Former Theists, how do you avoid nihilism?
Happened across this forum after googling
"lose religion escape nihilism"
My path to that google search is like this:
raised catholic by a staunch catholic family
true believer until 20ish which is when I took a first year philosophy course in university
that planted the seeds of doubt and I began to see the world through a different lens
the Judaeo christian concept of God slowly began to erode in my mind as a viable concept
philosophy of mind course really put the nail in the coffin, Dennett's writings on the fluidity of the self as a string of narrative spewing from the brain really took hold
I saw this reality in the erosion of my grandfather's consciousness as alzheimer's wreaked havoc on his brain
there was no room in reality for the concept of a soul, there are just brains
agnostic for years still open to a "faith experience" but never found one
as the years have passed I have come to see the world more and more as a solely material process
have read many philosophers and "great thinkers" in an attempt to find a new structure to replace the christian Judaeo one I was raised with to no avail
to me there seems to be no answer to the macro question of what ought to be, there is only what is. Our world and ourselves are simply bio-mechanical processes.
Thinkers like Sam Harris who posit that there is still an ought that relates to the promotion of human flourishing leave me unsatisfied, since this is essentially utilitarianism which I learned long ago ultimately breaks down as comprehensive ethical framework.
So my approach to all this is to retreat from the macro. I don't think about it and don't talk about it. I have no opinions on macro questions about what is right or wrong or what "we" should do.
I stick to the micro, I rely on my positive emotions and treat my partner, friends and family with love and care. I do things I enjoy, practice mindfulness. I am overall pretty functional one might say.
But at a deeper level, there is an underlying chaos of thought that robs me of true engagement in life. My brain was set up with judaeo-christrian structure of meaning and purpose. I have lost those structures and have yet to replace them. This has led to a corresponding underlying sadness, since the world was a much more beautiful place when I had a heavenly father who had made me for a clear purpose and who loved me. When I knew that I would see those I loved again in eternal life. Now I am a biological process, a stream of consciousness that will cease to exist once the brain that I am a product of stops working. It all does seem rather hollow in contrast to my prior world view.
And so I go on sticking to the micro, retreating from thoughts about the macro, and just living and enjoying the moments. People would tell you I am a relatively happy guy. But I think they would also tell you that I seem distracted and not entirely engaged in living. I am always somewhat removed from life, since reality is such an empty stark place in comparison the reality I believed in for the first 20 years of my life.
I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share.
"lose religion escape nihilism"
My path to that google search is like this:
raised catholic by a staunch catholic family
true believer until 20ish which is when I took a first year philosophy course in university
that planted the seeds of doubt and I began to see the world through a different lens
the Judaeo christian concept of God slowly began to erode in my mind as a viable concept
philosophy of mind course really put the nail in the coffin, Dennett's writings on the fluidity of the self as a string of narrative spewing from the brain really took hold
I saw this reality in the erosion of my grandfather's consciousness as alzheimer's wreaked havoc on his brain
there was no room in reality for the concept of a soul, there are just brains
agnostic for years still open to a "faith experience" but never found one
as the years have passed I have come to see the world more and more as a solely material process
have read many philosophers and "great thinkers" in an attempt to find a new structure to replace the christian Judaeo one I was raised with to no avail
to me there seems to be no answer to the macro question of what ought to be, there is only what is. Our world and ourselves are simply bio-mechanical processes.
Thinkers like Sam Harris who posit that there is still an ought that relates to the promotion of human flourishing leave me unsatisfied, since this is essentially utilitarianism which I learned long ago ultimately breaks down as comprehensive ethical framework.
So my approach to all this is to retreat from the macro. I don't think about it and don't talk about it. I have no opinions on macro questions about what is right or wrong or what "we" should do.
I stick to the micro, I rely on my positive emotions and treat my partner, friends and family with love and care. I do things I enjoy, practice mindfulness. I am overall pretty functional one might say.
But at a deeper level, there is an underlying chaos of thought that robs me of true engagement in life. My brain was set up with judaeo-christrian structure of meaning and purpose. I have lost those structures and have yet to replace them. This has led to a corresponding underlying sadness, since the world was a much more beautiful place when I had a heavenly father who had made me for a clear purpose and who loved me. When I knew that I would see those I loved again in eternal life. Now I am a biological process, a stream of consciousness that will cease to exist once the brain that I am a product of stops working. It all does seem rather hollow in contrast to my prior world view.
And so I go on sticking to the micro, retreating from thoughts about the macro, and just living and enjoying the moments. People would tell you I am a relatively happy guy. But I think they would also tell you that I seem distracted and not entirely engaged in living. I am always somewhat removed from life, since reality is such an empty stark place in comparison the reality I believed in for the first 20 years of my life.
I am wondering if others who have lost their religion have found a path out of this sense of loss and underlying chaos and would care to share.
Comments (169)
I’m not theist, nor ever was, but I have experienced nihilism in a similar manner. I could only imagine how it may be for a person raised on religion, but I did believe in a soul of sorts, the after life, and what not, until situations such as your own arose.
I was able to crawl out of it by replacing the set of principles that had crumbled. This involves a little soul searching, in my case philosophy and art. Admittedly this process continues to this day, but I no longer feel groundless, no longer feel like I’m spiralling down that abyss, and am able to value things again.
This year I've been writing down my own comprehensive system of philosophy, which I hope might be of help to you in developing your own. It's meant to be read beginning-to-end but for your purposes you might like to start with the last chapter on the meaning of life and follow the links in there back to the earlier chapters as necessary.
Beliefs merely conceal ignorance and they are the mortal enemy of happiness. Sadly, modern man is absolutely filled to the brim with beliefs, however he may deny it.
I agree completely, and to save @dazed the reading of my whole philosophy work I linked earlier, maybe I should just paraphrase the most relevant part of it that's very similar to what you just said here: if we start from a place of complete ignorance, we can't know if anything is objectively good or bad, but in our actions we cannot help but tacitly act on an assumption either that there is (so we try to make our actions good and not bad) or that there isn't (so we don't try). If we want to end up doing good, should there turn out to be such a thing as objectively good, we must try; and if we (even tacitly) assume that there is no such thing as objectively good, we will not try, and so will guarantee failure at attaining it. It is therefore pragmatically best to assume that there is something objectively good, and then try to figure out what it is, and try to do that. We might still fail, either to do good or even to figure out what it is, and it might turn out that the whole endeavor was ultimately hopeless, but we can never be certain of that, and in the absence of that certainty the safe bet is to give it your best go anyway, just in case.
(Conversely, however, we cannot assume that good prevailing is a foregone conclusion, for then we will likewise have no reason to try and so guarantee failure; and we also cannot assume that certain things being the things that are objectively good is a foregone conclusion [i.e. accepting some moral doctrine on faith], because then we will not try to figure out what is good and so will guarantee failure at that. We must act always on the assumption that something is objectively right, but that nothing is completely certain to be that objectively right thing; any particular thing might always be shown to be the wrong thing, but it can never be shown that there is no such thing as the right or wrong thing.)
You "can't" avoid nihilism any more than you can practice it. There is no getting around the rights, only dodging the wrongs.
For me, this is a non-question, because once I actively start pondering ways of HOW CAN I AVOID NIHILISM.. I realize I'm not even a nihilist.. and this has no barring on the fact that there exists 'no ultimate meaning..' for instance.
Anyhow, for me, the way I've personally looked at the nihilism question is not HOW can you avoid nihilism, but instead how would you even go about doing that..?
So as an atheist, I've just nothing to say much on it.
"Human flourishing"; that preoccupation is very much the problem it seems. If we concern ourselves only with human flourishing then we will rape the Earth. This is what we have been doing. Humans will flourish only if the Earth flourishes.
Most religions rightly propose that we should be concerned with something greater than ourselves, but the problem has always been that the "greater being" is some ineffable or transcendent mystery or some reified all-father to whom we owe obeisance, and who grants us the right, if we are pious, to use the creation He made for us however we wish, with callous disregard for the well-being of mere animals and impious savages.
The way out of nihilism is to live within the greater being of the natural world in a respectful, and even reverent, manner, and to allow it to enrich our works, communities, lives and loves.
I am sort of a Protestant mirror of your Catholic experience. I was steeped in mainline Protestant (Methodist) Christianity, and had no objection to it. I 'drifted' away more than severed the connection. I found a new interest in church as a gay man when I got involved with Metropolitan Community Church in the '70s, for a few years. At some point in the 1980s I realized I really didn't believe any part of the Creed any more, and I declared myself an atheist.
I found it much harder than I would have thought to disconnect all the emotional and intellectual ties I had to the Church, Christian theology, and the satisfactions I found in various narratives in the Bible (OT & NT). It took me maybe 20 years to pull the last plug. I wasn't left with nihilism, because I recognized that the Christian ethics I learned early on was my core "operating system" whether I believed in God, the divinity of Jesus, the Resurrection, salvation... or not.
What I consider right and wrong may be derived from theism, but as an atheist, I don't have any objection to that. Treating other people the way one wants to be treated is a pretty universal rule. Of course, there are elements in Christian teaching that I reject. I reject what the church has to say about homosexuality, for instance. I disapprove of the Church's balance between spending to maintain itself and spending to perform works of mercy (way, way too much spent on the maintenance of the church institution). The Church ought to be poor. On the other hand, atheists do well to feed the poor, house the homeless, visit the prisoner, and so forth, NOT because Christ commanded it, but because it is good for the person who does it, as well as the person for whom it is done. Helping others breaks down barriers between we happy and contented and you miserable and discontented (assuming "we' are, in fact, happy).
Like you I was raised Catholic but, unlike you, bible studies + church history made me a teen apostate. The last year at my Jesuit high school a survey course in western philosophy (main text titled From Socrates to Sartre ... with some hand-outs taken from Copelston's books thrown in for good neo-scholastic measure) the examples of great thinkers gave me permission to think for myself outside the catechismic confessional box and "come out" as a (negative) atheist - a baby step on a decades-long path of freethought, pragmatic (naturalistic, or secular) ethics & progressive (left-socialist) politics, which I'm not only still traveling on, but also celebrate.
In highsight (how many years later I don't recall) I'd realized that, for all my religious education indoctrination altar boy service, I'd never had any 'faith' to lose only, perhaps, my comformity to and compliance with the expectations of family upbringing, parochial school teachers & the priests; I never felt 'the shock of loss', just something like an intense curiosity at a wider, deeper, darker yet more interesting world from which I'd been sheltered (exiled), like a homecoming ...
So what? Get over it and get on with it - carpe jugulum, dude! - drink up, because it's always later than you think. :party: :death:
:cool: indeed! And yet every little thing temporally matters, except that which thinks little things don't matter, and what matters most is that that doesn't matter, but thinks it does.
Those aren't actually chaotic. There are some very common dispositions, where they stem from an evolutionary basis.
The leap you need to make is from being told what to do, where you instead embrace self-determination. What feels right to you? Keeping in mind that we're talking about dispositions that involve interacting with other people, so you need to think about what feels right to you in that context of interaction.
I recently wrote something very similar to that as part of the final chapter of my philosophy book; something like "If nothing mattered, then it wouldn't matter that nothing mattered."
Of course I then go on to talk about why things matter anyway.
Touchingly written. I have never shared the sense of there being a literal life after death with your loved ones, but then, I never had the idea that this was what religions actually taught. To me it seemed an artifact of the popular imagination, in the same sense that mythical figures personify human traits. Mythologies are there to convey meaning, but once the meaning is lost then the mythology just becomes mere myth.
Quoting dazed
Neither is true. The former is a mytholigised depiction, the latter what happens when that mythologised depiction is abandoned. And you're right in seeing this as nihilism - it often is. The task is to understand what about sacred scriptures was true in the first place. 'Nothing' is nihilism - and you can be a cheerful nihilist, as some say. But if you can't be, then what? I think there are layers of meaning in religions but they have to be discerned. I didn't watch the Tolstoy vid above but I would think that is the kind of thing he'd say.
TL;DW for the Tolstoy vid: the most important time is now, the most important person is the one you're with right now, and the most important action is doing right by that person.
He was described as a 'Christian anarchist' and later in life corresponded with Gandhi.
(Pardon this 'I'm stuck in an airport' ramble ...)
In ancient or Classical eras philosophy, it's said, began with / in wonder - that there is anything at all.
In this Modern era of the last half millennia, it seems to me, despair, not wonder, is the catalyst of philosophizing - despair that, despite the entirety of human knowledge, there isn't any (decideable, in/defeasible) Reason at all for any - let alone every - thing; to wit: Why is there no-Y-thing rather than some-X-thing? Apparently, 'this world' is The Most Arbitrary of All Possible Worlds à la the mediocrity principle (pace Leibniz).
The ancients reflected on their wonder in order to discern whatever lay beyond (or behind) it all that wonder seemed, they had imagined, pointed to and which they had speculated was/is the ordering principle (logos) of whatever there is (physis). In effect, Classical philosophers strove to have their contemplative cake and eat it too: disenchanting the enchanted reality they'd found themselves in but only enough to rationally comprehend, or intuitively glimpse, its raison d'être (arche).
But what of contemporary despair? And the philosophies of despair - pro, con & indifferent? And sectarian anti-secular fundamentalisms radicalized by paroxysms of despair? And globally encompassing mega-menageries of hyper-designed popular diversions from despair? (à la 'culture industry' or 'p0m0 condition' or 'oedipal simulacra' or 'ideology of objet petit a' ...)
