Exploring Encheiridion 14 – Episode 53

If you want your children and your wife and friends to survive no matter what, you are silly; for you are wanting things to be up to you that are not up to you, and things to be your own that are not your own. You are just as foolish if you want your slave to make no mistakes; for you are wanting inferiority not to be a flaw but something else. But if your wish is not to be frustrated in your desires, this is in your power. Train yourself, then, in this power that you do have. Our master is anyone who has the power to implement or prevent the things that we want or don’t want. Whoever wants to be free, therefore, should wish for nothing or avoid nothing that is up to other people. Failing that, one is bound to be a slave. (Ench 14)

There’s nothing new in this chapter of the Encheiridion for those following the Exploring Encheiridion series. That is the nature of the Encheiridion, which Arrian created as a handbook a Stoic prokopton could keep readily available as a primer for Stoic doctrines. Therefore, many of the lessons are repeated in different forms. Nevertheless, as I was preparing for this podcast episode, I was struck by a question that inspired me to take this episode in another direction. The question is this: Why would anyone with a conscious or unconscious allegiance to the modern secular worldview consider Stoicism a viable way of life. Consider some other passages we’ve already covered in this Exploring Encheiridion series:

When you kiss your little child or your wife, say that you are kissing a human being. Then, if one of them dies, you will not be troubled. (Encheiridion 3)

Don’t ask for things to happen as you would like them to, but wish them to happen as they actually do, and you will be all right. (Encheiridion 8)

Never say about anything, “I have lost it”; but say, “I have returned it.” Has your little child died? “It has been returned.” Has your wife died? “She has been returned.” “I have been robbed of my land.” No, that has been returned as well. (Encheiridion 11)

These statements by Epictetus contradict what all moderns, those raised in the West at least, are taught from childhood. When a person views these statements from the perspective of modernity, they will likely ask: How can anyone past or present assent to ideas like this? What kind of worldview could possibly support such apparently odd and counterintuitive ideas? Therein lies the conundrum moderns face when moderns encounter the Stoic texts. We are confronted with words like God, logos, and providence from the ancient Stoic worldview and likely lack the necessary knowledge to understand the meaning of these words within the context of Hellenistic Greek culture and the holistic philosophical system known as Stoicism.

If moderns have any familiarity with words like God, logos, and providence, it likely comes from religious training or college professors who mocked these ideas. Therefore, secular-minded, enlightened, educated moderns might feel justified in rejecting those ideas. In fact, moderns may feel compelled to reject them as antiquated, pre-Enlightenment ideas. Unfortunately, that judgment of Stoicism is based on a modern worldview with some underlying assumptions and consequences moderns may have never considered. I know that was true for me. As I’ve previously said on this podcast, I was a hardcore atheist when I started studying Stoicism. It took me almost a year to overcome the misconceptions and cognitive biases of my modern worldview.

Worldviews are essential because they guide our beliefs and actions in ways that may evade our conscious awareness and circumspection. Jean-Baptiste Gourinat wrote about this in a paper titled Stoicism Today in 2009. He discussed the connection between Stoicism and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy—CBT—which is partly derived from Stoic principles. He wrote:

Cognitive therapy is based on three hypotheses: (1) one’s behaviour springs from one’s view of oneself and the world, and our psychological difficulties and disturbances derive from these views and from our (misconceived) perception of external events; (2) this point of view may be modified; (3) this modification of our thoughts and opinions may have positive effects on our behaviour and emotions since the latter are dependent on the former.^[1]

The “view of oneself and the world” he refers to is one’s worldview. It’s a combination of a model of the world—the way the world is—and a model for the world—the way one should act in the world to survive and achieve their conception of happiness. Jeremy Lent provided some insight into the concept of a worldview in his 2017 book titled The Patterning Instinct. He wrote:

Each of us conducts our lives according to a set of assumptions about how things work: how our society functions, its relationship with the natural world, what’s valuable, and what’s possible. This is our worldview, which often remains unquestioned and unstated but is deeply felt and underlies many of the choices we make in our lives. We form our worldview implicitly as we grow up, from our family, friends, and culture, and, once it’s set, we’re barely aware of it unless we’re presented with a different worldview for comparison. The unconscious origin of our worldview makes it quite inflexible. That’s fine when it’s working for us. But suppose our worldview is causing us to act collectively in ways that could undermine humanity’s future? Then it would be valuable to become more conscious of it.^[2]

