Is sex as idolized elsewhere as in the West?
I never understood the fascination with sex in the West despite being from the West myself.
Why is sex so idolized in the West? It seems nowadays that almost every film produced for adults has to have at least one sex scene. The internet is awash with pornography. I find it disturbing that people are so mesmerized by it.
I've never had sex myself and frankly don't want to. I want to go through life not indulging in it; but, the struggle is real with sex being advertised and promoted almost everywhere you go.
It's quite saddening.
Why is sex so idolized in the West? It seems nowadays that almost every film produced for adults has to have at least one sex scene. The internet is awash with pornography. I find it disturbing that people are so mesmerized by it.
I've never had sex myself and frankly don't want to. I want to go through life not indulging in it; but, the struggle is real with sex being advertised and promoted almost everywhere you go.
It's quite saddening.
Comments (611)
Is it surprising if it dominates most, if not all, of human interaction?
This is a great issue. Our Western eyes are mouths these days. The lust is largely cerebral. The "money spirit" keeps lust in check and steers it into the monogamous and the virtual. (The young, though, are often hornier than they are greedy or vain.)
Is it idolized? Is "the West" a uniform, billion+ person sex-worshiping fertility cult? I think not. Most people do not engage in anything remotely associated with "sex idolization".
Of the billion+ people who comprise the population of the west, there are three groups that might lead one to think that "the West" idolizes sex.
First, there may be 25 million people that may actually idolize themselves and sex. These people would be the younger, quite a bit more attractive, healthier-looking, more affluent heterosexual and homosexual hedonists who live in the larger urban centers. They are a small fraction of 1.5 - 2.0 billion people. They get a disproportionate amount of attention in the press because their hedonistic sexually active lives are much more distracting than coverage of the overweight working class people who are too tired and too poor to lead dazzling lives.
There is an second relatively small groups of people who are engaged in activities that might lead one to think that "the West" idolizes sex: certain businesses like advertising and cultural production and distribution. The cultural influence of this group is wildly disproportionate to it's size. This group primarily uses sex as a tool to sell an infinity of products.
The principle that "sex sells" comes with a critical catch: Sex sells products that almost never result in more sex. If it did, the product would have a much more limited sales life. If buying Lady Killer cologne promptly led to users finding more sex partners, their need for more Lady Killer would be diminished. They'd pour some of the stuff on themselves, go have an orgy, and not need to buy any other sex-promoting product for a long time. The product must always promise plenty but never deliver much.
Hence, we are inundated by advertising that promises sex and never effectively delivers it. What tends to get us sex is our own pheromones, reasonably healthy bodies, attractive faces, charm offensives, good hygiene... and money, of course. Even just a little money helps. Enough money to buy him or her a few drinks... Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
A third group is the cultural production businesses--Hollywood, TV, Internet, music, video, magazines, and so on. This group sells entertainment that is laced with sexual imagery (and in the case of porn, sexual activity) because sex sells (and spices up) entertainment. Sex adds an air of verisimilitude to a dull and otherwise uninteresting story.
How much spice we each need varies. I can totally enjoy an orchestra concert which offers zero sexual innuendo or imagery. A steady diet of movies about love affairs that didn't involve any sex at all would not be acceptable.
I agree.
It is not so much that sex is idolized in the west, but the west is less culturally uptight about sexuality.
Maybe that is not even right.
I have no idea about sexuality in eastern cultures.
From what I have been informed, they are kind of uptight about it in middle eastern cultures though, at least compared to the west.
Do you want us to discuss your personal sexual feelings? I'd be more than happy to -- your lack of sex is a fascinating topic, and I would love to make you the object of prurient speculation, but you might not want that.
By the way, I suspect you'd find that your struggle to never have sex would be as difficult in the 10th century as in the 21st century.
I don't understand it myself. I suppose something happened a long long time ago that doesn't want to be brought up; but, is a need of attention. Either that or I'm telling myself a crock of shit. Really confusing as I shouldn't have problems satisfying this urge; but, clearly have them as I've created this topic.
It's not so much about sex as it is about selling things. Sexual imagery merely is a means to an end in that regard. Not really meant to arouse in itself but to make some or the other trinket more exciting. We don't live in a society that idolizes sex imho. We live in a society that reinforces economic materialism through constant repetition. On an atomic level, it's innocent enough. Some idiot trying to hawk his wares. On a larger scale, advertisements become an ubiquitous part of our behavioral environment. This is great if you happen to be a capitalist; capitalism and economic materialism go hand in hand...
It's always possible that you are telling yourself a crock of shit. All of us do that at one time or another.
If something happened a long time ago that doesn't want to be brought up and is in need of attention, then a public forum is probably not a good place to delve into it. You would benefit from the assistance of a good therapist to deal with the "doesn't want to be brought up" stuff.
Crocks of shit, though, are fair game.
There seems to be a cross-cultural consensus that sex is good for people and that they benefit from having healthy (not abusive) sexual encounters and sexual relationships. Unless one is sacrificing sex for a higher goal (like taking a vow of celibacy required of priests, monks, and nuns) there usually isn't any virtue in avoiding the kind of sex one desires.
There may not be all that much virtue in celibacy either. It's a very tough row to hoe for even the most committed, as are the vows of poverty and obedience.
You don't have to have sex, of course. Not everybody does, but most people do. It's mostly a question of "is this a comfortable and happy choice" or "is this an unpleasant accommodation of unpleasant personal experience"? If it is the former, talking about it here might useful. If it is the latter, talking about it someplace else (in private) would be better for you.
We only "seem" to be saturated with sex. Sex saturation is mostly a commercial tease: "Here it is, quick look" then "NO you can't have it".
I used to be a libertine but that gradually went away as I crept into old age. Some 70 year olds are still quite active sexually. But... after being in a relationship for a long time, I don't really have that much interest any more. (Well, interest--yes, but not the performative élan I used to have.)
For some reason I thought you were younger.
I am surprised you can figure out the computer to use the forum.
>:)
Quoting TheMadFool
Nope, that process of horizontal gene transfer is different than reproduction. Bacteria don't reproduce through sex.
Quoting TheMadFool
Well - it doesn't, and it's such a simplistic reductionism to think it does.
Quoting The Great Whatever
>:O true that
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's very strange. Why do you need to see sex? Now that's really weird brother. In fact, I hate seeing sex in movies about love - I like those movies which imply but do not show it.
