A Stoic Foreign Policy

Syria: What is in our control and what lies outside our control?

Discussing the tug of war between idealist foreign policy choices and realism the folks over at War on the Rocks hint on a policy truth that is just as true in our private lives, "the true path to immorality and catastrophe was found in mistaking the ought for the is." 

Anytime the world as we conceive it inside our head deviates from how it is in the flesh-space dimensions outside of our imagination, we are set up for disappointment at the least and tragedy at worse.  Some deviation is impossible to avoid, we do not have perfect knowledge.  Even the hardest nosed realist makes mistakes.  Yet when our view of the world is tinged by ideals, any set of ideas, we will develop a false view of the universe and, consequently, respond poorly.  The more ideals color our perception of the universe, the greater the error we are prone to inflict upon either ourselves or others.

The humility of stoicism is that the practitioner trains their mind to accept that which is outside of their control and to distinguish between our preferences and what is.  Perhaps we would prefer the world to be different but in in the very naming it as a preference we remove from the idea the power to delude us.  "Ought" is reserved for things within my control: my thoughts, my actions, my attitudes and even then what is ought is brought in line with the nature of the universe.  I ought to be an exemplar of what it means to be human and human.  I ought to execute my role well, whatever that role is.  I ought to be a model homo sapiens.     

It always escapes the confines of the lab.

The life excellently lived is a microscopic example of realist political action.  The thinking errors which lead an individual into a workplace tryst, thinking it good and will make them happy, are of the same kind that lead a nation's leaders to undertake an ill-advised war: consequences are obscured by misinformed emotion.  The stoic understands the good life to be one lived with courage, justice, prudence and temperance regardless of the circumstances or limits imposed by the world-as-it-is.  A realist foreign policy should be driven by the exact same motivations.  People are people.  Decisions are decisions.  Good thinking leads to good decisions regardless of the subject.  Bad thinking leads to bad decisions whether the damage is personal or commit the populace of an empire to ruin. 


Realists are the true ethicists and the most effective practitioners of compassion.  Ideology is always a simplified view of the world that forces an interpretation on every event in order to fit the worldview espoused. Regardless of the title, ideologues have decided, before the details of a problem are known, the proper course of action on the basis of the theory they hold to be true. 

Marcus Aurelius wrote, "The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall."  Ideology makes predictions as if life were a dance: predictable and rhythmic.  Children often think their lives will unfold in a predictable and benign manner.  Success require putting away childish things and "getting real" both in how we approach our personal lives and the public policy we advocate.

Book Review: The Epictetus Club

My wife has made amazing progress as a cook over our 18 years of marriage. Despite some wonderful meals in her repertoire, she still frequently falls into what I call the fast trap. When turning on the stove top on she reflexively spins the knob to high, and then attempt to ride the wave as she browns burger or sautés vegetables. Scorching is frequently the result and meals burned around the edges a regular occurrence. Dishes also become more onerous for what is essentially nothing more than a habit ingrained overtime.

The fast trap also springs when she does not think of the day’s meals as a daylong endeavor but approaches each meal reflexively in response to hunger. There are days when breakfast begins when a child clamors for it. Lunch preparation begins when she starts to get hungry at mid-day. Dinner is planned when I have begun to hunt through the cabinets, looking for sustenance. When meals are prepared for their speed and not necessarily their optimal taste or texture the family is fed but stress is acute and satisfaction is decreased.

There is a temptation to the fast trap whenever we discover a concept or idea that stuns us with its sense of promise. We want answers quickly. We want serenity now. We want five steps and two weeks to a better tomorrow. Some changes can be made quickly but long lasting change happen more slowly. We can grasp some ideas in a moment but others must sit and roast slowly in the crock pot of an unhurried mind if their full flavor is to emerge. Hope for serenity is smelled before it is tasted and the change in diet takes time to show itself in our overall health.

A few years ago I observed that my monotheism was dying. My moments of unbelief were growing longer and more certain and periods of faith shorter and presented as emotional responses rather than conviction. Disoriented I began to search for something solid about which to orient myself. In some passage of some book somewhere I came across a reference to Epictetus, a stoic philosopher of the second century of the Common Era. As I read his work I began to find hope for an anchored and disciplined life after the death of my god.

By the happenstance of history we have a remarkable corpus of Epictetus’ teachings available to us and I consumed them quickly. Some of it I understood immediately it was easily incorporated into my life. Other bits rattled around in my brain and with sometime I was able to sort them out. The meaning, let alone relevance, of other passages still eluded me. I read college textbooks about the teachings of Epictetus. I began to follow some blogs about contemporary stoic practice. I worked through other ancient and modern authors. I re-read the teachings of Epictetus in another translation thinking perhaps this would help make things clearer. I adopted some stoic practices myself but on the whole I was caught in my own kind of “fast trap.” I thought by turning the heat up higher, reading more words about stoicism, reading more sophisticated analysis of the ancient philosophical schools, that I could make my brain “cook faster” and see the results of a stoic education, if not immediately than quickly, but I was starting to feel a little crisp along the edges.

Reading The Epictetus Club by Jeff Traylor offers a taste of stoicism slowly cooked by an inmate with few books and an excess of time. Concepts that seem largely theoretical are made concrete through clear examples of life leading to and then within a state prison. The genesis of these stories and the desire to escape them are universal to being human: spousal conflict, desire to be a good parent, money problems, seeking a purposeful life, the temptation of shady business practices, worry of what the future holds, the instinct to avoid consequences for our own rule breaking, anger, yearning for respect, and the fear of death. They apply to us all as the author details as he applies the same questions the prisoners face to his own life as a newly minted college graduate beginning a career. The story is told in such a way that applying them to any setting or stage of life is a straightforward task.

Interspersed within compelling narrative the book is organized around ten central lessons taught by inmate “Zeno” that confront basic thinking errors human beings make and offers alternatives to replace them. Complete with exercises and illustrations, the book breaks down Epictetus’ teaching into easily understood bite-sized pieces. It leaves the reader with a slow cook recipie for "what I can work on next" which serves as an outlet other than my fast cooking habit of quickly moving on to another book.  If the book itself is not practical enough, it contains resources for an Epictetus Club program that can be used as a template for stoic practice.  It is not a source of go-to information about the philosopher or the first century but it is an accessible and practical outline of stoic practice.