Then, Lent opens his 2021 book, titled The Web of Meaning, with a story the “the speech” we are all likely to hear during our youth from some well-meaning adult who wishes the pass on their wisdom about the way the world is and how one must operate in it to survive and prosper. He points out this type of conversation is ubiquitous because they channel the “themes we hear every day from those in a position of authority,” including the talking heads on TV, successful business people, teachers, and school textbooks. He notes, “Even when the Speech is not given explicitly, its ideas seep into our daily thoughts” and can be distilled to some basic “building blocks.” He writes:

These basic elements, give or take a few, form the foundation of the predominant worldview. They infuse much of what is accepted as indisputably true in most conversations that take place about world affairs. They are so pervasive that most of us never question them. We feel they must be based on solid facts – why else would all those people in positions of authority rely on them? That’s the characteristic that makes a worldview so powerful. Like fish that don’t realize they’re swimming in water because it’s all they know, we tend to assume that our worldview simply describes the world the way it is, rather than recognizing it’s a constructed lens that shapes our thoughts and ideas into certain preconditioned patterns.^[3]

So what is the worldview most people in positions of authority and influence embrace? It’s revealed in the assumed intellectual superiority behind demands like “follow the science” or “follow the facts.” It’s the appeal to authority underlying assertions like “the science tells us” or “science says.” It’s the assumed worldview upon which most moderns stand when they demand “proof” and “evidence” to support your assertions while they simultaneously declare their beliefs are based on science. It’s called scientism, and that label will be disputed by those who hold to that belief system as quickly and adamantly as the label fundamentalism will be rejected by those who demand strict adherence to a set of religious beliefs. So, what is scientism? Richard Williams, professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, offers the following definition:

Scientism is, in its basic form, a dogmatic overconfidence in science and “scientific” knowledge. But, more importantly it is overconfidence in science, defined by, constructed around, and requiring that, the world must be made up of physical matter following particular lawful principles, and that all phenomena are essentially thus constituted. This gives scholars the great confidence that characterizes scientism. The confidence associated with this worldview is seen in the insistence that any scholarly endeavor that does not ground itself in that required set of constructs and ideas must be rejected as unscientific, and any knowledge claims made as a result of such endeavors are suspect. Such knowledge claims are to be rejected as being only metaphysical speculation, reflecting mere subjective bias, or, ironically, a devotion to religious orthodoxy.^[4]

Religious believers in centuries past rarely stopped to consider how some of their beliefs affected their psychology and behavior. Why? They didn’t need to; their worldview was mainstream and left largely unchallenged. In the same way, moderns neglect to consider how the scientific worldview that implicitly molds the spirit of our secular age affects their beliefs and behaviors. Why? Scientism and secularism are now mainstream, so their worldview is rarely challenged in modern times. Let’s consider some of the ideas perpetuated by modern orthodox science:

The universe and human life are accidents; they result from a long sequence of chance events.
There is no inherent meaning in the universe or human life.
Everything is reducible to interactions of inert matter constrained by the physical laws.
Humans are driven by selfish genes to propagate their genetic code into the next generation.
Consciousness is an illusion—an epiphenomenon of neural activity.
Free will is an illusion. There is no room for any freedom of the human will within the mechanistic, clocklike operation of the universe.

Do the intellectuals and scientists who impose these beliefs on moderns ever stop to consider where those beliefs will lead us? Do they reflect on what kind of behaviors they might produce?

Francis Crick was a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist who played a crucial role in discovering the helical structure of DNA. He spent the final decades of his life attempting to explain, or explain away, human consciousness. In 1994, a decade before his death, he opened his book titled The Astonishing Hypothesis with these lines which put the worldview of scientism on full display:

“You,” your hopes and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Carroll’s Alice might have proclaimed it: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.”^[5]

Francis Crick probably intended to be provocative to capture his reader’s attention. However, I wonder if scientists and intellectuals who make remarks like that consider their impact on people. What happens to the psychology of a person who believes they are “nothing more than a pack of neurons.” Here’s another example for you. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, offered this gem from the perspective of scientism in a speech:

I’m insignificant. I am just another speck of sand. And the earth really in the cosmic scheme of things is another speck. And the sun an unremarkable star. And the galaxy is a speck. I’m a speck on a speck orbiting a speck among other specks among still other specks in the middle of specklessness. I suck.

