Romanticism leads to pain and war?
Watching the following video I experienced an urgent question. Is Romanticism the cause of world wars and dreams of Utopia leading to mass murder and tyranny? Alain de Botton glides over the history that brings us to today's unrealistic expectations. Here we sit with the ability to communicate with people around the world and we seem on the brink of disintegration and possibly another world war. Our reality is not the expectation of reason. Could Romanticism be the problem?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOuIyEJnbE&t=1453s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOuIyEJnbE&t=1453s
Comments (108)
Murder, tyranny and war predate the Romantics.
Quoting Athena
All this "brink of disintegration" talk is overblown. Tragedians and pessimists of every stripe have been at this trope since Year Zero: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."
On the other hand: Dreams of Utopia I connect to Karen Horney's analysis of neuroticism and the neurotic pursuit of glory. Certainly, Hitler was a Utopian, and a seeker of neurotic-psychotic glory.
See:
Horney's Neuroticism and Human Growth
Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism
...et al.
:smile:
It takes two to tangle. So idealistic liberal poetic Romantics might build their Utopias & cloud castles, if not for the obstruction of pragmatic conservative prosaic Realists, who prefer to build on a solid foundation. Pain & War result, not from Romanticism or Realism, but from the inability to compromise on a blend of poetry & prose. :smile:
I think this phrase is quite contradictory. Tragedians need some background or stimulus to act in such way. I mean, pessimism is not inherent in our minds. You have to live different kinds of events which lead you to being pessimistic.
I think what @Athena is asking is if romanticism lead us to war, not backwards. I mean, we can debate here if romanticism itself works as propaganda to violence.
Yes, there's a background and a stimulus.
Quoting javi2541997
Romantic notions may give rise to Romanticism-inspired propaganda. I don't think it's accurate to call an
-ism propaganda.
YOUTH are romantic, by nature. They haven't yet come to terms with having to take care of themselves--grocery shopping; laundry; regular house cleaning; showing up for work every day, on time; changing the oil every 3,000 miles--all that stuff. Youth are pretty much wrapped up in themselves. How long does 'youth' last? In many cases, 25--about the time their brains finish forming. (this is biographical -- I'm not looking down my nose at today's youth.)
I entertained many romantic political and religious notions for many years, long past any definition of youth. It was a relief to flush out the system and get rid of the excess.
Naiveté isn't romanticism; viciousness (Hitler, Stalin) isn't romanticism either. In the psychological, non-poetic meaning, it's just delusional, and delusions can definitely lead to bad consequences when we act on them. (Delusion is a standard feature of human beings.) Romanticism, without analyzing the term closely, is about inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual, says the dictionary.
Quoting Athena
the problem of disintegration and war is perennial. Cohesion within and between nations is difficult to maintain over the long run. "The peaceable kingdom" is a romantic idea. We are always rubbing up against each other, individually and collectively, making invidious comparisons. Before long, we decide to just get rid of some inconvenient group of people, and heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to war we go.
I think this is often the case and yes, we do tend to idealise people and institutions out of all proportion. A certain path to bitterness and cynicism is to have one's ideals and romantic notions trampled upon.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Interesting you chose them - two men who were obsessed with romantic imagery and music throughout their lives and who had the most cloying, sentimental outlooks. It seems often to be the case that the most brutal of men are also the most sentimental.
Not that it matters here, but I think the ancient Greek notion of love goes with the concept of democracy. It is the basic belief that we all can do better, and if we all do better, we create a better society. It is simply in the realm of what is possible. Unless...
If we pick up from the Bible, then obviously we are wretched creatures and there is no hope for us because we can not help what we are, greedy, ignorant, lazy, basically incapable of controlling our impulses, so we need to tell our sins to the priest who tells us to do Hail Marys and with prayers, we might have God's grace and our immortality. The good thing is acceptance! We don't have to be perfect and how we are isn't our fault. Even if our spouse is hurt by our wrongs, tough, we are married for life and eternity. Suck it up and keep our own weaknesses in mind. Do not expect too much of anyone.
But the same mythology can flow into romanticism only now we are angels and finding our soul mate means happiness forever after. True love is unconditional and those who love us know what we need and want without us having to say anything about it. In fact, we should not talk too much and ruin everything with reason.
Some of this is a little unrealistic and ideas of Utopia are unrealistic and yet we are willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill our unrealistic goals and this brings us to suicide and war because we are willing to give our lives for what we want. I don't think that is what was behind wars in the past, but I think it may be behind the wars of modernization and romanticism?
I like the East Indian notion that when we speak of one thing we speak of its opposite as both are twos sides of the same coin.
Quoting Harold Rogers
When I look for synonyms of "Romanticism", most of the alternatives sound like innocent adolescent sentimental mawkishness. So, I suspect what you are actually referring to is "Extremism" in the form of unbridled Utopianism or Idealism. It's not the dreams of a perfect world that cause trouble, but the willingness to compel others to live in your dream-world. Obviously, enthusiastic & charismatic leaders have been able to persuade a significant portion of compatriots to join their Quixotic quest for an idealized reality : If not a perfect world, at least a better world for Us without Them.
So, the problem is not Hippie peace & love, or small-town conservatism, but all-or-nothing dreams enforced with spears & guns. Nazism was extreme Conservatism, that appealed to people humiliated & burdened in punishment for their Kaiser's WWI nationalism. Communism was extreme Liberalism, that appealed to the downtrodden serfs and lower classes of all nations. And the mass slaughters of the Crusades & Holy Wars were Christian & Islamic extremism, that spread the gospel at the point of a sword. Other, more accurate terms may be Zealotry, Fanaticism, Radicalism, or Chauvinism. :cool:
ROMANTIC FLOWER POWER vs PRAGMATIC GUN POWER
I absolutely love the picture you posted. I would like to enlarge it and put it on my wall.
Exactly where to place Limits on Liberty is an ancient philosophical conundrum. Supreme court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said something like "your freedom to swing your arm ends at my nose". :smile:
Here's a link to the Flower Power photo :
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/52/Flower_Power_by_Bernie_Boston.jpg
Yes. Yes it is.
Well, it may not be the only cause of such things. It's one of the causes.
I know that terrible things happened before Romanticism raised its self-absorbed, narcissistic, irrational, mystical, emotional head, but assume we refer to what took place after it did so. Unfortunately, it arose at a time when we had at our disposal tools by which we could be enormously more destructive than we had been in the past. So, as it encouraged us to indulge the more grotesque of our whims, dreams and desires, we had the means to inflict the harm caused by that indulgence on more people and did just that, extravagantly (of course).
I think it's true, in a sense. The "general will" of Rousseau, and other collectivist musings, such as in Hegel and Fichte, could be read as justifying mass war and state power. I believe it is collectivism more so than romanticism that caused this, but collectivism could be said to be a product of romanticism.
No, collectivism is.
Quoting Athena
Unrealistic expectations is a failure of individual rational assessment, which is a requirement of long-term homeostasis. I don't go adopting orphans just because I read about Jean Valjean doing it.
