When I was a sophomore I took a class called biopsychology where I sat next to a girl writing her honors thesis on philosophy in American media. I have since lost touch with her but I still thing about her ideas regularly. One aspect of philosophy that her and I particularly discussed was stoicism. It’s an aspect of philosophy that has taken over, at least in my circles.

I frequently see it present in gym culture, a subculture I spend a fair bit of time in. It’s becoming increasingly frustrating for me because it I feel as though a lot of the quotes I see pertaining to stoicism are quite out of context. For example, I see a lot of men posting photos of women, avoiding them like the plague. It’s all about “staying focused” and “keeping your goals in sight.” In itself I don’t think this is the worst idea, but in practice, it seems to be pretty toxic. The way this manifests is men who start to hate women as they slowly pidgeon-hole themselves into echo chambers of other toxic men. If you don’t believe me, check the comments on any Instagram post about stoicism and lifting weights. Click on the profiles. So many people are just assholes.

I think a lot of this toxic masculinity comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of a lot of the philosophy. For starters, who attends the gym wearing a shirt with Marcus Aurelius on it and actually knows who Zeno is? Additionally, consider the status of Marcus Aurelius (the one who wrote all the cool misunderstood quotes).To begin with, Macus’ book wasn’t a book. It was a journal. It isn’t, and wasn’t meant to be, contiguous. The context in which he wrote what he did should also be considered. When Marcus Aurelius writes about not being distracted by “worldly pleasures” like sex, let it be considered the level of sexual deviance he was probably surrounded by. I’ll let you google the Caligula movie to see what I’m talking about. Another one of the most commonly quoted themes that I think demonstrates my point is the phrase “momento mori.” Now I definitely think this can be a valuable sentiment for people to internalize in order to put a priority on certain aspects of their lives, but I also think it demonstrates the lack of context surrounding these quotes. When Marcus Aurelius was writing a large portion of his meditations, where was he? He was at the battle front in his Aurelian wars dealing with plague. I mean the dude practically ended the Pax Romana. With this in mind, it makes a lot of sense how worried he was about dying. The dudes food could have been poisened, someone could have coughed wrong and killed him, he was genuinely at risk of death at any moment.

Now, I don’t necessarily think that this disqualifies any of us from sharing the same sentiments as he did. After all, why shouldn’t we strive to be as present as he was? I just sometimes worry that the lack of context around a lot of the things he, and others, said, is breeding a generation of uninformed and toxically masculine boys. Perhaps in the future I’ll write more on toxic masculinity but I’ll probably end this here as food for thought.