Short Piece In The Stoic - A Time to Practice Stoic Virtues

Here's my short piece recently published in The Stoic.  I plan to expand it and publish that version in my Medium publishing site in the next week or so.  For the time being, here's the current version.

Widespread Shutdowns 

At the time that I write this, midway through March, responses to COVID19 have shut down a good part of Milwaukee. As in many other places, students have been sent home from schools, colleges, and universities and classes have shifted online. Concerts and sporting events have been cancelled. Libraries, community centers, health clubs, even courthouses have been closed. Many office buildings have emptied, allowing employees to work from home.

Stores sold out of foodstuffs, cleaning items, and toilet paper, and reduced their hours. Bars, restaurants, and cafes began to close. We hosted the last show of our community radio station, WXRW, which then closed until the crisis ends. Social distancing and self-quarantining have become the order of the day for many.

Stoic Guidance 

One of Stoicism’s benefits for its practitioners is providing a systematic and consistent approach to changing conditions and challenges of life. So in times marked by illness, fear, and uncertainty, it provides us with a host of useful responses and reminders.

Epictetus articulated one of those in telling us in Enchiridion 10 that whatever we encounter, we can ask ourselves what capacities we have to deal with it, and we can employ those capacities in order not to simply respond to appearances or impressions, but to behave in a more rational way. Among the capacities that Epictetus names are self-control, fortitude, and patience, each of which is among the virtues.

We should ask ourselves: what capacities do we need in our own present situation? During this COVID-19 crisis, each of the four cardinal virtues of Stoicism is needed in specific ways, helping us deal properly with the challenges the virus poses. And not just the virus itself, but also the unusual conditions it imposes upon us, the reactions of other people, and our own emotional responses to all of these.

Wisdom 

Wisdom or prudence indicates to us what we ought or ought not do, informs our decision-making, and helps us maintain a sense of proportion. Being prudent in the time of COVID-19 means maintaining “information hygiene,” acquiring genuine and reliable information and sticking with it, drawing the right inferences from it, and resisting temptations to spread misinformation.

Justice 

Justice is another needed virtue. For the Stoics, justice is not just a matter of following the right rules, fulfilling commitments, or treating people fairly—for instance not engaging in hoarding resources, whether out of fear or greed. It equally includes kindness towards others, going beyond merely what is expected of one to actively help others in need. Looking in on one’s neighbors, while maintaining requisite distance, for example.

Temperance 

Temperance is needed as well. Living on one’s own, in voluntary quarantine, pulled out of the fabric of one’s routines and interactions requires exercising some self-control, moderation, not just frittering one’s time away, or emotionally eating through one’s stocks.

Fortitude 

And that leads us to fortitude. As Cicero points out in On Duties, while fortitude does involve choosing to do what is right, needed, or noble in the face of fear, it applies to other emotions like anger, sadness, disgust, or desire as well. Virtue is not just a temporary fix We ought to remind ourselves about the need for these virtues not just during this crisis, but after it ends, for the rest of our lives.