It's no accident that a roman emperor (tyrant, mass murderer, and courtier) is the premier famous stoic. Nor is it an accident that the next most famous case is that of British empire public schooling, british "stiff upper lip" stocisim.
(EDIT: Marcus Aurelius) himself was no stoic philosopher, he merely wrote diaries to himself in his late days -- diaries he wanted burned, not published. And these were rehresals of what his stoic teachers had taught him while he was being raised into the roman aristocracy. Without this context, its very easy to misread his diaries in the manner of some religious text, cherry picking "whatever sounds nice".
Its clear, under this view, how bitter and resentful many of these reflections were. He retreated to his diaries to "practice stoical thoughts" on those occasions where he was emotionally distributed. They are, mostly, rants. Rants against the court (eg., ignore the schemes of others, etc.); rants against the public (no matter if one is whipped, beaten, etc.); rants against how his prestige means little as a leader. Stocism here serves as a recipie to smooth one's injuries faced as a member of the elite, surrounded by vipers and with meaningless prestige.
Stoicism, under this light, is training for a ruthless sort of leadership. From the pov of The Leader, all adoration is fake, all prestige, and status. Your job is to pretend it matters because it matters to your followers. It's a deeply hollow, dissociative, nihilistic philosophy which dresses up the status quo as "God's plan" -- a rationalization of interest to the elite above all others.
(EDIT: Marcus Aurelius) himself was no stoic philosopher, he merely wrote diaries to himself in his late days -- diaries he wanted burned, not published. And these were rehresals of what his stoic teachers had taught him while he was being raised into the roman aristocracy. Without this context, its very easy to misread his diaries in the manner of some religious text, cherry picking "whatever sounds nice".
Its clear, under this view, how bitter and resentful many of these reflections were. He retreated to his diaries to "practice stoical thoughts" on those occasions where he was emotionally distributed. They are, mostly, rants. Rants against the court (eg., ignore the schemes of others, etc.); rants against the public (no matter if one is whipped, beaten, etc.); rants against how his prestige means little as a leader. Stocism here serves as a recipie to smooth one's injuries faced as a member of the elite, surrounded by vipers and with meaningless prestige.
Stoicism, under this light, is training for a ruthless sort of leadership. From the pov of The Leader, all adoration is fake, all prestige, and status. Your job is to pretend it matters because it matters to your followers. It's a deeply hollow, dissociative, nihilistic philosophy which dresses up the status quo as "God's plan" -- a rationalization of interest to the elite above all others.