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In this episode of The Stoic Handbook I look at a 2020 study asking whether holding Stoic beliefs might be bad for your wellbeing. It got picked up online, and critics of Stoicism, Tucker Max among them, used it to argue that the philosophy has had its day.
So is Stoicism dead, or harmful? The evidence points the other way. Interest in the Stoic texts has been climbing for years, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca especially, and the influence runs well past the self-improvement shelf. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) takes its central idea directly from the Stoics.
One of the study's findings was that a "naive endorsement" of Stoic ideas, things like suppressing emotions or avoiding personal conversations, led to worse outcomes. As I say in the episode, that is a misreading of the philosophy. Stoicism does not ask you to repress what you feel. It asks you to build wisdom and virtue, which is a different job entirely.
Take Tucker Max. He criticised Stoicism for teaching that we can control our emotions, yet his own material on self-respect and personal responsibility lands very close to Stoic ground. Most people arguing against Stoicism are arguing against a thin version of it.
New to the philosophy? Start with my beginner's guide to Stoicism, then come back to this.