Quoting m-theory
Right. That's why you have so many teens keen on sex when they aren't even 14 - because we don't idolize sex. Give me a break dude. It's what all teenagers today are preoccupied with. Back when I was in school, we only started to get preoccupied by sex late - like 8th or 9th grade. But nowadays, kids do it as early as 12. That's unacceptable, and evidence of a culture in decline.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It's not about the number of people who do it, but the attitude that exists with regard to it. Most people would think that having lots of sex is a good thing. That's what it means that we idolise sex.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Not true. The desire for sex is mediated through the culture in which you live. I've spoken with people who have lived in conservative cultures their whole lives, and they attest to the fact that the desire for sex exists, but it's not that great.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Oh yeah, this guy would even want to shag my wife if he could! Give me a break...
Quoting Bitter Crank
Ehmmmm... no. In fact, I challenge you to provide me evidence that, any kind of nonabusive sex in any kind of culture is good. That's just not true. Conservative cultures will find sex with random people to be bad for example. They would find sex within a relationship to be good though (so in-so-far as they treat sex to always occur within the relationship, they will consider it as good). So there is no cross-cultural consensus about sex. Sex depends on culture. If there is any clear fact, then it is that sex isn't required to live a good life - it's not a necessity towards that aim, and not having sex isn't psychologically bad (unless you live with a culture on your back which pushes you to have sex every single day of your life - then yes, you may go a little bit nuts). We see this not only in human beings, but also in animals. When I was a child, I used to have a dog that never had sex. He lived a very happy life. If you don't let the dog have sex, he doesn't go crazy, stop eating and die. But - if its owner dies, then it will become depressed, it will go next to the grave, stop eating, and die. There's more important things in life than sex - in animals and in humans.
It's a relatively recent phenomenon (past 150 years or so considering its roots), and in my opinion will be temporary in duration, simply because a society which behaves this way will go extinct - and that much is unavoidable. Moral degradation always leads to societal dissolution.
Quoting Question
Because the West has it too easy. Literarily. When life becomes so easy, people lose motivation, and they get bored and start getting interested in the pursuit of meaningless hedonistic activities like drugs, sex, etc.. Look at Baghdad in the Golden Age of Islam for example, and you'll see the same phenomenon happening, with the young becoming obsessed about sex day in and day out, rising unemployment, etc. Same for Rome back in the day...
Quoting Question
Yes I do too. In fact, I've stopped watching movies because it's disgusting to see sex in every movie - that's fucked up. Sex is private for a reason.
Quoting Question
Personally I've only ever had sex with two girlfriends (out of a total of three that I've had), so probably not much sex at all for someone my age. I would want to have sex but not with a woman whom I don't love but rather with one whom I have a relationship with that's not dependent on sex. I think that much is a natural desire - although not one that is easy to fulfil given our hyper-consumerist and highly individualistic culture.
Quoting Question
I live practically celibate and have done so for a number of years so far, and it's not that bad. I mean once you stop getting involved with those folks who talk about sex day in and day out, and once you start living life on your terms - it's not that bad at all. Once you get rid of the evil cultural demon whispering "you must have sex, you must have sex" in your ear, every single day, then you'll be fine. Lots of people have lived celibate lifestyles for most of their lives - for example even C.S. Lewis has. So there's absolutely no problem with it - don't let yourself be influenced by the irrational crowd.
Quoting Question
It's provoking me to anger personally, more so than sadness, because, by adopting such an attitude, they are destroying something that would, otherwise, be beautiful. That's a disaster! These folks have lost the plot... Like look at Terrapin! He's complaining that we're too conservative! He'd probably like to come and shag my wife, because why not? What's so bad about him having sex with my wife, he would say? What a loony...
Teenagers interested in sex you say?
Well that certainly is unnatural.
The only explanation must be our oversexed culture.
Yes which is unfortunate that we're not as uptight as other cultures. They have a little bit more reason left in them compared to us.
Quoting m-theory
Their mere curiosity isn't the issue. It's their unthoughtful engagement in sex at a young age that is the issue - that is motivated by our oversexed culture.
Well in a historical context the youth of today are prudes.
Heck not but a 100 years ago and you would be married off with kids by 15.
*facepalm* - yes it would be better to get married at 15 and have as much sex as you want, then to get married at 30, and until then engage in promiscuous sex.
No it wouldn't.
Right it would be better that your partner gets fucked by hundreds of people before you get married to him/her - that sounds nice! Sure! >:O
The truth comes out.
That is only an issue for insecure people.
Not at all. It's a natural desire of the human being, which has nothing to do with insecurity. The desire for specialness with your partner is a desire that is natural to the human being. But it seems you don't care about that, you'd much rather have your tiny instrument pleasured by some random women. >:O
I can't seem to interpret this in any other way than an appeal to nature and that would be a fallacy.
lol
You know it can be argued that if your partner is more experienced then they will be better at sex.
Yeah, but being better at sex has nothing to do with being special to one another.
Neither does being a virgin.
A natural desire. You have a natural desire for food. In what sense is that seeking to fulfill that a fallacy?
Well it does have to do with being sexually special one towards another - that's by definition.
The definition of a virgin is a person that has not had sex before.
Not a person who it is more special to have sex with.
By definition a virgin (applied to someone who intends to get married) is someone who has saved sex for marriage
Being married does not automatically make sex more special either.
Also people that are not saving themselves for sex can be virgins too.
Being a virgin does not automatically make sex special.
In fact quite the opposite is often true, people have idealistic views about sex as virgins and are often disappointed by there first experience with it.
I think what you are trying to communicate is the idea that when you are deeply in love with a person the sex is special.
I would not argue with that.
But you don't have to be married or a virgin to fall deeply in love with someone and experience something special with them.
What about people that don't want long term relationships but still want to have sex?
Provided they are consenting adults that does not hurt anybody.
No, it doesn't necessarily make it more special.
Quoting m-theory
Ehmmm did I ever say they can't?
Quoting m-theory
No, not automatically. It's not a sufficient condition for that.
Quoting m-theory
Well maybe it wasn't special for you because you wasted it. But for me, when I had sex with my first girlfriend, it was certainly a very special moment. I've never wasted sex - maybe I made mistakes with regards to it, but I've never wasted it.
