Donald J. RobertsonYou mean OCD? I wouldn’t recommend this approach normally for OCD. It’s possible that it might be of value in some cases but that should be at the discretion of a therapist who specializes in treating that condition, and with their consent and supervision.
If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise. — William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
Most people who want to eliminate their bad habits try to do so by directly suppressing them — just forcing themselves to stop. Often they find that simply doesn’t work. In his novel Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence gives a truly remarkable description of the opposite technique:
“A very great doctor taught me”, [Hermione] said, addressing Ursula and Gerald vaguely. “He told me for instance, that to cure oneself of a bad habit, one should force oneself to do it, when one would not do it — make oneself do it — and then the habit would disappear.”
“How do you mean?” said Gerald.
“If you bite your nails, for example. Then, when you don’t want to bite your nails, bite them, make yourself bite them. And you would find the habit was broken.”
“Is that so?” said Gerald.
“Yes. And in so many things, I have made myself well. I was a very queer and nervous girl. And by learning to use my will, simply by using my will, I made myself right.” — Women in Love, 1920
A similar method for breaking bad habits was developed in the 1920s by Knight Dunlap, Professor of Experimental Psychology at Johns Hopkins University and president of the American Psychological Association (APA). Dunlap’s method, known as “negative practice”, was described in his all but forgotten Habits: Their Making and Unmaking (1932). Dunlap was, without question, a man far ahead of his time in the field of psychotherapy, whose ideas in some ways anticipated modern cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).
We normally assume, of course, that “practice makes perfect” and that repeating a habit makes it stronger. We can call that the “alpha hypothesis” (hypothesis a) concerning habits. Dunlap contrasted that with his “beta hypothesis” (hypothesis b), which says that under certain conditions voluntarily engaging in your habit can have the paradoxical effect of making it weaker, perhaps even eliminating it completely.
Dunlap’s hypothesis was that your attitude is key. “In negative practice”, he wrote, “the determining factors are the thoughts and desires in the practice.” If you’re repeatedly performing some action with the intention of making it a habit then, with practice, you may well succeed. However, if your intention is to weaken an existing habit that’s what tends to happen.
Dunlap’s favorite example comes from a method he noticed being used to train typists:
The non-professional typist and the learner frequently make persistent errors, such as the transposition of the into hte, and these errors are ordinarily eliminated with difficulty. It has been found, however, that even a small amount of practice in writing the word in the wrong way will eliminate the error. –- Dunlap, 1932: 95–96
A small study by Holsopple and Vanouse (1929) tested the beta hypothesis with eleven shorthand students. They were asked to employ normal (“positive”) practice to counteract one set of errors, and negative practice to deal with another set. Negative practice was found considerably more effective with this group. In fact, all eleven students appeared to benefit, with errors for negatively practiced words being reduced to zero while mistakes were still being made with the positively practiced words about thirty percent of the time.
A few years later, two researchers published an article summarizing the findings of several additional experiments, from which they concluded:
These and other considerations arising from a more detailed analysis of the data tend strongly to support Dunlap’s beta hypothesis of negative practice. — Kellogg & White, 1935
The main recommendation emerging from early research reviews was that negative practice tends to work better when “massed” rather than “distributed”, i.e., when the behavior to be eliminated is practiced lots of times in rapid succession during each practice session.
In a nutshell, Dunlap’s method involved asking subjects with stutters, tics, and other unwanted habits to voluntarily engage in the behavior over and over again with little or no delay between repetitions. Most importantly, though, they were to bear in mind their goal of breaking the habit. For example, before each negative practice session, clients wishing to overcome a stammer would say to themselves:
“I am going to stammer; I am going to perfect my stammering (i.e., make it as near as possible like my usual stammering). I am to do this now, when I want to, because so doing will make it possible later for me not to stammer when I don’t want to. The better I stammer now, the sooner I will break the habit of stammering.” — Dunlap, 1932: 205
Dunlap found that behavior could be changed in this way, though it sometimes required as much as two fifteen-minute sessions of daily practice for 3–4 weeks.
Negative practice is so-called because it involves practicing a habit you want to unlearn or negate. Later authors refer to a variety of similar techniques as “paradoxical” therapy — the paradox being that you’re instructed to do more of something you want to stop doing. It’s also sometimes referred to as “symptom prescription”.
The behavioral psychologist Clark Hull argued that negative practice might work through a neurological process he called “reactive inhibition”. According to this theory when some piece of behavior is repeated many times in rapid succession your nervous system automatically begins to react by weakening and inhibiting the habit regardless of your intentions.
Other behaviorists observed that intensive sessions of negative practice can also lead to feelings of fatigue, self-consciousness, awkwardness or aversion, which might actually be helpful if they inhibit the unwanted habit. Although there are differing opinions about exactly how the technique works they’re not mutually exclusive — several of these things might be happening at once.
The pioneering behavior therapist Andrew Salter adopted Dunlap’s negative practice technique in the 1940s, and gave this brief case-study of blushing as an example:
I explained to Mr. T. that the human nervous system had, as it were, a logical battery and an emotional battery. Both were connected by wires to different parts of the body. “Your emotional battery, through what is called the autonomic nervous system, sends messages unconsciously to the blood vessels in your face, making you blush. Now, if we can use some power from the logic department instead, you will develop a deliberate hold on the blood vessels, and overcome the unconscious blush signals. The logical department of the brain will tell your face, “You won’t have to blush.” So I want you to deliberately practice blushing. Tell yourself to blush at all times: when you’re alone, and when you’re with people. Get practice in sending logical electricity to your face instead of emotional electricity, and that will put logic in charge of blushing. When you control it, that will be the end of it.” I emphasized that he must practice this vigorously, and it was my impression that he would. When I saw him a week later, he was a bit perplexed. “You know,” he said, “I find that I can’t blush whether I want to or not. It’s the darndest thing.” — Salter, 1949: 64–65
Salter also provides a further example of the technique in which he prescribed that a pretty young lady who had a flatulence problem should, “practice the deliberate breaking of wind at all times.”
The existential psychotherapist Victor Frankl, author of the bestselling Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), likewise developed a technique he called “paradoxical intention”, which appears very similar to Dunlap’s negative practice.
It consists not only of a reversal of the patient’s attitude toward his phobia inasmuch as the usual avoidance response is replaced by an intentional effort — but also that it is carried out in as humorous a setting as possible. — Psychotherapy & Existentialism, 1967
Elsewhere Frankl provides a brief case study concerning a young doctor who had developed a phobia about sweating. One day, meeting his boss on the street, as he extended his hand in greeting, he noticed that he was sweating more than usual. Each time he then found himself in a similar situation he grew nervous, expecting that he would sweat profusely.
It was a vicious circle… We advised our patient, in the event that his anticipatory anxiety should recur, to resolve deliberately to show the people whom he confronted at the time just how much he could really sweat. A week later he returned to report that whenever he met anyone who triggered his anxiety, he said to himself, “I only sweated out a litre before, but now I’m going to pour out at least ten litres!” What was the result of this paradoxical resolution? After suffering from his phobia for four years, he was quickly able, after only one session, to free himself of it for good. — Psychotherapy & Existentialism, 1967, p 139
Although Frankl emphasized that humor was an important part of symptom prescription, researchers employing similar techniques haven’t always found this necessary.
