Adiaphora — Indifferents
This week you are learning about adiaphora (pronounced ah-dee-AH-for-ah), the Greek word the Stoics used for "indifferents": things that are neither good nor bad in themselves, such as money, health, and reputation. The Stoics did not mean these things are worthless or that you should ignore them; they meant that your character is the only thing that can never be taken from you, and everything else sits in a different category entirely. Understanding exactly where reputation lives in that category is what will free you from one of the most persistent sources of anxiety in everyday life.
Passage
But it seems that all goods are equal, and that every good is to be desired in the highest degree, and that it admits of no relaxation, and of no extension. Moreover, they divide all existing things into good, bad, and indifferent. The good are the virtues, prudence, justice, manly courage, temperance, and the rest of the like qualities. The bad are the contraries, folly, injustice, and the like. Those are indifferent which are neither beneficial nor injurious, such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, riches, a good reputation, nobility of birth; and their contraries, death, disease, labour, disgrace, weakness, poverty, a bad reputation, baseness of birth, and the like; as Hecaton lays it down in the seventh book of his treatise on the Chief Good; and he is followed by Apollodorus, in his Ethics, and by Chrysippus. For they affirm that those things are not good but indifferent, though perhaps a little more near to one species than to the other. For, as it is the property of the hot to warm and not to chill one, so it is the property of the good to benefit and not to injure one. Now, wealth and good health cannot be said to benefit any more than to injure any one: therefore, neither wealth nor good health are goods. Again, they say that that thing is not good which it is possible to use both well and ill. But it is possible to make either a good or a bad use of wealth, or of health; therefore, wealth and good health are not goods. Posidonius, however, affirms that these things do come under the head of goods. But Hecaton, in the nineteenth book of his treatise on Goods, and Chrysippus, in his treatises on Pleasure, both deny that pleasure is a good. For they say that there are disgraceful pleasures, and that nothing disgraceful is good. And that to benefit a person is to move him or to keep him according to virtue, but to injure him is to move him or to keep him according to vice. They also assert, that things indifferent are so spoken of in a twofold manner; firstly, those things are called so, which have no influence in producing either happiness or unhappiness; such for instance, as riches, glory, health, strength, and the like; for it is possible for a man to be happy without any of these things; and also, it is upon the character of the use that is made of them, that happiness or unhappiness depends. In another sense, those things are called indifferent, which do not excite any inclination or aversion, as for instance, the fact of a man’s having an odd or an even number of hairs on his head, or his putting out or drawing back his finger; for it is not in this sense that the things previously mentioned are called indifferent, for they do excite inclination or aversion. On which account some of them are chosen, though there is equal reason for preferring or shunning all the others.
— Diogenes Laërtius, Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Zeno 60
Reflection
Diogenes Laërtius gives us the fullest Stoic account of the week: all goods are equal, meaning no amount of reputation or wealth adds up to virtue. He also introduces a crucial distinction between two kinds of indifferents. Some indifferents are truly neutral in every sense (whether you have an odd or even number of hairs on your head). Others, like reputation, health, and wealth, are what the Stoics called 'preferred indifferents': they still attract or repel us, and it is perfectly rational to prefer them, but they do not define goodness. A good reputation is worth pursuing the way a healthy body is worth pursuing: sensibly, without making it the center of your life or the measure of your worth.
Go deeper
Given that reputation is a preferred indifferent, not a true good, how would you pursue it differently if you held it at arm's length rather than at the center of your sense of self?
Practice
Preferred, Not Required
Think of one area of your life where you are actively managing your reputation. Write two columns. In the first, list what you are doing in service of genuine virtue. In the second, list what you are doing mainly to control how you appear. You do not need to stop the second column, but spend five minutes honestly looking at the ratio. Let it inform what you do tomorrow.