Can philosophy replace religion?
Friday, March 7th, 2008Barbara Stegemann is the author of The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen – A Woman’s Guide to Living & Leading in an Illogical World. While the self-help category is a road often travelled, Stegemann’s contribution to it is refreshing for its’ clear attributions and enthusiasm.
In the early Nineties, The Celestine Prophesies was all the rage. But it was old wine in a new bottle which owed much of its life ruminations to the
New England transcendentalists of the Nineteenth century, namely Thoreau and Emerson. The school of thought saw that the human spirit had the capacity to soar beyond its earthly shackles to define itself — unadulterated by stratified, ossified, thinking.
The self-help category of books has some familiar company: from Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, to Anthony Robbins litany of books and tapes, to relationship speculator John Gray’s Men are From Mars, Women from Venus, to the Granddaddy’s: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale; not to leave out Dale Carnegie’s “
How To Win Friends and Influence People, and Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled — which is now 25 years old.
Barbara Stegemann goes back further, a lot further, to the ancient Greeks for her wisdom. She also does it without being selfish.
Most of the books I have listed above are about overcoming some self-perceived flaw in order to “have an advantage” over others — to control, dazzle, overwhelm for personal gain.
For Stagemann however, personal gain does not come at a cost to others, nor is it really a personal gain despite the personal and private persual of virtue over flaw, over insecurity, over weakness, over self-betrayal; personal gain in Barbara Stegemann’s world is always a shared thing by the philosopher. Her book is not about getting ahead, it is about how to love and how stop making the world a shit storm.
Stegemann’s greatest strength in her 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen lies in her clear attributions and direct references to Plato and Socrates, knowing that many of her readers will be experiencing these great philosophers for the first time. Unlike her self-help peers, there is no derivative thinking. Why pretend when you can go to the source? With Stegemann, it is less pedantic teaching and more compassionate sharing – a woman who is excited about her education and has learned to love life.
Having compassion for oneself and gaining a foothold on the goodness you have to give are cornerstones in self-development; self-development is at the core of all of Judeo-Christian notions of perfectibility. In Islam, the concept of “Jihad” actually refers to the soul’s struggle within, the war within one’s self.
When you hear the truth, you usually know it. The Ancient Greeks always believed that the successful soul is living to the fullness of one’s capacities in the pursuit of excellence.
Barbara Stegemanns’ great accomplishment here lies in her proud, conscious, and direct attributions to Plato and Socrates as she enumerates the nature of Aristotelian virtue and applies it to the workaday world of the modern woman. Stegemann’s post-feminist impulses and approach to feminism as a branch of humanism also is liberating, making it accessible and un-alienating to men.
To live a full life Stegemann says you must also surround yourself with people who believe in you and will not be jealous or threatened by your success. It reminded me of when President Ronald Reagan left office. His simple note to his successor was, “don’t let the turkeys get you down.”
In The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen, Barbara Stegemann says it better.