Dunlap used negative practice as his main approach for a wide variety of problems, including behavioral habits like nail-biting, mental habits like worrying, and emotional habits like becoming angry with people. Over the years similar paradoxical techniques have been used to address an even wider range of problems. The treatment of insomnia is perhaps one of the most common uses of symptom prescription in behavior therapy. Paradoxically, clients often find that being told to “try to stay awake as long as possible” tends to make them fall asleep sooner.
Another technique that’s become increasingly common in modern cognitive-behavioral therapy involves the prescription of deliberate “worry time”. A client who feels immersed in their worries is advised to set aside, e.g., half an hour each day to sit in a specific chair and worry voluntarily. Worrying is postponed until then when they can focus more attention on the process. Of course, nobody “worries” deliberately, worries creep into our mind when not wanted. When we set about thinking our worries through deliberately they often seem ridiculous or trivial and the effort can become tedious after a while. This feeling of fatigue or boredom while engaged in the negative practice is perhaps useful, as mentioned earlier. It may actually contribute to the inhibition of the habit.
The English psychologist Edward B. Titchener was reputedly the first to observe, at the start of the 20th century, that when a word or short phrase is repeated aloud very rapidly for a period of time the speaker typically begins to experience it as meaningless gibberish. Recently this has become a common technique in a state-of-the-art form of cognitive-behavioral therapy known as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). For instance, suppose that you’re troubled by a distressing thought such “Everyone hates me!” Repeating that sentence aloud, as fast as you can, for at least a minute, will feel surprisingly difficult. Research shows that in about 90% of cases people who do this report that the phrase feels more empty or meaningless as a result, which can greatly diminish the thought’s ability to cause distress.
Here are some more practical tips derived from the clinical and research literature on negative practice:
You should have a moderate desire to eliminate the behavior you’re practicing and focus throughout the practice on the idea that you’re repeating the habit in order to rid yourself of it.
It often helps to bear in mind examples of how negative practice has been found effective in removing undesired habits such as in the training of typists.
You’ll need to address any underlying motives for clinging on to the habit, e.g., biting your fingernails as a way of distracting yourself from social anxiety.
You may need to have a new way of responding once the habit is gone, e.g., if you eliminate the habit of mispronouncing a word you’ll need to know the correct pronunciation to replace it.
It’s important to reproduce the habit that you’re trying to eliminate as accurately as possible and to repeat it for long enough that it starts to feel quite awkward or tedious.
It can also be useful to spot the bad habit whenever it happens spontaneously and straight away repeat it over and over again, voluntarily, as a form of negative practice. Of course, if you’re suffering from a severe problem you should seek assessment and treatment from a qualified professional. However, many everyday bad habits can be broken by using a variation of this simple technique. People often find it tremendously liberating to discover, after years of trying to force themselves to stop a bad habit, that an easier and more effective solution may be to actually do the very thing they’ve been trying so hard to avoid. As Blake also said, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
I didn’t choose the title, it was picked by the editors.
I don’t think we can assume Marcus was “puny”. As a young man, he boxed and wrestled, hunted wild boar, and was trained to fight in heavy armour, possibly by gladiators at Rome. He loved horse riding and was the leader of a troupe of dancers called the Salii or leaping priests who performed elaborate chants and dances, dressed in archaic armour, to celebrate Mars, the god of war. He was particularly skilled at playing an ancient ball game, probably vaguely resembling modern rugby. We’re told he became less active as he grew older, and his health suffered, but I wouldn’t assume he was of puny stature — we’re not told that anywhere in the histories. Cassius Dio says that although he could no longer achieve feats of physical prowess, in old age, despite chronic illness, he still showed great physical and mental endurance.
Why wouldn’t you take advice from someone just because they’re an emperor? Why would their social status be more important than their intelligence or wisdom? The Stoics taught that we should judge people based on their character, not their position in life, and listen to them on that basis neither writing them off nor treating them as authority figures for arbitrary reasons. Also, you’ve got the poem you mention by Kipling back to front — it’s actually considered by most readers to be more obviously inspired by Stoicism (capital S), the Greek philosophy, not the modern concept of “stoicism” the stiff upper lip coping style. (Kipling had a horse named after Marcus Aurelius, incidentally.)
Wait. None of this is in the article and I’d have to disagree with most of it. :/
Socrates and the Stoics didn’t find their goal in toughness alone — that’s the opposite of what the article actually says. They thought aspects of Spartan discipline were worth learning insofar as they could contribute to wisdom and virtue, the true goals of life.
Perhaps but, as I said, Socrates and the Stoics didn’t suggest emulating the Spartan political state as a whole.
See above.
Who ever said that the Spartans only ate “grains and a few nibbles of vegetables” and no protein? In the article, I mentioned that their main staple was the notorious black broth, made from meat and blood — loads of protein. They also appear to have eaten a variety of other foods, though, as you’d expect.
Did you not notice the passage in the article where it explicitly states the following caveat?
Now, ancient Sparta was, for the most part, a notoriously brutal regime. The severe training (agoge) they put their young sons through was intended to build courage and self-discipline in preparation for military service. However, I suspect what philosophers from at least the time of Socrates onward intended was to argue that certain aspects of the Spartan training could be adapted for use in a philosopher’s way of life, in the service of developing a character shaped by wisdom, justice, and virtue in general.
Since the Battle of Thermopylae, two and a half thousand years ago, the image of the Spartan in his scarlet cloak or chlamys has become emblematic of an ancient warrior ethos.
The Spartans had their critics and enemies, of course. Nevertheless, many thinkers throughout the centuries have been drawn to the notion that we could learn something important from their legendary self-discipline and code of honor. Today, books like Gates of Fire, movies like 300, and events like Spartan Race, help to keep alive this fascination with the Spartan ideal.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae! — Lord Byron
The Greek philosopher Plutarch is one of our main sources for Spartan sayings. Here are some of the key maxims he tells us about.
For the ancient Spartans, character, honor, and virtue, were paramount. They didn’t trust philosophers or intellectuals, believing that wisdom should be displayed through your actions, and the way you live your life. According to legend, the 9th century BC lawgiver Lycurgus reformed Spartan society based on the values of equality among citizens, military fitness, and austerity. He instigated a brutal training regime called the agoge, designed to instill unrivalled courage and self-discipline and shape the characters of Spartan youths.
Spartans also judged other people based on their character. For instance, King Agis was once advised to take his soldiers and march against the citadel of another country, guided by one of its inhabitants. He refused, saying, “How can I entrust the lives of so many youths to a man who is betraying his own country?” In a similar vein, the Spartan king Agasicles once turned away a very learned teacher saying “I want to be a pupil of those whose son I should like to be as well.” The Spartans, in other words, placed more value on finding role models than attending lectures, in order to educate yourself and strengthen your character.
The Spartans were, of course, particularly renowned, and feared, for their military courage. King Agis used to say that Spartans do not ask “How many are the enemy?” but “Where are they?” When someone asked how one could remain free throughout their life, he said, “By being unafraid of death.”
When King Anaxandridas was asked why Spartans marched toward danger so boldly he said it was because they trained their youths to care about life but not, like others, to be afraid of dying. Courage, particularly in the face of death, was the foundation stone of Spartan culture.