Quoting Athena
Humans do not, by and large, desire information enough to pursue it. What they care about, by and large, is minimal effort for the minimal homeostatic state. There's even some research on this:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26762485/
Basically, once homeostasis is perceived by individuals, the hunt for new workable concepts fundamentally pulls back, and thus the data that is used to produce concepts, people just live. Unfortunately, this leaves people ignorant and vulnerable, thus surrendering their consciousness to collectivist manipulation and claims of divine support and other such immoral bullshit. Thus, stupid people and war as a result.
Quoting Athena
No, Romanticism is needed now more than ever. If you haven't read Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto, you need to at least sample the first chapter, that's all you'll need, no kidding. It is, instead, the mixture of Existentialism with Christian self-hatred that has produced the issues you, and Alain, are highlighting. In other words, the absence of Romanticism is contributing to this.
Romanticism emphasizes: inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.
There are 7 billion people on earth, almost all of which are actively religious, and those who are not religious are affected by their collectivist principles that have dominated the minds of individuals for thousands of years. There is NOTHING Romantic in todays culture, and that is at the heart of these issues, not Romanticism's presence. It is exactly the opposite.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Quoting Ciceronianus
Quoting NOS4A2
Okay, I had to look up "homeostasis" and "general will". Homeostasis in the context of human behavior needs a better explanation. "General will" is explained like this
Quoting Alexander Pfander
I think the United States educated "general will" until 1958 when education for good moral judgment and independent thinking was changed to leaving moral training to the church and "group think" with reliance on authority. Is it possible "how" we teach children to think makes a difference?
Right now we have so much unrealistic thinking and people not trained for democracy, demonstrate a will focused on private interests not what is best for the common good. I think technology has led to unrealistic expectations. We sure are not thinking of what global warming is doing to the rest of the world. This sure as blazes is a big problem "self-absorbed, narcissistic, irrational, mystical, emotional head,". Education for technology is not education for science. Do we have a mass thinking problem and could education resolve it?
The old textbooks in the US focused on the general good.
No, it actually doesn't. Homeostasis is a biological term that describes the sustained equilibrium of, not just all biological systems including humans, but all systems in the universe, which is itself a homeostatic system that produces systems inclined to regression toward the mean, or homeostasis as a universal law of operations. Your homeostasis is, an independent system, completely your rational responsibility. Your consciousness that is responsible for rationality, was developed evolutionarily in accordance with the increased facilitation of exactly homeostasis, specifically. The concept is far more sophisticated, and universally relavent than any non-philosophy you're going to hear from Rousseu, or Kant, or Nietszche, or any other pseudo-philosopher.
Quoting NOS4A2
No, they already have done so. Mass atrocities are specifically justified on those grounds, among many other non-philosophical that lead to the destruction of the entity that produces philosophy, and thereby philosophy itself. You know, like the Christians did in Greece because they couldn't debate them.
@180 Proof How did you put it? Align expectations with reality? Please repeat what ya said for our collective benefit.
I quite like romanticism, if only because it gives me a glimpse of heaven, heaven itself being an ideal and thus romanticism's stock-in-trade. I know someone who would say that a false image of heaven is better than no idea (of heaven) at all (something's better than nothing). Yes, there are people like that and it's fun to be around them.
That said, the wrong idea is, sometimes, worse than being utterly ignorant (a little knowledge is dangerous).
I'm torn between these two views - I feel like an ass, Buridan's ass, fated to starve until death simply for being so god damned undecisive on matters, big and small.
Sorry I come late to this discussion. I've gone through the other comments. Some of them touch on the point of view I see this from. First, I want to make sure we are clear on what we mean by "romanticism" and "romantic." It has several related meanings, but here is the one I think of when dealing with political and ideological issues:
Romanticism - A literary, artistic, and philosophical movement originating in the 18th century, characterized chiefly by a reaction against neoclassicism and an emphasis on the imagination and emotions, and marked especially in English literature by sensibility and the use of autobiographical material, an exaltation of the primitive and the common man, an appreciation of external nature, an interest in the remote, a predilection for melancholy, and the use in poetry of older verse forms.
Romantic - Marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized.
When I think of romanticism in this context, I usually think of ideologies that focus on a mythical golden age that existed in an unspecified past.
These definitions indicate that romanticism in this sense originated in the 1700s, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the romantic impulse wasn't around earlier. By the definition above, I think Nazism, communism, jingoistic patriotism, and other similar ideologies can be defined as romanticism. So, yes. I think it is fair to say that romanticism is one of the major sources of, or at least excuses for, conflict.
Here's an excerpt from old post ...
Quoting 180 Proof
:fire:
Align expectations with the real!. You phrased it differently last time. I liked that one better. Anyway, beggars can't be choosers! :grin: I'll take it.
Just curious, if we always do as you advise, is progress possible? Progress has (always) been, in my humble opinion, a function of dissatisfaction (dukkha): we're dissatisfied, we wanna do something about it, and then so-called progress. We're living in relative comfort (air-con, central heating, etc.) precisely because we refused to accept what reality hadta offer us - scorching summer heat and frigid winters.
Of course you're not that stupid. My apologies. Good day!
Quoting T Clark
I have been thinking about what I saw in a documentary about art in that period, a kind of rebelliousness against established art standards and the elites who thought they rightly controlled the judgment of what is good art and what is not.
Wikipedia explains neoclassicism like this "The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, laterally competing with Romanticism."
Is that a class struggle? I am quite distressed by what I perceive as foolish liberty today. A breaking of the social rules that gives us hope of overcoming racism and has meant the liberation of women, but destroys family order and may have negative social ramifications as well. I guess that makes me a conservative although many think I am liberal. I value the Greek and Roman classics and think they could benefit us and I am not so good with breaking rules.
Quoting T Clark
That is what I am comfortable with. It marked past education in the US, but I do not see it as rebel or breaking rules. It is using classical literature to prepare the young for life and citizenship. It goes with preparing the young to make good wishes for our country, as one textbook explained education should do. That makes the democracy we were manifesting, a Romantic notion coming out of the Enlightenment. I don't think there are simple answers.
Quoting T Clark
I think that is so but so was the democracy we were manifesting through education a Romantic notion.
Quoting Agent Smith
That goes with the American dream and the roaring 20s when we were very excited by mechanical breakthroughs and what technology can do for us. But our romantic dream of ourselves could be a nightmare as we face another terrible war and global warming.
Quoting Garrett Travers I think we need some homeostasis right now. It feels like things are flying out of control in many directions. Dreams are wonderful but we need to ground ourselves with reality so our dreams don't become nightmares?
As I noted in my post, I was referring to romanticism not as a movement in art but as a nationalistic impulse. I think that impulse can be reflected in art, which is fine, and in ideology, which may not be. It is the focus on "...an exaltation of the primitive and the common man, an appreciation of external nature, an interest in the remote, a predilection for melancholy..." that I see as relevant to this discussion.
