Stoic Perspective: When Bad Things Happen To Other People

Is saying “that’s nothing to me” really the Stoic response?

Earlier this year, I agreed to lead the second event in a new series called “Conversations with Modern Stoicism”. The topic that I decided upon is one that I see many people getting confused about. Some even get quite worked up, argumentative, and angry over it, I’ve found. It’s this: “When bad things happen to other people — should Stoics care?” When we see other people mistreated, reduced to poverty, suffering illness or pain, feeling grief or loneliness, insulted or injured, exploited or abused, should this matter to us?

Some people would respond immediately as if this is a “no-brainer,” that is, a matter one needn’t think about at all. “No, of course Stoics shouldn’t care!” And if you ask them why, they will likely give one of several responses. They might respond that a Stoic shouldn’t care about anything that falls outside the scope of their own mind, character, or faculty of choice. Those are all externals, indifferents, matters outside one’s control, and that includes other people and what happens to them.

Alternately, they might place the focus not on themselves, but on the other person and — depending on what the “bad” thing happens to be — deny that anything bad has happened to that…