Self-mastery was therefore integral to ancient Spartan culture. The Spartan king Agis, asked what sort of education was most popular in Sparta, famously replied “Knowledge of how to rule and be ruled.” That requires Spartan discipline. For example, when someone observed that the Spartan king Alcamenes led a very simple and austere life he said “Yes, because it is noble for a man who possesses much to live according to reason rather than according to his desires.”
Spartan self-discipline also meant knowing how to control your speech, and hold your tongue where appropriate. The Spartans were notoriously laconic, a word which comes from Laconia, the name of the region in which the city of Sparta is located. They used words very sparingly, especially compared with other Greeks. For instance, after giving a long-winded speech, an ambassador asked what he should report back to his country. King Agis said “Tell them only that whereas you couldn’t stop talking, I listened patiently in silence.” By contrast, a famous orator was criticized for sitting at King Archidamidas’ table without uttering a word. However, the Spartan ruler said that an expert who knows how to speak should also know when to remain silent.
Once, someone rudely asked the Spartan Demaratus whether he was quiet because he was so foolish he didn’t have anything worth saying. He replied that, in fact, a fool would be someone unable to remain silent. When another ambassador gave an long drawn-out speech to the Spartan king Cleomenes he said “What you said at the beginning I don’t remember, so I did not understand what you said in the middle, and therefore I cannot agree with your conclusion.” The Spartans were men of few words.
Although Spartan justice often seems brutal by modern standards they did adhere to a strong set of principles concerning fairness. Seeing, for instance, that the runners at Olympia were eager to gain an advantage in starting, King Leo said, “How much more eager these runners are for a quick start than for fair play!” For Spartans, there was no honour in a victory gained by cheating.
Finally, although this certainly wasn’t a view shared by all Spartans, we’re told that when someone brought up the old maxim that a ruler should “Help his friends and harm his enemies”, king Ariston replied that it is surely much better not only to do good to our friends but also to make friends of our enemies. As Plutarch observes, this is also what the philosopher Socrates was known for teaching. Although Spartan society was often very harsh, in other words, it could also find opportunities, sometimes, for virtues like generosity and benevolence.
If you enjoyed this article you might also be interested in the interview I recently did with The Art of Manliness podcast about Stoic philosophy and my latest book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor.
There are several recurring metaphors, which the ancient Stoics used to describe their philosophy. One of the most intriguing is that life is like a ball game — or some other game or sport — wisdom and virtue are like “being a good sport”, or being sportsmanlike and playing the game well.
It was the norm for ancient Greek and Roman youths to take part in a variety of sports such as wrestling and ball games. For instance, we’re told of the young Marcus Aurelius:
He was also fond of boxing and wrestling and running and fowling, played ball very skilfully, and hunted well. — Historia Augusta
So it’s not surprising that we find many allusions to such activities in the writings of philosophers. We’re told that Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic school, was a long distance runner and that he left the Stoa Poikile where his predecessor Cleanthes taught in order to set up his own school in a nearby sports ground called the Lyceum. The Greeks called these areas gymnasia but unlike modern gymnasia they consisted of parks which had pathways for strolling among the trees and by streams, as well as running tracks, wrestling schools, bath houses, and other buildings.
People would gather there to talk, including the Sophists, who lectured and read speeches in public there. Socrates would also go to the Lyceum to socialize and discuss philosophy. A couple of generations later, Aristotle opened his famous philosophical school in a building there, which became known by the same name. Aristotle’s students were also called Peripatetics because they strolled around the pleasant grounds of the park while discussing philosophy. About a century after Aristotle, Chrysippus also gave open air lectures at the Lyceum, presumably walking past many youths playing sports and exercising.
Indeed, Seneca tells us that it was Chrysippus who introduced the metaphor of the ball game to Stoicism, as an analogy for life in general. The Greeks and Romans played a violent team game called harpastum that involved passing and catching a ball, keeping the opposing team from snatching it, even using some wrestling holds. We don’t know exactly how it was played, but it was perhaps like a distant forerunner of rugby.
Seneca explains that Stoics understand helping or benefiting others by means of this sporting analogy:
I wish to use Chrysippus’ simile of the game of ball, in which the ball must certainly fall by the fault either of the thrower or of the catcher; it only holds its course when it passes between the hands of two persons who each throw it and catch it suitably. It is necessary, however, for a good player to send the ball in one way to a comrade at a long distance, and in another to one at a short distance. — Seneca, On Benefits, 17
A benefit has to be given properly, as it were, and also received properly, just as passing the ball requires one person to throw and another to catch. When attempting to help another person, therefore, according to Seneca we must take into account their ability to receive benefit from us.
If we have to do with a practised and skilled player, we shall throw the ball more recklessly, for however it may come, that quick and agile hand will send it back again; if we are playing with an unskilled novice, we shall not throw it so hard, but far more gently, guiding it straight into his very hands, and we shall run to meet it when it returns to us. — Seneca, On Benefits, 17
Seneca returns to this analogy later:
“A man,” it is argued, “who has received a benefit, however gratefully he may have received it, has not yet accomplished all his duty, for there remains the part of repayment; just as in playing at ball it is something to catch the ball cleverly and carefully, but a man is not called a good player unless he can handily and quickly send back the ball which he has caught.” — Seneca, On Benefits, 32
However, unlike in the ball game, Seneca says that the wise man does not expect to the favours that he bestows on others to be reciprocated.
Seneca’s use of the ball game analogy is interesting, as is the fact he attributes it to Chrysippus. However, Epictetus provides an even more compelling account of the same metaphor. In one of his famous discourses, he uses the ball game to explain how Stoics reconcile emotional detachment with desire, or as he puts it “how magnanimity is consistent with care” (Discourses, 2.5). Epictetus introduces the topic by saying very clearly that although external things are themselves “indifferent”, neither good nor bad, the use we make of them is not — we may use things well or badly, wisely or foolishly, and so on. How can we remain free from emotional disturbance, he asks, while concerning ourselves with external things, such as wealth or reputation?
We can do say, he says, by viewing life as we do a game of dice. The dice are indifferent to us — something trivial and unimportant. I can’t even predict what numbers I’ll roll. My business, in the game, is merely to roll them well and use the numbers that come up. Today we would say that, as in a card game, we must use whatever hand fate deals us, to the best of our ability.
Epictetus says that the chief thing in life is to distinguish carefully between things that are up to us and things that are not. Our own voluntary actions are within our power, he says. We should therefore look for what is good or bad there, in our own conduct, placing more importance on that than upon external events that happen to befall us. What is not up to us, we should call neither good nor bad, beneficial or harmful, etc.
That’s the essence of Stoic philosophy according to Epictetus and he proceeds to illustrate it with the ball game metaphor, which was apparently introduced to Stoicism three centuries earlier by Chrysippus. Epictetus goes so far as to say that what the Stoic school teaches us about life in general is precisely what anyone does when playing a ball game skilfully.
Nobody playing ball really cares about the ball itself, he says. They try their utmost to seize the ball from the opposing team but they don’t actually think it’s something intrinsically good. They pass it to other team members skilfully but they don’t think the ball is intrinsically bad. It’s just a ball, neither good nor bad. The art of the game consists in throwing and catching the ball quickly, skillfully, and with good judgment. However, if a player was to become overly-attached to the ball so that he didn’t want to pass it to others, or too anxious to catch it and hold on to it then he’d play the game badly. Because he’s not playing his role properly, the other players would start yelling at him to pass the ball instead of hanging on to it and to catch it when they’re trying to throw it to him. “This is quarreling,” says Epictetus, “not play.”
