How Many Different Harms Can You Name?
So life is pretty harmful and I was wondering how many harms we can come up with as a running list. The stipulations are that the harms have to not repeat, it cannot be so similar as to fall into one of the items already on the list, it cannot be too specific (i.e. stepping in dog shit) because that would make it not a general experience that everyone would necessarily suffer from, but it cannot be so general that it would not be its own category. I'll start us off with a list I had from another thread:
1) Individual people's wills and group's will.. Constant jockeying for power plays on when, what, where, hows, social status, social recognition, approval, respect
2) Impersonal wills... Institutions whose management and bottom-line dictate when, what, where.. ranging from oppressive dictatorships to the grind of organizational bureaucracies in liberal democracies.
3) Cultural necessities.. clean-up, maintain, tidy, consume, hygiene
4) Existential boundaries...boredom/ennui, loneliness, generalized anxiety, guilt
5) Survival boundaries..hunger, health, warmth
6) Being exposed to stressful/annoying/harmful environments and people
7) Accidents, natural disasters, nature's indifference (e.g. bear attacks, hurricanes, storms, earthquakes, etc.).
8) Diseases, illness, disabilities, including mental health issues (neurosis/psychosis/phobias/psychosomaticism/anxiety disorders/personality disorders/mood disorders)..
9) Bad/regretful decisions
10) Unfortunate circumstances
11) After-the-fact justifications that everything is either a learning experience or a tragic-comedy.
12) The good things are never as good as they seem
13) How fleeting happy things are once you experience them
14) How easy it is for novelty to wear off
15) The constant need for more experiences, including austerity experiences that are supposed to minimize excess wants (meditation, barebones living, "slumming it").
16) How easy it is to have negative human interaction, even after positive human interaction
17) Craving and striving for more entertainment and "flow" experiences
18) Instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice.
19) Any hostile, bitter, stressful, spiteful, resentful, disappointing experiences with interperonal relationships with close friends/family, acquaintances, and strangers
20) The classic (overused) examples of war and famine
21) The grass is always greener syndrome that makes one feel restless and never satisfied
22) The need for some to find solace in subduing natural emotions in philosophies that mitigate emotional responses (i.e. Stoicism) and generally having to retreat to some program of habit-breaking (therapy, positive psychology exercises, visualizations, meditations, retreats, self-help, etc. etc.)
23) Insomnia, anything related to causing insomnia
24) Inconsiderate people
25) The carrot and stick of hope.. anticipation that may lead to disappointment..unsubstantiated Pollyanna predictions that we are tricked into by optimistic bias despite experiences otherwise
26) Addiction
1) Individual people's wills and group's will.. Constant jockeying for power plays on when, what, where, hows, social status, social recognition, approval, respect
2) Impersonal wills... Institutions whose management and bottom-line dictate when, what, where.. ranging from oppressive dictatorships to the grind of organizational bureaucracies in liberal democracies.
3) Cultural necessities.. clean-up, maintain, tidy, consume, hygiene
4) Existential boundaries...boredom/ennui, loneliness, generalized anxiety, guilt
5) Survival boundaries..hunger, health, warmth
6) Being exposed to stressful/annoying/harmful environments and people
7) Accidents, natural disasters, nature's indifference (e.g. bear attacks, hurricanes, storms, earthquakes, etc.).
8) Diseases, illness, disabilities, including mental health issues (neurosis/psychosis/phobias/psychosomaticism/anxiety disorders/personality disorders/mood disorders)..
9) Bad/regretful decisions
10) Unfortunate circumstances
11) After-the-fact justifications that everything is either a learning experience or a tragic-comedy.
12) The good things are never as good as they seem
13) How fleeting happy things are once you experience them
14) How easy it is for novelty to wear off
15) The constant need for more experiences, including austerity experiences that are supposed to minimize excess wants (meditation, barebones living, "slumming it").
16) How easy it is to have negative human interaction, even after positive human interaction
17) Craving and striving for more entertainment and "flow" experiences
18) Instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice.
19) Any hostile, bitter, stressful, spiteful, resentful, disappointing experiences with interperonal relationships with close friends/family, acquaintances, and strangers
20) The classic (overused) examples of war and famine
21) The grass is always greener syndrome that makes one feel restless and never satisfied
22) The need for some to find solace in subduing natural emotions in philosophies that mitigate emotional responses (i.e. Stoicism) and generally having to retreat to some program of habit-breaking (therapy, positive psychology exercises, visualizations, meditations, retreats, self-help, etc. etc.)
