Batman: Is He a Stoic?

One famous superhero you might hear that acts based on Stoic virtues are Batman. You can see moments where he acted based on logic, even on his friends from the story. But is Batman 100% Stoic? What made him a Stoic?

Batman is a Stoic in the sense that he is following the four Stoic virtues. Furthermore, he is known as someone who acts based on logic while trying not to let emotions harm his rational thinking. However, there are also moments where Batman acts not like a Stoic.

In this blog post, I am going to show you both sides of the coin. We are going to see how Batman acted based on Stoic principles and how we acted against them. Thus, you will have a complete picture of Batman’s ideals based on Stoicism.

Is Batman a Stoic

Is Batman a Stoic?

Would you please let me get this straight first?

Batman acts on Stoic virtues and has moments where he uses logic like a Stoic.

But there are moments where he is not acting on these Stoic virtues.

Like us, he is not perfect. While he is a character we see in movies, comics, and films, he is still not perfect.

So don’t expect me to say that he is 100% Stoic.

I will show you how he follows Stoicism some things he did that made him not like a Stoic.

That way, you can also decide for yourself since you’ve seen both sides of the coin.

If we see a Stoic, we know that Stoics act based on logic or rationality. They try to control their emotions by understanding them.

It is a misconception that Stoics are emotionless. All of us experience emotions. The only difference a Stoic does is that they know how to control these emotions.

In a more profound sense, they know how not to let their emotions turn into passion.

But that’s not the point of this post. If you’re interested in the topic, you may visit my other blog post. Here is the link: Are Stoics Emotionless?

If we see Batman, he is a person that experienced some hardships early in his life. He lost his parents at the age of eight.

This is a hard trauma to take. But it is also one of the reasons he became resilient.

Because of the things that happened in his life, he became resilient and more rational. Rather than letting emotions get him, he controlled his emotions.

In fact, he is very rational that he is one of the calmest superheroes in the Justice League.

Furthermore, while he sees other superheroes as his friends, he still has a plan if other superheroes betray him.

If you see an average person acting like this, you might think that they must be insane to do this.

However, Batman sees the superheroes in Justice League as his friends. His rational thinking made him have a backup plan in case the worst thing came.

This is acting based on logical thinking. This is based on wisdom which is one of the Stoic’s virtues.

The thing about Batman is that he follows all four virtues, which makes him a Stoic. So we are going to discuss all of the virtues in the next section.

For now, you have a basic understanding of how Batman became a Stoic-like figure.

As someone on the neutral side, I also want to give you why he is not 100% Stoic.

The thing is that Stoics believe in the dichotomy of control.

This means that if something is out of your control, you shouldn’t stress it out.

For example, if I can’t control people’s comments on my looks, then I shouldn’t bother since I can’t do something to change people’s opinions.

This is one thing that makes Stoicism ideal for happiness simply because it helps us focus on the things that matter.

However, there are times where Batman is not following the dichotomy of control.

This is why I said while he is following all 4 Stoic virtues, there are times where he is not acting like a Stoic.

The best example of this is when he lost his parents. But, of course, a typical Stoic will accept the fact since they can’t bring their parents back.

However, Batman did the opposite. He embarked on a journey to chase villains.

Furthermore, there are multiple instances where Batman puts himself in hard situations, even if he can get away from it.

But I can’t blame Batman for these because if he doesn’t go to conflicts or chase villains due to his childhood trauma, then there’s no story to tell.

For me, there will be no Batman without these moments where he didn’t act according to the Stoic’s ideology.

That’s why I think this is a matter of storytelling. He has to endure challenges and push through because there should be a story to tell.

If he acted 100% in a Stoic manner, then Batman would be boring.

Now that you know what makes him a Stoic and what doesn’t let’s go deeper into the topic.

Why is Batman a Stoic?

Batman is a Stoic because he follows the four Stoic virtues namely wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. We can see in pop culture that he follows all of these virtues through his actions. Furthermore, he acts based on logic and rationality, while trying not to let his emotions harm his thinking which is what Stoics do.

