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
"What, then, do you call them now? Have they changed at all?" "No." "Have you, then, changed?" "No." "Tell me, then, what things are 'indifferent.'" "Those that are independent of the moral purpose." "Tell me also what follows." "Things independent of the moral purpose are nothing to me."
— Epictetus, Discourses 1.30.3
Reflection
This passage from Epictetus captures the moment contempt for praise and blame stops being theory and becomes a real shift in identity. A student is pushed: have you changed? Have the external things changed? No and no. Then why do they still grip you? The phrase 'independent of the moral purpose' points to the Greek word 'prohairesis,' which means your power of reasoned choice, the part of you that decides how to respond to anything. Praise and blame exist outside your prohairesis; they happen to you, they are not chosen by you. The student's final answer, 'things independent of the moral purpose are nothing to me,' is not indifference born of numbness. It is indifference born of clarity about where the self actually lives.
Go deeper
Think of a recent moment when someone's words about you shifted your mood or behavior: can you locate exactly where in your own thinking you allowed that external word to enter and be treated as if it were your own judgment?
Practice
Where Does It Enter?
The next time today that someone says something evaluative about you, good or bad, pause for thirty seconds before responding or reacting inwardly. In those thirty seconds, ask yourself: is this person operating my prohairesis, my power of choice, or am I letting them? You do not need to respond differently. Just notice the moment of entry.