Stoic apathy lets the privileged steel themselves against others’ suffering

Evidence

Apathy appears at those turning points of bourgeois history (even in ancient times) when the sovereign historical tendency makes the pauci beati aware of their own impotence. Apathy indicates the reversion of individual human spontaneity into the private world which was thereby established as the bourgeois life-form proper. Stoicism (which is the bourgeois philosophy) makes it easier for the privileged, confronted with the suffering of others, to steel themselves to their own threats. It confirms the general by elevating private existence, as a protection from the generality, to the condition of a principle. The bourgeois’ private sphere is upper-class cultural material that has lost its status. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 83

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the current reading purpose: apathy as bourgeois withdrawal parallels the pacification thesis of the culture industry chapter. — connects to: Lifelong indifference to others can be sustained by bad faith; Indifference to others treats them as obstacles and functions rather than subjects; Pity’s enemies rejected misfortune rather than condoning the powerful (+6 more)
• DEFINE: Identifies Stoicism as ‘the bourgeois philosophy’ — a foundational critical-theory characterization.

Broader Connections

• Stoicism functions philosophically as an insincere rationalization of unavoidable unhappiness #expands (0.78) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1083