There is a thread in Stoic conversations that seem to imply that a Stoic should be truly apathetic towards things outside their power. This is, in my opinion, a faulty understanding of how the philosophy is supposed to guide us in our lives. The Enchiridion opens with a note about what is in our power and what is not in our power. It is in many ways the first exercise we need to practice on our journey through Stoicism. Unfortunately I see the results of this leading to people dividing things into "this is in my control" and "I don't care about this". It may be that for some beginners, this is the broad stroke that needs to understand the distinction, but I suspect for many it is not the right way to start. I see this in too many responses online: The opinion of others doesn't matter to me because I'm a Stoic. This is selfishness, not Stoicism. Our reputations are the aggregated opinions of others about us. Reputation is even one of things listed right there in the Enchiridion's first paragraph about what is outside our power, but it is also a powerful tool for Stoics. Our reputation is also information. Our reputation is feedback from the world around us. We want to see things clearly. We are after the truth:
If anyone can refute me--show me I'm making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective--I'll gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in in self-deceit and ignorance.
-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.21
Those who have excellent metacognitive skills can examine their own minds and ask the important questions: Am I Wrong? Am I the Asshole here? Those whose metacognition skills are weak need to rely on information given to us by others. Sure, the information they give is biased, but so are our thoughts about ourselves. It is a human trait to see oneself as the hero of their own story. So listening to the stories about us where we are a supporting character or even a villain are important. They let us know if our perceptions about ourselves are accurate.
So to ignore reputation is to be selfish. We are rational and pro-social beings according to Stoicism. Using reputation to refine our self-perception is the rational thing to do. Other people see things differently than we do, and so they could make us see things in a new light. Being rational creatures, we take and judge all impressions, so to dismiss reputation is to mishandle an impression. It is also pro-social. Ad hominem fallacies abound in society. We dismiss people's ideas because we think some demographic quality of theirs makes their idea invalid. This is not pro-social behavior. Treating people's ideas as coming from an individual instead of a demographic is a socially-positive action. It is not reducing another person to a set of adjectives.
So why is reputation listed as the sort of thing outside of our power? Because it is not something worth pursuing. If we act towards others solely to bolster or shape our reputation, we will probably go wrong. If you make a conscious effort to be nice to people solely so they develop a positive attitude towards you, you are learning to manipulate others instead of learning to be a genuinely good person. Your metric is not "am I being virtuous" but "do I have power of these people".
We should do the right thing because it is the right thing. The intrinsic reward of practicing virtue has more value to the Stoic than extrinsic rewards of mere reputation.
#apathy #dichotomy-of-control #enchiridion #meditations #reputation
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