Contempt for Praise and Blame
This week you're learning about "Contempt for Praise and Blame," the Stoic practice of refusing to let reputation, approval, or insult determine your inner state. The idea rests on a distinction the Stoics called the "three classes of things": some things are genuinely good (virtue and everything that flows from it), some are genuinely bad (vice), and everything else, including reputation, praise, and the sting of blame, is "indifferent" (in Greek, adiaphora, meaning things that do not, by themselves, make you better or worse as a person). Once you see clearly that praise and blame belong to that third, indifferent category, the power of both compliments and insults begins to dissolve, and you are left standing on steadier ground.
Passage
Of things some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. Now the virtues and everything that shares in them are good, while vices and everything that shares in vice are evil, and what falls in between these, namely, wealth, health, life, death, pleasures, pain, are indifferent."
— Epictetus, Discourses 2.19.13
Reflection
Epictetus repeats the three-class framework almost word for word in a second discourse, and that repetition is deliberate. The Stoics taught by returning to the same foundation from different angles until it stopped being an idea and became a reflex. Today, focus on the word 'indifferent': it does not mean worthless or unpleasant, it means that praise and blame carry no moral weight on their own. They cannot make you a better or a worse person. What someone thinks of you, or shouts at you, belongs in the same category as the weather: it is real, it affects you physically, but it does not touch who you are. 'Contempt for Praise and Blame' starts with internalizing this category fully, not just reciting it.
Go deeper
Think of a criticism or insult that has stayed with you for a long time: what would it mean for your sense of self if you genuinely placed that remark in the indifferent category, alongside something like a change in the weather?
Practice
Category Practice
For ten minutes today, notice every small judgment that crosses your path, a glance from a stranger, a tone of voice from a colleague, a compliment from a friend. As each one arises, quietly say to yourself: 'Indifferent.' You are not suppressing the feeling; you are gently labeling the source. Notice whether the feeling shifts, even slightly.