Interesting. I didn’t recognize the Stoicism in the philosophers who’ve most influenced my ethics (Deleuze, Nietzsche and Spinoza) but it’s clearly there. Deleuze’s whole reading of joy, as making real your power of action, and sadness as feeling like you had some capacity but it was blocked or frustrated, is a beautiful (and quite Stoic) concept. What I particularly like about this ethical system is that it goes beyond simply your power of action in the world. Rather it’s based on affect; your power to affect and, importantly, to be affected. I find adding the power to be affected is the most important part. Most applications of domination are power without affection (or being affected). A bureaucrat who decides that thousands of people get kicked off welfare and go deeper into poverty isn’t affected by their power of action. On social media we don’t see the faces of those we shame and humiliate. Drone pilots sees the grainy silhouettes of the people they bomb but are insulated from the violence in a way traditional soldiers are not. We have effect but not affection. Introducing affection into power of action gives us responsibility in the true sense of the word, an ability to respond and to be changed by that which we are changing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