23) Insomnia, anything related to causing insomnia
24) Inconsiderate people
25) The carrot and stick of hope.. anticipation that may lead to disappointment..unsubstantiated Pollyanna predictions that we are tricked into by optimistic bias despite experiences otherwise
26) Addiction
Comments (102)
No, that would be a conclusion from all this harm. But I did mention inconsiderate people. Also mentioned was any hostile, bitter, stressful, spiteful, resentful, disappointing experiences with interperonal relationships with close friends/family, acquaintances, and strangers
We are surrounded by harm.
So besides being snarky, what are you getting at? Either list some real harms or move on.
No that's not mean to be added to your list. It's a genuine question. I can't see any other reason for this entirely pointless, arbitrary exercise!
25.5 The hangman's noose of despair.. altogether unbalanced Cassandra predictions that we are tricked into by pessimism despite experiences otherwise
27. Philosophical OCD
28. Tedious fixations on negative interpretation
29. Anti-Mame Syndrome: the conclusion that one is starving during a banquet.§
§Auntie Mame - Anti Mame -- get it?
Human languages, across the board, have significantly more adjectives related to harms than to benefits. The English language, for example, has around three times as many adjectives of harm than of benefit. So it won't be surprising when we can make such a large list of harms. This is due not only because we tend to experience more harm than benefit but also, if not primarily because, we subconsciously focus more on the bad than the good. Bad is, in most cases, psychologically stronger than good - it is an extremely well-founded psychological fact. However I will say that since we experience more bad than good, and yet find ourselves still alive, this means that the human specimen is, all things considered, a rather durable specimen. The sun will rise tomorrow one way or another.
Follow this through to a more speculative destination, and we find ourselves agreeing with Dostoevsky: suffering is the root of consciousness.
Laughter, children, orgasms, contentment, reaching the top of the mountain - these are all harms because they are all clever illusions and distractions momentarily interrupting our cultivation of a habit of pessimism, our proper philosophical appreciation that the root of all being is suffering.
That makes it the worst harm of all in my book. At least the others are honest harms. Pleasure is positively malicious. And without pleasure, how could we truly suffer?
Damn you to Hell happiness.
Okay, although that would be pretty broad and I wouldn't say it has any moral connotations (whereas people often seem to have moral connotations in mind).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIMNXogXnvE
Pleasure is only a proxy bad when viewed in a certain way. When seen as a reason to continue, pleasure is a manipulative force. When seen as a something good without manipulative/intoxicative properties, then there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not a masochist.
Actually, I see the ethical issues relating to pleasure as more important than how it feels phenomenologically. Pleasure is partly responsible for a billion(s)-year-old-and-counting systematic process of instrumentality. Sentients value their own pleasure more than the pain of other sentients.
Hopefully not all in one day.
Having your pets die
Having to follow laws even when you don't want to, under threat of state sponsored violence/oppression
Knowing that you and everyone else is going to die
Nightmares
Living in a society where you're judged by your material wealth
Doing something cringeworthy and then remembering it just before you go to sleep and then you cant sleep because you're cringing so much
Having phobias
Needing to wear clothes even when you don't want to, due to weather, laws, social customs, etc
Having your things break or get ruined
Losing money (eg, playing poker, getting ripped off, dropping coins)
Having to transport yourself places (eg, morning commute, wasting time riding bus or train, can't just teleport to your destination)
Eating bad tasting food
That's it! Yes, keep going... Anyone else can join in and continue... My original post asks for more general things, but I think the rules can change to include more specific types of events that cause harm.
Paranoia
Losing face
Villages being wiped out (if you happen to live in the wrong area)
Torture
Inter tribal warfare (if you happen to live in that kind of society)
Gang warfare
Ailments associated with aging
Many experiences that go along with dying
Putrid smells, tastes, and exposure to "gross" stuff in general (sewage, bed bugs, scabies)
Food-borne illnesses
Pressure to have forced occasions of interaction with unpleasant people
Automobile anything (bad drivers, accidents, potholes, etc.)