Quoting Athena
Quoting Athena
I don't know if you should be called liberal or conservative, but you sure seem to be a romantic in the sense we are talking about it here. I have thought that before reading your posts in previous threads.
Quoting Athena
Let me think about that... I don't think so, but I'm not certain. I'll think some more.
I certainly think support for our nation and government is often expressed in romantic terms, but I think democracy is a down-to-earth, practical way of governing. I don't think the founders of the US were romantics at all. You, on the other hand, seem to be. Is that something that might lead you to support risky policies in the name of national solidarity and tradition?
My two cents on Romanticism as I am pondering it now...
The Enlightenment of the 17-18th centuries sought out to understand the world using what they referred to as "Reason". This idea, borrowed from the Stoics but changed slightly to mean empirical reasoning and not necessarily some "Universal Reason" (though there was some of this too with Deism). It was simply the notion brought about from the New Science being explored by Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Huygens, Descartes, Boyle, et al.
However, the scientific worldview seemed to constantly focus on the empirical and even with that, Political Science was the main focus. The individual human condition was given short-shrift. The 19th century can be seen as a sort of backlash.. Existentialism started the trend of "the individual" and the existential questions of life. What does it mean to be a human consciousness, from the interior perspective, not just the empirical one. These types of human struggles are captured more in art, literature, feelings, personal observations and experiences, etc.. The individual was being more captured by people like Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc.
But one can say Romanticism proper was this kind of middle ground in the early 1800s between the "political-oriented" 18th century and the personal oriented 19th century. It was from late 1700s-early 1800s and often turned politics into identity-politics.. Rousseau and his general "General Will", Herder, or Schelling and Fichte's emphasis on ethnic politics helped push movements that divided Europe less on Imperial or Universal lines and more on common cultural and historical ties. It was not universal in the Enlightenment sense of only worrying about the individual's rights and securities, but about cultural identity. Individualistic, but at the level of culture, not the person. That would be more emphasized with the Existentialists.
This makes sense to me. You know a lot more about 17th century cultural history than I do.
Thank you.. I am very keen to learn about historical developments in ideas an human culture. I think it also helps orient philosophical ideas and their origins from broader cultural trends.
I cordially invite you to read and comment on my most recent post. I do the same for anyone else reading. I think it is important for you to.
Here's a link to a YouTube video of a Ukrainian woman handing an invading Russian soldier some flower seeds to plant on her martyr's grave. Now isn't that a Romantic idea? :smile:
PS___Ooops! Apparently I misinterpreted the gesture. The seeds were intended to grow from his rotting corpse on Ukrainian soil. At least a romantic way to say "f*ck you, and the tank you rode in on". :angry:
https://www.newser.com/story/317392/ukrainian-hands-soldier-seeds-so-flowers-can-grow-from-corpse.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=earthlink&utm_campaign=rss_top
A Romantic way to look a murderer in the eyes and say "I see you, motherfucker." I love it when people look evil in face like that, if only to simply let it know that we are still here, and not a god damn thing is gonna change it. I love this species.
Well, empiricism is the legacy of Epicurus, from whose views Stoicism and Skepticism were emergent. Epicurus was the direct challenge to Platonism and Aristotelianism. But, I mean, yeah, you can get away with that. Stoics did have the "logos." But, it wasn't necessarily like a methodical application of logic or empiricism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Beautifully reported, my friend. I have nothing to add.
I think many of the US founding fathers were romantics.
The history for this begins with the crusades and the discovery of Greek and Roman classics revealing ancient civilizations that were more advanced than rural, agrarian Europe under Christianity and kings. This was an embarrassment for the church and to maintain its authority, it claimed that knowledge as its own. Classical information was the core of scholasticism. At this time the Church relied heavily on Plato and Aristotle. The classics became the foundation of liberal education and were secularized, giving us the Age of Reason.
Quoting Harry Brighouse
That education led to the enlightenment.
Quoting wikipedia
Johannes Gutenberg's printing press and figuring out how to make paper made books relatively cheaply, plus the demand for books, but not having a lot of authors, lead to printing the Greek and Roman classics provided the foundation of a literate society.
So I would say Romanticism compted with religion and well-educated men at the time of Thomas Jefferson were apt to be Romantics. I would say the literature and education back in the day lead to
an idealized view of reality, and in the US we maintained that until 1958 when it was replaced 100% by education for technology. The Prussians centralized education and focused Germany on education for technology for military and industrial purposes and became what we defended our democracy against. The ideal manifest by education for technology being very different from the ideal manifested by liberal education. Yet religion and the classics are core to either ideal. There, did I make that as clear as the water in a mud hole?
Let us grapple over what you think is more down-to-earth? Oh, this is such a juice debate of what is so. :grin: Is that "something that might lead you to support risky policies in the name of national solidarity and tradition?" I don't know? I don't think so but I would appreciate probing this possibility? I think every cell in my body favors liberty, but that goes with washing the unwashed masses and dressing them in fine clothes. Oh, dear. I don't know if I am evil or good?
Are those Romantic values? I don't think so.
Quoting Athena
You were very clear, but I don't think the only two choices are Romanticism and technocracy.
Oh my God, I love you! The difference between "empirical reasoning" as opposed to "Universal Reason" is a wonderful thing to contemplate! Oh dear, I am so excited my brain shut down. I need to do some breathing to calm down. What is the difference?
Cicero thought with reason we could come to agreements on what is so and what should be and how to get from what is to what should be. He thought with would be universal. Socrates was most concerned with expanding our consciousness which is right in line with Cicero's belief that we can progress with reason. "There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil.“ — Marcus Tullius Cicero, book De Legibus Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1931662-marcus-tullius-cicero-there-is-a-true-law-a-right-reason-conformable-t
Yeoza! "The individual was being more captured by people like Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc." I could be wrong but I think Kierkegaard and Nietzche had serious mental problems that could have been genetic. I just don't trust a man who does not find happiness with family. Raising children is an important part of growing up. Especially if one wants to be an authority on human nature. Like without family aren't we missing an important human experience?
"The individual was being more captured by people like Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc. It was from late 1700s-early 1800s and often turned politics into identity-politics." How delicious! What was happening during this period of history? We were entering the industrial age and migration from rural life to city life. I was shocked when I moved from LA, California to a rural and primitive community in Oregon and shocked again when I moved back into a city with all its rules and regulations! It is such different consciousnesses and different experiences of life and who we are. Just this month a reporter gave us a woman in the contested region of Ukraine, who said she wants nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine, but just wants to be left alone. She cared nothing about politics. When I was raising my family in a rural area I wasn't politically aware, because what was on my mind was my family, the dogs, chickens, garden, and the small-town community events like the quaint fair where we showed off our produce and domestic skills and talents.
Eventually what captured my mind were the Greek gods and especially the goddesses and learning to become my own hero. :lol: I was definitely romantic and knew nothing about what oil has to do with the economy and war and military-industrial complex. I am so political now. Thank you for awakening my memory of my past. What we think we know of human nature should not be based exclusively on the limits of our own lives and a small group of associates who are just like us.