I'm with Freddy N. & co - Nihilism is merely a symptom, or seduction, of decadence. Like Schop's pessimism. Even proletarian alienation. And Dionysian iconoclasm, or 'hermeneutics of suspicion' - just dessicated fruit of decadance. Like punkers, hip-hopsters, new atheists & radicalized suburban jihadis/lone wolf mass-shooters. If survived initially, people tend to 'outgrow' these Nihilisms ... and, fatalistically or obliviously, skate the rest of their jaded days across the uneven, cracking, thin ice of despair until. Only Nihilists worry about nihilism, thereby, inadvertently or not, distracting themselves from ... thinking all the way through the inexorable extinction of thinking. Disenchanted (hyper)chaos can't be 're-enchanted', or put back into 'the enchanted cosmos' tube!
:flower:
Sad Socrates (red pill, sphereland :scream: ) or satisfied swine (blue pill, flatland :blush: )? - that is the question for each lonesome one of us.
Indeed it's the act of replacing those principles that has evaded me for some 20 years. A simple example: Abortion was clearly wrong when I was a believer because it would be termination of soul embodied human life that was sacred and in clear violation of the ten commandments.
In my current intellectual landscape, there is no clear answer but rather a set of competing arguments about what constitutes human life, when human life can justifiably be terminated, what sorts of obligations does one human owe another?
There are no clear answers in a world of indeterminacy and random chaos. And so I avoid such discussions.
I honestly appreciate the thought and effort.
In simple terms you suggest aiming for what I perceive to be the good, despite not having an objectively determination of what the good is. But the issue for me is that the good used to be clear and now ), I simply can't even perceive what the good is on a macro level. (such as the abortion example I discuss above)
If you're trying to do morality from a purely "intellectual"/"reasoned" perspective, you're doing it "wrong."
Ask yourself if abortion seems acceptable to you. Why does it or does it not seem acceptable to you? When you're intuiting whether it seems acceptable to you, there are a bunch of facts you need to consider, but the facts aren't going to tell you whether it's acceptable to you. You need to access how you feel about it to know. It's self-determination (of your morality).
interesting and this is pretty much my approach to life currently. It works for the most part, but doesn't give one much motivation to focus on the larger macro issues which still leaves me a rather disengaged citizen.
if you've never been a theist, I think you are coming from a very different place. I have many friends who are atheists who don't face the sense of empty random chaos about the world, because their brains were not hard wired with an underlying structure that made sense of things that has since crumbled and in my case seems to be impossible to replace.
"What I consider right and wrong may be derived from theism, but as an atheist, I don't have any objection to that. Treating other people the way one wants to be treated is a pretty universal rule. Of course, there are elements in Christian teaching that I reject. I reject what the church has to say about homosexuality, for instance. I disapprove of the Church's balance between spending to maintain itself and spending to perform works of mercy (way, way too much spent on the maintenance of the church institution). The Church ought to be poor. On the other hand, atheists do well to feed the poor, house the homeless, visit the prisoner, and so forth, NOT because Christ commanded it, but because it is good for the person who does it, as well as the person for whom it is done. Helping others breaks down barriers between we happy and contented and you miserable and discontented (assuming "we' are, in fact, happy)."
Yes I would agree that like you my patterns of behaviour have not altered much since my loss of religion, the right way to behave seems to have been instilled in me in a way that is pretty much immune to the process of deconstruction.
But I am still left with random chaos when I actually try to reason about something at the macro level and so I always retreat from it, which ultimately makes true engagement with life evasive.
In the end all the things that were once sacred special and true, are simply random biological processes.
the difference between you and I is that I actually did believe and so the loss for me and the corresponding void is much more profound
The nike posit "just do it" works for the most part at the micro level but falls apart at the macro level.
Most of our current ethical framework at the macro level in the western world is in fact ultimately linked to a judaeo christian model of our existence, take that away and it's all fair game, and I think that in fact it's self interest that will ultimately dictate the directions each of us pursue in that game.
Somebody on one of the threads said, "theism / spiritualism can only be understood and practiced on an emotional / spiritual level, never on an intellectual level." This is very powerful. I believe our emotional brains are older than the intellectual processing centres. Meaning, that even severely retarded / intellectually challenged / developmentally challenged persons have the same scale and depth and breadth of emotions, as people with the most intelligent minds. I have seen it in a cousin of mine, who had 17 words in his vocabulary, yet he possessed a full range of emotions, including but not limited to, social skills and even a sense of humour. Yes, humour is an emotion, though it hopelessly hangs on the intellect to kick-start it. I have seen similarly rich emotive behaviour in many other people who were otherwise decapacitated intellectually.
I believe emotions presented earlier in the development of the brain in evolution. You can see its manifestation in the behavour of many, many animals. For some reason, emotions changed littel, or none over hundreds of thousands of years and or millions of years of evolution. I don't know why this is so.
So if the emotive part of your brain gets used to something that is pleasurable, the activity is harder to shake than if your intellectual brain gets a high from something.
Religion seems to be therefore not only a metaphor, but an existent reality in its role as a drug. In my youth there were three authors I admired, later joined by a fourth: 1. A. A. Milne, 2. Karl May, and 3. Istvan Fekete. Of the three, I.F. was a religious man, and he wrote beautiful nature descriptions, which grabbed me by the soul, until at 15 I realized he is a covert follower of religion and of a god. I could never read him again. But I am the first to admit that his talent to put his emotions given to him by his own faith was superb, and catchy.
(For completeness sake: The fourth on the list was Jeno Rejto, be topped only by Frigyes Karinthy, who topped everybody else in world literature, methinks, when it comes to style, humour, and bravado. His works are like a lifelong works of what Toccata And Fuge in G Minor by J.S. Bach is in music: not much to say, but inimitable in execution and effect of detail.)
what feels right for me in any given situation is ultimately linked to patterns of behaviour that arose in the context of a judaeo christrian faith...and yes I just go with it on a micro level in the normal run of the mill life stuff...but for the bigger questions that sometimes run my way I have no way to navigate those.
What feels right to you would be linked to innate dispositions that you have. There are probably some aspects of Judeo-Christianity that you felt uncomfortable with. That would be because those things were contra your innate dispositions.
So if you introspect whether you feel that abortion is okay or not, don't you lean one way or the other?
Quoting dazed
I had a similar experience growing up in a Christian home and becoming more aware of the wider world and all the other beliefs that correlated to where you grew up. The basis of my questioning and subsequent abandoning of my beliefs was my love for astronomy. Growing up, space fascinated me. It was the unknown - the "final frontier". I also loved animals, and nature in general, which eventually led me to an better understanding of natural selection and the power of the theory. It was science, or the close investigation of the macro and the micro, that led me out of the delusion. The "just do it" for me is the investigation of the unknown (the macro/micro).
One of the quotes that I often reflect on when I begin to feel those feelings of losing the nostalgia of being young and naive is from Arthur C. Clarke's, "Childhood's End". Jan Rodrick's curiosity allowed him to be the only human to see the Overlord's cities and to glimpse the Overmind. He returns to an Earth devoid of humans and eventually dying himself when the Children destroy the Earth as they unite with the Overmind. Before he dies, he begins to question his meaning and purpose. The Overlord responds, "You exist[ed].", as if the mere fact of his existence counted for something. But "counted to who"?
Isn't that really what we mean when we travel down these nihilistic roads in our minds? Isn't it really a selfish notion that we want to matter to important people - like an all-powerful superhuman that can do you favors if you please it? What do you want your actions (your meaning and your purpose) to matter to? You? Your partner and family? The human species? Then do things for them and let that be your purpose and meaning.
When did I say I wasn't raised a theist...? I was baptized and raised a Seventh Day Adventist. I was never really "all there..." really. I was very critical as a child, critical of everything. I didn't like the restrictions, "Saturday school", Sabbath, 5 am studies.. and they did a complete restructure of the Bible I did not agree with - but still smiled and showed up nonetheless. I never had a need for sacredness, etc.. I was not meant to be there, not meant to be a theist, and I knew from an early age.
But, I think, like some in this thread, I never truly believed, so I never 'lost' anything. I never felt emotionally invested - or truly 'believed'. The only extent of belief I did have was one induced of fear... "God sees what you do.. God is watching you.." and all that.
But I quickly disconnected from this fear too, or "grew out of it.." more to speak. I left 'church, and God' when I no longer had to appease my families wishes, there was just no faith to lose.
When I left, I did not have a problem with the empty, chaos, incompleteness, 'lonely' (without guidance outside of myself), of the world either. I felt the world was full and couldn't wait to be unleashed into it. I remember feeling this way since a child. What "facts" about the world - such as random biological processes I was excited to find out; I am still sweeping through how to deal with 'truths' but I have no such doubts I will not handle this well and come to my point of contentment.
I do think some children are some dispositioned to be who they are - a certain kind of way - even in loss, they struggle less than other children - and child intellectuals (critics) from an early age, seems to follow them into adulthood, these children tend to lean further one way than another. They don't feel some angst as other children, or if so seem to be better at reasoning innately - while for others there is no disposition and they have either be motivated to take on such a style or simply don't have the interest.
Likely not scientific but, I think some people are just born disposition'd to be theists and other's just simply cannot think that way. When I talk to theists, it feels as if our brains are completely flipped; I understand where they are coming from - but that is to the extent my understanding goes -- it is feels like a large gap between us; and to fully integrate into theism would require such a hard re-wiring of the brain (especially since it's been this way until little) .. I do not think it is all possible for me to ever believe.
So I perhaps somewhat sympathize it must be like that from their perspective, they simply cannot grasp 'atheist-like' brains, which is fine I guess.
Maybe this explains it for me. I never got the high. I was emotionally dead all throughout religion :rofl: ...
The bit that I actually typed out in this thread is just the very start of my moral framework; it's just the reason not to give up and fall into nihilism completely. There is still a lot of work to be done to build up a complete moral framework that can answer "macro level" questions like that. My complete take on that is at the link I posted earlier, and far too long to type out here, but it's there is you want my full thoughts on that. A lot of it is just slight variations on other pre-existing philosophical works, a mix of universal prescriptivism, utilitarianism, liberal deontology, and philosophical anarchism.
Here, I can copy and paste a bit where I kind of sum up how I view ethics as analogous to science:
But, that's just my take on it; my answer to how to answer such questions. You might come up with something different if you try. The core message is that it's not hopeless, and you can figure something out, so you don't have to be a complete nihilist.
Of course, if you can manage to live your life just moment to moment happily and don't have to think about the big-picture stuff, that's fine too. That's probably more important for most people who aren't in big positions of power than figuring out the macro-level stuff. But if you want to engage in the bigger picture, there is hope that you can figure out a way to do so.
Understood. But ethical problemata (rather than "shock") that's followed from your "loss of religion" has still followed for me (& other mostly thinking persons) as well.
[quote=dazed]Most of our current ethical framework at the macro level in the western world is in fact ultimately linked to a judaeo christian model of our existence, take that away and it's all fair game, and I think that in fact it's self interest that will ultimately dictate the directions each of us pursue in that game.[/quote]
This is why I followed up my first post with a second brief sketch on (the) epochal transition from 'philosophies of wonder' (re: disenchanting the world in order to comprehend its apparent enchantedness) to 'philosophies of despair' (re: the various failures to reenchant our disenchanted world) and break down of latter differentiating 'nihilism' as a symptom of decadence (i.e. "self-interest for self-interest's sake" - über alles!) from despair. An important aside, in my opinion, which more directly addresses the thread topic question & your OP than my initial brieezy "just do it" suggestion.
As you point out, dazed, "our current ethical framework at the macro level in the western world is in fact ultimately linked to a judaeo christian model" which every non-theist, regardless of provenance, must deal - struggle - with in order to seek out and adopt an alternative "ethical framework" despite, yet complementary to, "the macro level"; this predicament is not unique to those who've "lost their religion" and feel adrift in the viccissitudes of, as you put it, "the micro". Consider e.g the (non-theist) existentialisms of Jaspers, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Ortega y Gassett, de Unamuno, Abbagnano, Fanon, Kaufmann, ... & Merleau-Ponty.
So long as your unease remains at the level of 'worrying about nihilism', you're merely a decadent - for nihilism is just a superficial concern as I point out in my second post. There are a library of non-theistic / post-JCI ethical frameworks one can window shop and try on for size and return for exchange of another ethics (though, sorry, no money back guarantees) until one finds a better or optimal fit for one's life. No problem really if all you want, all you're looking for, is a Blue Pill and an end to all - unmotivated ennui - 'worries'. Philosophy, however, dispenses only Red Pills to those looking for aporetics "more profound" than self-help nostrums and (psycho)therapies for flagging self-esteem. The likes of Oprah, Jordan Petersen, Marianne Williamson, Tony Robbins & Deepok Chopra pimp that Blue Pill woo all day every day, and they're easy to get because you can't miss 'em ... :victory:
* * * update (since this plane didn't crash) * * *
[quote=The Philosopher-Poet of Rock-N-Roll][i]Sometimes I will then again I think I won't
Sometimes I will then again I think I won't
Sometimes I do then again I think I don't
Well I looked at my watch, it was 10:05
Man, I didn't know if I was dead or alive
Well I looked at my watch, it was 10:28
I gotta get my kicks before it gets too late
Well I looked at my watch and it was time to go
The band leader said " We ain't playing no more"[/i][/quote]
:cool:
(Chuck) "You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame."
(Bob) "What?"
(Chuck) "Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they -- die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives."
(Bob) "And what is that, Charles?"
(Chuck) "Thinking."
