• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

18

Check the internet for The Stoic Voice Journal, The Stoic Registry, The Stoic Foundation, The Stoic Place, and the International Stoic Forum.

19

See Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998).

20

Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale is one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the U.S. Navy. He credited Stoicism for his survival while a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was Ross Perot’s Vice Presidential running mate in 1992.

21

Dr. Albert Ellis’s Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is inspired by a Stoic approach to emotional problems.

22

As opposed to the hologram in The Empire Strikes Back.

23

In Attack of the Clones Yoda, hobbling forward on his cane, uses the Force to defend himself from Count Dooku’s telekinetic attacks. Yoda and Dooku, his former padawan, duel with lightsabers and Yoda protects his wounded comrades Obi-Wan and Anakin.

24

Discourses I.6.19-21; translation adapted from The Discourses of Epictetus, The Handbook, Fragments, edited by C. Gill (London: Dent, 1995), p. 17.

25

On Anger I.1.2, in Seneca: Moral and Political Essays, translated by J.M. Cooper and J.F. Procopé (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 17.

26

Yoda, in contrast, denies that the Dark Side of the Force is stronger. He tells Luke it is quicker, easier, and more seductive than the Light Side. Greg Bucher has suggested to me that the partisans of the Light and the Dark Sides of the Force speak at cross-purposes, neither understanding the motivations of the other. In the end the Light Side prevails because they have better people in their ranks, not because the Light Side is superior in power to the Dark Side. The vision of the empire which Vader and the Emperor champion, while neither desirable nor good, is not inherently unworkable.

27

Vader’s admission underscores the Stoic idea that it takes a lifelong commitment to stand a chance to become good. Vader has grown too old to reverse his evil course, apparently.

28

When Obi-Wan expresses his concern that the talented Anakin Skywalker is becoming arrogant, Yoda concurs: “Yes, yes, a flaw more and more common among Jedi. Too sure of themselves they are, even the older, more experienced ones.”

29

Note that Obi-Wan and Yoda do not die suffering.

30

I thank Gregory S. Bucher, Susan T. Bart, and Scott Rubarth for their excellent, generous comments on this paper. I also thank the editors and the series editor for their suggestions.

31

See Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Face (New York: Princeton University Press, 1949).

32

Laurent Bouzereau, Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays (New York: Ballantine, 1997), p. 180.

33

Ibid., p. 36.

34

D.T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (New York: Bollingen, 1959), p. 107.

35

Ibid., p. 111.

36

John Stevens, The Sword of No Sword (Boston: Shambhala, 1984), p. 26.

37

Ibid., p.18.

38

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 39. Egoism is often mistakenly associated with the views of Adam Smith, who does argue that a healthy dose of self-interest is useful for a capitalist economy, but who also thinks it can lead to gross injustices. See Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), I.ii.2 and V.i.f.50, and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).

39

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism. Second edition, edited by George Sher (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), p. 7.

40

Jeremy Bentham, A Fragment on Government, edited by J.H. Burns and H.L.A. Hart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 3.

41

E.M. Forster, “What I Believe,” in Two Cheers for Democracy (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951), p. 68.

42

These restrictions usually take the form of individual rights, which utilitarians think can be grounded in what creates the greatest happiness in the long run. See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, edited by Elizabeth