How is that so?
He was the first to formalize it into a moral code and sort of traditionalize it, as it were, as opposed to the Platonic and Aristotelian models, which were more focused on forms, and logic.
Is empiricism a moral code?
To Epicurus it was. And it was the expansion of his societies, who lived by his code, that established the tradition as a consistent culture throughout the Hellensitic era. They lasted 500 years and numbered in the hundreds of thousands of small communities that challenged Skepticism, Stoicism, Judaism, and Christianity.
But what has your knowledge source to do with good and bad? What morals you refer to? How to find knowledge?
Why do you not agree with the Wikipedia definition of the Enlightenment? Thomas Jefferson plagiarized John Locke when he wrote the US Declaration of Independence, except instead of the right to land as Locke mentioned, Jefferson said a right to pursue happiness. Considering how important land is to our survival I kind of regret Jefferson replacing that with the right to pursue happiness, however, we should understand that interest in pursuing happiness is an idea coming from Aristotle and Cicero.
Quoting Albert Stepanyan and Lilit Minasyan
The enlightenment was based on that reasoning. Something we might better appreciate if compared to the Christian dark age of beings cursed and thrown out of Eden and in need to being saved by a supernatural power. All religions tending to be conservative and hold back human progress, leaving people with no books and no way of knowing anything but what religious leaders tell them and a few survival skills and totally dependent on authority above them. In such conditions what kind of happiness could a human hope to have? Unless they feared a god, what would make them virtuous?
The way I see it, all of your behavior is predicated on the knowledge that your brain assimilates through sensory observation. Meaning, your primary means of successfully navigating the world in behavior, is an empirical analysis of reality, as opposed to mysticism, or spirits. Also, Epicurus believed that fear was an evil, and our ignorance of nature left us afraid of the Gods. That to dispel that fear, one should empirically investigate nature to uncover its secrets and natural processes. Keep in mind, this guy produced the most peacful societies that I know of in history. He's quite literally the best of the Greeks.
Specifically, yes. As in, these are specifically what Romanticism highlights. Haven't you ever read Les Miserables?
Okay, you are saying he is an empiricist because he is a materialist? That is he believes the cosmos consists only of atoms and voids, and it is the mothing and quantitative qualities of atoms that gave form to everything in the cosmos, and furthermore, that true knowledge is provable by both observation and logic.
It would be fun if we could replay history and have the Church base scholasticism on Epicurus instead of Aristotle. Oh my, you have made this discussion much more exciting than I expected! I am going to take a break and contemplate the possibility. Scholasticism replied on Plato and his perfect forms supporting the Christian notion of God and perfection, and also Aristotle with his logic for knowing truth. But as we know, there was a huge backlash to Artistotle and the Church's claim to truth. Bacon gave us inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning depends on materialism versus spiritualism in that it is something that can be observed. God and his spiritual realm is not something we can observe. Do others see where materialism is important or am I off track? To be an empiricist is to be a materialist and this opposes superstition. Christianity does not oppose superstition because it depends on believing the supernatural is more real than what we experience as real and it does not follow the rules of nature but rather depends on pleasing a God who is not limited by the laws of nature/logos, right? I think the backlash against Aristotle was also a backlash against the Church and essential to the enlightenment and our liberty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAdpPABoTzE
All of this, yes! I'd give anything to have these societies back and people behaving like them. You need to see this history, man. Epicurus is the real deal. I regard him as THE single most important, and influential philosopher in history:
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Spinoza/Texts/Epicurean%20History.htm
Well, you should know my stance on procreation by now, Athena.
That being said, taking my usual antinatalism off the table, and being more of a "existential psychologist", using Maslow's Hierarchy as a model of some sort of needs of the individual...
What do you think of society's way of relating with others? You talk about a sort of pseudo-homesteading that you did in Oregon. If we are not talking about a cultish-commune type society, I'm assuming you had to meet a partner (assuming in your case a husband), go through a sort of dating/courting/falling in love process, decide to create new people in the world and raise them a certain way, be able to provide for yourself and family with some sort of job in the broader economic system which allows for things to survive.. EVEN in just these very "typical" circumstances, people can have a hard time in almost every one of those processes.... everything from sustaining a good job, finding a partner, and living some ideal life of perfect harmony where one has a clockwork routine of baking pies and making furniture, while the kids are helping churn the butter, and helping cultivate the garden.. Ya know it's just like the Hobbits or something, right? It all works out, and everyone's needs are met in perfect harmony :roll:. That image indeed is its own romanticism.. It is the pull for Tolkien's world, for fantasy idealism.
Where did I say I don't agree with it? I'm confused by your whole post. All I said is that Enlightenment values are not Romantic values.
Already in the womb we gather information. We are not blank born. Who says we aren't born with an inate sense of God which is wiped away when we grow up?
Quoting Garrett Travers
Why not asking the spirits for advice in successfully navigating the world instead of empirical analysis of reality. The empirical analysis has brought the world in a shape it's never been in before. Pretty bad, that is.
Quoting Garrett Travers
So if we have knowledge of nature, we shouldn't fear God? Why should we fear God in the first place?
Quoting Garrett Travers
If we have uncovered these secrets, maybe fear increases. Maybe it turns out that they can actually intervene, causing fear to those who think they will punìsh. But why should God punish. You can better amend your gods image and not fear them. Maybe they just created the universe without further ado. Maybe they just leave us alone.
Quoting Garrett Travers
There are a lot of these societies. Or better, were. Based on magic and myth. No atom bombs, no high-tec, respect for nature. They don't exist anymore. The west introduced analytical problem solving, already obligatory taught to the young at our schools.
If you have faith in the natural ordering of state of affairs, then besides behaving reasonably, having good judgment, and having reasonableness in the way you see the world, you don't have to do anything else because the ordering of the ugly side of liberty will happen. This phenomenon has been observed in the natural world-- when groups have become unsustainable, whether by toxicity, overcrowding, and unrest, they naturally break apart into smaller groups somewhere else.
As far as romanticism, @Gnomon had got a handle on it -- his post provides a brief description of what romanticism is.
I think that's the correct running order - rationalism then romanticism, after that, the hula-hoop followed by where we are now: the yo-yo.
Oh, yes you have my attention. :grin:
"The teachings of the Lyceum did not sit well with Epicurus, who quickly moved on to study the atomistic system of Democritus under Nausiphanes of Teos." That is from your link and I am enjoying it. While reading of Epicurus education I was uneasy because I knew Socrates was opposed to contemplating smaller and smaller things (atoms) and Plato who learned from Socrates went on to teach philosophy to Aristotle. So how did Epicurus get into atoms? Your link explains that and that delights me. :heart:
The turmoil of his years is interesting. It sure was not homeostatic! Today, Epicurus is nowhere near as well known as Aristotle and Plato who were advanced by the Church and scholasticism. The Bible does not give us the math and science that was available in its day. We were given a mythology of creation, and of deities and demons, that is contrary to science and what some of us believe is truth, but appears to be based on Sumerian stories of the gods, that were plagiarized by those we know as Jews today. How different history might have been if Epicurus's philosophy had become the winning philosophy! Aristotle is very important but if he had been adopted along with Epicurus and the atomic system, might history have gone very differently, and might we know a different world today, with a totally different understanding of "human nature"?
