I much prefer deep conversation over small talk. Often I will spend hours talking to friends, family, even strangers. There is a lot to learn from different perspectives and experiences, especially those that don’t agree with me. I have studied a lot of literature, and many of my friends are into philosophy, so when we get into arguments or general discussions, philosophical movements tend to come up. These movements had no foundational effect on my personal philosophies, but some provide ideas that I identify and agree with. Here is a list of three philosophical movements that have made an impact on the way I think.
Stoicism
Pictured above: Epictetus
3rd century B.C. – 3rd century A.D.
This ancient philosophy was popular among the Greeks and Romans, and is often referred to as “Suffering in Silence.” This phrasing is a slight oversimplification. Stoicism states that people can rid themselves of negative emotions such as anger, jealousy, and anything else that might pollute unbiased thought processes through the application of logical thought and august self-control. Stoics also believe that life follows a preset trajectory, and while we cannot deviate from it, we can control how we perceive it. A famous Greek stoic named Epictetus writes about stoicism in his Discourses. He states:
[S]ick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy.
A unifying theme here is control. In order to deal with the issues of the outside world that cannot be controlled or changed, stoics look to further control themselves.
Aestheticism
Pictured above: Oscar Wilde
1860-1900 (Heavily Debated)
In the face of the constrictive and overly moralistic Victorian era, aestheticism rose to defend “art for art’s sake.” Victorian standards demanded that art be strictly of a particular type, and created to support the morals and ideas of the time. Anything else was considered ugly. In Walter Pater’s 1873 book “Studies in the History of the Renaissance,” widely considered to be the manifesto of aestheticism, he states:
Of this wis-dom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the
love of art for art’s sake has most; for art comes
to you professing frankly to give nothing but
the highest quality to your moments as they
pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.
The movement of aestheticism argued instead that the point of art was not the result, or the moral message that it produced, but in the enjoyment and beauty of the creative process. Aesthetic proponents believed that this idea encompassed all factors of life, especially Oscar Wilde, who famously claimed that his life was a work of art in itself.
Post-Modernism
Pictured above: Jacques Derrida
1980- Somewhere around now
Post-modernism is defined by questioning the notions that we have already constructed as a society. One of these concepts is that of binaries. People often tend to view the world in black and white when that is not the case. Examples include good/evil, easy/hard, or foreign/familiar. This places limitations on how you can think about the world, and thus, how you can solve problems. Post-modernism encourages thinking about the box, rather than just outside of it. A famous post-modern figure named Jacques Derrida first established this idea and called it deconstruction.
We all have things that inspire our ways of thought, and move us to act the way we do. These movements contribute to the way I operate. What moves you?