Primitive tribal societies having their way of life and worldview wiped out to be reintegrated in a Western context (if that sort of thing matters)
Loud noises
Also:
Tinnitus (the tune of pessimism)
Tedium
Wild organism attacks
Sexual failings
Sudden catastrophes
Disfigurement, dismemberment, paralysis, etc
Allergic reactions
Academic failures
Ostracized from the tribe
Political disappointments and failures
Economic catastrophes
The experience of dread once you realize that all of this is possible and even likely
I guess you can suffer from knowing about other people's pain but surely painful experiences can be had by everyone. True, some people have more of them than others, but that just goes to show you earlier my point about harms being unequally distributed.
To be quite honest with you, it is other sentient's suffering that bothers me more than my own, and is the main source for my pessimism. I haven't had it super easy either but my own suffering pales in comparison to what others are going through. And the fact that others, like yourself, are pessimistic is definitely an argument for pessimism in general. Only in an unfortunate world would someone like the pessimist exist and actually be wrong about their pessimism. By its very existence, pessimism validates itself.
Mr. Men gotchya covered.
- when you smoke weed in an unfamiliar setting, at a house party, and it suddenly hits you hard - and this song starts playing and you realize there are all these emotions you've always had but had entirely forgotten about - you're really starting to feel these emotions now, vividly - and you start to think 'whoa, wait, have all these other people been experiencing these emotions the whole time, and I haven't?? - and so have I, like, been almost literally living in a different world than them, but *thinking* I was in the same world?? - and they just didn't realize I wasn't in the same world?? - but - like - they can tell right now, can't they - are they looking at me? - have they always been looking at me???"
- when you swipe your debit card too soon, and you do it while the cashier is turned away doing other things, so they don't realize you've already tried to swipe (too soon) so you're standing there waiting for the computer to process and they're standing there waiting for you to swipe, but neither of you realize the other isn't waiting for the same thing , but you still feel this kind of tension, and also the cashier is very cute and that makes everything somehow worse.
- the idea of death - it's so final! but then the idea of eternity - it's so claustrophobic! there's no way out! - so then the respite of the idea of death - but....it's so final! - sooo the respite of the idea of eternity - but there's no way out! and back and forth and back and forth (going to sleep for me every night grades 2-5)
>:O
Somehow you managed to capture the these harms so well that anyone whose experienced them can truly empathize.
That's fairly bad. Even worse are Islamic terrorists causing sewers to back up and explosively ejecting great quantities of feces into the toilet stalls of America, including the very one you are occupying, drenching you in indescribable, unimaginable slime and filth.
Points for vivid imagery..
Quoting Bitter Crank
Points for originality.
Interesting.. can you explain further? The self-validating pessimist.. Isn't it a bit strong to say though that being wrong on a theory proves the pessimistic point? Or is it rather that being wrong about pessimism is bad because, even if pessimism is wrong, the mere fact that others can feel this way proves that a world exists that has people that feel this way and thus shows the non-idealty of the world to allow people that can feel this way about the world. The pragmatist would just chortle that this is simply the fault of the pessimist, not the universe.
Daniel Harms, author of the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana
Daniil Harms (1905–1942), English transcription: Daniil Kharms, Russian writer
Friedrich Harms (1819–1880), German philosopher
Hermann Harms (1870–1942), German botanist
Johann Oswald Harms (1643–1708), German painter, engraver and scenic designer
Monika Harms (born 1946), German Attorney General
Rebecca Harms (born 1956), German politician and filmmaker
Clyde Harms (Born 1931), Founder Aruba Scholarship Foundation
You have provided many unique harms. Good job.
Yes, I made a blog post on this a while back (shameless self-promotion). Basically, pessimists argue that harmful illusions exist. And you have Stoicism and Buddhism both arguing that ignorance (or the illusion of knowledge) is the cause of all suffering. But I would put it one step further, and claim that, from a more Heideggerian perspective, we are part of the world, not merely "bystanders". The universe produced us. And thus it is capable of producing such harmful ignorance. And like you said, more pragmatic visions essentially boil down to victim blaming. Even the victims themselves are willing to blame themselves, as a method of maintaining order and stability.
Indeed. I agree that the way to put a lid on any consternation is to simply say it is the victim's fault. It's a great trick really.
So you are saying that the situation can be that much more? On each of those planets does there also exist Elders and nasayers who blame the aliens for not being able to cope with the harms well enough as a feedback mechanism to ensure self-conscious beings find existence well enough to perpetuate itself? Perhaps they are just at the stage of bacterial slime mold or insect larvae in which case they have a couple hundred million years to go.