Epictetus immediately follows this analogy by saying “Socrates therefore knew how to play ball.” When he was standing trial and facing execution he continued to play the game of life fearlessly. He cross-examined his accusers philosophically, “as if he were playing ball.”
Life, chains, banishment, a draught of poison, separation from wife and leaving children orphans. These were the things with which he was playing; but still he did play and threw the ball skilfully. — Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5
We should approach life with as much care as the players in the ball game but also with as much indifference toward the ball, as a thing in itself. By all means, we should exert ourselves over events but more to exercise our wisdom and the art of living than to achieve some external outcome, such as winning the game.
We depend upon other people, and other factors, for food and a roof over our heads, and these things can always be taken away from us, even our own physical health isn’t entirely under our control. However, the Stoics say that as long as we have the material we should work on it as best we can. Win or lose, others, if they have insight and wisdom, may be able to look at you and tell whether you’re the sort of person who is playing the game of life well or badly. Even though you may suffer great misfortune externally, if you handle it well others, if they have any sense, will admire your sportsmanship in the face of adversity. For example, the Roman senator, Cassius Dio, wrote of Marcus Aurelius:
[Marcus Aurelius] did not meet with the good fortune that he deserved, for he was not strong in body and was involved in a multitude of troubles throughout practically his entire reign. But for my part, I admire him all the more for this very reason, that amid unusual and extraordinary difficulties he both survived himself and preserved the empire. — Cassius Dio, Historia Romana
The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness (2019) by Jonas Salzgeber is a new publication about applying Stoic philosophy to modern life. The author blogs at the NJ Lifehacks personal development websites, along with his brother Nils Salzgeber.
The Little Book of Stoicism is divided into two parts. The first, What is Stoicism, introduces the reader to the “theory” of Stoic philosophy and psychology. The second part contains 55 Stoic practices for self-improvement.
Part 1 includes chapters on the promise (or goal) of Stoicism, the history of the philosophy, and what Salzgeber calls the “Stoic Happiness Triangle” — his own conceptualization of the key ingredients required for a Stoic attitude and way of life — and it concludes with a chapter on the problem of negative emotions (passions).
Part 2 consists of a series of 55 short chapters, each describing a different Stoic practices. These are divided into three groups. The first deals with more general strategies for resilience-building, such as Stoic acquiescence and the “reserve clause”, contemplating your own mortality, etc. This is followed by techniques applied to challenging situations, such as coping with grief, counting your blessings, and taking the view from above. Finally, we’re introduced to techniques for coping with interpersonal challenges, such as remembering your own flaws, dealing with insults, and putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.
There’s a lot to digest here but that’s okay. The reader can pick the techniques they find most appealing and begin putting them into practice one step at a time. Small changes often have big consequences anyway.
As the Roman Emperor, Marcus certainly had more power than we have, and his actions had a bigger impact than yours and mine. Yet, even the most powerful man on earth at that time reminded himself to “be satisfied with even the smallest step forward and regard the outcome as a small thing.”
I thought this was a very readable and engaging book. It also contains several nice illustrations drawn by Salzgeber himself, which make it even more pleasurable to read. Written in a very accessible, down-to-earth style, the author obviously had the goal of engaging ordinary readers who might not be particularly interested in the more arcane aspects of ancient Greek philosophy.
It does a great job of providing us with an enormous range of techniques derived from the Stoic literature. Now, I’ve reviewed many books on this subject. However, I’m often very surprised to find that authors who trumpet their commitment to Stoicism as a “practical” self-help approach actually neglect to describe the key exercises familiar to modern practitioners of Stoicism. Salzgeber’s book, by contrast, provides an extensive overview of these practices, divided into no fewer than 55 separate descriptions.
Moreover, despite its popular / self-help approach it also gives the reader an accurate introduction to the philosophy of Stoicism, dispelling several common misconceptions about it along the way. That’s something that other books on the subject don’t always do very well either. Nevertheless, this isn’t an academic book on Stoic philosophy, it’s intended to help people actually benefit from the approach in their daily lives.
My ultimate aim of this direct and straightforward approach to Stoicism is to help you live a better life. I believe we can all become a little wiser and happier by practicing this wonderful philosophy.
So I’m sure I’ll be recommending this as a practical introduction to Stoicism for newcomers to the subject. There’s no shortage of techniques here for people to try in their daily lives so reading this book alone would, I think, be enough for most people to get started exploring Stoicism as a way of life.
This is an article about Greek philosophy and contemporary US politics.
Recently, I’ve started looking more closely at the views expressed by certain political figures and comparing them with the ethical teachings of ancient philosophy. They don’t necessarily have to be people whose politics I agree with. My own views are basically centre-left (democratic socialist) but I prefer to look at what people who are politically conservative have written. I don’t hold opinions about politics strongly wherever there’s room for uncertainty and debate, although I do hold some moral values that have political implications. Stoicism has taught me to remain emotionally detached from questions about which external states-of-affairs are preferable to which. For instance, I believe that a broadly state-run NHS is preferable to the privatization of British healthcare services. Nevertheless, if a health economist showed me solid evidence and a rational argument to persuade me otherwise I’d happily change my mind.
Once, it’s said, Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school heard a pretentious young man exclaim that he disagreed with everything the (long-deceased) philosopher Antisthenes had written. It’s easy to make yourself seem clever by dismissing something out of hand or doing a hatchet-job on the author. However, Zeno asked him what there was of value to be learned from reading Antisthenes. The young man, caught off guard, said “I don’t know.” Zeno asked him why he wasn’t ashamed to be picking holes in a philosopher’s writings without having first taken care to identify what might be good in his works and worth knowing. That’s not unlike what philosophers call the Principle of Charity today. We arguably gain more benefit from reading a book if we look for the good bits first. Otherwise, if we indulge in criticism straight away, we risk missing what’s most important entirely. So it was with that in mind that I decided to read Stone’s Rules, the latest book from political strategist, and Trump-loyalist, Roger Stone.
Stone’s story is now permanently entwined with that of President Trump. Stone claims he started calling on Trump to put himself forward as a presidential candidate back in 1988, although Donald wasn’t interested at first. “I launched the idea of Donald J. Trump for President”, he says. However, he later qualifies this by saying,
Those who claim I elected Trump are wrong. Trump elected Trump — he’s persistent, driven to succeed, clever, stubborn, and deeply patriotic. I am, however, among a handful who saw his potential for national leadership and the presidency.
Stone is a specialist in negative campaigning. His political career began way back in 1972 when, aged twenty, he joined Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign team. Nixon became his lifelong hero. Indeed, Stone collects Nixon memorabilia and actually has a large tattoo of the former president’s face on his back. However, after the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation, Stone was left with a reputation as a professional “dirty trickster”. He successfully turned this into a selling-point, though, and survived to have a long, albeit controversial, career in politics. In the 1980s he worked on Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign and formed the political consulting firm Black, Manafort and Stone, along with Charlie Black and Paul Manafort.
