This Is a War We Are Fighting

"It would be easy to say that this is someone else’s fight. It is easy to say, as some pundits have said, that this is not a fight at all. You don’t go to war with a virus. That’s not how it works. But according to Andrew Roberts, the great biographer of Churchill and Napoleon, that is exactly what is happening and exactly how this works."Hear more from Andrew Roberts, and listen to Ryan discuss the importance of a total fight against the pandemic, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at DailyStoic.com. This is the war we are fighting. It would be easy to say that this is someone else's fight. It is easy to say, as some pundits have said, that this is not a fight at all. You don't go to war with a virus, they sneer. That's not how this works. But according to Andrew Roberts, the great biographer of Churchill and Napoleon, that is exactly what

• 0:48Ryan Holiday?

  is happening and exactly how this works. He asked, when we spoke to him for the Daily Stoic podcast, if he could conclude the conversation by reading a passage from a speech Churchill gave to the Royal College of Physicians in 1944.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  The discoveries of healing science must be the inheritance of all. That is clear. Disease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman, simply on the ground that it is the enemy. And it must be attacked just in the same way as the fire brigade will give its full assistance to the humblest cottage as readily as to the most important mansion.

• 1:25Ryan Holiday?

  The war against disease, against pestilence, against infant mortality, these have been the collective battles of humanity since before Marcus Aurelius. Indeed, those were the primary battles of Marcus Aurelius's life. He fought against the Antonine Plague, selling off the imperial treasures and forgiving Rome's debts as he did so, not out of self-preservation, in fact, he ultimately died of it, but because he cared about other people. He fought armed only with the crudest medicines and understanding of science to help everyone he could, even as he mourned the deaths of his own young children. It's so easy to say, as people now feel comfortable saying on the internet, "Oh, but many of these people might have died anyway. COVID-19 only affects the

• 2:10Ryan Holiday?

  Elderly and the immunocompromised. Disgusting, heartless. It's also easy to say, as people do from inside their mansions and with their comfortable finances, that we should all just stay in lockdown until this is over. This too is heartless to those who will lose their jobs, who are trapped in abusive domestic situations, who suffer from depression, and the unborn future generations, who are deprived of the growth and dynamism of the economy. War is hard. It is not easy. It is not clean, but it must be fought. It demands your sacrifices. Its victims demand your compassion, and its mercilessness spits in the face of your glib and selfish attitudes. "The virus is the enemy," as Churchill said.

• 2:53Ryan Holiday?

  "It must be attacked on the ground with everything we have." It needs you to hold your shield, as the Spartans did, for the protection of the whole line. If you're liking this podcast, we would love for you to subscribe. Please leave us a review on iTunes or any of your favorite podcast listening apps. It really helps, and tell a friend.