i tried reading letters from aurelius to seneca and couldn’t get past the fifth page. you could feel the concomitant opportunism in every line, the carefully measured restraint of a man who speaks not from conviction, but from convenience.
you see, the thing about winning is that it’s a theory—a vantage point we often try to ignore. to win is to assume a position of abstracted wisdom, to pontificate about struggle in past tense, to frame hardship as a mere lesson rather than a lived, suffocating reality. aurelius had won. seneca had won. and once you’ve won, the world takes on a different hue—pain becomes poetic, suffering turns instructive, and suddenly, the miseries of life are something to meditate on, rather than fight against.
but let’s be honest—what is stoicism if not the most elegant form of submission? aurelius, the emperor-philosopher, spoke not as a man trying to survive, but as one who had the privilege to reflect on survival. his words drip with the slow, patient arrogance of a man who has never been truly desperate, who has never had to scrape for existence, who has never felt the humiliation of powerlessness.
and seneca—what do you even say about a man who amassed grotesque wealth while writing essays on renouncing it? who wrote to kings about restraint while gorging himself on excess? there is something particularly vile about a man who profits from both ends of morality, who indulges in the very pleasures he condemns, only to retreat into philosophy when questioned.
stoicism as slave morality
nietzsche saw through it. in on the genealogy of morals, he dissects how morality itself has been weaponized as a tool of the weak, a self-imposed leash to keep the resentful, the powerless, and the downtrodden from ever rising. stoicism, in his view, was a form of slave morality, a way for those who could not seize power to make a virtue out of their inability to do so.
but make no mistake—stoicism was never meant for the rulers. aurelius may have written meditations on detachment, but he still waged wars. seneca may have mused on self-restraint, but he still accumulated obscene wealth. their philosophy, their so-called wisdom, was always meant to pacify those beneath them, to make suffering seem noble rather than unjust, to make detachment from struggle seem wise rather than cowardly.
stoicism: the perfect tool for control
this is why stoicism thrives today. because it is useful. not in the sense of making life better, but in making people complacent. in an era where people are exploited, underpaid, overworked, and told to be grateful for it, stoicism teaches to accept rather than resist.
• your job is soul-crushing? detach.
• your country is falling apart? endure.
• you’ve been wronged? control only your reaction, nothing else.
stoicism, in the hands of the powerful, is not a path to strength—it is a method of control. the greatest trick it ever pulled was convincing people that their suffering is something to be managed, not something to be fought against.
so no, i couldn’t get past the fifth page. not because it was difficult, not because the ideas were too deep, but because i could smell the deceit in every word. a philosophy of endurance, but only for the weak. a doctrine of restraint, but only for those without power.
call it wisdom if you want. to me, it’s just a jejune epistemic scaffold. bullshit in glory.