- for enjoying modern day comforts knowing that these are built upon the immense suffering of countless generations before us and the continued suffering of marginalized people in some not-so-remote place
- for the very being of your existence means that you have to burden other people at work to ask favors, at your leisure time for other people to entertain you, and eventually when you get disabled for other people to look after you
- for thinking badly of your work that puts food on the table; of your colleagues for burdening you with tedious work then eventually try to convince yourself that somehow it's just part of their job and the system;
- for believing that other people are fellow sufferers but feel completely powerless to comfort them; for having to go to vacation and have to see stories of suffering play at the back of your mind for each stranger that you encounter
- for failing to be a bottomless source of joy to others in this world of selfishness; because you too are human; and when people fault you for your moment of weakness, you doubt whether it was your fault all along
- for not even being strong enough to keep your own troubles and weakness to yourself that you risk showing a crack that may cause worry or fear to people around you
- for feeling hopeless as you watch in the sidelines as you imagine close acquaintance's kids have to suffer and eventually perpetuate the cycle of suffering when they grow old
#badday #badweek
That's a really good list of harms. I like that you bring up the nuance that our pleasure may rely on enormous amounts of pain that are so indirect or removed, we do not usually think about it.
Also you bring up a good point about cognitve dissonance.. We know the work is what provides our survival but we also tend to hate many of the tediousness and unpleasantness associated with it. With the idea of work you also bring up the idea that our needs cause others to have to work as well, thus contributing to the cycle.
Thanks. I was really quite "upset" earlier but thankfully, things got a little bit more manageable lately. So if I may add to the list:
- having mood swings and emotional outbursts just like that then recovering after watching some drama series (like what's wrong with me? hahaha...)
- "getting over" then partly regretting what you have done during your outburst; feeling quite worried that you'll inevitably let loose some steam some future time you least expected and you no longer have an idea what harm you could do by then
- realizing that after all that has happened, nobody knew the depths of sadness that you've been through, and nobody else would probably know; life goes on, the world does not seem to care, and by the way, you have to better get ready for work tomorrow as if nothing just happened!
This is an interesting point.. It is funny how all this drama in your head can ensue.. this internal emotional suffering.. and how it can be negated simply cause there is no context to even explain the emotional strife.. No one seems to understand, care, empathize, or give a shit. This is why a philosophy of pessimism is a consolation and provides dignity to the individual. At the least, it does not give short shrift of your pain by dismissing it, ridiculing your voicing of it, etc.
I do want to distinguish it from a regular bitch session where you are directing it very personally about a person or group of people.. Rather it is an existential bitch session where the suffering is put into a context of how it fits into the harms of existence. We can see each other as fellow-sufferers and are in the same boat.
I think you're probably better off not being aware of any of this, like a child, or a cat. Being aware that you suffer is itself a type of suffering.
Why indeed? I would argue that life does not give us any reason to continue to live - any reason must come from the individual themselves. This is why Nietzsche said that those who continue to live (not just survive) have a purpose or a sense of meaning.
Quoting dukkha
Unfortunately, being unaware and ignorant often causes more suffering than not. At the very least it is irresponsible.
Crikey.
But you must explain the harm so we can all be explicitly aware..
Disappointment is a big theme in pessimism. So many instances.
So I don't know how "new" any of the "new atheism" is, unless we're considering the 60s "new," in which case I'm happy to be young again.
That the only exit is suicide rather than a pleasant sleep that lasts a long time. That after sleep comes the awake part and all the energy, stress, and exposure to harm that comes with it.
I call this the stress of procrastinating the inevitable and wishing you'd have dealt with it sooner.
Yes a common harm. But, even if you deal with it early on, there will always be some other alarm going off to take its place.
After weeks of watching the roof leak
I fixed it tonight
by moving a single board
“Certain it is that work, worry, labor and trouble, form the lot of almost all men their whole life long. But if all wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their lives? what would they do with their time? If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature. In”
-Arthur Schopenhauer
If this was extended to those who are depressed or who just don't want to live anymore, would you take it?
For me at least, as much as I generally find life annoying and painful, I nevertheless have a strong instinct to survive, to create, to do. I don't want to die. Suicide fantasy has been a recurrent theme in my thought but whenever I actually seriously consider dying, there is something that keeps me back. Something beyond just primal instinct, I think.
