I can’t help but think that the rise in stoicisms popularity among manosphere types because it lets them repackage a lot of more undesirable masculine traits under a legitimate label— You’re not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak. Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up.
Whether those traits a “real stoicism” or not doesn’t matter, because that’s the way it gets spread through TikTok length discourse
I think that’s more a critique of the modern caricature of stoicism than of Stoicism itself. Classical Stoicism isn’t about suppressing emotions. It’s about understanding your emotions, examining where they come from, and choosing how you respond rather than being ruled by them.
Also it's about learning to distinguish between stuff we can influence vs stuff we cannot. Like I cannot influence if the sun rises tomorrow or not, so there's not point in worrying about it
understanding, examining and choosing are all thinking based. and that's why stoicism isn't really working well for humans. emotions are neuropsychologically lower level than thoughts/logic/ratio. having said that, lectures about stoicism might well be excellent instructions for language models on how to handle communication with humans.
Part of practicing Stoicism is to bring emotions up to the understanding, examining, and choosing level. You still have emotions, but you don't let them control you.
I love JiuJitsu because many parts of it are like microcosms of life. The first time someone lays on you and you feel like you can't breath, you panic. That's an emotion. After a few times you realize you can breath and eventually you will feel the panic and instead of succumbing, it'll wash past you. By practicing feeling emotions, especially negative ones like being uncomfortable over and over, eventually they move into your higher level thinking and no longer control you. You absolutely still have them, but your reaction to them has changed.
I would actually argue that the sensation from experiencing asphyxiation is not really an emotion but instead one of the most fundamental sensations any life form will experience. Just saying as I already argued that ratio is a layer above emotions. Having said that, Jujutsu (as well as all forms of martial arts and sports) are intertwined with emotional experience and needs. Jujutsu for example is probably one of the best physical therapies for adults to overcome fear of non-sexual physical contact. Also the whole idea around fighting other people in your spare time draws its inspiration from a desire to externalize negative emotions which are either too abstract or too challenging to address in a mental reflection process.
Keep in mind, you’re not actually asphyxiating in this case. It’s just uncomfortable to have someone in your space, feeling closed in, etc… it’s all emotion.
Thats different from actually being choked and tapping to end the fight.
Also, BJJ has been one of the biggest unlocks in my personal growth and stoicism journey. Things that used to make me uncomfortable or annoy me in daily simply don’t. I’m not externalizing my negative emotions, I’ve just become better at dealing with them through repeated challenges. Early on my teacher told me that everyone loses, but the difference between white and black belts is the black will be calm thinking how to escape until the very end. Contrast the white belt who loses control and flails around accomplishing nothing.
It's more to separate the feeling from the reaction to the feeling by a layer of understanding & examination. Feel first, understand the feeling, examine whether the feeling is appropriate for the situation that caused it, determine how to react, react. It's an OODA loop applied to one's own emotions: Observe the feeling, Orient on the situation, Decide on a response, Act as decided. If you pre-decide to always suppress any reaction you're missing the point. Stoicism is quite similar to modern Cognitive Behavior Therapy. If you just react without thinking you'll often react to your learned habits rather than the actual situation at hand.
The realization of emerging emotions by cultivating mindfulness. I mean this is basically also what various practices/exercises in (Zen) Buddhism aim at. But I'd argue that the practical methodology advertised by Stoicism is too ratio based to be effective beyond a basic . I would rather put my money on more indirect approaches like classic mindfulness exercises and meditation. They are less goal oriented by design, but the axiom (which I accept from experience and observation) is that a healthy mind will be expressing stoic virtues naturally without knowing how to call it.
And now that I've read that the second time, this is very close to various kinds of therapy.
For example, anxiety exists and sometimes occurs, and it means parts of me are trying to be very careful and precise about something. This can be a problem at times if it overcomes you, but it can also be leveraged into a strength once you figure why it's flaring up at the moment.
Another example, travel used to be a nuisance, but now I've setup and continue refining some packing and preparation checklists for trips of varying length. Now it's a big no-brainer to be well-prepared for a short work-trip and I'm usually very calm about it.