The four Stoic virtues are wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.

For wisdom, it is apparent since we’ve already seen that Batman acts based on his logic while trying to repress emotions that can hamper his thinking.

That’s why he even has a backup plan in case his friends betray him.

Furthermore, Batman likes to have some concrete set of plans to defeat his enemies. These are moments where he shows wisdom.

For Stoics, fear is a normal emotion. We will all feel it. But how we act on these emotions will differentiate someone who shows courage and someone who runs away in fear.

Since we can’t control what will happen to us, we must act based on courage.

We’ve also seen this in Batman as we see him not run away on hardships and even try to get over his parents’ loss.

Temperance is how we reject temptations. It is how we react to our emotions.

This can be seen when someone acts based on logic. We also see this in Batman.

For common people like me, temperance is when I know I should sleep instead of browsing social media all night. It is knowing my financial level despite wanting to go for some shopping spree.

Lastly, Justice.

We can see that Batman has his set of Ideals that he follows. Furthermore, he believes that everyone can change for the better.

Batman treats people fairly, even if they’re his enemies. That’s justice.

What is Batman’s Ideal?

Batman’s ideal is justice and hope. Justice means that he has a strong sense of integrity and will always follow what he believes is right. Also, he is a symbol of hope that he is always hoping or believing that his enemies might change for the better. Furthermore, he believes that anyone has the right to change.

Stoics believe that a single person can make a difference. Stoics apply this to the virtue of Justice.

If we see Batman, he is trying to be just by being fair to everybody.

In fact, he is always hopeful that his enemies can change for the better.

He is a symbol of hope. Hope for people to get better and hope that everyone has the right to change.

That makes Batman well, Batman.

To him, every one of us is essential, which makes him fair and just.

What’s next? We talked about when Batman followed and didn’t follow Stoicism, which might make you wonder if there is such thing as being too Stoic. Well, I made a blog post talking about that topic. So here is the link: Is it bad being too Stoic?

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YouTube

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Okay, let me first explain my Channel.

I believe that I really can’t explain everything too well on my blog. That’s why I created a YouTube Channel so I can easily explain a lot of things. Plus, I believe that Video Sharing is the future.

Recommended Books

The next thing is books. Books are, for me, one of the cheapest ways to get invaluable information. We can learn personal development, finance, career, relationships, and many more from books.

Here, I will be listing my favorite books in different categories.

  1. For Beginners7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey – Personal development has a lot of concepts and ideas to learn. Thus it can be really hard for beginners to know where to start. Thus, I recommend this book since all the basic concepts of personal development are here(except finance, check what I recommended for that)
  2. ProductivityThe One Thing by Gary Keller – This book teaches us the power of focusing on one thing which is the ultimate source of productivity. The concepts taught are what I am using to constantly publish YouTube videos while maintaining this website.
  3. Busy?Make Time by Jack Knapp – This book teaches us how to make time for the things we love. The concept is really simple but I think that makes it a book worth reading.
  4. HealthLifespan by Dr.Sinclair – This Book teaches about the latest scientific research on lifespan. In his book, he has shared numerous things he is doing to slow down his aging process. This can be as easy as eating less which he recommends.
  5. FinanceThe Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason – Perhaps one of the first books I’ve read about Finance, this book for me is the best if we are talking about learning basic finance such as basic saving and investing. The concepts are very simple but effective.

Audiobooks

Take this advice as a grain of salt.

I don’t recommend buying Audiobooks one by one. I mean, audiobooks can be quickly finished by listening while working out or doing some mindless tasks.

So here is to save you some money. Just go for a monthly subscription to Audible. I believe that you will save a lot of money with that plus, they usually give freebies to anyone starting.

My Audiobook Recommendation will always be the same as my book recommendations, but I personally like The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins. I like how she is so casual while reading her book.

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