22) Stoicism - Epictetus's "Enchiridion" 

4wwatt 3

Stay? But I'm a heretical neoplatonist 😝

I'm using a Swivl robot (www.swivl.com/).

Especially in this age of instant gratification.

You put in the work because you want the outcome in the first place. You're putting the cart before the horse here. If you can get the outcome without putting in the work, why work at all? If you have to drill a tunnel through a mountain, you're not going to use a toothpick. And if technology allows you to get the same kind of reward much quicker and with less effort, it'd be insane not to use it. "Learning to love the process" is ironically a way to get instant gratification, because the reward/outcome, the gratification, is in the process itself, and changes the work's nature in order for it to not be as requiring of effort anymore. In other words, you're adopting the exact same behavior than the people you seem to look down on. You might speak of being spoilt by the ease of the process, but we're all spoilt relatively to our ancestors. Each previous generation had it worse, and each generation will scorn the next in turn, precisely because they don't have to spend so much energy to reap the same rewards. These kinds of things are self regulating anyways.

@@Songriquole Learn to love the process. It is a simple maxim.

@@Songriquole For the Stoics, the joy is in the act. It's in following virtue. The outcome is and was never considered. As in the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, you put in the work because that is what you were made for. The outcome, throw it away, as Epictetus would say.

We're working from Forrest Baird's "Ancient Philosophy" in this course.

Thanks very much. I'm 68 and only recently discovered Stoicism. Although I've always followed many of its beliefs and ethics, it's good to put a name to it.

Handbook of life.

@@mrcharrington1 Better late than never.

Hi there. Thanks for your questions. First, as it turns out I *have* heard of advertising. Are you suggesting that advertising is so powerful that no one has the willpower to resist it? Second, I should point out that in each of these lectures, my aim is to represent and defend the text, so I'm not necessarily I'm not necessarily representing my own views as I am exploring ideas. In this lecture, the text is Epictetus's "Enchiridion." I can assure you that while advertising was not the trillion-dollar industry that it is today in Epictetus's time, the notion of trying to persuade others with rhetoric was nothing new. I'm more than happy to have a conversation as to whether or not the Stoics put too much faith in their own abilities to control their rational minds. But I'd say the issue is a bit more complicated than a simple gesture towards advertising.

@@adamrosenfeld9384You're making a quantification error here. To refute the claim that advertising changes people's beliefs it is not necessary to show that advertising is so powerful that no one has the willpower to resist it. It is sufficient to show that not everyone has the willpower to resist it, which, as it turns out, is the vast majority, leaving aside for the moment the question of whether willpower itself is actually of any use at all in resisting appeals below the level of conscious awareness. That aside, it is many, many years since I have sat in an undergraduate classroom, but you have all my sympathy, Prof. The kids seem like slugs and your job like kicking a dead whale across the beach. Whatever they pay you isn't enough.