Stockdale’s Reunion With His Family in 1973 After
7 Years in a North Vietnamese Prison Camp
I’m afraid that I have to say that politically, at least, he was a bit flakey, but Admiral James Stockdale, who just died, was also an interesting and very reflective man. Some years ago I read his Courage Under Fire: Testing Epictetus’s Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior and, while it wasn’t brilliant, it was an interesting work and demonstrated the importance of the Stoic tradition to human goodness.
I typically give to young men and women who are graduating from high school or entering college or … well, on some important occasion, two books: Epictetus’s Handbook (Enchiridion) and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The Stoics are not only important figures in the development of the ideas of liberty, but they are important guides to living a purposeful life.
I love those books. Not only are they, as you note, important for considerations of liberty and vital for any discourse on the good, or purposeful, life, but they are without a doubt two of the best manuals on survival.
Laurence Gonzales, in his admittedly rather lay Deep Survival comments that anyone caught in a survival situation, armed with the knowledge of the Meditations, has an excellent guide to emerging alive.
Stockdale the Stoic
I had no idea that James Stockdale was a stoic philosopher. RIP. I to have gotten a lot of guidance…
I finished the last page of The Meditations (Staniforth translation) on the Metro yesterday morning, just in time to be greeted with the news of the London attacks. I found the last lines particularly poignant, given the context.
“‘But I have played no more than three of the five acts.’ Just so; in your drama of life, three acts are all the play. Its point of completeness is determined by him who formerly sanctioned your creation, and today sanctions your dissolution. Neither of those decisions lay within yourself. Pass on your way, then, with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go.”
I’m glad that you profited from the book, Bill.
The Stoic philosophy is hard to follow, and I wouldn’t call myself a Stoic by any means, but there is nonetheless much wisdom in it. My father had the works of the Stoics in his library and I am convinced that they had a major influence on him, as he was able to withstand great pain and suffering and still always do what he believed was the right thing, with never a word of complaint. Marcus and Epictetus were helpful guides.
Right now I see that Amazon is offering a package deal on Epictetus with…Marcus Aurelius! Was that true when you put up the blog entry, a few days ago?