Perhaps life is bad but not bad enough to warrant suicide, not enough to get a eliminate the capacity to derive a decent amount of enjoyment out of it. We may not gain anything in life but it sure as hell is difficult to act as if this is the case. At least by surviving we maximize irony.
Thoughts?
The will to survive.
1) People usually are attached to their individual egos once alive.
2) It is more of an escape hatch ideation
3) Philosophical Pessimism can be a philosophy of consolation
The harm of your organization or country being run by an incompetent or wrong-headed leader.
That's a lot of bells, bells, bells!
@csalisbury?
@Hanover?
@darthbarracuda?
@dukkha?
@Bitter Crank?
How about the harm of spoiled-brat/coddled/fragile millennials who don't reason very well, who are kind of paranoid, and who have a victim mentality not being able to handle that they didn't get their way, so they throw a tantrum (er, uh "protest")?
So the harm of an internet troll?
A lot of them are trolls, I suppose.
Do you always mix up your pronouns? Maybe that is what Pink Floyd meant by "Us and Them".
There was no "mix up" there.
So you are trying to make an actual philosophical point or a dig at the OP? But by doing this, I ironically just get sucked into your troll hole, so I'm sort of harming myself here.. but go on and prattle your invective :-}
I don't really see this thread as one that makes any sort of philosophical point. (And I dont think there's anything wrong with that, by the way--it's fine that we have a thread that doesn't make a philosophical point, but that's related in some way to philosophical views that people do have.)
You were asking people to list "harms." I was listing one in my opinion. Part of the point of me doing so is to stress that different people have different opinions of what counts as harms.
See couldn't you have said that from the beginning instead of wrapping it in troll-speak? That's a much better place to start to have a discussion or debate.
I expect this in general, but particularly on a philosophy message board, I expect people to be able to think for themselves a bit, to be able to make deductions and inferences and abductions and so on.
No I knew what you meant from your original posting..but my point was did you have to come out swinging? I guess I may have misinterpreted this.. The whole possible misunderstanding is, did you aim that quote directly towards me or were you trying to vent about something in general?
But more generally, even if that was not meant to be aimed at me, just realize that to me, trolling can mean that you are trying to provoke a street brawl rather than keep it at a more respectful fencing match (though I don't know much about fencing it seems more coordinated and structured).. If you what you say clearly going to provoke the other guy to want to punch your (metaphorical) face, how is that adding to the philosophical discourse? The immediate emotional response attached to the inciting comment seems to be out of inciting emotional shouting matches rather than advancing any particular idea.
No, it wasn't at all aimed at you. It was basically a response to "The harm of your organization or country being run by an incompetent or wrong-headed leader. "
That's one point of view. Mine is another.
OHH.. Ok, now I clearly see where you were going.. It was still meant to be inciting.. but I see the context. Why didn't you just quote the comment so it was not seen as a general rant but aimed at a particular previous comment?
Edit: I see you did that but you didn't quote it.. Ok.. now I see where you are going.
It wasn't meant to be inciting either. That's my honest opinion of the majority of the folks protesting in the last 24 hours. I can see how it would upset some of them, of course, but I'm not going to coddle them more--since that's a large part of their problem--by changing the language of my opinion just because it might upset some of them. They're not changing how they're expressing themselves just because that might upset some people with different viewpoints than the one's they're expressing (and they shouldn't in my opinion).
Nothing much that I seriously considered recently.
Usually, I think of the tediousness of daily life and seeming insignificance and meaninglessness of it all especially when I'm overwhelmed with so much urgent things-to-do, usually work related.
Some people say work gives life meaning because it provides a direction and "something" for them to put their attention on.
The thinking might go that assuming that eventually all forms of entertainment will get exhausted if that is all they do, people will actually "miss" forced routine of this and that task because it keeps their own mind from wandering about the ennui of existence itself. It gives structure because it allows the brain to be "caught up"... and what does a creature with excess consciousness do but get "caught up" so that it cannot think about its own situation of instrumentality, angst, etc.
Meanwhile of course, the getting "caught up" causes stress, anxieties, and its own spin off harms. Perhaps these spin off harms might be weighed against the harm of being left to our own existential contemplation? Thus, people's attitude towards work is that it gives them "meaning" while causing in some cases immense stress.
