Criticisms of “The Body Keeps the Score”

I never told any veterans to work harder at being stoic, nor did I imply anyone should. That's part of a reaction you had to what I said.

I can't control what you say, but I can control my reaction to you. That's what stoicism is.

It's a good framework to survive in authoritarian country and maybe even a good one to promote as a dictator. You can in fact very often change what other people think, say and do.

Notably, Aurelius (at least—I’m less well-read on Epictetus and others) allows that there are automatic reactions that we can’t, realistically, control. It’s the unintentional, but controllable, maintenance of negative feelings that Stoics aim to consciously tamp down, mostly by breaking the habit of falling into those patterns of thinking in the first place. I think triggered feelings and reactions due to PTSD would tend to fall under the former, though surely a stoic approach might help reduce ongoing harm from those, as it does with more mundane things like being angry at other drivers on the highway. I mean, something in one’s attitudes and ways of thinking must be able help, and if not, guess we better stop bothering with therapy, so it’s not outlandish that stoic practice might improve even that kind of problem, though it may not be the right tool to attack the root of it.

The idea that stoicism even aims to eliminate all negative emotions, or that it blames all of them on the person experiencing them, isn’t really what I’ve found.

Stoicism specifies that one needs right acts, in addition to right thoughts. It’s far less passive than e.g. Russell (though I love Russell, and I even love The History of Western Philosophy in which he levels these criticisms, while many others seem to dismiss it) describes it, though treating it as purely an internal-mindset thing is certainly easier and I think a lot of people in-fact only apply those parts.

> but I can control my reaction to you. That's what stoicism is.

I think what the parent is saying is this:

Say you (hyperhello) have PTSD from a fire incident in which your face is completely disfigured. You associated this pain (emotional and physical) with the various people who yelled "FIRE" during the escape. Do you, hyperhello, truly have control over this negative reaction when someone yells "FIRE!" in your face?

Aurelius' writings are interesting - I am struck by how many people try to relate to an emperor trying to stay grounded.

It doesn't mean there isn't good in the writings, it's good to take the positive from things, with the hope that it doesn't let in any of the negative unintended.

That part stands out to me though as where it's perspective might not be for the many, but the few.

I mean, a bunch of his book is stoic epistemology, physics, and metaphysics, all of which is of dubious value. Anyone reading him is definitely going to be picking-and-choosing what they pay attention to, almost nobody today is going to go all-in on the entire edifice of the stoic system of philosophy, and nearly all readers are likely to disregard half or more of his book—as far as the pop-cultural life of the book, these large portions of it are practically invisible for a reason.

I do think it’s remarkable that there’s much salvageable at all in it, given the age of the work (though a fair amount of ancient philosophy remains relevant, or at least functions as good reading and exercises along the lines of koans for developing philosophical ways of thinking, an awful lot is effectively obsolete and only of historical interest) and that it came from one of the most powerful people on the planet. It’s not often you get something with much enduring value at all from someone who also happens to be at or near the pinnacle of human hierarchies of their day.

Though, in fairness, he’s mostly repackaging stuff he learned from others, it’s not exactly original thinking in the same way as the chain of works from Socrates-Plato-Aristotle, say.

Still, it’d be like, I dunno, Franklin Roosevelt penning a philosophically-inclined self-help book that was still widely read and referenced beyond the year 3,000 and in languages that didn’t exist when it was written. Pretty distinctive, very few works at all in that class, and almost none from the perspective of someone that highly placed politically, despite a strong bias in general toward works from the rich and powerful being created at all, and surviving. I’d say the only way it’s likely to permanently fade is if/when “western culture”, to perhaps include near-east and Maghreb Muslim culture, fades (there’s so much overlap of the parts people like, with forms of thinking from the East, that I expect it’d have trouble co-existing with them in the same body of thought, as an actively-read item of interest)