Black, Manafort and Stone’s first client was, in fact, Donald Trump. Later, in the 1990s, Stone began working with Trump in a variety of other capacities. In 2000, he was appointed campaign manager for Trump’s first, albeit abortive, presidential campaign. Trump sought the nomination for the Reform Party but quit during the presidential primaries. It wasn’t surprising then that Stone later served as an advisor to Trump during the initial stages of his 2016 presidential campaign. He resigned in August 2015, although Trump said that he had been fired. However, Stone continued to support Trump and according to some reports to serve in an informal capacity as one of his political advisors. Stone and several of his associates came under the scrutiny of the Mueller investigation, mainly due to Stone’s communications with Julian Assange of Wikileaks and a team of hackers using the online identity Guccifer 2.0, who were subsequently revealed to be acting as agents of Russian military intelligence (GRU).
Stone’s a difficult man to describe. He revels in controversy. For example, he posed for a photo shoot dressed as the Joker from Batman. I find that, paradoxically, people who aren’t very familiar with him often assume that others are “attacking” him when in fact they’re just repeating his own claims. He became more widely-known outside of political circles in the summer of 2017 when the Netflix documentary Get me Roger Stone was released. The film is structured around ten of Stone’s “rules” for success in life and politics.
This idea was then expanded into his new book Stone’s Rules: How to Win at Politics, Business, and Style (2018). The blurb compares Stone to a combination of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. However, the book actually consists of 140 rules, described in a few paragraphs each, written in a fairly casual and often humorous style. There are many short anecdotes about Nixon and other US politicians. As the title suggests, some of the rules are more about succeeding in life, some are more specific to politics. A considerable number of them are about sartorial advice, such as Rule #18: “White shirt + tan face = confidence” or Rule #36, which claims “Brown is the color of shit”. He also includes his mother’s recipe for pasta sauce (or rather “Sunday Gravy”). There are instructions on how to prepare martinis just like Nixon did — who, according to Stone, used to say of them, “More than one of these and you want to beat your wife.”
In the book’s foreword, political commentator Tucker Carlson of Fox News acclaims Stone “the premier troublemaker of our time” and “the Michael Jordan of electoral mischief”. However, Carlson also describes his friend as “wise” and “on the level”. Stone is happy to celebrate his notoriety as the “high priest of political mischief”, “slash-and-burn Republican black bag election tamperer” with “a long history of bare-knuckle politics” and the title “Jedi Master of the negative campaign”.
Stone himself believes that “To understand the future, you must study the past” (Rule #4: “Past is fucking prologue”) and that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. So I want to approach his rules for life from the perspective of ancient Greek philosophy, which began addressing similar ideas almost two and a half thousand years ago, in the time of Socrates. Some of the underlying assumptions about the best way to live, or to govern, haven’t changed much. Stone’s Rule #69 likewise acknowledges that “everything is recycled” in the political arena:
All the ideas today’s politicians present to the voters are simply recycled versions of the same basic formulae that have been employed by political hucksters and power-accumulating government careerists for nearly a century.
Indeed, the arguments Socrates and the Stoics deployed against ancient Sophists address difference of value so fundamental that they’re still just as relevant today. Stone’s rules contain several echoes themselves of perennial philosophical debates about the best way to approach life. Sometimes he says things that resemble Socrates or the Stoics and sometimes he sounds more like their opponents the Sophists. So let’s have a look at a few key examples…
Stone’s Rule #5 quite simply advises “make your own luck”. This is a sound piece of age-old wisdom. Socrates likewise argues, in the Euthydemus, that wisdom is man’s greatest gift because it allows him to turn bad fortune into good. In Plato’s Republic, Book Ten, Socrates also says that unlike the majority of people the true philosopher isn’t perturbed by apparent setbacks. He realizes that we can never be certain whether the events that befall us will turn out to be good or bad in the long-run — there are many reversals of fortune in life. If we stop to complain about every apparent setback, we do ourselves more harm than good. In these passages, Socrates sounds very much like a forerunner of the Stoics. For example, Epictetus, the most famous Roman Stoic teacher would later say that wisdom, like the magic wand of Hermes, has the power to turn everything it touches into gold — he means that the wise man knows how to turn apparent misfortune to his advantage.
Stone’s Rule #60 is his version of the wand of Hermes: “Sometimes you’ve got to turn chicken shit into chicken salad.”
In politics and in life, you play the cards you are dealt. Sometimes you have to take your greatest disadvantage and turn it into a plus. Lyndon Johnson called it “changing chicken shit into chicken salad.”
According to Stone, Donald Trump particularly exemplifies this philosophy of life. Likewise, Rule #13 “Never quit” cites Donald Trump, Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon as exemplars of psychological resilience and persistence in the face of setbacks. Stone quotes Nixon as saying “A man is not finished when he is defeated, he is only finished when he quits.”
Stone also admires G. Gordon Liddy who lived by Nietzsche’s maxim “That which does not kill me can only make me stronger.” Liddy might appear a surprising choice of role model. He was the man who, under orders from Nixon, led the Watergate burglary of the DNC headquarters, and was sentenced to twenty years in prison for doing so. Stone’s right to say, though, that in many cases “Today’s defeat can plant the seeds of tomorrow’s victory.” For example, as a psychotherapist and counsellor, I often heard clients tell me that, paradoxically, losing their job turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to them. Psychological endurance isn’t a virtue in itself, though, as Socrates points out in the Laches and elsewhere. It really only deserves praise when it’s in the service of something good rather than evil. Crooks can be very resilient. Toughness in the service of vice is arguably just another form of weakness.
Rule #54 “Hate is a stronger motivator than love” appears to be one of the fundamental premises of Stone’s entire political philosophy. It’s the basis of his favourite strategy: negative campaigning. Hatred is, he thinks, the most powerful motive incentivizing voters in US elections:
Only a candy-ass would think otherwise. People feel satisfied when there is something they can vote FOR. They feel exhilarated when there is something — or someone — they can vote AGAINST. Just ask President Hillary Clinton about all of the people who rushed out to vote FOR her.
Stone argues that Trump’s central campaign theme was extremely positive “Make America Great Again” but that he was nevertheless “the beneficiary, and an extraordinarily deft amplifier, of a deep, and frankly much-deserved, loathing” for Hillary Clinton.
Do-gooders and disingenuous leftists who decry the politics of fear and negativism are simply denying the reality of human nature, and only fooling themselves. Emotions cannot simply be erased or ignored, and to believe they can is a suicidally-naive approach to political competition.
There’s undoubtedly some truth in this but is it the whole truth? Stone’s Rule #52 “Don’t get mad; get even” arguably hints at a contradictory observation about human nature:
Be aggressive but don’t get angry. Nixon would get angry and issue illegal orders then reverse them when he calmed down.
So why isn’t the same true of voters? Hatred and anger are certainly powerful motivators but so are fear and regret. When people act out of hatred they’re not usually thinking rationally about the wider implications or long-term consequences of their actions: it’s more of a knee-jerk response. That often leads to a pendulum swing when the negative consequences of decisions motivated by anger become apparent. Perhaps, just like Nixon, voters might act out of anger (as a result of negative campaigning) but then come to regret their decision once they’ve calmed down again.