[The Edge, 1997]
:smirk:
My evolution was slow and gradual : from Protestant Fundamentalism, to uncertain Agnosticism, to Scientific explorer, to Philosophical thinker, etc. But I could never accept the Atheist worldview, which has no satisfactory explanation for the perennial religious questions : Where did we come from? Why are we here? What's the meaning of life? and so on.
So, I began to develop my own personal worldview, based on a> cutting-edge science, b> state-of-the-art philosophy, and c> a select summary of the world's religious wisdom. This customized philosophy of life is not a guarantee of absolute truth, but it gives me a stable foundation of relative truths, and it seems to be a reasonable guide to living in an imperfect world surrounded by mysteries. It avoids the extremes of Optimism and Pessimism, by adopting a moderate attitude of Pragmatism.
I call my worldview Enformationism, because it is an update of ancient Materialism and Spiritualism, with the Quantum Age understanding that Information is more essential to reality than Matter or Energy. As a religious philosophy, it can be labeled : PanEnDeism : the assumption that everything is contained within the eternal-infinite Mind of what I call G*D, with no historical prejudices or anthro-morphic presumptions. Like the Codex of Pfhorest, this serves as my framework for morality and for meaning. Perhaps you can also construct your own path out of confusion and nihilism. :smile:
Enformationism definition : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
PanEnDeism definition : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html
Enformationism thesis : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/
< update 9h later >
[quote=Gnomon]FWIW : Enformationism has some similarities to New Age worldviews, but it specifically denies any mind-over-matter magic and divine-intervention miracles.[/quote]
WOOsy! :victory:
But what if you're with more than one person and they have conflicting needs?
Ask Tolstoy.
@god must be atheist already covered this as far as Tolstoy is concerned (I was just summarizing the video for those who don't want to watch it), but as far as I'm concerned, "needs" as I would construe them technically cannot conflict, in the same way that observations of the world technically cannot conflict. They can suggest interpretations about what is or ought to be that conflict, but what actually is must account for all observations, even if it's a really difficult creative task to figure out how to do that, and what actually ought to be must account for all needs, even if it's a really difficult creative task to figure out how to do that.
(Consider the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each one feels a different thing and interprets that as meaning there's a different object, and while all three of those interpretations cannot be simultaneously true, the actual reality is nevertheless compatible with the different things each of them feels to prompt those interpretations. Analogously, people's different feelings may prompt them to want different states of affairs, and those states of affairs may be incompatible, but what's actually a moral state of affairs will nevertheless account for everyone's different feelings, even if it means nobody gets any of the states of affairs that those feelings prompted them to want).
THE RED PILL MEME
If you're a New Ager who,
is looking for woo,
Then Enformationism
is not for you.
The choice of pills red or blue
have nothing to do,
but allow you to change your
attitude.
If it's magic you pursue,
look inside of you,
where miracles are seen in
inner view.
The outer world you construe
can only be moved
by machine and muscle, not by
psychetude*.
And G*D only helps those who
help themselves to
what they desire and need by
homebrew.
Note : Sorry for the ill-formed poor-etry. Phew! I was running out of "woo" rhymes. :cool:
* Psychetude : http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2006/03/waves-of-psychetude.html
FWIW : Enformationism has some similarities to New Age worldviews, but it specifically denies any mind-over-matter magic and divine-intervention miracles.
I’ve never quite declared myself to be ‘atheist’ - but I’m not a theist anymore, either. Like @Wayfarer, I still see value in the mythology of religion, as long as it’s recognised as such, and like @Bitter Crank I relate to the idea that we share a basic sense of what we should and shouldn’t be doing with most religions, regardless of whether or not we believe in things like the resurrection or any supernatural being.
I think in many ways it’s a matter of not being afraid of the ‘not knowing’. The comfort I took from Catholicism was more about a dependence on claims of certainty and authority that I’ve since recognised to be false. Part of nihilism is recognising that there IS no certainty or authority - we are all in the same boat here, although some will go to great lengths to conceal it from themselves and others. They’re allowing fear to guide them, instead of increasing awareness, connection and collaboration. When we embrace nihilism, I think we learn to face the reality that everyone is still trying to figure all of this out, and then learn to draw from each other’s experiences not only the courage to explore, but also the missing information that will help us to more accurately map those aspects of reality that are less objectively certain - in particular what is valuable and what it all means. It’s not something you can figure out by avoiding the dark, but nor is it helpful to shrug the shoulders and remain in the dark, as @180 Proof warns.
I think you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that some of us have been roughly where you are now, and eventually reached a level of confidence in navigating a world without certainty or authority beyond what nihilism appears to offer at first glance. It’s not so scary once you get used to it. I would recommend Pfhorrest’s approach to ethics - as complicated as it sounds, I find it make sense within my own perspective of increasing awareness, connection and collaboration...
This is not directed at, toward, or about you. I'm talking about the standard model of juvenile nihilist.
The doctrine of an extreme Russian revolutionary party c. 1900 found nothing to approve of in the established social order. Given how badly Romanov rule sucked, that is probably the very model of political rationality. That is a far cry from the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless. In philosophy, it means extreme skepticism; maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence. (Not only does life suck, it isn't even real. Fuck!)
One wonders where the young nihilist (or an old one, for that matter) gets the chutzpa to stand up and declare "It's all meaningless!" "There is no authority -- nobody knows anything," "Meaning is completely arbitrary -- life sucks!" I have a picture in my mind of a group of raging adult nihilists throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of Macy's, Forever 21 or -- god forbid -- the Apple Store: rolling around on the floor, kicking, screaming, cursing, and turning red in the face. Eventually they get up, feel much better, and go have cappuccinos at Starbucks.
The thing is, nihilism is self negating. If everything is meaningless, if there is no authority, life is a valueless and dismal swamp, if there is no certainty... then all that includes the nihilist. The nihilist is meaningless, without authority, a swamp creature, altogether lacking certainty. He or she should shut the fuck up before they even open their mouths.
Lots of people fleeing the church feel like they need a bath (something that doesn't involve getting washed in the blood of the lamb). Take a bath, but don't go down the drain with the bath water.
in the abstract, no I have no real inclination or intuition about whether it is wrong, I can and would only face this question if it presented itself to me in the micro.
Yes this is pretty much my approach, I rely on my positive emotions and try to be good to those I care about. But my deeper engagement with life is still lacking, it just all seems like a big mess that no one has any really clue about.
I agree with you. The point of nihilism, in my view, is to emerge on the other side of it without baggage - not to stay there.
No authority and no certainty doesn’t add up to no meaning in my book - it’s just a discarding of what we thought we knew, a shedding of skin. And it’s not something anyone should be standing up to declare - that goes against the idea of ‘no authority’, doesn’t it?
Sure, but when you think about this stuff, part of intuiting how you feel about it is doing thought experiments. That includes thinking of various personal, "micro" scenarios and trying to figure out how you'd feel about each. Are your feelings consistent? What's making the difference in each scenario? Etc.
I'm not saying that you're going to realize your dispositions about it in two minutes. You have to do "hard thinking" about it. That takes some time and some brain power.
What would a "deeper engagement with life" mean? How is being good to those your care about, and therefore creating your purpose with them, not a deeper engagement with life?
Your description sounds more like positive Stoicism than negative Nihilism. Rather than rejecting reality, Stoicism embraces the world, warts and all. The focus is on developing personal virtue instead of retreating into "bah-humbug" cynicism. :smile:
An even deeper engagement would involve caring about causes, positive societal change, the greater good. I used to be engaged and care about trying to better things (when I was a theist). Now I have no interest in those things because I can't define what positive or good would really mean on a macro scale. I just stick to the micro where it is usually more easy to define what is good for those I actually interact with.
I like this, but I'd emphasize that perhaps philosophy (the good stuff) is simply a more profound self-help nostrum. The organism grasps for orientation and status.
When I continued with ‘...and then...’, I was referring to emerging out the other side...Nihilism for me was useful in breaking down constructs and false assumptions, but not where I wanted to stay.
Quoting Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Nihilism can be rejecting reality, sure - but it can also be rejecting and being sceptical of any particular interpretation of reality as truth. Stoicism doesn’t necessarily allow for the same level of skepticism, but some of their approach may be seen as a helpful path out of nihilism, I suppose.
That's because what is positive and good is subjective. You can't define what is positive or good on macro scale because there is no such thing.
So, it seems to me that your continued confusion is the result in believing in things that don't exist.
In 66 years I have not found a way around it. If you are not one of those people who can't lull or distract themselves from what you understand as a fundamental truth, you live with it. At times throughout my life, it's produced crises when everything seemed pretty absurd and meaningless. I have weathered them.
I derive intense pleasure from Nature, and I believe in Nature's ability to triumph over human destruction of the planet. I follow the Torah's code of ethics as far as my relationships with other humans goes, but I don't believe in a diety or intelligent design, unless that's the same as physics..
well I appreciate the candidacy. I expect my life will take a similar path. But I feel like perhaps just accepting that is what is and not lamenting the loss is the lesson to learn.
I too enjoy being in nature, just being conscious in its beauty.
right so what point is therein in discussing the macro? It's akin to a discussion about whether a person is attractive or not. There's not much utility in reasoned discussion about that. So just as I avoid such discussions so I avoid the macro normative discussions. Hence the lesser engagement in life.
You and I seem to have different views of what entails the "macro". I typically avoid discussions involving morals/values precisely because values are subjective. What reason would you have to talk about what is subjective as if it were objective? That is a category error. The lesser engagement would be to engage in discussions that are meaningless.
The macro for me is simply what science explores - the universe, the brain, etc.. Those topics are worth discussing because we all exist in the same universe and we all have brains (most of us I think).
A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary for those who want to think for themselves rather than be led by the nose via Faith. But when it becomes the core principle of your life, Skepticism tends to deteriorate into unhealthy sneering Cynicism (in the modern sense of contemptuous, pessimistic, and generally distrustful of people's motives).
Another alternative to negative Nihilism is Existentialism*1. It is especially appropriate for Dazed's situation, because it is intended to be a rational response to "losing one's faith" -- that, despite the ups & downs of life, the world is in the firm control of a loving God. When they lose that childlike faith in a heavenly father, many people become despondent, because they have been taught to distrust their own reason and emotional resources. So, they have to grow-up and learn to take responsibility for themselves as moral agents.
As a Christian, I didn't understand Existentialism. It seemed to be a pessimistic worldview. But I now know that it is, if not exactly optimistic, positive and realistic. It accepts that God does not really intervene in the world on behalf of the faithful. And that there may be no heavenly hereafter. What we see instead is that bad things happen to good people, and all too often bad people prosper on the backs of the good. But that's no reason to give-up moral behavior. Yes, Nature is red in tooth and claw, and life lives upon life (lions eat little lambs). Yes, the world is not ideal, in the sense that my personal interests are also God's interests. So, those who are "woke" to the fact that God is not caring for us as individuals, then we have to learn to look-out for our own interests -- while respecting the interests of others, of course. It's an independent mature worldview, as opposed to the dependent naive attitude of those who feel lost without God.
My current worldview however, has developed beyond Stoic Existentialism, because I now believe that the world is evolving in a positive direction*2, and that I have personal control over my own character and attitude. So, I can have a reasonably happy life, despite the exigencies of impartial reality*3. Ironically, the theory of Evolution, despised by many religious believers, reveals that natural processes are both Random (Fatalistic) and Orderly (Selection). Which means that moral agents have the power to choose (Will) their own path through the tangled jungle of the amoral world. Some existentialists actually believed in God (Kierkegaard), but only in an abstract sense. And I have replaced the perplexing bible-god with a more scientifically plausible First Cause (G*D)*4. So, that's my path out of Nihilism and Despair.
*1 Existentialism : a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.
*2 Intelligent Evolution : http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf
*3 Impartial Reality : the real world is fair & balanced (Yin/Yang) in the sense that it treats all things randomly, and is "no respecter of persons".
*4 G*D : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html
[quote=Hegel]
Freedom is itself its own object of attainment and the sole purpose of Spirit. It is the ultimate purpose toward which all world history has continually aimed. To this end all the sacrifices have been offered on the vast altar of the earth throughout the long lapse of ages. Freedom alone is the purpose which realizes and fulfills itself, the only enduring pole in the change of events and conditions, the only truly efficient principle that pervades the whole. This final aim is God’s purpose with the world. But God is the absolutely perfect Being and can, therefore, will nothing but Himself, His own will. The nature of His own will, His own nature, is what we here call the Idea of freedom. Thus we translate the language of religion into that of philosophy.
[/quote]
Another popular substitute for religion is irony/cynicism/absurd-ism.
[quote= Marx]
Hitherto men have constantly made up for themselves false conceptions about themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be. They have arranged their relationships according to their ideas of God, of normal man, etc. The phantoms of their brains have got out of their hands. They, the creators, have bowed down before their creations. Let us liberate them from the chimeras, the ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings under the yoke of which they are pining away. Let us revolt against the rule of thoughts. Let us teach men, says one, to exchange these imaginations for thoughts which correspond to the essence of man; says the second, to take up a critical attitude to them; says the third, to knock them out of their heads; and -- existing reality will collapse.
These innocent and childlike fancies are the kernel of the modern Young-Hegelian philosophy, which not only is received by the German public with horror and awe, but is announced by our philosophic heroes with the solemn consciousness of its cataclysmic dangerousness and criminal ruthlessness. The first volume of the present publication has the aim of uncloaking these sheep, who take themselves and are taken for wolves; of showing how their bleating merely imitates in a philosophic form the conceptions of the German middle class; how the boasting of these philosophic commentators only mirrors the wretchedness of the real conditions in Germany. It is its aim to debunk and discredit the philosophic struggle with the shadows of reality, which appeals to the dreamy and muddled German nation.
