Throughout our lives we face situations that require a response. While events unfold around us, how we choose to react — or whether we choose to react at all — is entirely within our control.
The concepts of justice and virtue are central to author Ryan Holiday’s latest book, Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds. Holiday explores how the ancient Greek philosophers Marcus Aurelius, Aristotle, and Seneca sought to provide a more pragmatic approach to happiness and virtue… And whether those same principles can impact how we live today. “The Stoics,” Holiday says, “are all about focusing on what's in your control.”
“We could all come together collectively and make progress,” Holiday continues. “But we have total control over how we act as human beings, the standards we set and hold ourselves to.”
Holiday takes examples from history, which he says is defined by people who have spoken up against injustice and have shifted public opinion. Figures like Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Harvey Milk embodied justice through their actions and compromises – pragmatically seeking a balance when bumping against divisiveness.
Holiday explains: “Gandhi's main contribution is not simply fighting for the rights of Indians in South Africa and then ultimately for India's self-rule, but really his contribution to humanity is this toolkit, this way of thinking that resounds to this day.”
Holiday thinks of justice as not, “[something] that is embodied in the law, or a courtroom, or a system like a jury system, or the Justice Department. I wanted to see justice as a thing that we do — virtue as a verb and not a noun. … Justice isn't this thing that we get from other people or a standard we're held to. It is instead a way that we live our life.”
Referring to himself as a steward of Stoicism, Holiday says writing the book was challenging: “It's always great to do things that are challenging intellectually, but I understood that this is the part of philosophy that we like to skip over. The Virtue ethics are easy to skip over because they ask a lot of us. They put us in positions where we have to make choices that are not always in our self-interest. I also understand that if you only popularize the fun parts of something, you are doing an injustice to that thing.”
Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values. Good Character. Good Deeds by Ryan Holiday.
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