Whatever views we may hold on the subject of Jade Goody, Romans would have found it grimly appropriate that a woman ‘famous’ for appearing on Big Brother should choose to die in the arms of a PR consultant.
Whatever views we may hold on the subject of Jade Goody, Romans would have found it grimly appropriate that a woman ‘famous’ for appearing on Big Brother should choose to die in the arms of a PR consultant. But the Stoics would have been baffled why she and her unhappy demise were thought worthy of such attention from the media.
Stoicism, invented by the Cypriot Zeno (335-263 bc), taught that the ‘divine’ element in man was his rational mind. So the happy life — one in accordance with the course set for you by the god — consisted in ensuring that your opinions, impulses, emotions, desires, aversions and so on were under rational control; if not, unhappiness was the inevitable result.
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