Where this was said
Stoics, Sartre, and the Religious 'Fall': Comparison in Western Philosophy
At 36:08 · chapter starts 32:10
Mark unpacks the delicious irony of Stoic philosophy: Epictetus, a former slave who owned nothing, called comparison 'the disease of the soul.' Yet Seneca — the second richest man in Rome — was chronically insecure in his letters, and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is saturated with anxiety about how he will be remembered. The richest and most powerful Stoics were the most comparison-tormented. Moving to modernity, Sartre's concept in Being and Nothingness of 'the look' — the moment you become aware of being observed — predates developmental psychology's theory of mind by decades. Sartre's insight: it is only through the gaze of others that you are forced to construct a self-concept at all. Drew draws the parallel to the religious concept of 'the fall' — in Christianity, Judaism, and many other traditions, the moment of self-awareness (Adam and Eve realising they are naked) is the moment sin enters the world. Mark synthesises: Sartre's revolutionary move is saying yes, the comparison and the self-awareness are inevitable, but you still get to choose what they mean.
Jean-Paul Sartre argued that it is only once you become aware that you are being observed by others that you are forced to construct an identity. Decades before developmental psychologists formalised theory of mind, Sartre had it: self-awareness is comparison-awareness. You only know who you are in relation to other people — and that is both the engine of identity and the source of all social anxiety.