I actually previously entertained the thought that the 'higher ups' knew what they were doing when they designed the 8-hour + travel + lunch time work day, 5-day work week: it provided the right amount of distraction for essentially all of your waking hour, with enough stress and anxiety leftover that you wouldn't have enough remaining energy to use your brain for about anything else but leisure during the weekends and holidays.
People could be much more dangerous if allowed to be idle for long periods of time.
being nagged for lists of harms
Next time let's all do 5 syllables
antinatalist haikus, 7 syllables
schopenhauer 2. 5 syllables
Internet troll holes
Hell's bells calling home sick souls
antinatalists
Fucking Autumn leaves!
Brown red yellow sickly beige:
Burn baby, burn them all.
Die my darling, croak.
get it over with! Don't hope.
Deep in earth, dead bloke.
Dove to earth then splat
Meow come the kitty cats
for kidneys and brains.
Absent from eternity.
Dead infinity.
Those are very good haikus!
See, you have good thoughts to share
Let me think about it.
The thing about pessimism is that it is probably one of the easiest philosophies to argue for, yet one of the hardest philosophies to accept.
I think people might ask, "Well, what would people do in perpetual idleness?". And there is the existential dilemma many people do not want to face. People want a structure to their life perhaps to keep themselves from mulling over larger questions?
I see, so I should just shut up you are saying. Don't take it so seriously darthy! It partially meant to let people vent if they want..like a shoutbox but for shit we don't like.
I think pessimism can be productive as a philosophy of consolation. It can be a possible alternative to "pick yourself up by the bootstrap" theories. The inherent worth of the individual's suffering is taken into account rather than self-regulating phrases to ensure people do not get too upset by circumstances (by as you said before) "blaming the victim". Anyways, everyone has harms.. some similar, some more nuanced and individual.. It is quite alright to air those to others and find some solace in it.
Besides being a consolation, it may provide perspective on existence itself. Rather than take it as "this is what must be", it provides the individual a way to look at existence as a whole. By questioning the foundations of the human enterprise itself, it lets us look at what is important and what is justified. It allows us to look at how our own psychological mechanisms work to create the structure needed for goals, how it is contingent harms play a role, and confronts the situatedness of being thrown in a world where we are experiencing the pendulum between survival through cultural upkeep and maintenance, and turning boredom into entertainment goal-seeking. All this structural/necessary harm in the background while being harmed by contingent factors along the way.. All the things listed here for example.
Believe it or not, there can be a giddyness to pessimism.. To knowing we are all in the same boat, that it is all part of a similar structure. I dare say, there may be a joy and connectedness in pessimism.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You'd have to explain that. It sounds like you have many things to say in regards to arguing for pessimism but no one to hear it.. You always have me, dark solitary biting fish. Just don't bite me too much, as is your nature or I'll tear you up like a hapless salmon that is eaten by the grizzly in the picture :).
I mean, yes, I agree that the pessimistic perspective is helpful in toning down expectations and desires. That's fine.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is have an issue with. There is no giddyness to torture, horror, or anguish. It's comedic to see how absurd everything seems to be, so long as you aren't being impacted too much by the absurdity of it all. Why should I be giddy that countless animals are currently being ripped to shreds by predators? Why should I be giddy that life is disappointing and painful? This kind of giddyness ends up being not too dissimilar to the crazy guy in the movies who starts out laughing and ends up crying.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, I mean to say that pessimism is pretty obvious. It is based in empiricism, specifically phenomenological immediate perceptions of existence. It's not easy to argue against it. Some people might say that this is simply because it's easy to complain and bitch and moan. Or maybe it's because it's an accurate picture of reality, and a tough pill to swallow. What is worse is when pessimists try to act upon their belief, they're seen as the baddies, destroyers. When really if something really is this bad then it ought to be destroyed. Permanently.
No I'm with you about actual suffering. What I meant I guess is that if you read a good pessimist writer's turn of phrase (i.e. Schopenhauer's aphorisms), you can get giddy with how well the author articulated the point.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Indeed, I am interested in two ideas that you might want to present...
One is the victim blaming phenomena. Do you think it is a strategy for regulating societal expectations? In other words, is it to prevent people from voicing despair and bringing others into despair mode? Is it like a meme that worked well in maintaining the status quo, so remained as part of the social discourse when someone evaluating the negative voices an opinion?
