Where to turn to when politics becomes too messy
It’s 19 weeks until you get to play your part in the democratic process and vote, which begs the questions: if the past weeks’ campaigning is anything to go by, essentially an endless bitch-slap across the political divide, is this what stands for political discourse in Aotearoa today, and how is that affecting how you’ll vote?
Be it Education Minister Jan Tinetti being hauled before Parliament’s privileges committee on contempt charges after failing to correct false information fast enough, which her prime minister’s office knew about, to National flirting with the culture wars through its erratic messaging about bilingual road signs, while not forgetting about its appetite to stop females voting for the party because, well, women can afford to pay for their contraceptive prescription charges, the campaign so far has been a scrappy, vacuous affair.
Rather than becoming an eyeswivelling keyboard loon or disengaging entirely from the political process, there is another way for voter and politician alike to traverse this election – by adopting the philosophy of the Stoics.
How can a 2000-year-old philosophy whose superstars were the likes of Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius fight the emotional tribalism of today’s modern politics? Through the three Stoic disciplines: Perception, Action and Will. In other words, think right, act right and accept what is beyond your control.
And while there’s little if anything in the philosophy that points to modern policy, it provides a clear framework to test your political beliefs.
A central tenet of stoicism is the question that Epictetus asked his students: ‘‘What is up to me, what is not up to me?’’
Stoic critics define this as the art of resignation, when it’s in fact about the notion of anger making you an emotional slave, which forfeits your logic and the battle.
Instead, Stoics favour logic and a clear mind in the face of opposition. This provides the opportunity to change your opponent’s mind or alternatively give you a greater understanding of the issue. In other words, groups that seek to silence their opposition through an emotional overreaction have already lost the fight.
Then there’s the Stoic antidote
for echo chambers and rabbit holes based on the idea that while we may believe we listen to others’ ideas, it’s based on limiting our knowledge to those we already agree with. Or, as Epictetus says: ‘‘It’s impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.’’ In short, we say what we hear.
If you want to break out of tribalism, listen to as many other
ideas as you can before forming your opinion, even the ones with which you absolutely disagree.
But voters aside, Stoic philosophy also provides lessons for politicians, involving that most fragile character trait, their ego. A politician’s ego can mean they believe they’re perfect, that they can’t get any better, which prevents them from learning. Too much ego means politicians fall prey to only hearing praise delivered by oleaginous ‘‘yes men’’ content to accept, as Seneca wrote, ‘‘our due whatever flattery has been shamelessly heaped upon us’’.
If the prospect of a politician, no matter what their hue, asking themselves if they’ve mastered themselves enough to be worthy of public office seems laughingly antithetical in 2023 politics, then consider this; isn’t it better to vote for someone who can curb their own appetites, and therefore can do the same on a national level?
It’s certainly not sexy politics in Aotearoa’s presidential-style agenda, but authentic humility would be wildly popular, if for no other reason than it’s rare.
If all of this sounds like waffly Zen piffle to you in the middle of a campaign where barbed slights fly like inconsequential arrows, think again.
As Ryan Holiday, author and the man behind Dailystoic.com, says, stoicism was built for the full contact sport of politics. Or, as Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius put it: ‘‘The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.’’
Are you a politician in a standoff over the death of a bipartisan housing policy? Did you read the wrong speech in Parliament? Or are you simply perceived as part of the party of pale, stale misogynistic males? For a politician-stoic it’s all in a day’s work while the voterstoic-in-training will take the long view, suspending judgment until they find out more.
Because being a Stoic means that while you may detach yourself from the heat of political trivia, you still must actively participate in civic life. You don’t get a leave pass on your democratic obligations, or, as Holiday puts it, you don’t get to not care.
Stoicism affords voters the chance to escape the inconsequential and to embrace the crucial issues by questioning not only our character and competence, but also those of the politicians we vote for.
To do that we have to avoid the factually incorrect and be fully informed.
As Seneca said, ‘‘If you judge, investigate.’’