Quoting m-theory
Being deeply in love is not sufficient in and of itself.
Quoting m-theory
They're a dangerous element for the rest of society that has to be controlled - simple.
Well for a lot of people it is not nearly as special as thought it was going to be.
Quoting Agustino
Utter nonsense.
Yes, for materialist hedonists who believe that sex is God, yes it's not that special, because they never see the spiritual dimension of it. That's obvious.
You don't have to worship sex to have your first experience be an awkward disappointment.
No you must simply take heed of what your culture is telling you "have sex have sex have sex" without understanding the spiritual dimension that's always involved in sex, and you're gonna end up with a not so great experience. Quite simple. Has nothing to do with being a virgin - in other words, your experience isn't lacking because you're a virgin, it's lacking because you're an idiot.
That is silly.
Culture is not what compels people to have sex, biology does.
That's what your culture has been telling you ;)
No, that is what my body tells me.
No it's really what you THINK you're body has been telling you. I used to think the same when I was a teenager. I was wrong. Our culture has deceived us, to the point we're not even able to see its effects anymore.
That is just what your ideology is telling you.
Well they could explore the negative aspects of it, that's for sure >:O
As for what the spiritual dimension is, it's the bond (or in the case of one-night stand, the broken bond) that is created with the other.
Yeah, pity that I arrived at this "ideology" independently through my own thinking - an ideology which is opposed by my Western culture, and which I pretty much could not have found propounded, and even if I did, I could not have found it advantageous to believe. So either I'm an idiot, or I see certain advantages in holding it that you don't. I think the latter.
And what negative aspects are you referring to? And does this apply to all one-night stands or just some or most of them?
Except it is a common theme in western culture.
Quoting Agustino
Your views are actually fairly common in western culture in my experience, especially among the religious.
Is this bond just some sort of psychological thing? Or by "spiritual" do you mean it in the mystical sense (as non-physical and non-psychological)?
It follows from the context of your discussion. First you said:
Quoting Agustino (emphasis mine)
Then you said:
Quoting Agustino
You seem to claim that desire for specialness is better to have because it's natural. You moved from a statement of fact (desire to be special to your partner is natural) to a value judgment (therefore its better not to have a partner fucked by hundreds of people). That's the fallacy you are making.
No it is possible, but as you say it is temporary, and hence it is a "broken bond" - as in always already broken.
Quoting jamalrob
Well they are insignificant and pointless on the one hand (no big thing gained, why waste all the effort merely for physical pleasure - as Epicurus would put it - avoid sex, bigger source of problems than of pleasures), and on the other, they destroy the very capacity for forming permanent bonds, and thus take away a greater good.
Quoting jamalrob
All non-committed relationships.
Quoting m-theory
Not true. I don't view sex between people who don't get married as immoral so long as they are life-long devoted to each other, faithful and live monogamous lives together (or at minimum intend to do so). The religious do view that as problematic.
Nope. I merely identify that it exists, naturally and by itself - as opposed to artifically. I don't discuss whether it's good to have it or not. But if it exists, its in the nature of desire to seek its fulfilment, so if you do things which render it impossible to fulfil, then yes, you have hurt yourself, because that desire was part of you, and you have denied it.
It is psychological and mystical. Or rather it has both dimensions.
The "mystical" part is problematic. Unless the rest of us believe in such a thing then all your arguments are going to fall flat. It would be like arguing with an atheist that we shouldn't do something because God forbids it; given that they reject your premise the argument won't convince them how to behave.
So if your arguments against casual sex depend on there being some spiritual connection between people then you first have to argue in favour of there being this spiritual connection, else you're never going to convince me that casual sex is wrong (at least not with this line of reasoning).
I am not sure how common this view is among the religious, I have not made a habit of asking about this specifically.
But this may be the only difference between your views and that of those that claim promiscuity is immoral.
Certainly it is not an uncommon view in the US that monogamy should be preferable to promiscuity.
Monogamy is celebrated in modern mediums within the US as much if not more than promiscuity.
I definitely don't agree that you get to claim you are surrounded by an unsympathetic culture.
Yes but I can discuss with you in terms of the psychological - as the mystical is intimately related with the psychological anyway - it's a step beyond it, that's all there is to it.
But is the mystical aspect necessary? Or can you condemn casual sex purely on psychological grounds? Can you say "casual sex is wrong even if there is no such thing as a spiritual connection between people"?
Your earlier quotes quite clearly do not reflect this. You are arguing whether it's better to have a single partner or not and your argument to have one is "because it's natural to want to be special to one person". That's a fallacy, as pointed out. Your denial doesn't diminish this and it would be nice if you can just gracefully accept this obvious mistake. Everybody makes mistakes, it's ok you know!
Now you're making he claim conditional that if this desire exists then it would better (avoids hurting yourself) to have a single partner. Still a fallacy!
EDIT: if it makes any difference at the old forum I once started a thread that was a single long naturalistic fallacy. It happens.
Not true again. Their conception isn't very clear - they don't have very clear reasons why promiscuity is wrong apart from saying that people must get married, or that God ordered it to be so. In either case, what I said before is true. I couldn't have arrived at my view by following any Church - whether it's the Church of atheism or the Church of theism.
Quoting m-theory
Monogamy isn't culturally celebrated anymore. It's always promiscuity that's seen as "the cool thing" to do. When you're in school for example, it's not cool to be in a long-term relationship, it's much cooler to fuck a lot of girls. Why? That's a culture.
Quoting Michael
Yes. In fact just recently I've defended such views in this thread: http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/861/why-is-social-conservatism-generally-associated-with-religion/p5
Because part of the joy of life is shared pleasure, whether long-lasting or not.
Quoting Agustino
This is not quite true in my experience. I don't see the problem in accepting a variety of types of sexual relationship. One could argue, for example, that one-night stands can bring an understanding of how much that is not strictly sexual is involved in maintaining a permanent bond (one that also involves sex). And it's a fairly common observation that an experience of one-night stands can reduce one's obsession with sex.
I may eat tapas casually with my fingers but still observe the ceremony later when I sit down to dinner. If I hadn't had the tapas, and had then sat down to dinner ravenous, I might not behave quite so well.
Yes except that it wasn't a mistake. My argument isn't that it's good to have a single partner because it's natural to want to be special to one person. My argument rather is that people do have such a desire. In the context of them having such a desire, it is good to want to be special to one person and therefore to have a single partner.