I am really stoked!. :grin: :heart:
I am confused. What you said is true and doesn't that make our disregard for nature, the problem? But we are smart enough to develop the science that should become the right reason of which Cicero speaks.
"If you have faith in the natural ordering of state of affairs" My faith is in science, not human stupidy and the religions that maintain it.
How are Enlightenment values not Romantic values?
Please, don't expect me to remember anything. I have not been diagnosed with Alzheimer's yet, but I am struggling to just live in the present. :lol: I hope I remember to get back to you. I have to leave for work right now. :lol: Perhaps I should do better notes so I can keep everyone straight and remember what I intend to do when I have the time.
Science is part of the state of affairs.
You romanticize the reason for war. War is over gold. Look deep enough, and its over something.
I have 1950 values. Ideally, until the children are old enough, women do not work outside of the home but make an important economic contribution to the family with their domestic skills. I am not sure that is just romanticism. In fact, it is very much about duty, not just to the family, but to the whole community. This is very much about defending our democracy and not becoming reliant on the state.
Personally, I am not so much patriotic as I identify myself with women around the world. All mothers share a lot in common and we need to stand united. I lived for my children and Demeter was my archetype until my children grew up and I shifted to an Athena archetype, identified with Athens and Roman, not exactly the US. I suppose there is a lot of romanticism in my thinking and feelings, but also a lot of philosophy and study of human nature from the point of view of many disciplines, from anthropology and zoology to geology and economics. And I am thinking about all this as I write, wondering what I think about what I think, and what thought might come up next?
I brought up the question about Romanticism because of the youtube I watched and the question of if it is behind dreams of utopia that turn into nightmares. I still am not sure what I think but I think unless a person is insane we all act on good intentions and the best way to avoid trouble is to be as aware as we can be about the world we live in and why we think what we think. :chin: Socrates was not right about all things, but for sure, the more we know, the more we know we do not know.
Yes, but how many of us think scientifically? Scientific thinking is empirical and religious thinking is not empirical. Understanding human values is not empirical thinking and our opinions are not empirical thinking. Even those who do think empirically do so only once in a while because it is very energy-consuming and we are running on automatic most of the time and rarely really think about anything. This is a problem for democracy and education can resolve but it is not. In fact, some states have laws preventing thinking.
So I'd like to propose some food for thought that might seem "out of left field".
1. We are always thrown into a "baked-in" social reality. In some circles, this is referred to as "situatedness". That is to say, I cannot escape the historical forces that preceded my existence. For example, despite my desire for a different world set-up, I am generally bound to trying to change the (for all practical purposes) immovable one I have now.. There are the several choices society has set for us, or we can choose to die of starvation, homelessness, isolation, and suicide if we don't like them.
2. What I was asking previously was about how life does not always fulfill people's (supposed) needs equally. There is someone like yourself, let's say, who was able to find an economic way to raise your children, to find a partner that loves and supports you, to live a pseudo-homesteading lifestyle. But you see, not every individual will have any of those pieces work out in that way. Someone might not have a very fulfilling job, or find a romantic partner, or have the skills or wherewithal, or contingent circumstances to have this pseudo-homesteading lifestyle. There is no defined path to get any of this either, or at least, no defined path that always leads to optimal or desired outcomes.
In other words, in all known worlds, it is only the case that some people will have basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy met, while others simply will not. Those contingent circumstances make life itself an unequal, and thus possibly morally problematic thing to create for someone else. Thus, even though you are talking about utopian visions of dictators, your own vision is very "romanticized" it seems. It may not lead to "horrors" of genocide and war, but simply the everyday disappointments of the everyday human. It might not be as dramatic, but it is still tragic.
That's what the ruling powers tell you.
As I've quoted before from Dylan, "Masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools". You are no exception.
Sorry, forgot to respond.
When I think of Enlightenment, I think of reason. When I think of Romanticism, I think of feelings and ideals. Maybe I've got that wrong.
Combine all three, and that's Romanticism. If you've read Les Miserables, that's pinnacle Romanticism.
As I understand it, the Enlightenment was all about rationalism order and secularism - Romanticism was specifically a reaction against these strictures, a project wanting to restore emotion, spontaneity, subjectivity and enchanted thinking.
:up:
This is too graphic. :)
Quoting Athena
We shouldn't think that thinking scientifically means thinking logically. Common sense works too. No we do not think scientifically at all times. I made that clear in my thread about praying and wishing. But, in our day to day affairs, we've learned to treat scientific facts as common sense facts. The calm before the storm makes us stay inside the house and wait for the rain. We don't eat food that had gone sour or moldy. And of course, looking before we cross the street saves us from getting hit by vehicles.
What am I referring to?
The positive spin it gives to what are normally considered the bringer of misery and pain (war being the archetype) leads to people willing to kill & die (for a cause). This, I'm led to believe, is akin to brainwashing/mind manipulation of the worst kind ever. :smile:
I think this is an incorrect understanding of romanticism. On the contrary, being lost in the romantic view of the world is like wearing rose-colored glasses all the time. One fails to see the ugly side of existence -- that there are undertakings that are impossible to achieve or that there are things that require suffering and hardships. If you actually read the writings of the romanticists, you would think that people living in that world are childlike or immature, forget about innocence. There are failures in life.
What else?
Yes, we should think scientific thinking is logical and the examples you gave and not.
We agree those are not examples of scientific thinking, right? They are knee-jerk reactions done without much thinking and voting with the same lack of thinking or deciding not to wear a mask or get a vaccination without thinking things threw is problematic. Romantic thinking is not really thinking either.
Here is a short and simple video about the good and bad of that kind of thinking.
It is all rather complex and I regret my limited time to respond to people.
However, the futurist dream of the enlightenment was to raise the human potential and resolve all our problems with reason. Democracy being rule by reason and made possible with universal education. The pursuit of happiness meant gaining knowledge. This is a huge contrast from believing we were kicked out of Eden and cursed and doomed to be miserable creatures unless saved by a supernational power and therefore we must we live under the authority a God who gives us to rule over us. This God deciding who will be masters and who will be servants. Our liberty from that is pretty romantic, isn't it? I suspect we don't understand things this way because of the Christian influence and enlightenment and Christianity oppose each other.
I don't believe it is the idea but the people who play by it who are to blame. People may simply not be compatible with each other due to specific unexplainable differences due to our immense complexities but again, we learn and as Bottom explains, there are sometimes specific outrages which could lead to the failure of a relationship and it may very well be the wanting to maximise the romantic relationship you have with someone, pushing your limit. As he says, sometimes love cannot be explained with words and must be experienced in silence, for there is no explanation, and so there are a simple combination of emotions you feel which allows you to feel great care and comfort with the other person.
