Aurelius’s Meditations were not published in his lifetime; they were his personal journals which were collected and published after his death. He writes elsewhere in his Meditations very strongly in favor of truth, curiosity, and honesty. The message here is not “Be ignorant” or “Be passive”, but in the spirit of the very orthodox Stoic that Aurelius was, paraphrasing, “The outside world should not trouble you, because you should live a life wherein you have done what you can to change it; worry past your own abilities is torturing yourself for no gain.” (and, more controversially to a modern reader, also paraphrasing, “All worry and suffering are self-inflicted, we have the power, through self-discipline, to refuse them entirely; all matters of internal thought, including qualia received from the outside world, can be refuted by internal thought”)
Of course a literal emperor doesn’t want you to take the time to be informed on issues.
I mean he’s not wrong exactly but this strikes me as self-serving.
Aurelius’s Meditations were not published in his lifetime; they were his personal journals which were collected and published after his death. He writes elsewhere in his Meditations very strongly in favor of truth, curiosity, and honesty. The message here is not “Be ignorant” or “Be passive”, but in the spirit of the very orthodox Stoic that Aurelius was, paraphrasing, “The outside world should not trouble you, because you should live a life wherein you have done what you can to change it; worry past your own abilities is torturing yourself for no gain.” (and, more controversially to a modern reader, also paraphrasing, “All worry and suffering are self-inflicted, we have the power, through self-discipline, to refuse them entirely; all matters of internal thought, including qualia received from the outside world, can be refuted by internal thought”)