I don't agree that your views are very clear either (well perhaps to you they are).
But I concede your point.
You are not religiously opposed to promiscuity.
Fine.
Utter nonsense.
They celibate monogamy all the time in the US.
Talk shows with experts on happy monogamy, fairy tales with happy ever after romance, magazines and websites on how to make your relationship last.
It is a big industry in media.
Sure, so long as you follow Seneca's dictum: "enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones" :) And this applies both along the Epicurean view - namely sex may be a pleasure, but the potential risks associated with it, especially in a casual setting, always outweigh the potential benefits (and this doesn't only include physical risks like STDs, unwanted pregnancy, etc. but also emotional risks).
Quoting jamalrob
No they couldn't argue so, because a one-night stand doesn't intend to be a permanent bond from the beginning. So you no more realise what it takes for a permanent bond than otherwise.
Ok, let me rephrase then:
p1. If people have the desire to be special to someone then they should avoid multiple relationships and people who had multiple relationships.
p2. Some people have this desire.
c. Therefore some people should avoid multiple relationships and people who had multiple relationships.
That works but that wasn't what you wrote initially as that was a general argument against promiscuity. As an argument against that it doesn't work. The argument that people should act in accordance with their desires - you won't have an argument there and that's not the argument that seems to be on the table either.
Thanks.
Quoting m-theory
That's why in a movie I saw recently (one of the rare few), Brad Pitt has sex with some girl (forgot the names) because they were about to die, so might as well do it. That's absurd, per my view, and that takes a contrary view of sex than the one required for monogamy.
The literature on the matter isn't conclusive.
Casual Sex and Psychological Health Among Young Adults: Is Having “Friends with Benefits” Emotionally Damaging?:
"Young adults who engage in casual sexual encounters do not appear to be at greater risk for harmful psychological outcomes than sexually active young adults in more committed relationships."
Risky Business: Is There an Association between Casual Sex and Mental Health among Emerging Adults?:
"For emerging-adult college students, engaging in casual sex may elevate risk for negative psychological outcomes."
Who Benefits From Casual Sex? The Moderating Role of Sociosexuality:
"Sociosexually unrestricted students typically reported higher well-being after having casual sex compared to not having casual sex; there were no such differences among restricted individuals."
Does casual sex harm college students' well-being? A longitudinal investigation of the role of motivation.:
"After controlling for demographics, personality traits (i.e., neuroticism and extraversion), prior casual and romantic sex, and T1 well-being, having genital hookups between T1 and T3 for non-autonomous reasons (i.e., due to self-imposed pressures, external contingencies and controls, or complete lack of intentionality) was linked to lower self-esteem, higher depression and anxiety, and more physical symptoms. Autonomous hookup motivation (i.e., emanating from one's self) was not linked to any outcomes. Compared to peers without hookups, those with high non-autonomy in their hookups typically had inferior well-being; this was not true of those with low non-autonomy hookups."
But it seems to be that the psychological effects of casual sex depend on the circumstances surrounding it (drunk or sober, pressured or willing) and the ethical views of the participants. Those with a more liberal sexual upbringing don't suffer from autonomous casual sex whereas those with a more conservative sexual upbringing or engaging in non-autonomous casual sex do.
Benkei's summary is quite apt: whatever works for you. For some people casual sex is a bad thing, but for others it's a good thing (and for some it's neutral).
This is not necessarily so, often the parties involved don't agree before hand that this sexual encounter shall only happen once and shall not lead to any bonding.
But you missed my (rather pedestrian) point, which is that there are different kinds of sexual relationship, including temporary and permanent, and an experience with the former can bring an understanding, by contrast, of the qualities of permanent relationships.
Not explicitly, but implicitly the agreement is always there, otherwise it wouldn't be a one-night stand.
So? I agreed to this in my very first reply to you, however I also illustrated what can be lost due to such encounters.
Plus a majority of women regret the age at which they lose their virginity in hindsight. Even when culturally accepted for this to happen around 16 they by and large indicate to prefer to have waited until their 20s.
Having said this, it requires one to understand what being human entails, and what role does sex have in a human existence, to understand the truth independent of culture - meaning which path is actually better regardless of what you have been taught.
No because it still remains a fair point. They can't argue they had promiscuous sex in order to gain such an understanding. However, they can argue that, for whatever reason they chose to have promiscuous sex, they have gained such an understanding as a result of it. Such an understanding is never intended in the act.
But it means that you can't condemn casual sex on psychological grounds, given that the psychological effects are culture-dependent, and not always negative.
I'm not sure how there can be a culture-independent truth about the psychological effects of casual sex if the psychological effects of casual sex are culture-dependent.
Are you now moving on to a non-psychological (and also non-spiritual) argument against casual sex?
Prima facie false, as false as the claim that the risks of rock climbing always outweigh the benefits.
Quoting Agustino
Fine. I made no claim that people had casual sex in order to educate themselves on monogamy.
Just because the participants have not seen that they are wrong at point X, doesn't mean they aren't going to see this later, or that they aren't wrong at all.
Potentially, but it is an argument that has been used by materialists :P
What do you mean by "wrong" here? I thought your argument against casual sex was that there are negative psychological consequences. I've provided you with evidence that this isn't always the case.
So are you now saying that some non-psychological (and non-spiritual) fact makes it wrong?
I don't know if this is back-peddling or shotgun argumentation or what.
Being human, is thankfully, dependent on culture. Otherwise we'd just be animals.
Are you sure?
Quoting Agustino
How so? Do you have a grander, truer (not sure if that's a word) view on the issue?
If there are no negative psychological consequences perceiveable right now, does that mean there won't be any, or there aren't in fact any?
Quoting TheMadFool
That's what I meant by horizontal gene transfer - if you read the wiki it will even say that in fact.
Quoting TheMadFool
Yes. Sex does not dominate most of human interaction.
No, but is that relevant? Is your argument now "casual sex is wrong because there could be (unrecognized) negative psychological consequences (either now or in the future)"? If so then that same reasoning can be used to argue against marrying someone you love and having sex with them.
No the argument is that you could perceive negative psychological consequences from, say, instance X of casual sex that you don't currently perceive.
So? How does that show that casual sex is wrong?
And, again, the same can be said about marrying someone you love and having sex with them.
