Evaluating Emotions: What are the Prospects for a Stoic Revival?

Adverse, even dire events and circumstances are our inevitable lot in life as human beings, and we usually suffer mightily on their account.Some among us even become engaged in enterprises whose basic nature involves confronting such events and circumstances*in combat, for example, or the military more generally.But are the pains that we experience due to such adversities perhaps avoidable?Might it be possible to erect within our psyches an impenetrable barrier to suffering, or at least something approaching this?And would not such unassailability be among the greatest possible boons to humankind?The Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome gave affirmative answers to these questions, arguing that a mental discipline of rational thinking could insulate us from the psychic storms that ordinarily accompany life's travails.In Stoic Warriors, however, Nancy Sherman develops a position that is skeptical regarding not only whether such invulnerable self-mastery is possible, but also whether it would even be advantageous, in particular for those who live the military life.Her book is a measured, but unrelenting, defense of certain 'negative' emotions that the Stoics would think us better rid of*most notably anger, fear, and grief, to which the three central chapters of the book are devoted.In Sherman's view, these emotions, at least when shorn of their excessive varieties, are salutary for psychological health, ethical conduct, and human community.Asking present-day leaders, policymakers, and citizens to consider whether we might glean something of value from a neglected ancient tradition of practical philosophizing about how humans can best live and be is certainly a worthy project.Stoic Warriors is interesting, topical, and accessible, and the book deserves to find a place on many bedside tables.