The danger of negative campaigning is that in voting against someone they have been encouraged to hate voters end up electing someone else, not on the basis of merit or competence, but just because they symbolize opposition to the hate figure. That can backfire dramatically, though, if it turns out the winning candidate’s shortcomings have been overlooked. Indeed, as we’re about to see, Stone is quite candid about employing his trademark negative campaigning strategy to create a smokescreen and divert attention away from potentially damaging criticism of his allies.
Stone’s Rule #47 “The Big Lie Technique”.
Erroneously attributed to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, the “big lie” manipulation technique was actually first described in detail by Adolf Hitler himself. […] Nonetheless, the tactic of creating a lie so bold, massive, and even so monstrous that it takes on a life of its own, is alive and well all through American politics and news media. Make it big, keep it simple, repeat it enough times, and people will believe it.
Arguably, a classic example of this would be the “birtherist” conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed that Barack Obama was born in Kenya in order to cast doubt on his eligibility to serve as US president. Stone previously stated in an interview that although he didn’t plant the idea of birtherism in Donald Trump’s mind he did encourage him to keep spreading it. However, although Stone proudly advocates this technique it obviously doesn’t serve his interests to place examples of his own handiwork under the spotlight so he doesn’t actually mention birtherism anywhere in his book.
Instead, he focuses on the claim that the Democrats propounded a “Big Lie” by claiming that the Russian state helped Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election and that Stone himself had played a role by colluding with Wikileaks. So despite writing about his mastery of this art in this book he’s also claiming that his enemies are the ones really perpetrating it. Of course, you can’t credibly admit that you’re telling Big Lies and then, in the next breath, go on to accuse your opponents of doing so unless you back that up with some pretty compelling evidence. Stone’s assumption, though, is that enough people won’t notice or don’t care about that. In some respects, he may be right.
One of the main reasons Stone gives for using the Big Lie is to create a smokescreen to defend yourself against criticism. Stone’s Rule #41 “Attack, attack, attack — never defend” and #42 “Let no attack go unanswered” hammer home the point that the best form of defence is attack. Stone’s argument is that, in life generally but especially in politics, if you try to defend yourself against criticisms rationally you simply risk educating more people about the accusations against you. Mud sticks. So instead launch a “devastating” counter-attack to divert attention away from the charges against you, and ignore them or at least say as little as possible in rebuttal of them. It doesn’t matter, of course, whether the criticisms you face are actually valid or not. Hence, Stone’s Rule #81 “Never Admit Mistakes”. He mentions briefly in passing that people will probably say that’s what he’s doing in response to the allegations that he colluded with Russia during the 2016 election campaign but he denies this and focuses instead on claiming that it’s all part of a Democrat / Deep State conspiracy against him.
In a nutshell, Stone believes that if someone attacks you in politics you should focus on attacking their character even more aggressively than they’ve attacked yours, and avoid having to defend yourself rationally. This is what philosophers call the ad hominem fallacy, being deployed as a deliberate rhetorical strategy. It’s also similar to the fallacy of “Whataboutism” or changing the subject — Never mind Russian collusion what about Hillary’s email server?! The hope is that everyone will forget about the criticisms made against you and focus on the allegations, true or false, that you’re making against your opponents. If it works, you’ve thrown them off your trail completely and instead sent them down an endless rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Of course, that doesn’t prove you’re innocent, it just diverts attention away from the problem by changing the subject. Try that one in court: “Never mind that I robbed a bank what about the judge — everyone knows he’s a Communist and I heard he’s also the head of a weird sex cult!”
However, as Jon Meacham says “Lies are good starters but they’re not good finishers.” The truth usually comes out eventually. Stone is probably right that, rhetorically, it’s a very powerful strategy to attack the character of your critics instead of answering their criticism. However, that won’t keep working forever. Sooner or later your credibility will begin to wane as a result and people will stop taking you seriously, just like the proverbial boy who cried wolf. It might take months, or it might take years, even decades, but the more “Big Lies” you tell the more people will eventually begin to question your credibility.
Worse, although the Big Lie strategy may work quite well in the political arena, at least in the short-term, it has the potential to come back to haunt you in the law courts. For instance, some reports suggest that Stone is likely facing indictment as part of the Russia investigation. What would happen if the prosecution chose to read certain passages from this book aloud before a judge and jury? Once you admit to using deceit on a massive scale to deflect criticism, and never admitting to wrongdoing as a matter of principle, how can anyone ever again trust anything you try to say in your own defense? What goes around comes around.
Book One of Plato’s Republic features a Sophist called Thrasymachus (literally “fierce fighter”). Stone sometimes sounds a bit like him. Thrasymachus adopts the cynical position that justice is for losers and that true wisdom is possessed by those courageous enough to become unjust, by lying, cheating, and getting away with it. He particularly admires tyrants, who hold absolute political power and can do what they want. He looks down on the sheep who bleat about morality as naive simpletons. Might is right, in other words. The honest and just man, he thinks, is bound to be exploited by the dishonest and unjust. Socrates claims that the unjust seek power because they want to gain from it. However, truly good men do not seek political power for its own sake but are more often motivated by the desire not to allow tyrants to rule.
Socrates doesn’t say this explicitly but he strongly implies the view that the motivation of good and honest people to become involved in politics will wax and wane, reaching its peak in response to the threat of tyrants seizing power. History, in other words, may consist of a pendulum swinging between periods of political complacency, when corrupt leaders are allowed to take power, and periods of moral outrage when the people realize they’ve been duped and become motivated to set things right.
Thrasymachus is convinced that the unjust are always stronger than the just. However, Socrates argues that injustice breeds division and hostility, creating enemies within and without the state over time. Justice, by contrast, breeds harmony and friendship, and creates stronger alliances, although we might add that justice often moves more slowly than injustice. So although the unjust may prevail in the short term, over time their power is bound to crumble as they increasingly find their associates turning against them. Their problem is that they can’t really trust anyone.
Stone’s Rule #84 says “Hypocrisy is what gets you”, so he actually does recognize the danger of losing credibility. However, throughout the book he refers countless times to the deliberate use of hypocrisy, insincerity and deceit. For example, Stone’s Rule #55 “Praise ’em before you hit ‘em”:
This technique was one of Dick Nixon’s best. The veteran political pugilist would praise his opponent’s sincerity and commend the opponent’s genuine belief in what are, nonetheless, terrible ideas and repugnant ideologies. […] “Praise ’em before you hit ‘em — makes the hit seem more reasonable and even-handed, and thus more effective,” said the Trickster.
Likewise, Stone’s Rule #39 “Wear your cockade inside your hat” by which he means that it can be advantageous to conceal your true affiliations from everyone except your allies. He writes “sometimes it is best to cloak your real political intentions, so you are able to accomplish more without being under suspicion.” But once you’ve told everyone that, in a book, you’ve kind of let the cat out of the bag haven’t you?
There’s undoubtedly some truth to the idea that deceit can be expedient in politics and Big Lies can have powerful effects. However, these aren’t qualities we normally praise or admire in other people, which makes it hypocritical to adopt them ourselves. That might work in the short-term but, once again, in the longer-term more and more people are likely to figure out what’s going on and you risk losing credibility as a result. If your philosophy is based on deceit you also run the risk of surrounding yourself with fair-weather friends who share similarly ruthless values. So you better hope that when a crisis looms they don’t just decide it’s expedient to throw you under the bus to save their own skin. For instance, that’s typically what happens when defendants agree to plea bargains and turn state’s evidence against their erstwhile “friends” during criminal investigations.
