How to Think like a Roman Emporer, or What's Wrong with Stoicism.

There are basically two ways of reading a book. The first assumes that you, the reader, have nothing of value and the purpose of reading is to distil some wisdom, or at least some information, from the book you’re reading. The second way, which is far more fun, is to use the book as a jumping off point for something you actually want to talk about. Because you, the reader, are a complete and interesting human with something to contribute to the conversation (and that’s all literature is: one long conversation).

This is all a roundabout way of saying: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor is a book, with sentences, and accurate information about how to apply Stoicism to your life. I didn’t much enjoy it, despite the book’s many virtues; mainly because the book blows smoke up Marcus Aurelius’ arse, and I don’t feel he needs it.

He’s dead for starters.

Also he’d hate it: other people’s opinions are supposed to of no consequence to Stoics. Ironically, the book is fundamentally un-Stoic. But what really got me thinking, was that, whereas I’d been a sort-of-Stoic when I was younger, I wasn’t one anymore. I hadn’t been for a long time, and what was the change.

Now, on the face of it, Stoicism has a lot going for it. I still remember, in the dark days of 2009, sitting in a Chinese restaurant reading a book on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and seeing myself reflected back to myself in the text. The book (a cheap intro to CBT I picked up in W.H. Smith in Paddington station) counselled that I step back, see if the emotion is an accurate and objective assessment of my situation. And if it wasn’t? That I could choose not to assent to the thoughts I was thinking, and the feelings I was having. I was interviewing for a job the next day, and was incredibly anxious. But I didn’t have a problem then. In that exact moment there, in the Chinese restaurant. Immediately the anxiety dissipated.

For the first time I had some hope that I there was something I could do about the anxiety and anger I felt. It was one of a handful of moments in my life that were genuine turning points.

I still use this thinking: do I have a problem now. The answer is always no, because if I had a problem I’d be too preoccupied with solving it, there and then.

But it’s this assent-or-don’t-assent that’s what I object to in Stoicism now. I know loads of gay men who dutifully swear that they are worthy people, who let homophobic bullying roll off their backs. And yet as adults they can’t form proper romantic attachments and they spend a fortune on a suite of therapies. This metaphysical position Stoics take: events happen out there, but our judgements happen in here. It subtly makes people complicit in their own oppression. And you have to wonder: is the philosophy that encourages this kind of subjectivity responsible?

At base, Stoicism makes this claim: that we can choose not to be harmed by events outside of us. Nowadays I find it kind of absurd. Adopting a perspective that everything is flux, all impermanence, and it is you who is having the judgements is a position that pits you as the protagonist of reality. (Even if it is intended to dissuade you from such a position) Imagine being punched in the face and shrugging it off. It’s like that Drill tweet: “‘I’m not owned, I’m not owned’ I scream as I slowly shrink into a corn cob.” Stoicism only gives you the option of assent to feelings and judgements, never dissenting from the state of the world.

If you give up the in here/out there distinction, then this praxis disintegrates. If things are ‘just happening’ out there, and we’re also part of the flux, then they’re ‘just happening’ in here too. So you have no more control inside than you do outside.

The book is a good potted history of Aurelius’ time as Emperor, and it definitely makes him seem like he was one of the better ones. We glimpse something that’s rarely looked upon in biographies of Aurelius: that he was a canny political operator. Why did Marcus appoint Lucius Verus co-Emporer? Well, in no small part it was to stave off a war of succession. Both Marcus and Lucius were adoptive sons of Emperor Antonius Pious, and adoptive grandsons of the previous Emperor Hadrian. Having someone with a legitimate claim to the throne, especially someone who was chosen by a previous Emperor, would have been politically difficult for Marcus (the early Republic was riven by civil wars). So Marcus cannily solved the problem by declaring Lucius co-Emperor. There are lots of little touches like this in the book: either Marcus appearing at chariot races he despised, or forgiving the soldiers of a general who tried to usurp him. It shows that Marcus was a cannier political animal than he’s given credit for, and I wish the book had explored this angle more thoroughly.

A philosophical commitment I never thought I’d make is that evil exists, and is Out There(TM). It’s not just a projection of your inner state outwards onto the world. It’s not a matter of opinion. So you can be harmed, whether you assent to it or not. That you can not assent, internally, even while going through the motions, gets you doing things materially that you wouldn’t really want to do. And not assenting to harm makes to you complicit in the harms done to you. Stoicism (as presented in the book) gives you no framework for thinking these things through.

There’s a deeper reason that dissent isn’t on the menu in Stoicism: dissent is a fundamentally historical thing. It requires the idea that tomorrow can be different from today, and thus a conception of history as distinct from things that happened.

Stoics enjoin you to live according to nature, and all of them spend a long time with this urge. But this only begs the question: what is natural? We have to have some normative idea of what is natural, so we can live by it. Which is, of course, unnatural. This just lets them say what their preferred way of being is without having to argue for it. Stoics assume nature is rational, and then go about telling us to live rationally. This does have the feeling that well, you don’t vibrate with the universe if you don’t get what you want. Like the universe just shrugs: it’s just ‘sucks to be you’

In the book, Aurelius is infinitely wise, infinitely capable despite the difficult political times he faced, and it’s all because of his Stoic training. In the first few chapters it works well: Aurelius is a young man suddenly thrust into the line of succession, quickly finding that court isn’t to his taste. But as the book wears on the constant refrain of how wise he was starts to grate. Aurelius was a man who made no misstep, apparently. It was his brother, his general, his court, that caused the problems in Rome. The plagues, the wars, the boom and bust economy. I call horseshit: Aurelius didn’t have an intellectual with which framework to analyse what was going wrong, but even if he did I doubt there was anything he could do about it. There were wider historical forces at play, and it seems like Stoicism kept Aurelius actively ignorant.

Finally, Stoicism is lacking in one important dimension: you are never given the option of dissenting from the state of the world. You can only assent if you want inner peace. Dissent would be to go against nature, the Logos, and against Rome. So the function of Stoicism is mostly to create good Roman citizens, capable of engaging with politics.

Stoicism proposes something quite strong then, much stronger than ‘go with the flow’. That there is a natural order which we shouldn’t oppose. Which is why Stoicism appeals mainly to men nowadays: it’s a philosophy for finding your place in the world, as opposed to fashioning a new one all of your own. And why it has a caustic aura: failure to be properly Stoic leaves practitioners feeling defective. Our feelings of bitterness at being mistreated, or failing at things which are important to us, would be classified as irrationality under Stoicism proper, but are completely natural.