No that doesn't show it is wrong, but it shows that it is possible to condemn casual sex on psychological grounds - contrary to what you claimed the evidence proved.
You can't defend your claim "casual sex is wrong because it has negative psychological consequences" from the attack "the evidence shows that casual sex doesn't (always) have negative psychological consequences" by simply asserting that the evidence might be mistaken.
You have to provide actual counter-evidence.
No the evidence isn't mistaken. The evidence is what it is. The explanation of the evidence is mistaken - the mechanism by which such evidence occurs is mistaken.
What do you mean by this Agustino?
I mean to say that some people - Epicurus for one - found that the sage should abstain from sex, as it leads to potentially damaging emotions more frequently than to pleasure, and avoiding pain is more important than gaining pleasure. Now you can disagree with him, and I do disagree with the idea that one should never have sex, but that doesn't mean it's not rational within its own limited scope. I agree with Epicurus for example - but think there's some other kind of sex, which isn't described accurately in this way - committed, non-casual sex.
No, it might be mistaken. But it might not be. These people might genuinely have not suffered (and will not suffer) negative psychological consequences. You seem to be shifting the burden of proof or arguing from ignorance or moving the goalposts.
And, again, the same can be said about marrying someone you love and having sex with them.
I didn't read every post above. What study did you reference?
No I obviously don't believe just that it might be mistaken, I have reasons to think it is mistaken. But with regards to where you are, it is first important to accept the idea that they (your explanations) might be mistaken, and to stop saying that the evidence proves X, when in fact it doesn't.
Just saw his links now. He says that the evidence isn't conclusive and he cites studies that reach neutral conclusions as well as the conclusion that there are psychological _benefits_ to casual sex. (Not that any studies are right just because they're done in an academic context and reach some conclusion, but it doesn't seem they've reached the conclusion you'd like.)
Perceived psychological benefits exist in cultures which are liberal towards sex - just as psychological harm as a result of it exists in cultures which are conservative towards sex. All this tells is that human perception (NOOOOT psychological reality) is to a large degree governed by culture.
I didn't say that it proves it. I'm only saying that it suggests it. And in lieu of evidence to the contrary, the claim that sex isn't always a bad thing (in terms of psychological effects) is more justified than the claim that it is always a bad thing.
I agree sex isn't always a bad thing in terms of psychological effects. I don't take the hardcore Epicurean position that the Sage will never engage in sex.
Quoting Michael
Just as much as it suggests all other explanations which are congruent with the facts :P
That was meant to say "casual sex".
Then in what way is it more justified?
Because the psychological studies have come to the conclusion that casual sex does not always lead to a decrease in psychological well-being.
So this evidence makes the claim "casual sex doesn't always have negative psychological consequences" more justified than the claim "casual sex always has negative psychological consequences".
So you're appealing to empirical evidence of something that is not at all in any studies?
Really? But this "evidence" may be there given both statements. If casual sex always has negative psychological consequences, it doesn't follow that our perception of the the psychological reality will always be accurate.
Are you really sure?
Quoting Agustino
Are you sure?
With this line of reasoning one can dismiss any and all evidence.
So I don't see much point in discussing this with you. You're just going to dismiss everything you disagree with.
But I wonder, what evidence do you have to support your claim that there are always negative psychological consequences? Do you have a method for determining the effects of casual sex that is better than that of professional psychologists doing professional studies?
Yes, I've looked at the wiki, stop giving it to be 10 times.
Quoting TheMadFool
That's just examples of very small movements of people. Certainly sex does not influence a large share of human affairs, for most people. There are some wierdos now, for which everything is about sex. We have some of them amongst us in actual fact ;)
Quoting Terrapin Station
No I'm appealing to empirical evidence that is actually there in the studies. The interpretation of that evidence, of course, isn't in the studies, and neither should it be put there in the first place.
Yeah, well I'm more of a positive hedonist and a sensualist than Epicurus, but I go for some kind of virtue ethics in which one can judge a person's temperance over the long-term; even Aristotle argued that being moderate was not always the best way, i.e., anger is appropriate on occasion. Thus, I want to say that casual sex is an important or good part of life, but also want to deny that a lifetime of nothing but casual sex is a life lived well; I wouldn't entirely go along with what I imagine others here might say, viz., whatever floats your boat.
So in all of the studies, there was empirical evidence of negative psychological consequences, despite what the research subjects said and despite the conclusions reached by the people conducting the studies. Could you explain how this is the case?
No I don't dismiss evidence, I dismiss your interpretation of it. The World Trade center fell after a plane hit it. That's our evidence. You say it fell because the impact of the airplane had in damaging its structural integrity. Or you say bombs were planted inside of it. Or whatever. I, who am more knowledgeable than you in engineering, will say that it fell because fire spread across multiple floors in a steel frame structure, thereby weakening its stiffness, combined with the floors tying the columns together collapsing and thereby the effective lengths of the columns doubling and therefore the maximum buckling load they could carry becoming less than a quarter of the initial value (taking into account reduction in stiffness due to the fire as well). Now because I understand how buildings work, I can have a holistic view, and I know what the right explanation for the facts is, regardless of what folks peddle, and think the facts are saying or whatever nonsense. Now I don't even need to test this (but I have in fact tested it on a computer model, and it is correct), to know that it is the case. It's the one with the largest explanatory framework for what happened.
Quoting Michael
Yes I do. First you have to understand the nature of being human, the desires that are generally found within the human being and what role they play in this economy. Then you have to analyse your own experience and ask yourself what you're really after when you want to have sex. Is it just the physical pleasure? If so, why don't you masturbate, for example? That would be much simpler. Is it something psychological then? If so, then you really want intimacy. If you really want intimacy at some level, then you should pursue that idea to its very conclusion rather than half-heartidly.
Quoting jamalrob
I entirely disagree. Why do you say this?
Are you purposefully misreading the studies? >:O One of them claimed that there was no empirical evidence that casual sex caused negative psychological consequences, not all of them claimed this... really this is such a non-charitable discussion.
Sure, and you claim that regardless, there was empirical evidence of negative psychological consequences in that study?
Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.
It's the tapas thing again (is this a vulgar analogy? perhaps). A snack need not be a sordid indulgence, but rather a brief sensual pleasure taken seriously.