[/quote]
An arguably more interesting position is a stereoscopic fusion. Indeed criticism has often taken a Left-Hegelian form. 'If minds are freed, then all the messy real world stuff will clear up on its own.'
Sad Socrates ("red pill" @dazed in a prior post) + Deus, sive Natura(?) + "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and study." ~Hillel the Elder + ...
:flower: :death:
If I understand your words rightly, uncanni, your 'summa' speaks to me as well.
Sounds like you might be an Introvert, as I am, and the church was your only arena of social engagement. The suggestion to get involved in "politics" and "causes" is good advice for extroverts, but not so much for innies.
Nevertheless, there are ways for introverts to socialize without stress. Internet forums, for example, seem to be a "god-send" for those who tend to avoid clamorous public situations. One philosophical forum I was on for several years, seemed to have an unusually high proportion of people with various psychological and physical disabilities : from depression, to palsy, to schizophrenia. Such psycho-physical issues don't reduce your intelligence, but they do tend to keep you on the fringes of society. The key feature of forums is they let you have a meeting of minds (preferably one at a time) without meeting in person or in crowds. This limits the interpersonal complexities that sometimes overwhelm us turtles. You don't even have to display a photo avatar if you don't want to. :smile:
If you are also feeling depressed, whether clinically or mildly, just the feedback from non-judgmental (except for a few trolls) forum or group members can ease you into feeling comfortable about expressing your beliefs and feelings. If you are also existentially depressed, due to the feeling that the world is going to hell, you might find some non-religious rational solace in an article I just came across [link below]. :cool:
5 Books That Explain Why It Seems the World Is So Fucked : https://markmanson.net/5-books-that-explain-why-it-seems-the-world-is-so-fucked
I wonder what you’re arguing against here - I’m not advocating Nihilism or Existentialism as core principles at all, but as a useful path for @dazed to break this attachment to certainty or infallible authority. My current worldview has developed out of Catholicism with the help of both Nihilism and Existentialism, but I see both as a journey through, rather than into, the hopelessness and despair that comes from having no visible path ahead of you, and towards a sense of freedom in charting your own course.
When you walk into pitch blackness and close the door behind you, it helps to know that it’s more of an open field than a dead end. That way you don’t feel like you have to go back the way you came to escape the dark. Let your eyes adjust and take a good look around - it’s not as dark out here as it first seems, and the only danger is if you stop making your own way through...
:clap: :flower: :death:
You do not care about causes, positive societal change, or the greater good -- but you care about what caring about those things did for you, it seems - because you felt better maybe?
So why not pursue the causes, positive social changes, and greater goods based upon what makes you feel better?
But perhaps that's not as satisfying. Perhaps it's better when we have a big story about purpose and origins to justify caring about these things, but if it's all just brains in bone-boxes responding to feelings selected by a historical and evolutionary process then the big story just isn't as inspiring anymore.
Why is that, I wonder? I mean why isn't the Big Story of the self as a string of narratives spewing forth from the brain nowhere near as satisfying as the Big Story of the immortal self set in some eternal plan within a purposive universe? What did Jesus have to do with immigrants, besides saying some pithy things about love that any brain could have (well, I'd probably go so far as to say *did*, given that I don't believe) come up with?
You say it is because your brain is set for Judeo-Christian meaning and purpose. But nothing could substitute Judeo-Christian meaning and purpose; it would be atheist meaning and purpose, or democratic meaning and purpose, or Buddhist meaning and purpose, or whatever-else-it-is. It would always be a different Big Story. But something about the brain-making-stories Big Story isn't satisfying. . .
So why stick to it?
I think I see what @dazed is getting at. When God is dead, one is left with a plurality of causes. There are so many claims on the contemporary conscience, all appealing to historically evolving notion of reason and decency. And then the species itself is mortal. In the long run, it's all got to go. Maybe it's the heat death. Maybe it's an asteroid.
It's healthy and respectable to get engrossed and not be too evil. But that's about it. The escape from time and chance is given up. Or it's negotiated so that one tries to be on the right side of History without looking too far ahead. To me it looks like transformations of a hardwired fantasy. What is it to be intellectual and sophisticated? To be above confusion and superstition? It's a variation of the divine as far as I can tell. But the healthy-respectable version lacks divine violence, which gives it a certain shallowness.
It's nice to be understood sometimes... :victory:
Marx helps: we know who is lying to us. and why, and we know we won't have a cat's chance in hell of making sensible evaluations till we get the leeches off our backs, which gives one a sensible purpose.
I'm arguing against the typical definition of Nihilism : "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless." Google
I assume you are thinking of extreme skepticism as a way to start all over with no preconceptions . . . a way to reboot your belief system. That's essentially what Descartes tried to do, but it was only a thought experiment, not a way of life. Nihilism is a pretty extreme approach to a new worldview. It seems to imagine that you can purge all former beliefs, and begin anew with a blank slate. But that sounds unlikely, due to the way the human mind works. Nietzsche said a lot of provocative things, but I doubt that even he was that radical in his personal life.
Perhaps you can give me a more positive and reasonable definition of Nihilism. :smile:
I like Marx, but I also personally think that we are largely the leeches on our own backs. Capitalism is a beautiful, seductive monster. Today's art is great. Check out the screens. In all of this mess, the machine is feeding us profound pictures. It's basically condensed experience, hyper-reality. I just watched Succession (two seasons). So much money and talent was concentrated in making that artifact. And we can read Marx because our noisy oligarchy isn't afraid of the 'truth.'
[quote= Debord]
Under the shimmering diversions of the spectacle, banalization dominates modern society the world over and at every point where the developed consumption of commodities has seemingly multiplied the roles and objects to choose from. The remains of religion and of the family (the principal relic of the heritage of class power) and the moral repression they assure, merge whenever the enjoyment of this world is affirmed–this world being nothing other than repressive pseudo-enjoyment.
The smug acceptance of what exists can also merge with purely spectacular rebellion; this reflects the simple fact that dissatisfaction itself became a commodity as soon as economic abundance could extend production to the processing of such raw materials.
[/quote]
I'm not accusing you of pseudo-rebellion. I'm accusing myself of enjoying a 'virtuous' dissatisfaction. Those who experience the banality intensely might prefer that the less sensitive proles end up with the dirty work. The tyrant outside is a reflection of the tyrant inside.
interesting thought, but it's not so much that I need a big story for motivational purposes, I do seem to still care about making the world a better place. but for me what's missing is the underlying structure and framework that allowed me to make sense of what making the world a better place meant. Now I simply have no clue, without absolutes and with the indeterminacy of the meaning of words, I am left with the sense that really all that directs us is self interest veiled in appeals to truths like fairness, justice, equality that are ultimately linked to a world view where those things had meaning because God gave them meaning. I can't escape the thought that those concepts make as much sense in the human world as do they with respect to a pack of wolves...
I struggled to understand how and why death makes our lives meaningless until I "realized" it erases the very thing capable of having meaning - the self.
I like the distinction "macro" vs "micro" although I don't agree with the connotations of one being greater than the other. When people say "life has no meaning" they mean that life has no ultimate purpose and this loss of purpose can be compounded by atheism the antithesis of which admittedly confers a truly great purpose to life.
Yet when one discovers that our lives are empty of this kind of meaning - divinely sanctioned, thus grand - we are liberated to define ourselves any way we want. We may choose our destiny and create a meaning for our own lives. As you can see the lack of a "macro" meaning leads to infinite possibilities of "micro" meaning. Let's not forget to mention how utterly drab and possibly dangerous it would be if god or whatever else decides our destiny - we would be like pawns in a game you neither chose to be a part of nor can control.
How can any "g/G give meaning" to anything that matters to you beyond "self-interest" when, apparently, you yourself don't "give meaning" to anything ("macro") beyond your own "self-interest" (via thinking things through for yourself, to begin with, rather than merely lazing away your days on the (shrink's?) couch expecting some off-the-shelf "absolutes" to dogmatically tell you what to think)?
Nice. Thanks for the reply.
I doubt whether nihilism, and some other isms for that matter, would be the subject of much concern but for Christianity. Christianity led those accepting it to believe that human life had a particular purpose and that ultimately those who were true believers would achieve that purpose and despite death live forever, in some capacity, with Jesus and his Father in one of those mansions in God's vaguely described but apparently nonetheless very satisfying and desirable Kingdom. Perhaps more importantly, Christianity taught that only Christians were to be saved.
But Christianity became less and less credible over time, and the less we believed it the more disappointed, disillusioned and despairing we became. Without the Christian God, life had no meaning, the center did not hold, all was permitted. 19th and 20th century intellectual angst, if not mere anarchy, was loosed upon the world.
The interesting thing is that if we look at the pre-Christian Mediterranean West, Greco-Roman civilization, there doesn't seem to be anything similar to this overwhelming concern, i.e. what if there is no God? The sophisticated and educated were Epicurean or Stoic or Cynic or Platonist of one sort or another, didn't think of God or gods as personal, and didn't expect much to happen after death. Some didn't believe in a God or gods, no doubt, but this apparently wasn't seen as anything very significant judging from the information we have.
Initiates in the various cults and mystery religions believed themselves to have been granted special insights into the world and would live on with their gods or goddesses, it's true, but they were secretive and their devotees limited in number. Those who were initiated didn't seek converts or condemn the uninitiated. The common pagan view of the afterlife was that it would be shadowy, rather sad and boring.
Nevertheless, pre-Christian philosophers managed to come to conclusions regarding good and bad, true and false, the purpose of life, etc. most of which were borrowed by Christians. They were not Christian, they were not theists, nor were they nihilists.
Perhaps we're all victims of a kind of post Christian syndrome.
In any case, if history is any guide we need not be theists or nihilists, one or the other. Maybe we only think that is the case because of centuries of Christian indoctrination.
The very start of my philosophy is to reject basically religion (fideism and transcendentalism), and then immediately also reject nihilism (and the cynicism that can't help but lead to it), and then I spend the remaining 80% of the time just going over the vast swathes of what still remains as a possibility besides those equal and opposite anti-philosophies.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Of course this is a wise and sensible position. I get it. And what else can you tell a person wrestling with a spiritual crisis but some version of 'get over it.'
Still, once something like God or gods or mysteries are abandoned and some kind of religion of reason is embraced, the world becomes different. Reason is corrosive, progressive, unstable. Any fixed philosophical system that tells us our place in the world is (in some sense) another 'theology' that conquers disorientation and alienation. (Of course we like a certain amount of alienation. Outside is inside is outside, etc.)
Right. So you care about making the world a better place, but you don't know how to make the world a better place because you have a new belief -- a belief about the self, the world, and everything. Hence my calling it a Big Story.
So my question to you is -- if the new belief isn't working, as you would like to make the world a better place but find it difficult to answer what that means because of the new belief, then why hold onto the belief that we are brains spewing out narratives, that all our moral talk is actually veiled and directed by self-interest, that this renders such moral talk meaningless?
What is still compelling you to believe it, given that this very belief is going against your self-interest in fulfilling a desire for a Big Picture morality, where you strive for the greater good and feel good about it?
I'm telling nobody to "get over it." I'm simply noting that the spiritual crisis is due to an assumption, and that the assumption need not (and i think should not) be accepted.
That it need not be accepted is established by the fact that millions of people, some of them very wise and highly intelligent, some of them very accomplished, some of them happy, lived before the advent of Christianity and other religions which posit the existence of a personal God who must be accepted if life is to have any significance and without whom all is meaningless Probably, such people live now as well.
This indicates there is nothing about being human which requires us to experience a spiritual crisis of the kind which, it seems to be claimed, must result in nihilism. And this understanding presents us with an opportunity to assess, as others have, being human free of the assumption from which the spiritual crisis derives.
Fair enough.
But I think of stoicism, for instance, as a quasi-religion.
[quote=Epictetus]
Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
[/quote]
This aims at a perfectly self-controlled consciousness. This ideal man is like God, self-sufficing and above the world. The stoic is a god-man, a Jesus from Vulcan.
[quote= Epictetus]
If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.
[/quote]
Don't cry for mortal things. Be like God, cold and controlled. Life is a test of nerve, a stage for cold virtue.
I like stoicism, btw. But there's a place in for the dark question: Why should the proud godman bother with this stage for virtue? His only attachment is to detachment. The self-mortification is implicitly suicidal even.
[quote=Epicurus]
He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a happy life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled.
[/quote]
Epicurus helps. Let's just be happy, healthy animals. We just need to get rid of the God virus and the illusion (theological hangover) that something is lacking.
I don't think it's that simple. Something in the human wants to transgress/transcend the given. 'Nihilism' is maybe just an awkward expression of a sense that 'something is missing.' Epicurus and humanism is about as good as it gets, but reason is historical and corrosive. Most thinking people are humanists and yet they don't agree, aren't forming one big inclusive community. We still have sects.
"Well... then I guess I don't care about becoming a Stoic master."
"Oh my god... he is The One!"
Christianity set the bar too high for mortal humans. By their standards, we are all abject sinners.
The dark cynical attitude that no one really cares about anything except Self-Interest, might brighten-up if you find the right depression drugs, or the right group of caring people. Like AA meetings, just sharing with others in the same boat seems to help. If you care, maybe others do too. You'll just need to look for the meaningful Qualia hidden under the mathematical Quanta.
