah, that's too bad. I don't have that answer. Try not to let that happen. So I want to come back to this question. What would be the norms for a stoic engaging in politics?
00:51:45
Speaker
And I think it would be similar to the Epicurean in that you would not engage in politics incorrectly. And so you're not, you're not assumed that it's not always good. You can do politics the wrong way. And the good way of politics has quite a high standard,
Being a Good Citizen
00:52:03
Speaker
I would say, because the stoic is not just acting justice by voting. They're, they're acting justly by voting, knowledgeably, consciously doing the research, understanding, uh,
00:52:14
Speaker
reaching a certain bar. So I think the norms for engaging in politics for the stoic is to, I would say, understand what's required of you as a citizen and meet that bar through the effort that's required to get there.
00:52:31
Speaker
And I think that involves voting. I think that's a pretty low bar. I think it might actually involve a bit more than that. It might involve some forms of political assembly, forms of active research, things like this. But we can disagree, like Stoke to Stoke can disagree, but the nitty gritty, but the bar is, I think you need to understand, you need to have an opinion.
00:52:51
Speaker
about what's required of you as a citizen because you are a citizen. And then you have to do what's in your power or up to you to meet that bar. And that bar is going to involve probably a higher level of knowledge than we typically expect or see in the political realm today.
00:53:08
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose in terms of my concluding thoughts, as it were, this is a topic I've always been divided on personally. And I think I would push back on the sort of universalist view that
00:53:25
Speaker
everyone ought to be politically engaged. That said, there's a question there. You've been pushing me in terms of what are the actual requirements for being politically engaged? Can still a good number of people meet that bar?
00:53:41
Speaker
where it's still a fine norm. So for example, you know, on Epictetus' list, he lists being a father, mother, husband, wife, and it seems plausible to me that those are good sort of central norms. The typical person ought to be married, have children, but it's not true that that is required of everyone. That view is just certainly too strong.
00:54:08
Speaker
And I think my view perhaps might be closer to about politics, might be closer to that issue about
00:54:17
Speaker
thinking about, you know, whether you should be married or have children. Maybe it's a good norm for most people in terms of norm and sense that, you know, it's a paramedic thing for most people and you ought to make it feasible for people to be able to do that, but isn't required as a sort of essential social role for everyone. And there shouldn't be that expectation that everyone occupy those roles.
00:54:43
Speaker
Well, and there shouldn't be that expectation. I think about the same way about parents, right? Like, you know, society tends to do better when more people want to be parents than not, but to pressure someone to be a parent who doesn't want to be is not a good thing. Or in many cases cannot be, is not a good thing. And so if you think of a citizen, you know,
00:55:02
Speaker
It's a good thing if more people than not are actively engaged conscientious citizens, but let's not pressure the ones who don't know, who aren't involved to vote, for example, or to get involved at a superficial level because that can have side effects. Well put, I think that's a good reminder. Probably
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:55:23
Speaker
a good spot to end too. Cool.
00:55:25
Speaker
All right, sweet. I hope this went. I hope you enjoyed that. It was a nice platonic dialogue because I don't think we landed anywhere. So you'll either be motivated to be more passive or more involved depending on how you took it. So good luck to you in whichever journey you take. I have some things to think about.
00:55:45
Speaker
Thanks again for listening to Stoa Conversations. If you found this conversation useful, please give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. And if you'd like to practice stoicism with Michael and I as well as others walking the stoic path, we are running our three-week course on stoicism applied. It'll be live with
00:56:11
Speaker
a forum interactive calls that I think will be an excellent way for a group of people to become a more stoic together. So do check that out at stomeditation.com slash course. And if that's not to your fancy, you can find links to the Stoa app as well as the Stoa letter, our newsletter on stoic theory and practice at stomeditation.com. Thanks for listening. Until next time.