Stoics in Action is devoted to promoting and developing socially-engaged Stoicism as a vibrant way of life. We have three basic aims:
To show the world by example that—contrary to popular belief—Stoicism is an active, affectionate, philanthropic, and politically engaged way of life.
To provide a forum for contemporary Stoics to develop and refine their approach to social life in six key domains: family, career, service, politics, the environment, and intersectional identities.
To provide a nexus for Stoics to organize joint philanthropic projects, and/or to share tips and resources on how to get involved with service.
This is the first our of SIA Action Spotlight series, which aims to showcase brief, concrete examples of contemporary Stoics putting their ethical principles to work in their families, communities, and beyond. If you would like to submit an example for the Action Spotlight, please send your name, a description of the action, Stoic Fellowship …
This post is a translation by the author—you can find the original French version here. Since October 2018, the yellow vest—that venerable accessory to road safety—has become a revolutionary symbol. Every Saturday, tens of thousands of citizens or more march in the streets, proudly wearing this familiar, fluorescent garment-turned-rallying-sign. While it focused initially on challenging …
I was on a Stoic forum today and someone posted that they are, “thinking about how to combine stoicism with feminism.” I made the mistake of scanning the comments and saw far too many people scoffing at the idea. Now, I do not know what “combining” these two ideologies means. Feminism and Stoicism both offer …
I am not a citizen of the UK or the EU but of the Cosmos! —Socrates (a slight misquotation ) In 2016 the United Kingdom was offered a choice between leaving or remaining in the “Ever Closer Union” of the EU. At the time, many saw it as a debate between petty nationalism and cosmopolitanism. …
Stoics believe in justice. Stoics are for justice. In fact, Stoics do not think there are goods other than virtue or ‘general justice’. But that doesn’t mean that Stoics can necessarily believe in ‘social justice’. I’d like to argue that they can, but it’s far from obvious when you consider that the typical social justice …
January. The sun falls behind earth-colored buildings in the distance. The gold trimming of the Siamese temple glows, reflecting the late afternoon warmth. The streets are alive with slow-moving life. I can see the shape of the wind on the rustling leaves. A constant whirring of car engines drowns out the music at this sleepy …
In this post I want to advance a simple argument: that people interested in following the principles of Stoicism have a duty to practice nonviolent resistance (though not necessarily to be pacifists). At first glance their might not seem to be much common ground between Stoicism and nonviolent resistance, and its clear that the ancient …
Somehow, in a world without satellite television, air travel, or the internet, the ancient Cynics devised the concept of cosmopolitanism. The cosmos is one giant city, they postulated, with its citizens all so intimately connected as to be like kin to one another. Their ideological cousins, the Stoics, developed this notion further, putting it at …
A glaring challenge arises whenever we try to apply a system of personal ethical practice to the wider world. Simply put, how do we get from A to B? How can we translate the basic ethical skills and values that our practice demands into concrete ideas and projects that make a positive external impact? For virtue …
The midterm elections here in the United States are happening tomorrow, and passions are running incredibly high. After a solid decade and more of rapidly growing mistrust and distaste on both sides of our two-party system (as documented by Pew Research Center polls, among myriad other metrics), we’re looking down the barrel at “the most sweeping and …
Becoming something of a majority leader, Cato pressed his conservative optimates to pass a resolution condemning Pompey’s attempt to change election law for his own interest… The Stoic leading the statehouse thwarted the conqueror at every turn, using his now-perfected filibuster to kill the populist legislation. With little room to maneuver, Pompey would try a …
The conversation on Stoic action is fresh and new, but already well underway. This post skims the surface of some of the content that today’s Stoic writers, bloggers, and scholars have produced as they try to translate the ancient philosophy into modern life. For a more complete bibliography of op-eds and papers on the Discipline of …
The best-kept secret of Stoic philosophy may be its intense and direct call to social action. As 21st-century Stoicism has burst onto the scene as a way of life that is alive and well, the old stereotype of the Stoic as a grimly detached, indifferent, and politically inactive personality is arguably falling apart. Stoics, it …
Before the advent of Christianity and Neoplatonism, ancient Greek Stoicism was the most popular and influential philosophy of life in the Western world.
Today, Stoicism is best known as the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca the Younger—the so-called “Big Three” Roman authors of surviving Stoic tradition.
Stoicism is a virtue-ethical philosophy that proposes to offer a psychologically healthy and flourishing life (εὐδαιμονία, eudaimonia) for its practitioners. Its basic tenet, which dates to Socrates, is that moral excellence (virtue) is sufficient for the good life, and should be valued above all else.
While Stoicism is centered around the four cardinal virtues of Western tradition—Practical Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice—this website focuses primarily on the social virtue of Justice and its role in informing the lives and actions of 21st-century Stoics.
Wait—there are still Stoics today?
Stoic tradition has never really gone extinct. Admirers of Stoic ideas and texts have been found throughout history—St. Augustine, Descartes, and George Washington, just to name a few.
In recent years, however, an especially remarkable revival has occurred. For the first time in centuries, it is now possible to learn and practice Greco-Roman philosophy as part of a wider community, either online or through local organizations like the Stoic Fellowship, and with the help of extensive resources offered by various book authors and non-profit groups, such as Modern Stoicism.
Today there are atheist and agnostic Stoics, Christian Stoics, Buddhist Stoics, and traditional pantheistic Stoics, all united by a shared value system, a fascination with the same classical texts, and set of rigorous “spiritual practices.”
Many factors have contributed to this renewed interest in the Stoic life, but here are some of the most important:
Starting with Erik Wiegardt’s Stoic Registry in 1996, the Internet has allowed once-isolated fans of Stoic literature to connect with each other and form a shared community of practice. The online Stoic community has grown steadily to include a number of different organizations and social media groups—some with tens of thousands of subscribers. This has made a recent trend toward local in-person fellowship groups possible, and the Stoic Fellowship network now sports dozens of branches around the world.
Academic interest in ancient Greco-Roman philosophies of life increased dramatically when virtue ethics was revived in the late 20th-century by authors like G. E. M. Anscombe and Alasdair MacIntyre. Pierre Hadot’s interpretation of ancient philosophy as a “spiritual exercise” is especially notable, as is Lawrence Becker’s New Stoicism (1999), which put a revived variation of Stoicism on the map as a modern and defensible approach to professional philosophy.
Stoic practice is similar to and even helped to inspire modern cognitive-behavioral therapy. As CBT has become the dominant approach to psychotherapy today, many psychotherapists and their clients have become increasingly curious about the approach’s philosophical roots.
More recently, a number of popular books, op-eds, podcasts, and blogs by authors like William Irvine, Ryan Holiday, Donald Robertson, Chris Fisher, and Massimo Pigliucci—as well as well-attended events like the annual Stoic week and Stoicon—have helped to make the Stoic life more accessible and appealing to a wide readership.
