Stoicism As A Guard Against Propaganda

Stoicism is often maligned in modern society. It receives many labels. The most common as of lase is that it's a trait of toxic masculinity. Having read a number of works by stoic philosophers, this negative view baffled me. Like any philosophy, stoicism has aspects I find useful and aspects I discard. One aspect that I find most useful is possibly the reason it's so often maligned is its point that you are in control of your actions, thoughts, and reactions. Before anybody feels the need to point out all of the cases where this isn't true, such as people with Tourette Syndrome (having uncontrollable actions) or schizophrenia (having uncontrollable thoughts), let me save you the effort by noting that there are always exceptions to rules. However, for the vast majority of us, this point is true.

Stoicism teaches that all external things such as health, wealth, politics, etc. are neither good nor bad. They simply are. You can choose how you react to those external states. If you're miserable because you're sick, that misery is your own choice. You can choose to be sick and still be happy. There are many people suffering terrible ailments such as cancer who refuse to be miserable because of it. Herein lies the problem. Most of the actors trying to influence your actions, thoughts, and reactions don't want you to be in control of them. They want to be in control of them.

When you watch or read the news, you're more often than not being exposed to terrible situations. Wars. Politics. Economic woes. The talking heads and politicians spin these situations into existential threats via propaganda. Wars are supposed to make you angry or afraid. Different sides will spin the same story to their advantage. The ongoing Israel-Palestine War is a prime example. The American right want you to sympathize with Israel because it was attacked by Palestinian terrorists. The American left want you to sympathize with Palestine because it's being destroyed by Israel. You can see the effects of these propaganda effort everywhere you go. Leftist protesters are marching around chanting "Free Palestine!" Rightists, on the other hand, are calling those protesters terrorist sympathizers and demanding law enforcement act against them. Do you know what almost all of these leftists and rightist have in common? They've never been to Israel or Palestine. Many of them were scarcely aware of either state's existence until the media and politicians used them in their propaganda.

Where does stoicism fit into this? When you recognize that the Israel-Gaza War or any other event in the world is an external thing, you can control how you react to it. You don't need to pick sides. You don't need to be spun up. You don't need to scream at somebody because their view of the events differ from your own. You don't need to be manipulated like a pawn in the politicians' chess game. This doesn't just hold true for this one war. It holds true for every thing external of you. You can be happy even if you're sick or poor. You can go about your life even if bad things are happening in the world.

Being in control of your reaction doesn't mean you can't have an opinion. Stoicism advocates for reason and avoiding passions. It defines four passions: distress, fear, lust, and delight. I'm not going to get into the weeds here, but the most relevant passions for this discussion are distress and fear. Distress is an emotion you feel presently. Fear is an emotion you feel about the future. Distress is a new opinion about something bad existing. Distress causes people to believe that they should be depressed. You may view the ongoing war in Palestine as a bad thing and decide that you should be depressed over it. This is where a stoic would use reason to analyze the situation. You may decide that the ongoing war is bad (I believe war is bad in general). But the war is also far away from you so there is no need to be afraid for your future (fear in stoicism) well being. You also cannot control the course of the war. Not only are you too far away from the front lines, but no single individual can control the course of a war. Wars are too complex. So you can have the opinion that the war is bad but not feel the need to be depressed, angry, or otherwise effected by it. You can choose to go about your life happily.

Propaganda exploits passions to manipulate your actions, thoughts, and reactions. I've focused on political propaganda, but commercial propaganda, often referred to as marketing, is the same. Apple just announced its new line of iPhones. Its marketing would have you believe that buying the new iPhone will lead to great and wonderful things in your future. Apple wants you in a state of passion so you don't reason your way out of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a device that is only a mild improvement over the one currently in your pocket.

I don't want you to walk away from this article thinking you should become an adherent to stoicism. As I said in the opening, stoicism has aspects I find useful and aspects I discard. To quote the terribly underrated philosopher Bruce Lee, "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." You don't need to subscribe completely to anything including stoicism. But using one aspect of stoicism; the realization that you are in control of your actions, thoughts, and reactions; can make your life more enjoyable by guarding you against the intended effects of propaganda.