Stoicism has historically surged in popularity during chaotic periods — the Enlightenment, the founding of America, the Civil War — and is experiencing another resurgence now.
Where this was said
At 2:20:43 · chapter starts 2:15:40
Ryan Holiday traces the through-line of Stoic influence: the Enlightenment thinkers who absorbed it through Latin education (Seneca's epigrams were standard Latin learning texts), the American Founding Fathers who staged the play Cato before Valley Forge and explicitly modeled Washington's resignation of power on Stoic and classical ideals, and the way the Serenity Prayer — written on a train in the 1950s — synthesizes Stoic, Christian, and Buddhist ideas into one formula that reads as if it were ancient. Holiday identifies a pattern: Stoicism resurges in turbulent times because when the world is out of control, the most useful question is what you can control about yourself, and the Stoics wrote the smartest answer to that question.
Navy pilot James Stockdale, shot down over Vietnam, said as he parachuted into captivity: 'I am leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.'
Stoicism has never fully disappeared — it's been an open secret passed person-to-person among the powerful for centuries. The Enlightenment thinkers, the American Founding Fathers, Civil War generals, and Vietnam POWs all turned to it. It resurges in turbulent times because when the world feels out of control, the most useful question is: what can I control about myself? The Stoics wrote the smartest answer to that question ever written.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, pioneered by Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis in the 1950s-60s, is essentially a scientific repackaging of Stoic ideas. The ABC model of adversity-behavior-consequence is Epictetus's framework for desire, action, and assent. The journaling practices are straight out of Seneca. Beck and Ellis both later credited Stoic philosophy — though it was largely after the fact. The Stoics were doing what therapists do, just 2,500 years earlier.
By his own account, Giacomo Casanova slept with over 120 women and contracted venereal disease 11 times — a life of extreme aesthetic indulgence that ended in total isolation.
Joel de la Garza noted that the CISO role is a relatively recent invention, with Steve Katz widely credited as the first-ever CISO.
Superficial adoption of electricity gave factories only 6% efficiency gains; fully redesigning factories around it delivered a 3x productivity improvement that powered 20th-century US growth.
Harold Ramis recounted that during Caddyshack filming, storms kept the cast cooped up in a Florida hotel for days, during which they partied and did drugs all day and night.
In the 1820s, China accounted for 25% of global economic output, making it the world's largest economic machine — a historical precedent for its current AI superpower ambitions.
66 Americans held hostage at the US Embassy in Iran were released after 444 days, within hours of Reagan's inauguration.
In the first round of the secret arms deal, 508 TOW missiles were transferred from Israel to Iran in exchange for hostage releases.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran across 8 separate shipments over just over a year.
Despite all the missile sales, only 3 of the 7 American hostages held by Lebanese terrorists were ultimately released.
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