And psychologists are more knowledgeable than you about psychology (assuming that you're not a psychologist yourself, but an engineer, say), and they have taken the evidence and concluded that casual sex isn't always a bad thing.
So you seem to be the person saying that the towers fell because they were bombed.
Because I might find sex more pleasurable than masturbation.
Because I might not want the level of intimacy found in a life-long monogamous relationship, or anything else that comes with such commitment. I might prefer the intimacy of friends and casual sex.
I like chocolate, but I wouldn't eat an entire chocolate cake.
Your reasoning here seems akin to a slippery slope argument.
I would agree with whatever floats your boat from a pragmatic point of view (in the sense that you can't convince everyone), however, the two cannot live together in the same society, thus it will end up a political war, that we must all fight.
Quoting Terrapin Station
NO! obviously not in that study... but there was in others. Really man...
Some of them have, not all of them. And no, it doesn't necessarily mean they're more knowledeable than me - just because they have a diploma in that, and I don't.
Quoting Michael
Is that pleasure physical then, or psychological? And how much more pleasureable is it, if it's just physical, to warrant the associated potential risks?
Quoting Michael
Your dilemma is that you want it and you do not want it, hence you suffer.
Quoting jamalrob
Spinoza said:
It seems you have given up what is noble because the mind is not eternal. That seems absurd.
Quoting jamalrob
The analogy fails because sex is in no way like eating. There is no psychological effect from eating - at least in the general sense, as there is from sex.
You appeared to be saying that regardless of what people claimed re psychological benefits versus detriments, in reality, there were detriments only. Were you not claiming that?
Yes, that is MY UNDERSTANDING of it, not what the study claims... It's getting quite tiring that you fail to see this. Just because it's my understanding (which I have reasons to think is the true and correct understanding) doesn't mean that this is in accordance with the interpretation offered in the studies.
Right, so you have no empirical evidence supporting your conclusion there, though?
Quoting Agustino
Would you explain this to women when it comes to chocolate.
I have empirical evidence supporting my interpretation, not from that study, but from the others. There's also life experiences, knowledge and understanding of what I've seen/heard, etc. that is involved in holding my interpretation, it's not like I've formed it just based on studies of empirical evidence. I have my own evidence as well.
Whatever that effect is, it's nothing like the effects that exist from sex. It's like comparing the line that monkeys may draw, with the art that the human being is capable of. It's such a large gap that it's a difference in kind, not in degree. Even cavemen painted.
So the one study is right and the others wrong because you agree with the one and not the others. (Well, and plus the conclusions you've already reached in the course of your life experience.)
Again I believe you, but if you could just explain this to women.
I'm not sure what's up with that study, I haven't investigated it to be honest. In either case, science isn't done like this. If I find a study claiming grass cures cancer, I won't bother to read it, because I haven't much reason to believe it is true (not that it couldn't be true). I've worked for a short-while in research in engineering, and most of those studies, you can draw whatever conclusions the fuck you want. You just arrange your methodology to get the answers you're looking for. So many are doing this.
That seems to be an ignorant and prejudiced judgment, and nothing more. I can't see why you think that I have given up on what is noble, unless you're simply regurgitating (though you're in good company) the old prejudice of philosophy and religion, namely that the material world is inferior to--and thus opposed to--the spiritual. I've never gone along with that, but that doesn't mean I have to ditch nobility. It just means I want to redefine it without reference to the dichotomy.
False dilemma. There are degrees of intimacy. Again, I might want chocolate but not an entire chocolate cake. Do I suffer because I only have a small piece? No.
Perhaps both. And clearly it's enough to warrant whatever risks there may be (I assume you mean pregnancy and STIs (which incidentally are also risks when in a life-long monogamous relationship)?), especially given appropriate protection.
Which is why I said that the results aren't conclusive. And which have said that casual sex is always a bad thing?
But I don't claim the material world is inferior. Only that if, for example, I were to find out that the spiritual doesn't exist, I wouldn't cease practicing the virtues, which includes abstinence from casual sex. Indeed, that would be like suddenly being mindless because I find that mind is not eternal as Spinoza puts it.
Quoting Michael
There can be many other risks. Such as the casual partner being in a relationship with someone else which you destroy, such as potential emotional troubles from either you or her, and so forth. Are all those risks worth bothering with if all you want is physical pleasure? Probably not - you get let's say a +5 increase in pleasure, and a -10 potential increase in pain. Not gonna do it. The increase in pleasure needs to be much much greater than casual sex can account for to make the risk worth taking. Epicurus went as far as thinking one should never, preferrably, take the risk - in other words, the potential pleasure never outweighs the potential risks.
Quoting Michael
I don't know, but if I look for them, one thing is for certain, I will find some who say it (just as if you look for the opposite, you will also find it). But that's besides the point, because again, science simply isn't done like this.
I don't think it follows that the analogy fails, but only that sex is far more complicated than food.
Which is why the analogy doesn't hold. It fails to capture this "far more complicated" part that is essential to sex.
I dare say if you were to find out that the material doesn't exist, the same thing would happen. Which is to say that a virtuous person is virtuous not in spite of but because of his materiality.
How does that follow that I'm virtuous because of my materiality? If I found out that the material doesn't exist, I'd go on being virtuous because my virtue is independent of my metaphysics.
I don't see how it has anything to do with whether we're spiritual or material.
But of what use is saving my soul if it has no effect in this world? Clearly, even the Protestants believe that living by grace in this life is superior to living in bondage to lust.
True, it does fail to capture that. It's not perfect. What it does suggest is that sex, stripped of its prudish sacralization, can be a sensual pleasure like any other, and that sex-snacking isn't such a bad thing. This doesn't mean that it's not more difficult or more morally precarious. It certainly is.
The problem there in my opinion is the culture of monogamy. In a culture where monogamy isn't the norm by polyamory is, then there's no issue there.
Please, I'm still struggling to overcome my Calvinist heritage and could do without any setbacks right now.
Memento mori. Salvation is through the belief Jesus died for your sins not through works or grace in this life.
Also, for someone who insists on seeing humans free from their "cultural" distortions, your cultural and religious convictions are carried much stronger than anyone else in this discussion. You're not free from this type of subjectivity either. Merely because you're a bit old-fashioned doesn't make your view more accurate.
They can live together. It requires the virtue of forbearance instead of the sin of violence.
If you can't have love, least have some fun!
