Is this the best critique of Stoicism?
The best critique of Stoicism is the story of how its founder was a failed Cynic
>Crates and Hipparchia, his wife and fellow Cynic, engaged in a public act of sexual intercourse and, as such, drew a crowd. Zeno, upon catching sight of this, covered them both with his cloak so as to prevent bystanders from witnessing the copulating couple, displaying his own inability to be apathetic to the expectations of society. Hence Crates, desirous of curing this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus (the pottery district); and when he saw that Zeno was ashamed and tried to keep it out of sight, Crates broke the pot with a blow of his staff. As Zeno began to run off in embarrassment with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, Crates chided, "Why run away, my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has befallen you."
>>24491844Interesting, considering cynics are failed idealists.
>>24491839 (OP)Marcus Aurelius is pop philosophy. A more sophisticated understanding of Zeno's teaching lives in Tate, Andrew