Contrast these “scientific” appraisals of humanity with the words of Epictetus, who is speaking from the perspective of the Stoic worldview:

If only one could be properly convinced of this truth, that we’re all first and foremost children of God, and that God is the father of both human beings and gods, I think one would never harbour any mean or ignoble thought about oneself. Why, if Caesar were to adopt you, no one would be able to endure your conceit; so if you know that you’re a son of God, won’t you be filled with pride? (Discourses 1.3.1-2)

However, Epictetus didn’t stop there. You see, the degradation of human nature is not a modern development. The ancient Stoics confronted people who held this same dim view of humanity, and they rejected their view of human nature. Here is the continuation of the passage from the Discourses I just read:

As things stand, however, we don’t react in that way, but since these two elements have been mixed together in us from our conception, the body, which we have in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence, which we share with the gods, some of us incline towards the kinship that is wretched and mortal, and only a few of us towards that which is divine and blessed. Now since everyone, whoever he may be, is bound to deal with each matter in accordance with the belief that he holds about it, those few who think they were born for fidelity, for self-respect, and for the sound use of impressions will never harbour any mean or ignoble thought about themselves, whereas the majority of people will do exactly the opposite. ‘For what am I? A poor wretched man,’ they say, or ‘This miserable flesh of mine’. Miserable, to be sure, but you also have something better in you than that poor flesh. Why do you neglect that, then, and attach yourself to what is mortal? (Discourses 1.3.3-6)

The Stoics understood humankind’s view of cosmic Nature and human nature would affect their beliefs and behavior. Therefore, they assented to a distinctive worldview with different assumptions.

“Wait right there.” Someone may object. I don’t base my worldview on assumptions and beliefs; I base it on science. Yes, I have no doubt you do. However, you fail to realize your science is built upon a foundation of metaphysical assumptions which cannot be proven. No, your professors probably left that little detail out during your lectures. If you don’t believe me, do a little research on the unprovable assumptions at the foundation of science.

I want to make sure my position is clear. I am not being critical or dismissive of the science that has improved our lives in many ways. I am criticizing the scientism that oozes forth from some scientists and intellectuals who think the scientific method has or will answer all the hard questions humans grapple with daily. I am criticizing the belief system of scientism, not the scientific method. Here’s why: While humans appear innately programmed to seek meaning in the cosmos and their individual lives, scientism tells us life is meaningless. Scientism tells us our human consciousness and any sense of freedom we may feel to make decisions are nothing more than illusions created by the firing of neurons in our brains. During the last century, Scientism led humanity to the very edge of the existential cliff where we currently stand. It degraded us and stripped us of everything we value about being human. Now, some of these same scientists who propagated this dehumanizing worldview wring their hands in amazement as humans are on the verge of destroying themselves and our planet with the technologies they created.

What did they expect when they told us we are an accident of nature, our consciousness and sense of free will is an illusion, and our life is meaningless? Yes, beliefs have consequences. Worldviews can produce human holocausts and environmental destruction. What’s the answer? A different worldview. There may be several alternatives; however, the ancient Stoics created the one best suited for western minds.

I believe the Stoic worldview can change human lives and the course of human history. If we choose to view the cosmos as a purposeful living organism we humans are entangled within rather than the chance creation of accidental combinations of matter, our lives suddenly have inherent meaning. When we see other humans, even the most wicked and vile among us, as bearers of a fragment of the same divine mind we all share, there is hope we can live together harmoniously. When we teach our children to be responsible for creating their character and well-being, they will stop blaming and hating others for their circumstances. When we teach people to step off the hedonic treadmill and seek what is truly good and avoid what is truly bad, they will be transformed and act appropriately to transform our communities, nations, and the world.

Yes, some of the Stoic teachings appear pretty odd, out of touch, and even counterintuitive from the perspective of our modern worldview. So, why should any modern seriously consider the Stoic worldview? Watch the news for a few minutes on any given day, and you’ll have a good reason. Listen to the hate that fills the souls of those dividing us into opposing political, racial, socio-economic, and gender groups, and you’ll have another reason. Consider the current path toward self-destruction humanity appears to be traveling, and you’ll have an answer.

To those moderns who reject the Stoic worldview because its religious nature triggers your intellectual sensibilities, consider what the “modern” secular worldview created in the twentieth century and where it has led us at the beginning of the twenty-first century. If the last century of global destruction and inhumanity doesn’t trigger your ethical sensibilities, what will? Yes, worldviews matter. A model of the world is necessary to operate within the world. I am simply arguing our modern worldview presents an inaccurate and demonstrably harmful model of Nature and human nature, and I’m suggesting the Stoic worldview as a viable alternative.

I am proposing it is time for moderns to seriously consider the ancient Stoics’ worldview. It was a worldview way ahead of its time, and I believe the twenty-first century may just be its appropriate time.