Back to the point, I believe romanticism is not the issue, but rather the people experiencing it, and due to our imperfections, although we want absolute romanticism with the other person as we believe it is the only way we can truly express our love for them, we must instead sustain the relationship, for too much water in a boiling pot will overflow.
I'd say there is a difference between romanticising enlightenment and rationalising romanticism. :razz:
Well, I was trying to say that often people procreate thinking that their style of raising someone transfers some sort of romantic ideal of fulfillment. Our society doesn't work that way.. Let's take a pretty popular human desire for some of long-term love..
I can devise a science fiction universe where everyone is provided from birth with a partner that they will care for and will care for them.. But of course then comes the drama of wanting the other partner, and trading them with others.. or too many people desiring the ones the other people have, or not being happy in the confines of this one.. Thus falling apart to the chaotic market-economy of today's dating system.. And there are people who may find love and those who don't. There are those who had love and fall out, or unrequited, or lose their affection, etc. etc..
So I am just saying the romantic ideal of the perfect union.. "X person finds Y person and establish a long-term bond of mutual affection, and work in Z job that provides enough money for them, and fulfill their time without any self-reflection chopping wood, making furniture, and making pies.. essentially pretending to live in 1740.. and whose life is a clockwork of purpose and production.." this too is a romantic vision of sorts.. It's not the romantic vision of a dictator but of the idealistic parent hoping for some sort of Platonic stability that doesn't exist.
Uhm, I think I didn't make that clear. The examples I gave are scientific facts, but we act like they're common sense. There's a scientific explanation of the calm before the storm, moldy and sour foods, and looking both ways so we don't get hit by a car because the speed of the vehicle is a lot faster than our speed of avoidance.
Quoting Athena
Not necessarily. I mean, are you just talking about romantic feeling of love? Or are we still in the romanticism movement? The attitude that predominates the 18th century? Where a young mind is filled with hopes, and dreams, and goodness, and yes, courage?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Okay I give you that. Early on in life, people have romantic vision, and as they get older the romantic vision becomes impractical or unrealistic. Then finally, they see that life is about suffering and hardships -- so they join capitalism.
We have another agreement problem.
Russian media is controlled and claiming the west is violating the NATO agreement, and so is US media controlled but fortunately less so, and it is not mentioning the verbal agreement but is insisting Putin is just nuts. If we think of this in terms of people filing for a divorce we can see the romantic notions of who is being wronged and who is committing the wrong. The leaders of both countries, the US and Russia are building different understandings of reality that make it appear their side is in the right and the side is in the wrong. This happens with all wars.
We all like to see ourselves as in the right and defending what is good. This is essential to people being willing to put their lives on the line and willing to pay for the weapons of war. Trusting our leaders to do the right thing, is perhaps a very romantic notion. Looking into the Ukraine problem, I see the Israel problem of multiple agreements made depending on who is being manipulated the Jews or the Arabs. Opposing sides were led to have very different expectations, and the violence continues as people struggle to defend themselves. Having blind faith in our leaders is romantic. We need to demand full discloser of negotiations. Not just what does the official signed agreement say, but what was said to get everyone to sign?
Number one, we all need to understand what a fact is. Number two we have to hook up people from around the world with internet forums and where we all can keep our leaders honest and ethical. My romantic notion is we can have rule by reason but we can not depend on our leaders unless we can know what they are doing and pay attention!
I love :heart: that statement. This forum is so much better than most forums because the people here can see the subtle differences and see things from different points of view. How can we educate for this?
You did not watch the explanation of fast and slow thinking. There can be a big problem with believing common sense is good thinking. The video makes that very clear and it is information I wish everyone shared. A friend used to have a sign on her door saying, "Just because you think it is true, does not mean it is true." Scientific thinking questions the truth of what we believe. Common sense is accepted without question. We believe it just because we hear it all the time.
Quoting L'éléphant
Oh yes, I am of that mindset. Once in a while reality seems to dampen my romanticism and I have to work harder at believing what I want to believe.
PS that kind of thinking put in in Hades for a very long time. :chin:
Thank you for those comments. That is what makes Romanticism something to discuss as it looks different from different points of view. Personally, I have strong feelings about the ideals. But then I think math and science are sexy. The power of knowledge can be thrilling and is much more hopeful than a pessimistic religion about Satan. demons, and sinners.
Okay I have no objection to this. We're on the same page. I'm only citing those examples that have been proven to be sensible. The calm before the storm is true -- you feel it in the air.
100%
Yes and no doubt because we understand the nature/science behind many common-sense notions we can believe common sense is reasoning equal to scientific reasoning. This is close to believing the Bible is God's truth and a better source of truth than science. Both common sense and God's truth, beliefs, can lead us to trouble when we think the reasoning is equal to scientific reasoning. The pandemic has made some of us very aware of that problem.
Interestingly as some brought out in this thread, reasoning without emotions can also be problematic! The nuclear bomb may have ended the war between the US and Japan sooner and saved thousands of lives, but who does not wish that never happened and therefore we do not live in fear of nuclear war? The US used cluster bombs on Iraq and now we hear in the news that cluster bombs are against the rules for war. Emotion plays an important part in our decision-making. That was the theme of a few Star Trek shows when Kirk was the Captain of the Enterprise.
I feel passionate about what the values of what the Enlightenment can do for us and the enlightenment as I understand it is about what reason can do for us. The Enlightenment is about universal knowledge and raising the human potential. That is a wonderfully romantic idea, isn't it? We are working towards more humane wars and the possibility of no wars. Putin doesn't see things this way, but I think NATO does? If global warming made the winters in Russia more pleasant, perhaps that would improve our relationship with Russia? Not all things about reason. Emotions are important too.
I agree, reason without emotions is a machine. I don't know about Putin. I think what's happening is a bloop and a blast --
Enlightenment gets thrown about a lot in the forum. I never really paid much attention to it. But now, I have the following definition for you. Let's see what is enlightenment:
So, it looks to me like enlightenment is from a bygone era where people didn't have separation of church and state, tolerance, progress, liberty, fraternity, constitutional government. Why do we keep on praying for enlightenment? It doesn't make sense to ask for this now as we do have these things in our society.
What you should be asking is, what did enlightenment do for us? Well, do you feel that the enlightenment affected how our society is in any way? I think you don't think it has had any effect at all. And it's not like we can point to it and identify it using scientific evidence. Yet, here we are, always saying "If only we have enlightenment, Putin would not have done what he did." Who knows! Maybe Putin is the most enlightenment individual on the planet right now. I don't know. I'm just needing some perspective because enlightenment is really about individualism. Well, Putin is being "individual" with his decision.
War is here to stay. I don't really understand how people could not understand this. Why do you think countries stockpile on weapons? Nine countries with nuclear weapons spent almost 73 billion dollars in one year alone. What's the purpose of this spending? So they could put them in museums? Or sell on Ebay? No. The weapons are made for killing.