If you're looking for an alternative to traditional religions, maybe you should delve into Deism. It's not a formal religion, but a general religious philosophy that acknowledges the necessity for a First Cause creator. There's no holy book, no carved-in-stone rules, and no myths of afterlife to entice you to endure the suffering of the present world. Unfortunately, also no religious meetings to offer mutual emotional support. It's a god-helps-those-who-help-themselves attitude. At the risk of sounding elitist, it's an artificial religion substitute for intellectuals : like Voltaire and Ben Franklin. If Deism is not for you, maybe some form of Buddhism, such as Zen.
I have created my own personal worldview in order to provide structure and framework for making sense of a world that is still under development. No faith required, but a long-range rational view of how the world works is necessary to see the sensible order and positive direction of Evolution. It requires looking at the scientific evidence from a different perspective. It only appeals to rational pragmatic people who look for clues at the scene of the crime : of creating an imperfect world that requires motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other. :smile:
Deism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html
PanEnDeism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html
Neo-Deism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page15.html
Beism : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/
:clap: :up:
Nice link. Thanks!
Your attitude is of course reasonable, but it's also familiar in terms of the emotional comfort it offers. I don't know exactly how far the idea goes back, but justifying evil in terms of a future to come goes back at least to Hegel.
[quote=Hegel]
But in contemplating history as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed, a question necessarily arises: To what principle, to what final purpose, have these monstrous sacrifices been offered?
From here one usually proceeds to the starting point of our investigation: the events which make up this picture of gloomy emotion and thoughtful reflection are only the means for realizing the essential destiny, the absolute and final purpose, or, what amounts to the same thing, the true result of world history. We have all along purposely eschewed that method of reflection which ascends from this scene of particulars to general principles. Besides, it is not in the interest of such sentimental reflections really to rise above these depressing emotions and to solve the mysteries of Providence presented in such contemplations. It is rather their nature to dwell melancholically on the empty and fruitless sublimities of their negative result.
...
A principle, a law is something implicit, which as such, however true in itself, is not completely real (actual). Purposes, principles, and the like, are at first in our thoughts, our inner intention. They are not yet in reality. That which is in itself is a possibility, a faculty. It has not yet emerged out of its implicitness into existence. A second element must be added for it to become reality, namely, activity, actualization. The principle of this is the will, man’s activity in general. It is only through this activity that the concept and its implicit (“being-in-themselves”) determinations can be realized, actualized; for of themselves they have no immediate efficacy.
...
These vast congeries of volitions, interests, and activities constitute the tools and means of the World Spirit for attaining its purpose, bringing it to consciousness, and realizing it. And this purpose is none other than finding itself – coming to itself – and contemplating itself in concrete actuality. But one may indeed question whether those manifestations of vitality on the part of individuals and peoples in which they seek and satisfy their own purposes are, at the same time, the means and tools of a higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing, which they realize unconsciously. This purpose has been questioned, and in every variety of form denied, decried, and denounced as mere dreaming and “philosophy.” On this point, however, I announced my view at the very outset, and asserted our hypothesis – which eventually will appear as the result of our investigation – namely, that Reason governs the world and has consequently governed its history. In relation to this Reason, which is universal and substantial, in and for itself, all else is subordinate, subservient, and the means for its actualization. Moreover, this Reason is immanent in historical existence and reaches its own perfection in and through this existence.
[/quote]
I thought I'd share this and see if it resonated with you.
Once we posit a director for evolution, then by the same template we'll need a Director for the director, and even all the more because of its larger realm needing extra-explanation.
We can deduce that 'IS' is all there is, since what is fundamental is by necessity (having no opposite), as a superposition of every path of events, since it can't be any particular path because not anything particular can come into the 'IS' as as any specific direction or knowing.
So then, the particular path of our workable universe had to have the other paths pruned away from it, not that the other paths disappeared but that they are not there from our point of view.
Thus, it is a truth that there was a carving out of our universe's path, and so this truth is the proof; however, curiosity still remains but that can only be about the implementation.
One might still stand in awe of the 'IS' as the everything of all events superposed; however, everything has no information content, which is the same as 'random' and 'Nothing' hasn't, and so the 'IS' isn't so great, plus, since it must be so, with no option not to be, it has no power over that 'must', nor does it have the power to go away. 'IS' is ungenerated and Deathless. We and all are part and parcel of the 'IS', for there can't be anything independent of it just sitting around.
Turning the 'IS' into a Wiz having a Mind and being an intentional Creator by figuring out a Quiz is a step too far for the logic of philosophy.
Yeah, I feel you. But a pack of wolves has a certain cohesion. So maybe we're more complex wolves. We love and hate. We assert status with words. We're never done inventing ourselves or figuring out our place. Everyone cobbles together their own post-religion. Some go to more trouble articulating a philosophy or an anti-philosophy.
Even if everything is 'really' empty, our animal minds mostly distract us for this. If we do remember, then there are some twisted pleasures to be had. The individual is more godlike beneath an empty sky.
I think you mentioned Nietzsche in some post, so I'm not surprised. That's my jam too. When I'm (godlessly) up, I'm way up. 'I' am 'God' (along with everyone else who knows they are.) It's all connected in my mind with personal mortality, the facing of death. Clinging to the afterlife is clinging to the petty ego. But anti-ego talk is often suspect. It's more like a larger ego eating a smaller ego. Magnanimity from a sense of power, the ability to ignore parasites, the spirit as a stomach than can digest difficult experience. 'Our god is a devouring flame.'
So I guess I see only transformations of the concept of God (an image of transcendence and autonomy) along with what the community appeals to in order to ground its violence.
Quite evocative, well said ... :cool:
[quote=jellyfish]So I guess I see only transformations of the concept of God (an image of transcendence and autonomy) along with what the community appeals to in order to ground its violence.[/quote]
I'm the mirror image gazing into this glass darkly: immanence and ecstasy ... grounded by solidarity in sisyphusian struggles. :death: :flower:
Amor fati, baby!
Thanks for the kind reply. I love that skull next to the flower. To me that really gets it.
Those who never had their brains hardwired with the structures and beliefs of theism are in a very different position, than those who have. I am not suggesting that reality minus God = nihilism. It is my experience that having been raised staunch catholic and actually truly endorsing that belief system sets one up for a serious sense of confusion and disorientation with our reality once the myths break down through reasoned focus. I am looking for experiences from those who have shared this experience but have found a path out of it.
Maybe I'll be more descriptive in what the conceptual breakdown or deconstruction looks like in my mind.
The real muddle comes with the breakdown of the self.
I previously believed I was a soul made by God in his image who would live eternally.
I now believe that I am a biological process, who's primary driver is a brain. I am no means a coherent whole but rather a collection of competing desires, interests and emotions. These are ultimately the causal forces that result in my behaviour. And you can see the incoherence of this collection in the incoherence of my thoughts and behaviour.
And so when the brain described as "I" is faced with options it previously used reason to arrive a reasonable decision, relying on deep theistic structures to reason a way through. And I was pretty good at this kind of reasoning, a public speaker and debater who sometimes won!
But now I am a muddled mess, there is no underlying deep structures that the brain can rely on to reason its way out. There is no room left for "ought", just "is". I have recognized my brain to be the animal brain it always was. But the animal brain really ultimately only pursues self interest.
So I try to avoid those confused states, I practice mindfulness and stay in the moment and in the micro. But this doesn't leave one very engaged in a deep level in life. It's all just process, I am part of it, but it has no clear direction and no underlying principles. It's just random causality let loose.
I don't think Stoicism is a religion, as typically conceived, but I do think a Stoic can be religious.
It's hard to judge Epictetus, as it happens he wrote nothing and what we read is from the notes of his student Arrian. But it's particularly hard to judge him from the Enchiridion, which you quote. His God can sometimes seem almost personal rather than detached, now and then. I think the Stoics sought tranquility rather than detachment (I think there's a difference). The comparison of a child to a cup may be in the nature of a spiritual exercise as Pierre Hadot speculates, to prepare oneself to accept the hazards of life without despair.
Some of the ancients thinkers had more sense than we do; they were more sensible than we are when it comes to considering how to live. They didn't allow speculation regarding the transcendent to clutter their thought. It's that speculation, and an inflated sense of self-importance, which creates despair when shown to be dubious at best.
Consider: We exist, and are part of a vast universe that is wondrous; fearing and desiring what is outside of our control causes us pain, and causes pain to others, and is to be avoided. That, for me, is the essence of Stoicism. Most if not all of what we consider bad or evil conduct results from the fear of or desire for things or people which we do not have but want or want to avoid. The only thing we can know (not that we know, completely), that is worthy of reverence is the universe, which we can experience. A simple ethics, and a simple "religious" feeling.
So simple and yet boundless. :fire:
Tranquility through detachment perhaps? What I was aiming at was the ideal human for the stoic against a background of the ideal human of other life philosophies and religions. Stoicism seems like one response to the breakdown of community among others.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
I'm not opposed to this insight. As I mentioned in the beginning, it's all quite reasonable and respectable. I'd just say that humans are haunted by the transcendent. It's not just God or Tarot cards. It's drugs, sex, revolution, conspiracy theories. We can also be freaked out by boredom. A life with sin and magic can cause suffering, but a life without sin and magic isn't obviously worth living.
'Fitter, happier, more productive.' There's an emptiness in Epicurus' happy animals. It's like the end of history in Kojeve. Or 'man would rather have the void for his purpose than be devoid of purpose.' So man is a sick animal, a wicked animal, a fascinating animal. I'm not trying to argue against prudence. I'm just suggesting that 'nihilism' is related to the dreariness of a reasonable post-religion of prudence.
Thank for you sharing this. I'm not against it. It sounds great in the abstract. Perhaps it presupposes a certain level of affluence. An animal that has its biological needs met will mostly be bothered by 'irrational' itches for status or titillation. I do like the 'negative glamour' of stoicism, epicureanism, and cynicism. We can go against the flow of our culture, assuming individual liberties, and judge ourselves and others by alternative standards. The philosopher can be counter-cultural figure. He can be proud of his can of beans and look down on those who think they need a $50 steak. He can work a less respectable job for more free time and/or freedom of thought, etc.
Wonder is of course a great attitude. I love philosophy for tending to lift us above the petty issues of the day and mere utility.
Right. You might like wrestling with Nietzsche's work (who saw the self this way), not as a cure but as a profound exploration of the 'disease.' IMV there is no cure. The 'disease' just becomes more entertaining, even a show for 'the gods' (our infinitely ironic consciousnesses.) ' The jokes on us, but it's an endlessly fascinating joke.
Quoting dazed
This is a great theme too. IMV it's a familiar and comfortable illusion that we use reason explicitly to make decisions. To me it looks like most of it happens in the dark. Our animal knowhow does most the work. Explicit reasoning steps in where auto-pilot needs help.
I can see how your success at public reasoning could add to the burden of losing God. In the beginning was the word. It's the dream of conquering existence with a bulletproof system of words.
To me God is the human fantasy. I want to be God. I want to be above the meat-grinder of Nature. I want to be self-sufficing and invulnerable. I want to always know better, win every argument. Or part of me does. Another part of me wants to be in love, which is to say dominated by some beauty that is out of my control. Being a mortal puts me in the middle of these opposed projects.
Quoting dazed
Here I'd just say watch out for taking self-interest as the simple truth. We are radically social animals. The 'self' is a bunch of group memberships. So self-interest is other-interest. When I first embraced atheism, I felt quite alienated. I also thought selfishness was the truth. But slowly I realized that reasoning itself is inherently other directed, social. The concern for truth is always already social. To hold the truth sacred is to still believe in something above utility.
So in my view your are going through a necessary freak-out as you transition from an old sense of who you are and what existence is all about to a new one. I don't want to sound too positive, because life will always be terrible at times. And a person can feel like a wise man one month and end his life the next. It's almost as if words are always spoken from moods and situations. The characters in the play are states of mind. Actual human beings are sequences of states of mind. That's why (IMO) Shakespeare and others need an entire cast to express themselves. Too many voices, too many feelings to fit behind one mask.
Quoting dazed
I agree that it's largely random, but I also think the mind finds structures. For instance, people tend to have 'spiritual' projects, vague images of what they should be. Occasionally we are lost in the white noise between channels (if anyone remembers old TVs.) That's like a creative void. If it doesn't drown you, you'll starting finding patterns in the snow. (And lose them again, and find them, and ...eventually turn off the TV forever while others are just turning it on.)
[I'm a clown though, so what do I know? I do wish you luck.]
:victory:
Your thoughts have definitely impacted my consciousness. But how do you make sense of the world with ourselves as ultimately incoherent random states of mind? How do you navigate social discourse with a loss of the concepts of agency and selfhood that permeate all our human political and social structures? If there really is no one integrated "self" that we can hold responsible, then what becomes of all of our structures that rely on the concept of "self"?
I simply retreat every time I start that thought, it seems to me that if you follow it too far, it will all erode. So I turn on a soccer game instead. Essentially I rely on distraction to navigate the world. I am just hoping that maybe there's a way out of that approach to life...one that offers a level of deeper engagement.
Well I do have a grim sense of humor. It seems that existence is a strange dream, but it does have a continuity (it mostly coheres). It's a story. We are thrown into a play without an author, or that's what some of the characters say.