How much do the psychological ideas of flow and hope play into the counter to pessimism? If you think about it, people simply want to get caught up in something that makes time go faster. At the same time they hope for a situation that might be more positive than the current one and possibly plan accordingly. Does flow and hope justify life affirmation? Flow can prevent the mind from thinking of all these larger angsty existential questions.. Hope can cause someone to take a plan of action to get to a more desired situation.
Yes. I mean we still see this with rape victims. "You shouldn't have been out at night!"-like bullshit.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Flow and in particular faith can justify the continuation of a life even if they are not founded well.
So what would be equivalent to "You shouldn't have been out at night!" in this situation?
Quoting darthbarracuda
So is flow and faith a good thing or is it more of a stop-gap from addressing bigger existential questions?
"Why don't you just kill yourself?!" or "Stop being a lazy fuck!"
Quoting schopenhauer1
I guess it depends on what ones' priorities are. If you're going for authenticity then no, the probably aren't. If you're just trying to survive, then yeah they're probably going to be helpful.
"My poor dear deflowered little daisy! Pickled lambs like you are likely to be eaten alive if you hang around bars until the wolves are all drunk. So sorry."
Indeed along with this is the need to compare our situation with Africa. It's as if Africa exists solely so Westernized countries can have something to compare their pain to. See, until all the aide, Peace Corp., microloans, World Bank loans, missionaries, charities, and any other non-profit/government/private forms of help works out over there, we really cannot have any suffering over here. Didn't you know? I use Africa as a stand-in for any underdeveloped region, but you get the picture.
Of course if I had my way and can use a magic wand, Africa would be on par with Europe, America, Japan, or at least China and thus double their efforts in questioning the existential conditions. That's not to say, your average "impoverished" villager in sub-Saharan Africa cannot bring up these issues on his own, but if carrying buckets of water from location a to location b and hundreds of other tasks of daily living take up most of your time, it's probably hard to contemplate much more than getting through the day I would suspect. Of course, even during mundane or strenuous tasks, one's mind can wander and perhaps have these thoughts. Maybe they are not voiced but they are roughly the same kind of existential questioning that occurs in Westernized and "developed" regions. Impoverishment does not negate existential thinking, and perhaps it can amplify it. That would of course be a matter of empirical data gathering to those in that part of the world and as far as I know, most social scientists do not ask people about existential questions in underdeveloped parts of the world, and make it more about broad social categories like economics, religion, politics, etc. I would like some anecdotal evidence of an impoverished tribe discussing the point of their life and the ennui they felt at the end of the day.
This is about where I realize that, despite the shittiness of life in general, I have a distinct urge to continue to live, for whatever reason that is. I don't want to miss out on the happenings of the world, at least not right now. Game of Thrones hasn't ended yet.
So the real twist in the stomach is when you simultaneously see very little in life as a justification for the beginning of a life, but somehow see these things as a justification for continuing a life. And you realize that yeah, all these things are pretty much just distractions, and that if you're gonna hold that it's not enough to make a life worth starting then it really ought to not be enough to continue a life. Suddenly it becomes more difficult to truly enjoy things; instead one has to take a mindfulness approach to experience, and/or submerge oneself in the absurdity of it all and find a sort of aesthetic to the rogue, absurd, wandering survivor, an internal contradiction that can only be expressed in catharsis.
Tolstoy hit the nail on the head: there are four different ways out of our position: ignorance (in which you don't even know our position), epicureanism (hedonism, most people do this), the rejection of the former two but the continuation out of weakness (i.e. existentialism) and the rejection of all three and the embracing of suicide (i.e. the strong). It is the strong who kill themselves, and the weak who persist for no apparent reason whatsoever.
This is obvious Terrapin, but that was not the point. It's not about Africa's complex varied range of economic, political, socisl phenomena, but the idea of poverty in Africa as a way to try to diminish the relative suffering of "complainer" in the first world. It's a strategy to keep the malcontent at bay and regulated. It's simply a meme that is used against those with negative experiences..similar to other memes of this variety that tries to stop the malcontent in their tracks by comparing to "worse off" situations.
I hadn't been following the conversation for a number of posts. I just saw the comment about Africa. Yeah, the "these folks are worse off than you" thing is kind of silly, and it's also not something I even agree with on any hypothetical level, as I've expressed before. Happiness isn't dependent on one's socio-economic etc. statuses.