Modernized, Maybe

There is a lot happening in chapters twenty and twenty-one of Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life. He starts with a summary of Stoicism’s place in philosophy since its peak in Ancient Rome and then pivots to adapting Stoicism for the modern day. A significant portion of chapter twenty-one is given to Irvine justifying Stoicism scientifically in the absence of a Holy Creator. He explains several instances of “evolutionary programming” and how they interact with Stoicism in the modern era. His points are solid and detailed in a straightforward and confident manner. However, many of them felt a touch bioessentialist, and lacked the dimension of society and culture.

Perhaps it is just Irvine’s context, but this felt on the whole distant from the actual present to me. While I understood the logic and followed the reasoning, I could not connect to Irvine’s interpretation of Stoicism. This could be simply a personal matter. I have little tolerance for those who invoke science for the sake of simplifying things into binaries that help no one. Of course, one could say that Irvine did not have the time to fully explore each point without distracting from the whole. Although time is important to consider, it does not excuse the fact that his arguments feel shallow. Equating anxiety to “worrying” ignores the multitude of symptoms and triggers connected to the mental disorder. Telling someone that their anxiety is pointless and therefore should be easily overcome with logic is not revolutionary by any means and is honestly quite annoying.