My problem with Stoicism is that it seems to offer no mechanism for correcting your thinking; it tells you to detach yourself from whether your actions have good or bad outcomes (since you can't control that) and only concern yourself with whether you have acted well, but if you're not concerned about outcomes then your reasoning about whether you have acted well becomes purely circular.
> The Epicurean belief that emotional disturbance/perturbation is basically bad stymes emotional thriving. In a podcast with fellow Stoic Massimo Pigulicci, therapist and Stoic Scholar Donald Robertson points out that this idea is very close to the statement "anxiety is bad", a belief that correlates strongly with a host of pathological mental conditions/states.
More so than Stoicism? Stoics are notorious for emotional equamnity, a lot of the philosophy is about avoiding distress when things go badly and anxiety when they may go badly. It hardly seems like a philosophy that encourages or supports anxiety.
> The Epicurean aversion to anxiety pushes us away from political engagement and many other activities that root us in the murk of life.
I don't think being "rooted in the murk of life" should be a goal in itself. As with any other kind of pain or suffering, Epicureanism would tell us that political engagement may be worth enduring if the ultimate benefits outweigh the costs. But I don't think we need to be pushed towards more political engagement than currently; quite the opposite, we need a philosophy that can tell us when it's worth stepping back.