Stone prefaces his rules by explaining:
To me, it all comes down to WINNING. It comes down to using any and every legal means available to achieve victory for my friends and allies, and to inflict crushing, ignominious defeat on my opponents and, yes, enemies.
I can’t read this without thinking of Conan the Barbarian who, when asked what is best in life, replies: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!” I doubt Stone would object to the comparison. He describes his book as a “compendium of rules for war” and “the style manual for a ‘master of the universe’”.
So from the outset winning is everything. Although, a couple of pages later in Rule #1 he also says “There is no shame in losing. There is only shame in failing to strive, in never trying at all.” That attitude interests me because it’s more consistent with the values espoused by Socrates and the Stoics. If we invest too much value in outward success then we inevitably place our happiness, to some extent, in the hands of fate. The philosophers thought wisdom and resilience came from avoiding that and learning to place more importance on our own character and less on the outcome of our actions. It’s one thing to aim at a particular outcome, such as winning an election. It’s another thing to make it so all-important that we’re willing to sacrifice our own integrity in pursuit of it. That’s a recipe for neurosis because it makes our emotions depend upon events that are never entirely up to us. Stone’s good off to a good start with Rule #1 and it should make us wonder what would have happened if he’d developed that thought further and incorporated it into a more rounded philosophy of life.
That’s how the book begins. It concludes with Stone’s Rule #140 “He who laughs last laughs heartiest”:
I will often wait years to take my revenge, hiding in the tall grass, my stiletto at the ready, waiting patiently until you think I have forgotten or forgiven a past slight and then, when you least expect it, I will spring from the underbrush and plunge a dagger up under your ribcage. So if you have fucked me, even if it was years ago, don’t think yourself safe.
That brought to my mind something his hero Richard Nixon once said:
“I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch, that he will do what he’s told, that every income tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends.”
Those are the words of Nixon giving instructions to his aides about the appointment of a new commissioner of internal revenue, caught on tape in the Oval Office on May 13, 1971. As part of this attempt to persecute his opponents, Nixon later handed his notorious “Enemies List”, containing 576 names in its revised version, to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). He assumed political power was a weapon to be wielded, a way of harming his enemies and helping his friends.
Nixon’s words happen to echo an ancient Greek definition of justice as “helping your friends and harming your enemies”, which Socrates vigorously attempted to refute nearly two and a half thousand years ago. In Book One of Plato’s Republic, Socrates basically points out that to genuinely harm your enemies, by definition, is to make them worse than they are already. Just making them weaker by removing certain external advantages such as wealth, friends, or status doesn’t necessarily harm them deep down. As Stone himself conceded: the wise man can “make chicken shit into chicken soup” and turn setbacks into opportunities.
We can only really harm others, according to Socrates, by corrupting their character and turning them into foolish and vicious people, if that’s even possible. He concluded that, paradoxically, the wise man will actually help both his friends and his enemies. That doesn’t mean giving his enemies external advantages, which would be foolish because they’d probably use them against us other others. Rather it means educating them and helping them to become wiser and better individuals, perhaps one day becoming our friends instead of our enemies as a result. Of course that’s idealistic, but it’s arguably a much healthier goal than simple revenge.
I’ll cut to the chase and say that I think the future of American politics should perhaps involve greater bipartisanship. People would do better to try to understand their political enemies, in my view, rather than simply attack them. The law of retaliation (lex talionis) is “an eye for an eye” but as Gandhi reputedly said, that leaves the whole world blind. Socrates argues that revenge harms us more than it does our enemies because it degrades our character and tricks us into investing far too much importance in external things. I’ll therefore leave the last word to him:
“Then we ought to neither return wrong for wrong nor do evil to anyone, no matter what he may have done to us. Be careful though, Crito, that by agreeing with this you do not agree to something you do not believe. For I know that there are few who believe this or ever will. Now those who believe it, and those who do not, have no common ground of discussion, but they must necessarily disdain one another because of their opinions. You should therefore consider very carefully whether you agree and share in this opinion. Let us take as the starting point of our discussion the assumption that it is never right to do wrong or to repay wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.” (Crito, 49c)
Stillness is the Key: An Ancient Strategy for Modern Life is a new book by Ryan Holiday, and an instant bestseller.
It’s part of a trilogy: The Obstacle is the Way (2014), Ego is the Enemy (2016), and Stillness is the Key (2019). Each book can easily be read independently of the others, though. These are Holiday’s self-improvement books, quite heavily influenced by Stoicism. However, he’s also the co-author, with Stephen Hanselman, of The Daily Stoic (2016), a bestselling book on Stoic philosophy, which contains many excerpts from the classics with commentary.
First of all, I want to say that I read The Obstacle is the Way, enjoyed it, and wrote a review a while ago. (Although, I’ve not had a chance to read Ego is the Enemy yet.) My feeling when reading Stillness is the Key is that it felt somewhat more “mature”, by comparison with the first book, and perhaps a more confident work. It’s also more focused on a specific idea — the notion of inner stillness. Holiday goes so far as to say “Stillness is the key to, well, just about everything.” He mentions in passing that what he has in mind is similar to the Stoic concept of apatheia (freedom from unhealthy passions) or Epicurean ataraxia (freedom from disturbance). Holiday uses this quote from Marcus Aurelius as an example of stillness:
Be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands, unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.49
The only real criticism of The Obstacle is the Way that I have, in retrospect, is that some of the many examples it contains of historical individuals seemed a little one-sided because they focused on character strengths and didn’t always mention the same individuals weaknesses. (And that’s a trivial point as long as readers bear in mind that we’re only meant to be focusing selectively on certain aspects of the individuals in question.) However, I felt that Stillness is the Key succeeded in painting a more balanced picture of its heroes, simply by adding a few more observations about their flaws.
I wanted to review this book from a broadly Stoic perspective, so I’ll just mention that this made me think of something the early Stoics said according to Diogenes Laertius: ”A rhetorical speech is divided into introduction, exposition, replies to opponents, and conclusion.” Some early rhetoricians left out the refutatio or responses to critics but the Stoics seem to have thought that an argument was incomplete without anticipating and answering criticisms against it. I think that in Stillness is the Key there’s more of an attempt to anticipate, and absorb, criticisms of the historical individuals used as examples than there perhaps was in The Obstacle is the Way. For instance, early in the book there’s a detailed discussion of Kennedy’s cool-headed handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the other hand, Holiday qualifies his admiration by also noting the lack of self-control exhibited by Kennedy’s reckless indulgence in casual sex. That more even-handed approach makes it easier, I reckon, for readers to enjoy and benefit from the anecdotes without getting lost in the weeds of analyzing whether or not everyone featured makes “a good role model” not.
Stillness is the Key makes quite a few references, perhaps inevitably to Buddhism and other forms of eastern thought in order to illustrate its main theme concerning inner equilibrium and silence. However, Holiday points out right at the beginning:
It’s a powerful idea made all the more transcendent by the remarkable fact that nearly every other philosophy of the ancient world — no matter how different or distant — came to the exact same conclusion.
Sometimes it helps to “amplify” an idea when you can draw analogies from other religions and philosophies. So I’d like to add some observations about Greek and Roman philosophy. As I read the scattered references to Stoicism, the way Holiday presented this special type of “stillness” reminded me very much of the way the ancient Roman religion of Numa Pompilius was presented in an old book I enjoyed recently, Marius the Epicurean (1885) by Walter Pater, which is set in Rome during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.
