Do Stoics Fall in Love?
In a contemporary outlook where love is rather illusioned or commodified — in addition to the common misconception of stoicism where stoics scholars ought to suppress feelings and emotions — a fundamental question of whether or not stoics fall in love often comes into the surface. It’s rather paradoxical to answer this question collectively. Nonetheless, as a growing Stoic learner, who endorses Žižekian ideas with my strongest approval towards Machiavellianism, I will answer this in a fused, symphonic way of my personal adaptation.
To answer where Stoics would stand on the idea lineage of love, there are two main important points of Stoicism that I would like to emphasise here; first, is Dichotomy of Control and the second is the 4 cardinal virtues (wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance).
To begin with today’s modern situation of love, I would bring Žižek to the table.
“Today, more and more love, simply, passionate love, is emerging as something dangerous. (Quoting one of his acquaintances)..There’s always something traumatic, extremely violent in love. Love is a permanent emergency state. You FALL in love. To FALL in love. You lose control.”- Slavoj Žižek
On the contrary of today’s modern society where people tend to create an illusion where love without the “fall” is achievable, to be in love, Stoics would embrace the fact that love, in itself, is a permanent emergency state; you could be betrayed, rejected, lied to, abused. Stoics would turn on their Dichotomy of Control emergency state as soon as the feeling of “love” starts to emerge. So yes, Stoics do fall in love, but we fall in love, responsibly. Stoics would focus merely on what they can control when they are in love; being the good significant other, and contribute efforts that are rationally distributed towards the relationship. The fall, however, is out of the sphere of one’s control.
A Stoic would love, without any expectation from what would come from the other party. They would just focus on what do they need to do to on their part and let nature show the outcome. A Stoic does not expect the perfect, unicorn world, kind of love, where it is often being depicted in today’s society. Therefore, Stoics don’t fall into the pit of anxiety whether or not something traumatic is likely to happen or whatnot, since Stoics have embraced that this “fall” is a necessity to love.
Now to the inherent Machiavellianism, the darker shade of love. Where human beings have the capacity manipulate, exploit, and abandon others even when they “love” their significant others. Stoics would embrace this with the 4 cardinal virtues. To understand by wisdom; how and why would one do an ill behavior, without judgement, and determine whether or not this particular person would provoke more positive outcomes in our lives, or rather harmful to which a Stoic would rather forbear from. The second cardinal virtue, is courage. To which a Stoic would always have the courage to grow out of love, when it is no longer nourish them and the other party to the better.
Third, justice. A Stoic would love in the most equal, and respectful way, exactly how you’d treat them. The word justice is not merely a romanticised word, a Stoic breathe this in. Last, temperance. When one’s lost control, temperance no longer takes place. A moderate love might looks less tempting than an excessive, an intense way of loving. Intensity is a simple recipe of one’s disaster.