Lest you end up -fate worse than death-
Spending your nights on TPF!
I can multi-task.
So can I. What do you think I was doing while writing the poem? :P
Getting back to the OP. No, I don't think sex is "idolized" in the west. Sex, like violence, is repressed in every human society, some more so than others. I also think that unless you are biologically abnormal (and I don't mean that in a pejorative way) denying yourself sex (as a man at least) is bound to lead to neurosis.
Actually, fires have never brought down steel buildings, ever, in the past. And, no plane had to hit WTC7; but, supposedly office fires brought it down also. It's an insult to the intelligence and effort of the engineers who build the World Trade Centers, who by the way actually overengineered the buildings to withstand a plane hit. What you're describing was first called the "pancake effect", which NIST even walked back on due to its absurdity.
It seems to me that there is a neurosis with the subject of sex. For people to talk about it as something healthy and something that ought to be done instead of never is an indication of a pathology inside society.
The subject is an unhappy mixture of conflicting levels of reality. And most unhappy in my view is the subject that identifies wholly with one level of reality and denies the needs and desires of the others. Some kind of integration/compromise is key.
Is it? I usually accuse the progressive leftist of being so god damn prude...
Quoting Question
Sex is a normal part of life but I get what you mean, it feels intrusive -- especially watching it with relatives. Pooping is also a part of life, but as long as it is not part of the plot, I do not want to watch an actor to simulate emptying his intestines.
Having that said, Sowell may be right:
"it may be a sign of our times that everyone seems to be talking openly about sex but we seem to be embarrassed to talk about love"
For a brief period of my life, I had been interested in Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy in general. It made so much sense and I saw so much overlap with Stoicism, which also deeply intrigued me -- until I stumbled upon this video. Then I remembered this TED talk as well. That is when I decided to let go of Stoicism and Buddhism.
My pessimistic side would state that (social) conservatism has lost, especially in Europe. This is seen in the decline of Christian church attendances, lower fertility rates, decline of marriages, increase in divorces, increase in single parenthood, increase in depression, women are less happier, increase in female suicides, etcetera.
However, natural selection is a beautiful thing:
What you're saying is basically something along the lines of saying "I'm not thinking about sex!".
But, why do I need commercials and online advertisements peddling me the same old in regards to sex if one does not want it?
I'm not saying that. If you want a simple summary of my last post it's this: "At some level the desire for sex is always there. You can't think it into oblivion". Society to an extent reflects the need for sex but also sublimates physical desire through pumping us full of media that have nothing to do with sex or any other physical needs because society has its own goals and desires. It is its own form of life and primarily serves itself (complicating matters, it's both within and without us). Similarly, our intellects have their own goals, desires and needs and our biological selves have their own goals, desires and needs. Yet we're all stuck together in the human subject. We can either recognize that and accommodate the different levels of ourselves or deny it and tear ourselves apart.
Then how do you explain all the monks, and the rest of us celibates who don't have sex? This is nothing but cultural prejudice, and a way to attempt to enforce your own obsession with sex over everyone else.
And you are obsessed with people being obsessed with sex. At least you must be to draw that conclusion from what I wrote. Also, nothing in what I wrote suggests I have to "explain" monks or celibates as if their existence contradicts anything I've said.
That's what I mean man - we're winning this, the progressives have little to no chance, even if things look bleak for conservatives for the next, say 20-50 years.
Quoting jamalrob
But this is what sex can never be. Even if you practice casual sex, it never is like this, there's always a spiritual and psychological component to it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
*facepalm* Such desires Terrapin are natural to the human organism. Polyamory isn't, and by that I simply mean that it's not the norm for most of us.
Quoting Benkei
Not really - it's always in each other's interest to ensure the other doesn't gain control of society. They always benefit when the other loses.
Quoting Baden
Oh man, and this is the guy who says that sex isn't idolized in Western culture... give me a break mate, give me a break.
Quoting Baden
But it is part of my biology to desire to have sex such that I have offspring which have the longest chance of survival, which requires that me and my woman are loyal to each other and never compromise. If I want to build a dynasty of a family and have my children dominate their social environment (thus maximising survival), then there needs to be unity, discipline and focus in the family. Otherwise, sooner or later we will all be gone. Spilling your seed randomly in the hopes that some of your offspring will survive is the way to waste it. If I care for my offspring, then I can't just pick some slut that enjoys having as much sex as possible with just about anyone - that would be a disaster! I need someone who is a master of her sexuality, who doesn't give in to her lusts.
Your assumption that I simply desire to have sex is wrong. I don't. I desire to have sex in such and such a situation and no other. Furthermore, the human organism has needs that aren't biological - just as other animals do. Why does the dog whose owner dies, why does he refuse to eat, becomes depressed, and also dies? There's things in life far more important than sex or food or survival for that matter.
Quoting Baden
Yes, I find it incredibly petty, in certain regards laughable, and in others sad. It's a spiritual disease of the modern age.
Quoting Baden
So they, according to your theory, are fucked up neurotics?
They don't have sex. There are exchanges of genetic information, but it is helter-skelter. Bacteria in a puddle can pick up bits of genetic material from other bacteria that have fallen apart. By these and other hit and miss methods, bacteria can change -- like become resistant to antibiotics. They can also mutate and pass on the mutation when they divide themselves into two new bacteria.
It works for them. It works for bacteria so well, that they have been around longer than any other form of life.
This is gobbledygook. You're arguing against your image of some rampant sex-crazed progressive. Read my posts again and try to respond to the substance with a minimum of charity.
I did respond to the substance. Your theory about neurosis is wrong. it's simply not describing the actual situation, it is describing precisely your image of it.
Bare assertion. Either read and try to understand my posts sans prejudice, and respond with an actual argument or stop wasting both of our time.
:-d Good luck with your neurosis then...
Quoting Baden
How important sex must be in your life, can't live without it. Why so weak and dependent? ;) Oh it's your biology, yes I understand.... :P Never gonna be a master of your own house, and you have a reason for it as well!
Quoting Emptyheady
Interesting links, especially the Zizek one. But idk - I don't feel they have much to do with Stoicisim and Buddhism. Musonius Rufus for example, was a Stoic, and he encouraged conservative sexual morality, including marriage. What made you change your mind on Stoicism/Buddhism after seeing that video?