How about young people can not be enlightened as we are enlightened in our later years. How well we understand meanings is a matter of brain organization and that changes as we age. The difference between learning something and knowing the facts; and getting the bigger meaning, a kind of gestalt, probably needs to be experienced before it can be known. Because in our later years the neurons in our brains have grown and new connections are made that are not made when we are young.
When we are young we pick up new facts easier but we have more of a dictionary understanding of words. This is more so before the age of 8. Around age 8 the sheath around our neurons is complete and we become more discriminating and start questioning what we are told. Around age 25 we experience another change in our brains but our personality does not become solidified until around age 30. Later in life, all the facts and memories begin making new connections, and learning something new gets harder, like a broad river flows slower, but we can have an enlightenment experience that we don't have when we are younger. I want to say is, we went into the Age of Enlightenment when enough people got old and had the ability to communicate with each other in large cities. Leasure time and the ability to own books and write letters would be vital to this. The Enlightenment could not happen before these advancements. It sure could not happen when the life expectancy was 35 or 45 years because people died before having enough knowledge to be enlightened.
I reject this. Sorry, Athena. Books and writings came about because of enlightenment, not the other way around. And no, the life expectancy at 35-45 was overblown. There are many philosophers and historians in the ancient times that lived through their 70s and 80s.
It's been written that the causes of the age of enlightenment happened in small advances in science and other field of studies, until it became a movement and reached wider audience.
I did not expect anyone to accept a gerontological explanation unless they were old enough to have experienced it. Are you arguing our brains do not change as we age leading to greater wisdom with age? Of course, if a person never reads and never engages in philosophical discussions those thinking neurons do not grow and that wisdom would be very limited. But for those few who have a love of knowledge and live past 70 and 80, something awesome happens. They are no longer thinking like the warrior they once were. Now you get Socrates' arguments about justice and what is good. He has pondered those notions for many years and now people want to hear what he has to say. What he ponders is slightly different from the young man obsessed with his body, his sex life, and competition with his peers.
Not until the renaissance, printing press, and knowledge of making paper did a growing middle class have access to the ancient Roman and Greek thoughts that became the foundation for philosophy in Europe. The church developed scholasticism centered on Plato and Aristotle creating a market for the ancient books. Later, Bacon blew the door to knowledge wide open with abductive reasoning and we enter the modern age with scientific thinking. The industrial age was made possible in part by perspective art because now pictures of the plans for making machines could look three-dimensional and these pictures put in books spread the industrial technology rapidly.
Quoting Naomi Blumberg
I think what we must consider is the ingredients of thought. Why did the Renaissance spread from Italy? Because they still had ancient documents and a memory of the glory of Rome. Because they had metropolitan cities and sought the old documents that provided solutions to metropolitan problems. This was not so for the whole of Europe where besides a few technological skills passed on from generation to generation, people were relatively isolated in rural agrarian communities, the only source of information was the church that was commented to the past and saving souls for God and heaven. They were told not to be worldly and they were not intellectually stimulated until church-controlled scholasticism gave them Aristotle. And they died young.
So why were the Romans and Greeks different? There was a time when the Greeks were thought to be a race of genius and there is some excitement about questioning why they were different. Roman advanced concepts of universals and law, but they began by imitating Athens. I am saying this to compare it to living on a landlord's land and trying to exist by farming when it was not advanced and there were no books, no trade routes, nothing to stimulate their imaginations of what could be. The ingredients for thought and imagination did not exist in most of Europe before the Renaissance.
I'm not sure I understand this point. Please clarify as to your reaction to what I said regarding the change in wisdom.
My point in my previous post was: the enlightenment happened. Now it's our task to examine what lasting effects did enlightenment provide? Because you seem to say we should bring back the enlightenment -- it isn't an organization or an institution that could be established again. And why do we need to bring it back? It doesn't look like it had a lasting effect if we're still unhappy with the state of affairs.
The renaissance -- you're thinking that the search for scholastic knowledge, rediscovering of the ancients writings, and other arts and politics ideas are sought or willingly craved by the greater population. No. It didn't work that way. The thinkers, the historians, the scholars were the ones. They were what they were before the renaissance and because of that, this renaissance thinking happened.
Oh my goodness we have different sources of information. My sources of information say a very deliberate effort was made to regain past knowledge. My source of information is college lectures but I found a link on the internet that is useful. The lecture focused more on the Italian reasons for pursuing documents translated by Petrarch. That is a memory of the glory of Rome, and I need to have cosmopolitan solutions to Italy's cities that were growing because of increased trading. Agarainian Europe with no trade was not as motivated in the beginning because the church met their needs.
Quoting History Crunch
An organization that did advance ancient mysticism and knowledge were the Masons.
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins (theorised to be anywhere from the time of the building of King Solomon's Temple to the mid-1600s). Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, and has millions of members. The various forms all share moral and metaphysical ideals, which include, in most cases, a constitutional declaration of belief in a Supreme Being.[1]
Quoting mystic
Public schools in the US were about liberal education based on the Greek and Roman classics and they advanced humanism along with an understanding of democracy that is dependent on literacy in Greek and Roman classics. I think such education can prevent Romanticism from becoming a tyranny or a war machine because of its focus on the individual as an authority while promoting the welfare of all. This follows from Aristotle and the notion that every species has a purpose and it is the human purpose to reason and this goes with notions of being political animals. It includes Cicero and the ideas about right reason. Philosophy gives us a totally different way of searching truth than the religions of revelation. The Bible is about a kingdom, not democracy and it is about believing, not reasoning.
Thank you for these passages. The Petrarch one is what I had in mind about renaissance. Your comments are on point.
I bet that you tell that to everyone in every forum you visit! :smile:
Absolutely not! I would not complement the people here if good thinking and good manners were common. In one forum I have at least 1/2 the active members on my ignore list and I finally stopped being active in the forum because the members argue as badly as bored kids in the back seat of a car. Commonly there is no understanding of the difference between opinion and fact. :worry: And no understanding of what good manners have to do with good discussions and all this troubles me deeply because that means a poor understanding of democracy. Which can bring us to the topic of this thread.
Democracy is built on the belief that we are political animals by nature and that we are capable of good reasoning, there, we are capable of good government and lifting the human potential. However, from time to time people enter wars believing they are fighting for the good. What started this discussion is someone questioned if Romanticism lead to the worst human tragedies such as we saw in world wars and communist take over of Russia and China. America is struggling with its own identity right now because so many people regret slavery, the destruction of native American people, and some of our own war activity. People are opinionated and are ready to kill but is their thinking well founded in facts? I think I have concern that Romanticism is not well-grounded in facts and their good intentions, but bad reasoning, can lead to human tragedy?
