On 2 Dec, 08:15, Peter Brooks  wrote:
> On Dec 2, 9:49 am, pas...@blueyonder.co.ruk (Peter Ashby) wrote:
>
> > > How is it self delusion? Was Alexander Solzhenytsyn self deluded? Or
> > > Viktor Frankl? Seneca? Epictetus? Or were these men perhaps (surely
> > > not :-)
>
> > Where does Solzhenytsyn say that the Gulag was safe and relaxing? I read
> > the whole lot of The Gulag Archipelago when I was 17 and I don't
> > remember any such statement without it being so heavily qualified your
> > use of it would be meaningless.
>
> That's a good point. I wasn't able to finish reading the Gulag
> Archipelago, it was too slow and long for me. I preferred Cancer Ward
> that also had the advantage of being funny.
>
> I don't think that Viktor Frankl was deluded, and I certainly don't
> think that there is any evidence for his having found life in a
> concentration camp relaxing.
>
> Wikipaedia quotes Epictetus as saying 'We are disturbed not by events,
> but by the views which we take of them.' which is, perhaps, another
> way of saying what I was saying. If you don't describe viewing your
> time in prison as relaxing as self-delusion, then it is a little
> difficult to think of what you would be able to call self-delusion.
>
> I'm not sure which Seneca is intended, nor what was said that is
> relevant to this.

The Seneca who was put under house arrest and ordered to kill himself
by Nero. He was, by most accounts, quite relaxed about this, and it
was the whole point of stoicism to be relaxed about such a situation.

For Solzhenitsyn to survive his situation needed a certain amount of
stoic fortitude, so he must have had a relaxed attitude to some
extent.

Frankl's logotherapy involves inducing relaxation in stressful
circumstances, e.g. a stammerer is encouraged to think 'what the hell,
go ahead and stammer!' to himself thereby reducing his tension, i.e.
by inducing relaxation!

Epictetus in adopting the maxim 'We are disturbed not by events,
but by the views which we take of them.' provides a method for
defusing tense situations. So a prisoner can view his event of being
incarcerated as a time for stoic reflection, or a time to shake the
bars and demand to be free. So self delusion doesn't really come into
it, both attitudes are perfectly valid ones to take, neither more
deluded than the other, just the former is likely to lead to a more
relaxed prisoner.

Maybe I'm stretching the definition of 'relaxation' beyond common
usage ("I fancy a relaxing nap") but I don't think I'm making it
meaningless.