People without God often substitute moral and/or scientific progress (humanism, a rationalized notion of incarnation.) Then another project is just the infinite extension of consciousness, in the face of absurdity and mortality. MacBeth suits up for the last battle, knowing that all his charms and prophecies have failed him. A little before that he says:
[quote=Shakespeare]
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
[/quote]
There are equally dark lines in King Lear and Hamlet. So a grim sense of humor and a realization that I'm not alone helps me. In some ways I'm less alone than ever. Our common fate is to live this absurd dream without foundation or excuse. It's hard to talk about, because it's dangerous. Even though our culture pretends to respect Shakespeare and so on, all this 'high' culture is creepy. It puts one outside of life, with one foot in the grave.
Check out the ending monologue of American Psycho.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__BBylQ6srM
[quote=A P]
There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this, there is no catharsis. My punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.
[/quote]
Now Bateman is a villain in his fantasy life, so the feel of this ending is just so strange. But 'this confession has meant nothing' captures the sharp edge of 'existentialism.' We throw ourselves into Hell for our own amusement, and this Hell-for-atheists is the experience of life as disgusting noise, random and incoherent. Consciously it's something unfortunate that happened to us, but unconsciously (so runs my dream) it's a larger, more ferocious consciousness clawing its way out. Profound suffering is something we even crave. 'I am a sick man. I am a wicked man.'
I don't know if you'll find my blanket as warm as I do.
A last quote:
[quote=Nietzsche]
289. In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of the echo of the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and timid vigilance of solitude; in his strongest words, even in his cry itself, there sounds a new and more dangerous kind of silence, of concealment. He who has sat day and night, from year's end to year's end, alone with his soul in familiar discord and discourse, he who has become a cave-bear, or a treasure-seeker, or a treasure-guardian and dragon in his cave—it may be a labyrinth, but can also be a gold-mine—his ideas themselves eventually acquire a twilight-colour of their own, and an odour, as much of the depth as of the mould, something uncommunicative and repulsive, which blows chilly upon every passer-by. The recluse does not believe that a philosopher—supposing that a philosopher has always in the first place been a recluse—ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?—indeed, he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual" opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every "foundation."
...
292. A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above and below, as a species of events and lightning-flashes PECULIAR TO HIM; who is perhaps himself a storm pregnant with new lightnings; a portentous man, around whom there is always rumbling and mumbling and gaping and something uncanny going on. A philosopher: alas, a being who often runs away from himself, is often afraid of himself—but whose curiosity always makes him "come to himself" again.
...
[/quote]
Gotta throw in this one, too, in its own box.
[quote=Nietzsche]
Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh—and now? You have already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so tedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint, we mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalisers of things which LEND themselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas, only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas, only birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be captured with the hand—with OUR hand! We immortalize what cannot live and fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it is only for your AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds;—but nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved—EVIL thoughts!
[/quote]
Quoting jellyfish
For witless or thoughtless "Last Men", vapid days & nights without consolation of the fetish-rattle of a liturgical g/G reduces their vacuous lives to, in effect, just killing time on a chinese water-torture rack till they expire. Or worse: nothing but g/G-shopping like an interminally bored trophy-wife who sloppily stumbles along in the always-fading light from one pharma pill mill to another pronouncing each new fix "holy" ... until the next PCP dealer* comes along and scripts a new fix. Either scenario: the nihilism of decadence (Freddy N. as my witness!) just like the OP - a g/G-jones as incurable as the user's incorrigible.
[quote=jellyfish]People without God [ ... ] in the face of absurdity and mortality. MacBeth suits up for the last battle, knowing that all his charms and prophecies have failed him. A little before that he says:
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
— Shakespeare
There are equally dark lines in King Lear and Hamlet. So a grim sense of humor and a realization that I'm not alone helps me. In some ways I'm less alone than ever. Our common fate is to live this absurd dream without foundation or excuse. It's hard to talk about, because it's dangerous. Even though our culture pretends to respect Shakespeare and so on, all this 'high' culture is creepy. It puts one outside of life, with one foot in the grave.[/quote]
Yes! Proper despair. A sisyphusean ergo: I(n) spite, therefore we exist. :death: :flower:
(*) re: U.S. for-profit sickcare system
Now that's poetry! And such a fascinating tonality is only possible with one foot in the grave. Here's a nice passage that comes to mind.
[quote=Hegel]
The presentation of itself, however, as pure abstraction of self-consciousness consists in showing itself as a pure negation of its objective form, or in showing that it is fettered to no determinate existence, that it is not bound at all by the particularity everywhere characteristic of existence as such, and is not tied up with life....
And it is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained; only thus is it tried and proved that the essential nature of self-consciousness is not bare existence, is not the merely immediate form in which it at first makes its appearance, is not its mere absorption in the expanse of life. Rather it is thereby guaranteed that there is nothing present but what might be taken as a vanishing moment — that self-consciousness is merely pure self-existence, being-for-self.
[/quote]
Quoting 180 Proof
This too. Yes.
And, related:
[quote=Hegel]
For this consciousness was not in peril and fear for this element or that, nor for this or that moment of time, it was afraid for its entire being; it felt the fear of death, the sovereign master. It has been in that experience melted to its inmost soul, has trembled throughout its every fibre, and all that was fixed and steadfast has quaked within it. This complete perturbation of its entire substance, this absolute dissolution of all its stability into fluent continuity, is, however, the simple, ultimate nature of self-consciousness, absolute negativity, pure self-referrent existence...
[/quote]
Seems to me that the pills and the therapist will tend to cover all of this up. A free consciousness (which can only speak of itself with some measure of irony) is well beyond the neo-spiritual 'authority' of the therapist. To keep both feet on this side of the grave is to be a slave. Self-preservation at all costs is slavery --and absurd, since death gets it all. To merely extend life, project an enviable lifestyle on social media, collect objects,...a kind of living death because (strangely) it does not live death. I too, still alive, am an ambivalent slave that dreams of mastery, or merely partially 'incarnates' it. I project an enviable lifestyle here, even if or because I label my medicine bottle with an XXX.
I'm grateful to engage with you, by the way.
I'm afraid my worldview would not be very comforting for most people. It doesn't "justify" evil, but merely accepts that both Good and Evil are inherent in a dualistic dialectic universe. It's the bible-god who needs some rhetorical help to justify a world that goes off the rails after a perfect beginning. No sooner than the first moral agents exercise their free choice, they discover that knowledge of good vs evil doesn't mean that they have the wisdom to see the long-range consequences of their choices.
Hegel acknowledged the BothAnd nature of the natural world. Although he saw progress in evolution, his dialectic proceeded, not in a straight line, but in a heuristic zig-zag search pattern for the best compromise in an imperfect world. His interpretation of that struggle between Good & Evil was optimistic for the long-term, and pragmatic in the short-term. Like him, I get no emotional comfort from imagining that my personal interests are being served by a loving Father in Heaven, but a modicum of intellectual satisfaction that the system is not rigged against me, so I have as good a chance of happiness as anyone else.
BothAnd Principle : http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
Sounds like Adam Smith's theory of the "invisible hand" of free-market Capitalism. So, is G*D a capitalist? I don't know, but freewill Agents, serving their own interests, inadvertently serve the general interest. This is an intrinsic principle of the potential order within randomness : that free individual "choices" add-up to a stable pattern when viewed as a whole : The Bell Curve. So, in the game of life, some players are winners and some are losers, but the game goes-on, and the "house" (G*D's plan) always wins in the end. Unfortunately, you and I didn't choose to play the game, but maybe like fatalistic Greeks, we accrue honor by playing nobly. "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game". So, "live for the moment", nobody has promised us an after-party in heaven.
Therefore, I have concluded that the game designer is fair-but-indifferent (amoral) regarding individual players, and is serving He/r own ultimate interests -- whatever that might be. G*D treats me fairly in a statistical sense, but doesn't tip the scales in my favor via miraculous intervention. Nobody is G*D's darling. So, judgements of Good or Evil don't apply to the designer outside the game, but only to the players. In our space-time world, all things are relative; but in eternity-infinity, all things are absolute. Hence, unlike the dueling deities of the Bible, in G*D's "world" there can be no Good versus Evil, but in an all-things-are-possible sense, you could say that G*D is BothAnd, i.e GoodEvil .
Rationalism versus Fatalism : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page67.html
Thanks for the post. I'm thinking that we share a sense that the world is aesthetically justified, if it all. From my perspective, your philosophy (and Hegel's) is a kind of conceptual art. I think Hegel was actually religious, whereas I don't get that from you.
Quoting Gnomon
I also see 'God'/reality as good-and-evil -- and beyond and before good and evil. There's my ordinary life in the world where things are good and evil in the usual way and my philosophical self that knows better or knows differently.
Quoting Gnomon
That's a fun relationship to point out. I never connected the two before.
I suspect that you suffer from the Philosopher's disease : you overthink things. If you focus on the minor details, you'll miss the big picture. If you are insane, with "incoherent random states of mind", then of course the world won't make sense, and you need to be institutionalized. But, you seem to be only slightly insane, in the sense that a depressed brain can cloud your thoughts. You are obviously sane enough to write lucidly, despite the clouds. So you need to allow your rational "self" (ego) to regain control over the emotional reptilian brain (id). That won't be easy, and many people drown, sinking into despair. It will take motivation (your posts indicate that you have enough insight and ambition to seek text therapy), self-discipline, maybe some drugs, and perhaps the discipline of others. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help slightly insane people to think more rationally about their negative thoughts. And to take responsibility for their own agency. Look it up.
Quoting dazed
Many philosophers also tend to compare their life conditions negatively against an ideal model. But that's not realistic, by definition. Who told you that you are not a freewill agent, and that, not only do you not have a Soul, but not even a mundane Self? Have you been reading Daniel Dennett? His analytical methods dismiss the obvious fact that all of us behave as-if we have a subjective perspective and clearly exercise some agency in the world.
Even pathetic You can reach-out and pick up an object by intention, so there is some kind of agency associated with your mortal flesh. So, take credit for it. Dennett thinks that you and he are zombies (in his case a very smart, yet short-sighted, zombie). But, if so, join the club, if you are half the agent that he is, you're doing pretty good for a mindless automaton. His notion that your actions are predestined by your genes is a product of acute reductive thinking, and portrays genes as little zombie demons. But how could an ancient organized social structure of soul-dead mummies build pyramids without any goals or agency? Did their genes make them do it? Did an accidental Big Bang predestine the emergence of monolithic mountains of stone billions of years later? If so, it sounds like good planning. :smile:
You wrote this to @dazed, and it made me think of our conversation.
You pose the rational self against the old lizard. If only we are rational enough, then surely we'll be happy. Nothing is essentially wrong with reality itself. It's just that some individuals malfunction and need to be repaired. To me this presupposes that the goal is survival and comfort. It shrugs off mortality, lets go and lets God.
It's probably good advice. But it can look complacent and Panglossian, especially to 'nihilists' who have already absorbed that message, the standard message of sanitized buying and selling. It reminds me of Brave New World. We ourselves are pieces of the machine, to be treated by technicians for our glitches. The machine is good. The world is good. God is good. All else is unreasonable, sickly. But then the great books we like seen on our shelves are sickly. (Let us purge the canon of toxic masculinity !)
[quote=Debord]
The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.
It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choice already made in production and its corollary consumption. The spectacle’s form and content are identically the total justification of the existing system’s conditions and goals. The spectacle is also the permanent presence of this justification, since it occupies the main part of the time lived outside of modern production.
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than “that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance.
The basically tautological character of the spectacle flows from the simple fact that its means are simultaneously its ends. It is the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.
[/quote]
I quote Debord not as an authority but just to throw a wrench in the theodicy. I don't think the 'nihilist' is mad or sick, or not in a simple way. I'm suggesting that theodicies allow us to hide from ourselves as a species. We fantasize that we are rational, that the world is good, and that dissatisfaction is a malfunction rather than a virtue. Implicit in casting the dissatisfied as malfunctioning is the comformist as hero.
I don't mean to take sides in a simple way. I largely comform. But is that rational or something else?
Quite evil, isn't it, to rationalize atrocities and needless suffering "in the name of" some other cunt's CAUSE or PLAN? (All is forgiven - "I was just following ends-justifies-means Commandments, sir".) Fuckin' theIDiocy ... :shade:
Indeed. I do think the situation is complicated. Doesn't every community have its blind spot? Its plan and scapegoat? In practice I muddle through, try to choose the right team while also keeping a foot in the grave, making peace even with the extinction of species itself, the actual end of history that troubles all of our causes and plans. Reason reveals contingency, mortality, and even the absurdity of mortal things. That's why I object to reason as (only) happy self-preservation.
The saner part of me agrees with all of that. The wilder part of me remembers the connection of ecstasy with the terrible. Why do groups wage war when resources aren't scarce (when they don't really need to)? Then there's hard drugs and risky sex. Danger is part of the appeal. Intensity of experience is prioritized over the duration of experience.
I find meaningfulness inescapable. I suggested in a previous post that nihilism can be interpreted as an unconscious role-play where the nihilist faces the black dragon of meaninglessness. This apparent self-mutilation simultaneously makes the infinitely lonely ego a supreme hero. The truth in this case is the face of God. Most mortals cannot bear to look at it, since it's the death of all of their comforting illusions. In short, facing meaninglessness is, in my eyes, part of a 'religious' quest. The living sacrifice is the nihilist himself, as he wades into the acid or the devouring flames of God/Truth.
I suspect that this is the path for only one type of personality. Someone on this path who realizes that they are playing such a dark game unconsciously will perhaps become an ironist. 'Infinite jest' depends on the acid bath.