One thing that's worth noting is that Epictetus himself was a slave, and I think it's informed a lot of his thoughts. For him, true freedom is being able to overcome the events of the world. You may not be able to control whether or not you're a slave, but (to Epictetus) you can control how you feel about being a slave, and that is true freedom.
ie, he saw the world as full of misery and difficulty, and saw modifying your internal experience as the only possible path forward.
Marcus Aurelius was the most powerful man in the world and adopted the same outlook. there were people along the whole spectrum between slave and emperor who also did.
Huh, I never saw it that way but it makes sense. I guess the cruelest thing to do to Epictetus would then be to make him believe he could be anything other than a slave, if only he worked hard enough. Oh...
Even better, where did you get the opinions? are they definitely your own, did you choose them from all available options by picking the ones that were best for you, or did you passively absorb them from people who can profit from giving you those opinions?
This is the exact phrasing I was just searching for, and I fear the same thing that this pop stoicism revival is trying to formalize some really asocial behaviors.
Reminds of “We belief something first, and then we pick our reasons for it.”
People aren’t really engaging with their philosophy (“love of wisdom”) but pick and choose so it reinforces what they already believe. They don’t exactly think about it they stay mildly glossing some concepts in the popular amateur/ social media sphere.
In some ways I always wonder if this Build-A-Bear thingy we've developed in the last 100 or so years regarding spirituality, morals, principles and all that as an alternative to traditional religious practices isn't just as lame as what it's meant to replace but in its own kind.
I'm not advocating for religious institutions or theocracy, mind you, I'm trying to formulate an argument how someone talking about how living life in accordance to Stoics on YouTube or Christ in a church is more of an aesthetics issue than a virtue one.
Though I feel by the time I successfully formulate that argument I'll have multiple groups clamoring for my head.
It's not just pop stoicism. For years now it seems to me that a lot of memes regarding personal conduct spread on social media that essentially try to dress up toxic behavior in a positive light and encourage it.
I'm aware that society had these same sorts of issues prior to social media but it's still depressing watching it play out.
I’m tired of the whole “toxic masculinity” framing.
First, it’s sloppy. Plenty of genuinely harmful traits exist, but trying to pin them to “masculine” or “feminine” archetypes is more ideology than analysis. If the problem is bad behavior, just call it bad behavior. Adding a gender label doesn’t improve clarity, it just adds noise.
Second, it’s selectively applied. Many traits that are equally destructive are rarely labeled at all, usually because they’re expressed indirectly or through social maneuvering rather than overt force. That doesn’t make them less harmful, just harder to name without breaking the narrative.
More broadly, labeling a negative trait as inherently “masculine” is simply rude and unnecessary. “Undesirable traits” works fine and doesn’t require turning half the population into a rhetorical prop.
As a non-toxic and extremely moral male biological specimen, I’ll just note that attaching moral failure to the male gender category feels oddly out of step with modern norms around inclusivity. It’s as vile and disgusting as referring to a person by the wrong pronoun.
I think you should understand the terms as "toxic masculinity" as opposed to "positive masculinity". It's not saying masculinity is toxic. Or if you want, as opposed to "true masculinity" - reframing masculinity as a positive thing when expressed correctly.
Why do undesirable or desirable behaviours need a sex/gender label at all? Asshole behaviour isn't gender-specific. Maybe people should just focus on criticizing specific undesirable behaviours, and praising specific desirable behaviours.
If you replaced "males" in that sentence with ... well, let's be honest here, pretty much any other category, the statement would likely be deemed entirely unacceptable and the comment censored (ie [flagged][dead]) in short order.
Regardless of how the statistics for that specific set of behaviors break down my personal experience is that both the application and acceptance of such terminology (ie referring to various sets of behaviors which it might make sense to group together based on whatever metric) is highly selective in a manner that's convenient for the party expressing it. The statement is often true but the grouping superfluous, included only (seemingly) to push an agenda.
