7 Stoic Lessons That Can Fix Our Toxic Political Discourse
By: Brenden Weber
Tags: Self Improvement, Politics, Life, Culture, Life Lessons

What’s the state of our political discourse? Emotional. Irrational. Tribal. Toxic. None of these adjectives bode well for cultivating a healthy political culture and discourse. We now live in a political culture filled with name calling, insults, and threats, with everyone having their favorite echo chamber to scurry too when their worldview is challenged.

A toxic political discourse is devastating if you’re trying to uphold the pillars of a democracy.

What happened the time period of political discourse with mutual respect?

Fortunately for us, ideas over 2,000 years old from Stoic philosophers can help teach us to calm our minds, clear our heads, and begin a path to rationalism again. By utilizing these lessons, we can help tear down political toxicity––then reopen ourselves and society to rational political discourse.

1. “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” ––Seneca

Go through life as a student. Treat every person or ideas as a potential teacher to learn from. Even an idea or a person you disagree with can teach you valuable golden nuggets of knowledge, just be willing to absorb.

Humility is the key to going through life ready to learn.

2. “If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.” ––Marcus Aurelius

Counter political positions are not the cause of our disturbance, it’s your judgment of those viewpoints. This accomplishes nothing in a dialogue of ideas.

We should consider wiping away our immediate judgments. Not only will better political discourse take place, but it can also save us from unnecessary anger and anxiety.

3. “The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.” ––Marcus Aurelius

A major pillar of stoicism is not allowing yourself to be enslaved by your emotions. Aurelius argued that allowing your mind to emotionally react to the opposition is a sign of weakness. By allowing yourself to be overcome by emotion, is to allow yourself to surrender reason.

These emotional reactions are the destructive pillars of our toxic political environment. A display of anger at the ideas of your political opposition not only does nothing to address flaws in their stances but demonstrates a lack of reason in your own.

Violence and intimidation will accomplish nothing for dialogue. A calm mind is the only method of thinking for progress.

4. “We should always be asking ourselves: “Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?” ––Epictetus

Part of where our political toxicity stems from is our false belief that we can force someone to hold our political positions.

What can we control? First, we can stay calm in our conversations, listen and digest the opposing words. Second, stay open-minded. At the very least this will allow you to better understand opposing positions to then learn how to address those points.

Stop trying to change a persons view. Focus on what you can control––only then can you get someone to question their positions.

5. “Those who receive the bare theories immediately want to spew them, as an upset stomach does its food. First, digest your theories and you won’t throw them up. Otherwise, they will be raw, spoiled, and not nourishing. After you’ve digested them, show us the changes in your reasoned choices, just like the shoulders of gymnasts display their diet and training, and as the craft of artisans show in what they’ve learned.” ––Epictetus

This helps break down the root of our toxic political environment––everyone is trying to create this persona of being the enlightened political person.

We go and read political theories from our favorite talking heads and immediately want to throw them back up. Spewing(repeating) that opinion all over social media. Trying to appear as the woke friend, secretly giving ourselves a nice stroke of the ego.

We need to stop acting knowledgeable and instead be knowledgeable.

6. “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” ––Epictetus

Consume. Consume. Consume. Learn as much as you can before putting your ideas forward.

Today’s information climate has brought us endless echo chambers for all of us to run too. A place to stroke our intellectual ego, while doing nothing to broaden our perspectives. We should step back and open ourselves up to a broad range of arguments and perspectives. Take back the mindset of continually taking in knowledge and ideas.

By allowing ourselves to listen to many opinions, ideas, and perspectives before forming our own we can not only create better discourse but work to end political tribalism.

7. “If you judge, investigate.” –– Seneca

Today we have social media, constant news cycles, and an internet riddled with clickbait headlines, making the consumption of information constant and easily accessed at all times.

Unfortunately, this constant information access seems to make everyone instant experts after reading a couple quick takes and headlines. People form a strong opinion of someone or something before they fully grasp the facts, details, and story.

Seneca is teaching us to fully understand your opinion and the information before forming a strongly held belief. Forming your stances on current fairs after reading a couple headlines and then sharing on social media does more harm than good.

Take a step back and investigate if you truly want to understand the issues.