Maybe "rational" was the wrong term. Perhaps I should have proposed that the "conscious" self (pilot) should retake control from the "subconscious" (autopilot). That's what Cognitive Rational Therapy (or Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy) attempts to do. Most people think their conscious mind is in control of all they do, when in fact most of our behaviors operate on cruise-control, so we don't have to pay attention to what's going on. When the "pilot" is weakened by stress (doubts, depression, drugs, etc), it's easier to "veg-out" and offload your responsibilities to a mindless machine ("let go, and let God"). But, even when he is handicapped, he needs to see the danger signs that "autopilot" is about to get him into trouble, and know when to take-back the controls. After disaster has been averted, he'll be happy to still be alive.
Depression overwhelms the conscious mind with pain & paranoia, causing the pilot to cede control to negative emotions. So, it takes great effort to resist giving-in to the demon on the shoulder, urging you to give-up on life. That's why suicide is often viewed as the easy-way-out. It also takes heroic (or Stoic) Character to take charge of a bad situation. :cool:
"people are rarely emotionally affected by external events but rather by their thinking about such events" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_emotive_behavior_therapy
"for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" ___Shakespeare, Hamlet
[actually, it's automatic thinking that makes in-appropriate knee-jerk responses]
"Precursors of certain fundamental aspects of rational emotive behavior therapy have been identified in ancient philosophical traditions, particularly Stoicism".
The ultimate goal may be eudaimonia, but calm cognitive self-control is the method.
Nobody is born a nihilist, I think. Nietzsche was perpetually disappointed in us, and makes a poor guide to life, to living.
I don't think that "get over it" is the right thing to say. I mean, that's pretty callous. Of course, you don't really want to talk about it with many people, do you? They won't understand.
You don't just get over an existential or spiritual crisis; you have to get through it. There is no way over, under or around it. We arrive at points in our lives when the truth, as we are understanding and perceiving it, is so raw, so devastating that... fill in the blank: life becomes meaningles; man's inhumanity to man creats a continual holocaust; the brainwashing, utter stupidity and lack of authenticity make it impossible to relate to relate to people, etc., etc.
It's true, but sometimes it's there and we can't pretend it's not. And at least for me, it takes time to snap out of.
Leucon, no one's allowed to know his fate
Not you, not me. Don't ask, don't hunt for answers
In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.
This could be our last winter, there could be many more,
Pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks.
Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines,
And forget about hope. Time goes running,
Even as we talk. Take the present
The future's no one's affair.
Two thousand years and we're none the wiser.
Btw, Freddy surely knew his Horace too and, if I recall correctly, recommends him more than a few times.
I agree that Nietzsche as guru is questionable indeed. Nietzsche as a complex, brilliant personality wrestling with the death of God is something else entirely. To understand Nietzsche as a guru or guide for life is like understanding Hamlet or Stavrogin as a guide for life.
'Be patient with whatever comes.' Maybe, maybe not. What's the deep justification for this? In the name of what X do the old, wise men condescend to the angsty boys? In the name of what grand principle do we prefer the aging actuary to a Hendrix or Cobain who dies young ?
One reason to live long is to hang around for the great art about and by those who don't.
Our species can contemplate its own extinction. Yet the gurus will keep selling Jesus or rational moral progress or [s]good digestion[/s] stoicism or even anti-natalism.
I like this. The genuine future is the one that's not conquered or denied with a system. Death lurks somewhere in that darkness.
I agree very much with this.Quoting Gnomon
I think it depends on the drug. With the right dose of a CNS,...
But I agree with broken-down people tending to veg out. This is brilliantly described in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?. The overwhelmed personality just flops down and becomes passive. Junkfood for the body, junkfood for the mind. Nothing long and difficult. Nothing that requires cooking. Everything bitesized and instant.
Quoting Gnomon
I'm not against your identification of the heroic and the stoic, but I don't take it for granted. My complaint is that such a position refuses to process limit experiences. Is it irrational to die in a duel? (These days it would be silly, but back then?) Is it irrational to fight, actually risk life and limb, against those who would dominate you? Is it 'irrational' to risk everything for the possibility of something great?
I'm influenced here by Kojeve's interpretation of the master-slave dialectic. Slaves rationalize their slavery. They can do this by projecting a master of their master (a God), before whom the master is one more slave of equal status. Or they can do this by settling for a virtual mastery, a self-mastery that nevertheless obeys the worldly master. Their slavery is an 'illusion' to their freed mind. All of these rationalizations are a substitute for the risk of life.
Now that's were at the (pseudo-) end of history with capitalism and do-it-yourself religion, it's just a jungle out there. Speech is free because it hardly matters. But pay your taxes and don't steal!
We enjoy virtual rebellions. Bread and circuses. I'm no revolutionary. I'm a slave with own do-it-yourself ideological opiate. And who exactly is the master? Where's the bad guy? The system itself is letting go and letting God. The invisible hand is God. No one is driving, though conspiracy theorists demand some extra-terrestrial lizards to target. But that's OK, as long as we navigate our little meat puppet safely and comfortably and rationally through the maze. I'm not even complaining (complicit of course), but only polishing the complexity so that it gleams. It's a poem for the jungle.
I think you read that line out of context. If you read more of my posts in this thread, I think you'll see that I am defending angst. I am criticizing the Brave-New-World-style response of offering pills and platitudes. Our 'great books' are about angst, about the big issues that don't help us sell widgets. Have you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism:_Is_There_No_Alternative%3F
?
This is roughly where I'm coming from. The 'tough' response to capitalism is just embracing the jungle. The 'tender' response is 'nihilism' or angst. For me it's not about choosing one but rather about closing neither down and trying to understand both.
From that book:
He knew a great deal, especially of the classics, but it was never enough for so intolerant a man.
The justification for patience regarding what comes, if justification is required, is that for the most part what comes will come whether we wish it to or not, whatever we may do or not do, and to be wretched and miserable about what is outside our control is unwise.
:clap: :up:
Perhaps. Uncharitable of you though. Freddy, after all, didn't live in the days of those classics and neither do we. He certainly lived quite 'the Stoic life' as he strove to improve upon, even exceed it, in 'philosophical rebellion' against the prevailing zeitgeist.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
That may be so, but it also blends very well with deciding that more and more is out of our control.
How does one after all determine what is in and out of our control?
[quote=Epictetus]
Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
[/quote]
I of course don't hold you to this particular quote, but let's consider it. Our desires are under our control? And all the other stuff isn't at all? It's a fantasy, a point at infinity.
[quote=Epictetus]
Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.
[/quote]
I think that's a great passage. Stoicism == 'be cool, bitch!' Don't be resentful, envious, etc. All of this is great, but the pursuit of a bland version of cool still seems less interesting than the cool surface of a soul that can at least inwardly laugh at the mad scenes in Dostoevsky or recognize its own complexity in Nietzsche's texts. I want my stoic to able to laugh at himself and his mad project.
Part of it is interpersonal...
Paying close attention to the affect/effect that one has on others, and recognizing the fact that others have the same power regarding us...
Knowing oneself is the best start. You are the sole character that is on each and every page of your own life. Acknowledge the role you play, seek to understand it(here is where we get a better grasp of what's in our control and what's not), and then realize the life you want.
Of course having attainable goals helps too... It is better to have no goals than to have unattainable ones...
Quoting creativesoul
To put it mildly.
Quoting creativesoul
Know thyself. Indeed. I love Kojeve's take on the philosopher as a type. Philosophy is the (anti-)religion of self-consciousness. Dissecting 'bland' stoicism is part of that. The dismissal of Nietzsche, for instance, looks to run in the opposite direction. I don't personally give a damn (obviously) whether any particular stranger out there enjoys Nietzsche. That's out of my control, see.
Acknowledge the role you play. Acknowledge that the cool stoic is one more role, one more project. That 'my' position is one more role shouldn't have to be mentioned.
To zoom in on a previously quoted passage:
[quote=Nietzsche]
The recluse does not believe that a philosopher—supposing that a philosopher has always in the first place been a recluse—ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?—indeed, he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual" opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every "foundation."
[/quote]
To become more and more self-conscious is to 'tarry with the negative' on the way of death and despair. Any plausible sage has to confess at least this and then justify it and tie it all up in a sleepy system...
Quoting creativesoul
Well I can't follow you here, though I get it. Isn't having no unobtainable goals itself an unobtainable goal? We simplify our own 'wicked' and complex nature and call it self-knowledge? Is wisdom just self-satisfaction? Complacency? Maybe it is. We can theoretically repress our angry itch for the impossible object. We can refuse to know about it. I am skeptical however about its eradication.
Self-satisfaction, genuine wisdom, completeness... this is like the end of history applied not to the world but to the knowledge-swollen ego.
How does the sage (Hegel, for ex.) handle the challenge of irony? Note how close the Hegel's ironist is to the stoic and the stoic's fantasy of controlling what he values (his desires.) 'Real' mastery is a mastery of ghosts, the control only of one's mediation of cancelled, ordinary reality. In sleep a king, but waking no matter. Yet life is a dream, a novel with the ego on every page.
[quote= Hegel]
But on this principle [that of the The Irony], I live as an artist when all my action and my expression in general, in connection with any content whatever, remains for me a mere show and assumes a shape which is wholly in my power. In that case I am not really in earnest either with this content or, generally, with its expression and actualization. For genuine earnestness enters only by means of a substantial interest, something of intrinsic worth like truth, ethical life, etc., – by means of a content which counts as such for me as essential, so that I only become essential myself in my own eyes in so far as I have immersed myself in such a content and have brought myself into conformity with it in all my knowing and acting. When the ego that sets up and dissolves everything out of its own caprice is the artist, to whom no content of consciousness appears as absolute and independently real but only as a self-made and destructible show, such earnestness can find no place, since validity is ascribed only to the formalism of the ego.
True, in the eyes of others the appearance which I present to them may be regarded seriously, in that they take me to be really concerned with the matter in hand, but in that case they are simply deceived, poor limited creatures, without the faculty and ability to apprehend and reach the loftiness of my standpoint. Therefore this shows me that not everyone is so free (i.e. formally free) as to see in everything which otherwise has value, dignity, and sanctity for mankind just a product of his own power of caprice, whereby he is at liberty either to grant validity to such things, to determine himself and fill his life by means of them, or the reverse. Moreover this virtuosity of an ironical artistic life apprehends itself as a divine creative genius for which anything and everything is only an unsubstantial creature, to which the creator, knowing himself to be disengaged and free from everything, is not bound, because he is just as able to destroy it as to create it. In that case, he who has reached this standpoint of divine genius looks down from his high rank on all other men, for they are pronounced dull and limited, inasmuch as law, morals, etc., still count for them as fixed, essential, and obligatory. So then the individual, who lives in this way as an artist, does give himself relations to others: he lives with friends, mistresses, etc; but, by his being a genius, this relation to his own specific reality, his particular actions, as well as to what is absolute and universal, is at the same time null; his attitude to it all is ironical.
...
This irony was invented by Friedrich von Schlegel, and many others have babbled about it or are now babbling about it again.
[/quote]
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ae/introduction.htm#s7-3
Here's some of Schlegel's take.
[quote =SEP]
If a literary form like the fragment opens up the question of the relation between finite and infinite, so do the literary modes of allegory, wit and irony—allegory as a finite opening toward the infinite (“every allegory means God”), wit as the “fragmentary geniality” or “selective flashing” in which a unity can momentarily be seen, and irony as their synthesis (see Frank 2004, 216). Although impressed with the Socratic notion of irony (playful and serious, frank and deeply hidden, it is the freest of all licenses, since through it one rises above one's own self, Schlegel says in Lyceumfragment 108), Schlegel nonetheless employs it in a way perhaps more reminiscent of the oscillations of Fichtean selfhood. Irony is at once, as he says in Lyceumfragment 37, self-creation, self-limitation, and self-destruction.
“Philosophy is the true home of irony, which might be defined as logical beauty,” Schlegel writes in Lyceumfragment 42: “for wherever men are philosophizing in spoken or written dialogues, and provided they are not entirely systematic, irony ought to be produced and postulated.” The task of a literary work with respect to irony is, while presenting an inherently limited perspective, nonetheless to open up the possibility of the infinity of other perspectives: “Irony is, as it were, the demonstration [epideixis] of infinity, of universality, of the feeling for the universe” (KA 18.128); irony is the “clear consciousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely teeming chaos” (Ideas 69).
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schlegel/
Self-satisfied system versus onanistic irony?
Well, some of it's not interpersonal.
I don't find the question to have some rarely known 'magical' answer that is beyond the grasp of most. Rather, I would think that we all know quite a bit about what's in our control and what's not. It's simple really, or at least the simple beginnings if understood, lead to better more realistic expectations(attainable goals).
All of us know quite a bit about what sorts of things we can affect/effect and what sorts of things we cannot.
Quoting jellyfish
I wasn't saying that your position was one more role. Rather, when I mentioned the role one plays, it had neither negative nor disingenuous connotations. I meant, quite matter of factly... we all play a role in our own lives... the primary one!
That said, there's much to be gleaned by looking at all 'the different hats' one sometimes wears as a means to successfully interact with others, to act appropriately according to the situation one finds themselves in, attain some goal or another, and/or just follow the rules of conduct. We all must do this(to some degree or other) in order to navigate the world we find ourselves in.
The degree to which one does(or must) can be an interesting conversation...
Seems so. I did not make that claim though.
:smile:
I do not share your enthusiasm about those excerpts. I'm much less enthusiastic about philosophers who employ rhetoric as argumentation in what is nothing other than their own anecdotal stories about others... reminds me of some of the dialogues that are more like monologues in Plato...