Yes but it's rousseau's general will which underlines romanticism and the wars like naziism, marxism etc
That makes me happy. To me, it means, by good reasoning, we can make things better, but now I have to ask an old Greek question. How many people make a democracy possible and does a democracy become impossible when there are too many people? Oh, oh I love this. We survive the complexity of our cities by taking thinking shortcuts, prejudices, and generalizing. That means we are not really thinking 90% of the time but are reacting. We would not have enough energy to get through the day if we were actually thinking everything threw. Especially in very large populations, we must protect ourselves by not getting too involved with others. Now you can have a wave of action, such as going to war because our social nature can overrule our capability of good reasoning. When everyone is emotionally geared for war, it is a really bad idea to say "I don't think this is a good ideal." Especially not when people are not trained for independent thinking and good manners.
Oh my goodness, you wrote exactly what I was thinking about just a minute ago! This is so exciting! Please say more. I am not that familiar with Rousseau and have a burning desire to know more. What is this "general will"? How is it affected and can steps such as training for independent thinking and good manners, and insisting on media principles such as presenting both sides, curb the possible destructive nature of the general will?
Yes, there is such a thing as too big to make democracy work. But, the ancients never thought that any system would last permanently. So democracy shouldn't be the be all end all game. At least not in the sense of forever.
Quoting Athena
Lol. This sounds like news pundits. Honestly, I don't get the "ignore list" -- I click on new posts I'm interested in. And if the posts happened to be nonsense, I just don't react to them. So I don't have an ignore list.
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I would! :grin:
I want to make everyone happy. :lol:
Democracy, whatever it is, seems to provide the right kinda environment for healing of a society (people can vent their frustrations. Important! Talk things out in a civilized manner. Etc.). One could perhaps look at democracy as a sanitarium of some kind for society to convalesce in). :smile:
That is the ideal, but because of rhetoric and ignorance and I want to say youth, we do not achieve that ideal. Socrates blamed Athens's democracy for the war with Sparta that it lost. That led to his student Plato writing of a Republic where decisions are made by philosophers, not everyone, and later even forefathers of the United States opposed too much democracy. The US has a limited democracy because its form of government is a Republic that is closer to Plato's rule by a chosen few. And here is where we get into trouble. Communism can be compared to Plato's Republic. Communism began with slaughtering people to impose the rule of communism.
:lol: It is an emotional self-control problem and why I question if our good intentions can lead to a terrible tyranny. Mothers can be very "nice people" with ever good intentions and absolutely terrible tyrants with their children! We need to stop thinking of tyrants as bad people because good people with good intentions can be tyrants, and that is how we come to this thread. My saving grace is awareness of my faults and learning to live graciously as a less-than-perfect human being is a challenge.
To clarify, I don't like how the things some people say make me feel and I don't like the way I react to them, so I resolve this problem by making it impossible for me to see what they said. I am working on myself to be less emotional and more rational like some of the Asian men I have met. I don't know if it is in their genes or comes from their culture, but I love how reticent they can be. I think some people hold ideas that make them more sane. I am not sure why I am so emotionally responsive but I would like to change that. And here again, is the question of Romanticism leading to trouble. Like Hitler had good intentions but those good intentions were tied to emotions that led to terrible things.
Understood.
You probably won't believe me if I say you can train your emotion to be "callous" but benevolent. But it would require you to detach yourself from identifying (self-identity) with what you do -- be it employment or hobby or a membership to a club. In short, you relax your views on things and always think of walking away. (I only hold jobs that I know I could walk away from when shit hits the fan and monkey wrench thrown in for good measure. Life is too short for arts, music, games, and parties).
I am aware of Buddhist detachment but I am not in favor of it. I want to have a sense of purpose and the people I admired most are the ones who make a difference. I think being an informed and cultured person is important. But so did Hitler. What is the trick? Is there some way we can know a person will be benevolent and not an evil everyone will regret?
Quoting Arthur M. Melzer
Okay, what is going on with Hitler, Trump and Putin? I had a Christian friend who almost swooned when she said he was a being a wonderful Father to our nation. I was shocked when no matter how terrible the news was she continued to think very highly of him. Trump began his climb to popularity with WrestleMania where he participated in the show with the brutality that makes the show popular. It is hard for me to imagine anyone not believing he is a liar and that is a complete violation of human decency but he is so popular there is serious speculation he will run for president again. Putin is appealing to his people who want to believe he is a great leader. Hitler had a large following. Socrates was angry about Athens's war with Sparta and blamed democracy for that. How does this reality fit with what Rousseau held to be true?
I do not understand Rousseau's objection to appeals to natural law. Can someone explain?
There is no culture without a means of transmitting the culture and right now we have nothing transmitting a culture of high morality, so there is no General Will that can protect us.
You have to go back to how power was created back then. The monarchy and aristocracy appealed to the natural law to assert their rights to throne/power.
On really? That is interesting. Wouldn't it be nice if we lived 300 years so we had time to learn more? That is assuming our bodies would not age. 300 years in the old body I have now would not be fun. But how we come to see things differently over time is amazing and the perspective of history is so helpful in making sense of it all.
The image of the noble savage is surely a romantic notion and there has repeatedly been the concern of civilization corrupting humans. I am most familiar with Locke's understanding of human nature and natural law. While I am aware of religious notions that justified the monarchy and aristocracy, I don't know of it having a connection with laws of nature? I have a notion of Christianity thinking the laws of God are high above the laws of nature and a God decides who will rule and who will serve. That notion goes against the laws of nature, doesn't it? I take issue with Christians because I see the religion as opposed to science and the laws of nature. The culture Christianity gave Europe was no better than the class society of Hindu India.
Their conception of the "laws of nature" is connected with the divine laws (god given rights).
:yikes: Perhaps it is my prejudice that makes it impossible for me to understand how religious notions have anything to do with the laws of nature? The concept of natural law comes from ancient Athens and philosophy and always opposed superstition. We see this opposing view in Hyprocrate's rejection of the belief that the gods cause our physical conditions. At least since Heraclitus and his conception of the cosmos as interacting forces, there was an argument against the gods being in control. Laws of nature and religion are separate belief systems. Can you lead me to an explanation that made the different belief systems compatible? Like really, I am mind-boggled. I do not see the sense in thinking natural law and religion are the same.
This is the Lockean conception of natural law and divine law. And no, even Locke would not associate it with superstition. Superstition associated with religion is actually looked down upon, and now in our modern times, this is one way we denigrate religiosity, by calling it superstition.
Back to John Locke. I could find the below (I have his book, but not with me) from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Now I need to find passages for the god-given rights to monarchy and power.
However, before science how would we understand good and evil without believing in supernatural powers? From this window of thought, I can almost think believing the Biblical explanation of life makes sense. The foundation of thinking was not science. Today we can know what I experienced was post-trauma syndrome resulting from a medical procedure done to me before I was verbal and could understand the reasoning behind what was done to me. The preverbal child knew the world through feelings. Beings felt good or bad and there is no reasoning to explain why things feel good or bad.
So back to the subject of good becoming a terrible evil, a romantic idea of Utopia leading to pain and war and killing others. The intentions are good, and good might come out of the imagined good, but there is a fault in the reasoning. I think Aristotle explored this problem with reason? Poor information leading to bad reasoning.