In this specific discussion, the traits labelled as toxic masculinity were as follows:
> You’re not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak. Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up.
The person who most embodies these traits for me, in my life, is...my mum. I don't view them as exclusively toxic any more than I view them as exclusively masculine, either. Sometimes you really do just choose to hug your kids even when they were aggravating little twits five minutes ago and you're still mad at them, and that's a good thing.
> The group of traits often described by "toxic masculinity" are overwhelmingly displayed only by males, so... it makes sense?
Even supposing that were true, why does it make sense to invent and use a discriminatory label for a whole group? You just assert that without justification. Is that acceptable in any other context or for any other group? Do we speak of toxic blackness, or toxic femininity, or toxic Islam?
Crime is also overwhelmingly associated with race. Intelligence quotient as well. We don’t characterize race by statistical facts because we would offend the outliers.
I think it’s important to follow etiquette in common language rather then label entire minorities or groups based off of statistics.
There is a correlation between crime and race. Also Race and poverty. The causal association has yet to be determined but the correlative association exists.
But there is no corresponding discussion of "toxic femininity", or if there is, it is that discussion is framed as more "toxic masculinity" from the "manosphere".
It's a term used to apply guilt across all males to subvert any actual debate.
The term is overused. Females have extremely toxic behavior as well. But the term toxic feminist is not used to label them. It’s nowhere near as extreme.
It's strange. Clearly at some point society at large came to believe that the current crop of terms at the time was undesirable. Yet various modern analogues are treated differently.
Depends on what you mean by polite company, I think. I'm sure there are a lot of conversations among men, who are polite to each other, talking about women being on their periods or hysterical or whatever. Is that no longer the norm? My friend group doesn't do it but given the rhetoric we've seen on HN and elsewhere "locker room talk" is still a thing.
I don't think you'd need to be similarly selective about the phrase "toxic masculinity" at least on average. Hopefully you see the point I'm trying to make?
Of course it's also possible that I live in a slightly different bubble than you do.
I use the term not for traits and behaviours I think are masculine, but are sold as being masculine, which are toxic. An example would be that it's masculine to not cry or show emotions (whereas woman are labeled as "emotional"). Suppressing emotions is nothing gender specific of course, but when certain groups promote that as "masculine", calling that "toxic masculinity" makes sense IMO.
I still think this is where the framing quietly breaks down.
What you’re describing is not “masculinity” being toxic, but a particular sales pitch that smuggles bad norms under the masculinity label. Historically, this is exactly how language like “that’s so gay” operated. People didn’t mean “homosexual” in any literal sense. They meant weak, unserious, emotionally incontinent, indulgent. If pressed, the defense was always the same: I’m not talking about gay people, I’m talking about the stereotype society wrongly attaches to them.
The move is familiar because it works rhetorically. You get to criticize a behavior while outsourcing the moral weight to an identity category. The identity absorbs the stain, even if everyone insists that’s not what they meant.
We’ve seen this pattern over and over:
“Real men don’t cry.”
“Be a man” meaning suppress emotion, not develop discipline.
“That’s gay” meaning fragile or contemptible.
“Masculine energy” marketed as dominance without responsibility.
“Feminine energy” marketed as intuition without accountability.
In every case, the failure isn’t gendered. It’s human. But the label does the work of making it feel natural to aim the critique at a group rather than the behavior itself.
This is why the analogy matters. Society eventually realized that using “gay” as a stand-in for negative traits was lazy at best and corrosive at worst, even when people swore they weren’t talking about actual gay people. The word still carried the freight.
I’m just applying the same standard here, as a proud champion of masculinity and part-time custodian of its reputation.
If the problem is emotional suppression, call it emotional suppression.
If the problem is social pressure to perform invulnerability, call that out.
If the problem is dominance without accountability, say so plainly.
Masculinity, like femininity, is a broad distribution of traits, not a slogan. Strength and restraint. Risk-taking and responsibility. Stoicism and emotional regulation. The pathologies show up when any of those lose balance, not because they’re “masculine.”