Meh.
Well, sure, but I'm suggesting that the autonomous ego is something like a useful fiction, a piece of being-in-language and being 'one of us.' Language is social down to its bones. My most private monologue is potentially intelligible to those not yet born. The self is a function of language, one might say, though this is hardly the last word (not that I think there is a last word.)
Quoting creativesoul
Sure. We all have a loose sense of what's intended by Stoicism 101. But then it's as deep as 'no use crying over spilt milk.' And it's also (potentially) the 'religion' of a 'slave' (an imaginary freedom justifying conformity to a system ('master') that it's convenient for us to understand as beyond our control. I'm not pretending to be a revolutionary. I'm more of a 'skeptic' (as presented by writers like the one I quoted).
Quoting creativesoul
I know. I was just preemptively 'confessing.'
Quoting creativesoul
I know. I was squeezing the juice from your dead metaphor. I agree that in a certain sense we play the primary role in our own lives. But who is this 'we' or this 'I'? Peel the onion. What do we find but attachments to others and crystalline structures made from the language of the tribe?
As a mildly-educated individual (life's too short), what is my head filled with but the discoveries of others? The dried spit of those who came before? Surely it's not this particular bag of blood that denotes me truly. Personality is a quilt of ghosts.
Quoting creativesoul
I agree, and that IMO is precisely the realm of rhetoric. 'Ethics is first philosophy.' To me that means that the 'ego ideal' is central. And we can consider also the dominant ideals of a culture. If you want to understand someone, look to their notion of what kind of person they should be. If you want to understand a culture, look to what those with high status like to be seen doing.
Now someone might claim that some kind of universal reason can tell us this without rhetoric. Another person might say that 'universal reason' is tangled up in the first person's 'ego ideal.' How is authority established? What is to count as reason in the first place? IMV it's something like rhetoric or abnormal discourse that establishes a nice safe space for those 'seduced' by that (always false?) foundation. This position is, however, haunted by 'the irony.' The human is an abyss --who likes to pretend otherwise --or so certain humans like to pretend....
Fair enough. Plenty of people are put off by freewheeling interpretative philosophy. I have a 'meh' reaction to philosophy that hides from this. To me it dies into dreary, 'normal' discourse. It presupposes a 'spirituality' and fidgets with dead things, worries itself over linguistic issues detached from great human passions. For me the metaphysical project decays or blossoms into cultural criticism. It's 'continuous' with literature and religion or cares about the same things.
It's hard to think of the author of Beyond Good and Evil as a tolerant man, but I may not be giving him his due, true.
I wasn't equating "heroic" with "stoic" -- merely rhyming. The intended point was that it takes a strong personal character (virtue) to exercise self-discipline. And that was the message of Stoicism. A heroic character might be ideal, but not necessary, to practice stoicism. We don't have to be super-heroes in order to overcome depression or nihilism or temptation. But moral wimps will give-in to gravity dragging them down, whereas those with a minimum of moral fiber will resist. And even the drowning weakling can reach-out in desperation for help from a stronger swimmer. Stoicism can be communal, so we don't have to go it alone. But ultimately, my psychological survival is my responsibility. :cool:
I knew that, because I did read you carefully. I have been in an existential funk for weeks and if anyone said to me right now, "get over it," I'd go medieval on their ass:
Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
Pablo Neruda, "Walking Around"
Glorious! :clap: :death: :flower:
I'd say there's nothing heroic about Stoicism, or at least my version of it. It's merely to take the universe as it is, without imposing on it any of our expectations, hopes, dreams, longings for purpose or meaning. it seems to me to be "merely" a sensible perspective. The universe is worthy of reverence and awe, and we're parts of it, but there's no reason to think we have a special place in it which makes it dance to our various tunes, so to speak, and so no reason to be shocked to learn it won't do so. Things just are. Maybe some day we'll learn why, maybe not, maybe it will make no difference whether we do or not.
One must have a mind of winter, as Wallace Stevens wrote in The Snowman, to understand that winter simply happens, no matter what we think, feel or do. The same as winter on Horace's Tuscan seas. So...what? What is extraordinary or unbelievable about this, what is there to contend/despair over? What alternatives are available that we've been deprived of?
Ah, OK. And nice poem! I've wrestled with some funk, too. Some people have died, are sick. Doing this ol' philosophical thing is a bright spot.
This is actually part of what's sometimes made the existential dread I've been suffering from this past year so horrible. Usually, when I have some kind of practical problem in life, I calm myself at night by just imagining it being better, fantasizing in a way that I imagine serves a similar function to prayer in religious people. But when it came to suddenly feeling awful about facts of the universe I'd always known, there was no alternative I could imagine that would make it better. I even tried to just imagine that a religious worldview was true, which was a little comforting to think of for a bit, but in the end I found myself feeling like even if that worldview was true, it still wouldn't actually solve the problems that were really worrying me.
Ah, but look at how you can't resist words like 'weakling' and 'wimps.' We also get 'moral fiber.' That's fine, of course. My point is that this is the guts of the position, a morally complacent machismo. Now I accuse myself of the same thing, but he who accuses himself stills respects himself as one who surprises.
As far as I can tell, there's a tendency to read the skeptic/ironist as someone who is not waving but drowning. IMV that's the fantasy of the anti-Nietzschean --that all this thought that plays with fire does so out of weakness rather than strength.
I'm not trying to be rude. I enjoy our jousting, and I think this is fair response.
Since I have no formal training in Philosophy, I tend to speak plainly, and to avoid beating around the bush. I'm aware that we live in "politically correct" times, but a philosophical forum should be more concerned with "factual correctness".
One of the "four cardinal virtues" of Stoicism is "andreia", which is translated as "courage" or "manly virtue". So I think "heroic" was not too far off-base. And "weakling" is just a way to illustrate the difference between those who sink and those who swim. I didn't label any person with those general terms, so I hope no one here was offended by the kinds of distinctions made by ancient macho Greeks.
Quoting jellyfish
Nor was I.
Apparently, my pathetic attempt to rhyme "heroic" and "stoic" struck a nerve. The modern meaning of "hero" has been skewed by all the comic-book Übermensch. See my reply to --jellyfish.
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
Since many posters on this forum admit to some degree of depression, anxiety, or existential dread, they seem to find things to "contend/despair over". A Stoic doesn't have to be a super-hero, but merely someone who perseveres in the face of challenges and uncertainties.
Oh I'm not at all complaining that you used those words. Far from it. Courage and/or manly virtue is central to my own thinking. I've only been challenging a certain style of stoicism to look into its deeper motivations. It's not, in my opinion, some coldly rational minimization of suffering. It enacts a particular image or notion of masculine virtue for the mirror. It seems to not see its own narcissism. But this isn't to accuse it of narcissism but only of the not-seeing-it, and only from the perspective that understands itself to include but transcend a pre-ironic stoicism.
You tempt the gods, my friend. While a system of thought and habits clearly helps determine one's happiness or misery, as long as this gory machine is 'to us' we are vulnerable. If the sage's digestion goes to pieces, it takes his fragile wisdom along with it.
To live without anxiety or dread might be easier for a settled/retired person than someone in the middle of their lives largely worrying about what they can control --figuring out who they want to be, falling in and out of love, empathizing with friends and family exposed to the disasters that are just part of life.
To be passionately alive is to wrestle sometimes with anxiety and dread. I care therefore I think.
Maybe they stay theists?
One must one ask what exactly we are resisting. The problem with stoic account is it assumes an adversary. In the context of nihlism, it needs us to already be nihlists to mean anything.
The one who is not a nihlist has no such adversary to overcome. For them, there is no pain of nihilism to resist and endure. Those with more than a minimum of.moral fibre are already swimming.
No, it's more than that: they don't even need to think about swimming. It doesn't matter, to them, they can breathe water. Oceans are no adversary for them.
Not so. Stoicism teaches us to avoid extremes of emotion, not to completely shut-off normal human feelings. Of course, Stoic love might seem like indifference to a drama-queen Romantic. Likewise, to be aware & concerned about Death & Disaster is necessary for the continuation of life. But, anxiety and dread and self-flagellation are counterproductive, and useless, and as Mr. Spock would say "illogical" . :smile:
Well I do like Mr. Spock! The 'drama queen' line is funny, but note the subtle casting of a female for that role. And it's something that a long married person might say. Anxiety is also thrill. Many of us like horror movies. So the idea that anxiety is simply bad seems all wrong to me.
[quote=Lou Reed]
Put jelly on your shoulder
Let's do what you fear most
That from which you recoil
But still makes your eyes moist
Put jelly, baby, on your shoulder
Lies down, now baby, on the carpet
...
Well some kinds of love
They're mistaken for vision
...
And for me to miss one
Would seem to be groundless
[/quote]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh-GNnCwHj4
Again, with the political correctness! Sorry, but "Drama King" just wouldn't convey the same imagery. :grin:
I was looking for a modifier that would focus on an extreme version of the broad Romantic worldview. It wasn't intended to be anti-feminist, but merely anti-extremist. The key to the Stoic worldview is Aristotle's "moderation in all things". Or, as Lou Reed says : "some kinds of love, they're mistaken for vision". Romantic "love will conquer all" is a nice sentiment, but not very realistic. That's why most love songs are tinged with the sadness of love-gone-wrong. Stoics are advised to avoid being "blinded by love".
The "adversary" of Stoicism is extremism, whether of proud Optimism or of abject Cynicism. There is no need to slog in the slough of meaninglessness, or to climb to the dangerous pinnacle of identifying with God. It merely requires a recognition that such absolutes are no solution for the ups & downs of life. Better to face into the oncoming waves than to turn away and be swamped. :cool:
Quoting Ciceronianus the White
If I understand you correctly, you're saying the fact that there are no alternatives is a part of the existential dread that you suffer.
I'm uncertain how to address that beyond suggesting that it is unreasonable to feel dread regarding or be disturbed by the fact that it isn't possible to have something we want to have, or to be something we cannot be, or for the universe to be something it is not.
But I may misunderstand you.
on the surface of an infinitely deep sea
you cannot fly into the sky, because it is not possible to fly
and you cannot touch the bottom, for there is none
but if you try to touch the bottom, you will sink forever
and if you try to fly, you will at least float
"trying to touch the bottom" in this analogy is trying to justify something (like a reason to live, or a belief, or whatever) from the ground up. There is no ground, so if you try to stand on it instead of just swimming, you'll sink.
Unfortunately, Epicurus was right:
"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little."
If you have enough time to sit about and think you end up depressed and want to kill yourself. If you haven't got enough time you're busy trying to make more time so you can afford time to just relax and think.
The only meaning to modern life I can see is to have fun and the people who have the most fun do less thinking. We are all meaningless sacks of meat and bits. Might as well party.
But it's a start.
Existential Dread is based on a belief that has become embedded as an item of Faith. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy -- it goes by several names -- is like trying to talk someone out of their belief in alien abductions. They don't just assert that your fears are groundless, but guide you to look at your emotional beliefs consciously and analytically. It won't work for everyone. But it should work well for someone philosophically inclined.
"Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a short-term form of psychotherapy that helps you identify self-defeating thoughts and feelings, challenge the rationality of those feelings, and replace them with healthier, more productive beliefs. REBT focuses mostly on the present time to help you understand how unhealthy thoughts and beliefs create emotional distress which, in turn, leads to unhealthy actions and behaviors that interfere with your current life goals. Once identified and understood, negative thoughts and actions can be changed and replaced with more positive and productive behavior, allowing you to develop more successful personal and professional relationships."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/rational-emotive-behavior-therapy
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
— FitzOmar
I must be too depressed, or busy thinking, to bother killing myself.
Carpe diem, for tomorrow we die. I don't think the mindless partiers are any happier than the depressed philosophers; they just pretend to be. I am an intellectual, but I rub elbows with a lot of folks who aren't, and what strikes me so powerfully about so many of them is how phony they can be. The mask of pretense is perfectly in place, but the mask has cracks through which the desperation can be sense. Mindless prattle is an efficient way of blocking depression and angst... until one shuts up.
I agree. If I speak my mind I argue and disagree with everyone around me. When it comes to any philosophical topic. Which is the only kind of conversation that doesn't drain me and I enjoy. Whilst everyone seems to find it draining to even try and question anything interesting to me.
All the lies are hard to hear. But the honest ones, when people believe what they're saying and you KNOW it's wrong. Those lies are painful to see. But the ones we have to play along with take the biscuit. Like Christmas, Easter or my worst nightmare, someone who believes in ghosts and believes they saw the ghost of a loved one after they died.
How many lies do you need to tell yourself every day to believe you're happy?
I have a neighbor lady who will only talk about her children and her garden club. I stopped talking with her...
Quoting Razorback kitten
Yes, I had a student trying to tell me that witches and witchcraft are real; she's a fundamentalist christian, so all I said was I won't discuss this with you. My brother use to love to debate those folks, but it makes me nauseous.
Yes I have pretty much retreated into this mode of life, I simply don't think about things too much anymore. but it's not so much about partying for me but rather enjoying the joys of life (however those are defined for you).
I think that persons who never had a theistic structure formed in their brains can more easily do this than those of who had such a structure which then collapsed under philosphical scrutiny. For the latter, the world now just seems like such a hollow, meaningless and chaotic random place. And I've yet to find an escape from that sense. It does kinda make everything surreal, which isn't really great for a sense of engagement in life.
Don't know why I said party because I generally Dodge them. I meant, do the things you enjoy.