Should Stoics Wear the Yellow Vest?

First published in French on www.unregardstoicien.com

Since October 2018, the yellow vest — that venerable accessory to road safety — has become a revolutionary symbol. Every Saturday, tens of thousands of citizens or more march in the streets, proudly wearing this familiar, fluorescent garment-turned-rallying-sign.

Yellow Vests in Strasbourg on 12 January, in front of the Palais du Rhin

While it focused initially on challenging the domestic consumption tax on energy products, the movement has expanded to include many other fiscal, social, ecological, and political claims. Leaderless, ever-changing, and operating outside traditional political patterns, the Yellow Vests raise many ethical, political or social questions. Does Stoicism require a particular relationship between the progressor (προκόπτον) and this movement? This post tries to provide some food for thought…

We can consider the relationship of the Stoic progressor to the movement of Yellow Vests in at least three ways: 1) Stoicism’s relationship to the claims of Yellow Vests, 2) its relationship to the actions of the movement, and 3) the possibility or even necessity of our personal involvement in the movement, considering points 1 and 2.

This post will look at each of these aspects in turn — claims, actions, and personal involvement — and then follow it up with some further reflections on how Stoic theory interacts…