We spent decades correctly arguing that femininity itself wasn’t the problem, only the caricatures imposed on it. I’m simply extending that courtesy to masculinity, which seems overdue.
As a non-toxic, extremely moral male biological specimen and self-appointed advocate for masculine dignity, I’m fully in favor of men crying, feeling, and communicating. I just don’t think masculinity needs to be rhetorically sacrificed to achieve that outcome.
If anything, masculinity should be defended, rehabilitated, and held to a higher standard, not permanently prefixed with an asterisk.
> ... As a non-toxic, extremely moral male biological specimen and self-appointed advocate for masculine dignity, I’m fully in favor of men crying, feeling, and communicating. ...
The whole point is that men communicating about their inner emotions and feelings have to learn to be extremely diplomatic about it, lest their communication be misinterpreted by others (intentionally or not!) as them just freaking out and throwing an angry temper tantrum. Men have responsibilities to those around them that ultimately require developing strong discipline and keeping their emotions under check, at least to a very significant extent. This is what the whole notion of "toxic masculinity/femininity/whatever" is getting at; ultimately, uncontrolled anger and other negative emotions can be a whole lot more toxic than simple emotional restraint.
It's funny because while I believe the concept of toxic masculinity is absolutely badly used in general, and should be seen with suspicion, here is one of the real examples it makes sense to use it. There absolutely people (Andrew rate is one of the most famous) that prey on the weaknesses and toxic aspects of masculinity (you have also the same for female weaknesses and toxicity)
> As a non-toxic and extremely moral male biological specimen, I’ll just note that attaching moral failure to the male gender category feels oddly out of step with modern norms around inclusivity. It’s as vile and disgusting as referring to a person by the wrong pronoun.
This would read like satire in most places besides HN
> You’re not allowed to feel things. Emotions make you weak. Just suck it up and power through. Bottle it up.
Yeah, none of that is "real stoicism", but just the hydroponic TikTok version of it, as you say.
This can happen to anything if TikTok is your main source of information; everything becomes life hacks, "tricks", and "did you know that <insert biased misinterpretation of well known thing>" types of knowledge bites. Philosophy is unfortunately not the only victim of short-length "edutainment".
I think that Stoicism might be particularly vulnerable to this because of its built in flexibility, which makes it easy for people to divulge their interpretations of it with little pushback. If you haven't read much of it, and without a clear rirgid "rule set" for what Stoicism is (other than its tenets in the cardinal virtues and dichotomy of control), you might believe me if I tell you that it is a Philosophy that encourages suicide and tells you that being sad because a family member passed is stupid.
As someone who has been interested in actual Stoicism for years, yes, there is a whole industry of people monetizing cherry-picked bullet points to serve up what people already want to hear. The fact it all comes with a less-than-subtle sheen of "Western Thought" widens the audience to not just men who don't think real good, but also racists. Happily, now that can be accelerated with AI as we simultaneously remove actual Greek philosophers from college entirely!
I would love to sit back with some quotation from Marcus Aurelius about how it's not anything I have to worry about, but that's the part I never quite bought into with Stoicism I suppose. So ignore all of the above.
I got interested a few years back thanks to Derren Brown's book "Happy" (recommended). I have found it helpful. I can't say I actually do any of the exercises, but it has slightly reframed how I think about my own wellbeing and happiness.
edit: I've missed all this new bite sized version stuff though precisely because I avoid bite size stuff like the plague. TikTok and the TikTokification of everything else can fuck right off. I'm looking at you, YouTube.
The modern/online resurgence of stoicism isn’t driven by people that have studied actual books.
It’s being driven by people that are making tiktoks after they learned about it by watching a five minute YouTube video. It’s a very lossy game of telephone.
Pop philosophy being turned into AI audio transcribed by a cool video game character (also being mostly AI generated) is clearly the crowning jewel of our civilization.
Whether those traits a “real stoicism” or not doesn’t matter, because that’s the way it gets spread through TikTok length discourse