For instance, Pater uses the Latin saying favete linguis or “hold your tongue” (roughly translated) to illustrate his interpretation of the ancient religious rites attributed to King Numa as evoking a kind of inner stillness and receptivity to spiritual experiences:
But for the monotonous intonation of the liturgy by the priests, clad in their strange, stiff, antique vestments, and bearing ears of green corn upon their heads, secured by flowing bands of white, the procession moved in absolute stillness, all persons, even the children, abstaining from speech after the utterance of the pontifical formula, Favete linguis! — Silence, Propitious Silence! — lest any words save those proper to the occasion should hinder the religious efficacy of the rite. With the lad Marius, who as the head of his house took a leading part in the ceremonies of the day, there was a devout effort to complete this impressive outward silence by that inward tacitness of mind, esteemed so important by religious Romans in the performance of these sacred functions. To him the sustained stillness without seemed really but to be waiting upon that interior, mental condition of preparation or expectancy, for which he was just then intently striving. — Pater, Marius the Epicurean
That makes me think of the lines Holiday quotes from Herman Melville:
All profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and attended by Silence… Silence is the general consecration of the universe.
The Romans believed that Numa, their second king, famous for bringing peace, founded the most important of their priestly orders and religious rites in the seventh century BC. How the profound numinous silence of these ancient Roman rites contrasts with the scene of urban clamour described by Seneca in the opening pages of Stillness is the Key. Nevertheless, Seneca was able to recover his inner stillness, to some extent, by leaning on the doctrines of Stoic philosophy.
Marcus Aurelius’ family claimed descent from King Numa. Hadrian enrolled Marcus, when he was only an eight year old boy, in the arcane college of the Salii, or leaping priests, founded by Numa. A few years later, Marcus had risen to become the leader of the order. Marcus seems to have been genuinely fascinated by the ancient Roman religion and to have studied it meticulously. As emperor he became its ultimate guardian, pontifex maximus, a role that, unlike some other emperors, he took very seriously. If Pater’s right, it’s easy to see how Marcus’ profound immersion in the religious tradition founded by Numa, from childhood onward, would leave impressed upon him the spiritual value of outer quiet and inner stillness.
Pater’s own translation of the following passage from The Meditations, although a little idiosyncratic, brings this reading of Marcus’ Stoicism to the foreground:
Men seek retirement in country-houses, at the sea-side, on the mountains; and you have yourself as much fondness for such places as another. Still, there is no proof of culture in that; for the privilege is yours of retiring into yourself whensoever you please — into that little farm of one’s own mind, where a silence so profound may be enjoyed. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.3
The Romans felt that Numa’s religion bore an uncanny resemblance to the mystical teachings of Pythagoras and some even argued that Numa was a Pythagorean, although this was dismissed by others as pseudohistory. However, it’s no surprise that Marcus was also drawn to the aspects of Pythagorean philosophy that associated inner stillness, and a kind of profound simplicity of character, with the contemplation of nature.
The Pythagoreans used to say that, first thing in the morning, we should look up at the sky, to remind ourselves of beings who forever accomplish their work according to the same laws and in an unvarying fashion, and to remind ourselves too of their orderliness, purity, and nakedness; for nothing veils a star. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.27
Indeed, the followers of Pythagoras were known for taking a vow of silence, which it was claimed allowed them eventually to hear the “music of the spheres”, the sound made by the universe itself, normally drowned out by our incessant talking and thinking.
After [their initial training] the [Pythagorean] candidate was compelled to observe silence for five years, so as to have made definite experiments in continence of speech, inasmuch as the subjugation of the tongue is the most difficult of all victories, as has indeed been unfolded by those who have instituted the mysteries. — Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras
Perhaps surprisingly, because they seem quite different on the face of it, the ancient Spartans shared something in common with the Pythagoreans in this regard. The Spartans thought that too much talking was a vice.
An ambassador who had come to Sparta once made a long speech. When he had stopped speaking and asked King Agis what report he should make back to his people, the Spartan said only, “Report that during all the time you wanted to speak I listened in silence.” When somebody criticized Hecataeus the Sophist because he remained silent at a communal meal to which he had been invited, the Spartan king Archidamidas, Agis’ father, defended his behaviour saying, “You do not seem to realize that he who knows how to speak knows also the right time for speaking.” In a council meeting a Spartan was asked whether it was due to foolishness or lack of words that he said nothing. “But a fool,” said he, “would not be able to hold his tongue.”
Like the Pythagoreans, therefore, the Spartans firmly believed in practising the sort of applied wisdom that consists, when appropriate, in being able to remain silent and do nothing for a while. The Stoics, whom Cicero says adopted a way of life and way of speaking modelled on the ancient Spartans, were also known for being laconic, i.e., concise. Holiday mentions the saying attributed to Zeno that Nature gave us two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak — something that, as you can see from the examples above, could easily have been a Spartan proverb.
Elsewhere, Holiday notes that in The Meditations, Marcus Aurelius poses a shockingly powerful but simple question: “Ask yourself at every moment ‘Is this necessary?’” Try doing that for a few weeks. Most of what the majority of us do, most of the time, isn’t necessary, or even very helpful. Doing less should be the inevitable consequence of genuine self-awareness, or mindfulness, it seems, and I think the ancient Greeks realized that. The Spartans clearly wanted their youth to learn that much of what we say is just background noise but the Pythagoreans seem to have believed that the same applies to much of what we think, at least much of what we think in the form of inner dialogue. Indeed, Greek philosophy contains the distinction Holiday makes between discursive thought, or which is like talking about something, and intuitive thought, which is more like seeing something, and can therefore potentially be achieved better, sometimes, in silent contemplation.
Holiday also mentions that Stoicism, like many other religions and philosophies, has a notion of our mental vision being clouded by emotional disturbance.
The world is like muddy water. To see through it, we have to let things settle.
The Greek word ataraxia, sometimes translated “peace of mind” or “tranquillity” literally means “undisturbed”, like muddy water that’s been allowed to clear and settle. The Cynics had another word for that disturbance, though, which the Stoics sometimes borrowed from them. They call it tuphos, “mist” or “smoke”, and they sometimes said that we’re going around surrounded by this mist in the world, or that our minds are clouded by it. It’s the grand illusion that affects the majority of people throughout their lives, the illusion that external things like wealth or fame are somehow all-important just because other people keep chasing after them — it’s all smoke and mirrors, though. When the wise man or woman sees through these illusions, their mind is no longer disturbed, their life goes smoothly, and they have achieved eudaimonia.
I enjoyed this book. I read the whole thing in about half a day. (The first half in the Ilision Grove park in Athens, see photo.) However, there’s a lot more in it than I can easily summarize here. It’s divided into three sections: mind, spirit, and body. These include chapters such as:
Become present
Limit your inputs
Choose virtue
Conquer your anger
Say no
Build a routine
And more…
I think a lot of people will benefit from reading Stillness is the Key. Although it’s not a book on Stoicism per se, it has lots of references to ancient Stoic authors like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. And I think its basic message should definitely resonate with people who are interested in Stoicism, as well as with a more general audience.