Stoicism and paranoia.

Abstract

A paranoid strain is manifest in Stoic utterances generally, especially in the Stoic conception of autarky, where the Sage regards himself as distinctly "other" in the midst of society, and indifferent to its values, except as he dissembles his indifference. Now, influential theories of paranoia stress a projective process: for Freudians, the projection of repressed homosexual libido in altered form, for Ovesey, a "pseudohomosexual" anxiety arising out of a maladaptation in the male to the culturally assigned competitive male role, a failure perceived as effeminate. But Stoicism took root in the culture (Classical Greece) where homosexuality, far from being universally regarded as degenerate, was widely extolled as the norm for superior men and the most advantageous frame work for the tutelage of aristocratic boys. It would seem unlikely that paranoia in this context would reflect uneasiness over unconscious homoerotic (or distorted pseudo-erotic) strivings. What light is shed on the purported projection of either homosexual or pseudo-homosexual anxiety by paranoid elements in Stoicism?