Stoicism is fashionable, not only in the intellectual world, but also among citizens, without having ever read Zeno, Seneca or Epictetus. This last year a lot of books have appeared: How to Be a Stoic, The Art of Living Like a Stoic or Stoicism for Beginners. All of them are advertised with phrases like “how an ancient philosophy can help you live a modern life”, “how you can achieve lasting happiness” or “how to get tools for resilience and emotional positivity”.
However, the great disseminator of stoicism has been President Pedro Sánchez, who last Saturday met the federal committee of the PSOE to defend the amnesty, arguing that “necessity must be made a virtue”, because without it there will be no progressive government. And he reinforced his stoicist thinking by adding that, in addition, the amnesty must be approved in the interest of Spain, because it will allow coexistence between Spaniards, since the pardons weakened the independence movement.
For the Stoics, nothing is good or bad. The important thing is not what happens, but the way you deal with it. Virtue is that: approaching reality intelligently so that it does not knock us down. Zeno of Citium, the first Stoic, did not like his father's business of transporting glitter from Phoenicia to Piraeus and one day he ran aground. In Athens he met Crates and became a philosopher. Thus he wrote: “I made a terrible sea voyage and a great shipwreck.” Wise man, one day he told a student: “We have two ears and one mouth, because we should listen more and speak less.”
Like Zenón, Sánchez has said little. He did not do the amnesty until he had no choice; in fact, until he had to convince his people. It has been said about Stoicism that more than a philosophical school, it is a philosophy of life. With this, the acting president has managed to add the votes to repeat in the Moncloa. We are on the verge of a reset in Catalan politics, where stoics are not abundant. The hope is that Carles Puigdemont has behaved like one in recent weeks. It remains to be seen if this time he does not succumb to criticism. Stoics don't look at Twitter.