"Neurosis" and "society" are a combo package. In order to construct society we have to limit our individual drives, urges, aspirations, and appetites. Limiting natural drives, urges, aspirations, and appetites produces neuroses. "Limit" isn't the same as "blocking", however. It's a fair tradeoff. Society makes all kinds of things possible, and we have more or less learned to live with the resulting neuroses.
"Living with neuroses" is about as close to perfect psychological health as we are going to get.
Well it would be strange if other life forms would have been around for longer than bacteria, considering the fact that the first life to appear would be bacteria, since they are relatively the simplest in complexity. Evolution would be in quite some trouble if bacteria weren't around for the longest time :P
Rather mine than yours, methinks.
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's a fair way to put it.
Sure, but this presupposes that society itself isn't one of our innate drives. I think it is. I think in many regards we're social animals before we're sexual animals. I have no problem living without sex, but without feeling the need for community it would be hard to imagine myself.
At least I got so far as mastering my sexuality, unlike you :P you have to be its docile servant all the time. How is that working for you? Happy being in chains? Sex says go left, left you go, it says go right, right you go. Ain't that cute? >:O
More gobbledygook. You're making a real fool out of yourself here. But go on...
:-! Why, you yourself have said this! You've said that someone with a normal biology can't not have sex, lest they fall in neurosis. That means they're bound to be servants to their biology (if they disobey, they'll get neurosis). All that I assumed is that you have, what you yourself would call, a normal biology (which certainly also seems to be the case from your reply to Michael)
Keep going. Get it all out of your system...
Your strenuous arguments against people having sex in anything but the pristine confines of a lasting monogamous relationship is clearly a form of sublimating your own sex drive. You are substituting argument for sex in this discussion and getting the results all over everybody.
If sex depended on culture, evolution would have ceased and desisted a very long time ago. We, and everything more complicated than bacteria, wouldn't be here. Sex is a biological drive, like hunger, thirst, and sleep. The restrictions of society are the price of human advancement. Culture channels sex, but it doesn't provide its power. That's biology. Culture attempts to specify what sorts of emotional satisfactions we are to obtain from "proper sex" but our emotions always supersede culture.
Our human natures are always in conflict with our created societies. That's why life is essentially neurotic. The closer we come to actually blocking drives (and not just channeling them) the closer we are to neuroses bordering on actual pathology. Your path of restricting sex to either a consecrated marriage or an unconsecrated, long-term monogamous relationship, and disparaging all others, amounts to recommending that the sex drive either obey your rules or be blocked. That is the path to craziness.
You are more mesmerized by sexual imagery than most people are, apparently. You are taking what you see on the screen for the content of western culture. It isn't so.
This is interesting, but I would doubt it because I don't really have a sex drive in the sense you speak about it. In my life in general, whatever sex drive you mention is absent. I never have this pressing desire to have sex that some others seem to have. I do have, let's say a long-term desire for sex in a monogamous relationship, but certainly not this desire for sex regardless of the circumstances/conditions in which it occurs.
Quoting Bitter Crank
? This doesn't make much sense?
Quoting Bitter Crank
I disagree. It's not sex that is of the essence, it's survival. Because it's survival there are many other considerations that go into what actions one will engage in. Reproduction (not sex, and this is important) is very relevant to survival, because on a biological level, part of us (part of our genes) will survive in our offspring. But it's not sufficient to conceive the offspring (have sex) in order to ensure the survival of those genes. Quite the contrary, conceiving the offspring at the wrong time (or with the wrong person) may lead to my demise, as well as the demise of my future offspring. So there is no natural unrestrained sexual desire, because if this was the case, it wouldn't maximise the chance of survival. That's why we've developed intelligence - to be able to judge what conditions would maximise our survival.
Now it's quite clear that a monogamous relationship is the best for myself, as well as for my offspring (the two are identical). And ideally, a strong, disciplined, cultured, and large family needs to be built around that initial relationship - such that not only my children survive - but they survive with a big advantage - ie they're left in great social positions, being leading men/women in their communities, etc. This maximises the chances of survival, from a purely biological point of view, and is best achieved if the whole family works as a single mind.
Now the problem with promiscuity is that it doesn't make sense from a purely biological point of view. What use reproducing if most of that seed is spilled and wasted, and your children are in no better position to reproduce than you yourself are? That's nonsense. Most who practice promiscuity aren't even interested in reproducing - many don't even want to have children. They just want to have the sex. That is not a natural drive at all. That's contrary to nature. Their survival doesn't benefit one iota because of it, on the contrary, it may actually be threatened. That I would define as a neurosis indeed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Not at all, because again I don't share your view. Human nature is not in conflict with society, but on the contrary, is fulfilled by society. We have a social drive in us, that is more fundamental than whatever sexual drive you mention, because it plays a much bigger role in our own survival, as well as the survival of our offspring. So I'm not blocking any innate desire of the human organism, that's why much of what you say doesn't make sense to me. I simply don't feel this way. I don't see how restricting sex to so and so a circumstance is a restriction, and not precisely the fulfilment of sex.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Oh common BC - I could maybe take that as true if I hadn't spent some of my life living in Western society. But I have. I know what you're saying here simply isn't the truth...
Actually it's not pancake effect ... alas, let's do some engineering using the method for illustrating the simplicity of Truth that we have seen recently presented in the forums:
1. Sir, what is Euler's Buckling formula(ie)?
A. P = n?[sup]2[/sup]EI/L[sup]2[/sup]
2. What then, is buckling(ie)?
A. Buckling(ie) is the phenomenon that happens in long and slender compressive members of a structure which fail at an axial load smaller than the ultimate compressive strength of the material. Graphically a column buckling is this:
3. What do the terms of the equation (ie) represent?
A. P is the buckling load (at any higher load the compressive member will fail, or collapse), n is a factor accounting for boundary conditions, E is Young's Modulus, I is the Second Moment of Area, and L is the effective length of the column.
4. What are boundary conditions (ie)?
A. Boundary conditions(ie) are the conditions at the ends of a member. For a column this would be the bottom and the top ends.
5. What is Young's Modulus(ie)?
A. Young's Modulus(ie) is a property characteristic of the material, and it's a measure of its stiffness.
6. What is The Second Moment of Area (ie)?
A. The Second Moment of Area(ie) is a geometric property of the member in question, which measures the stiffness granted to the member by its geometry.
7. What then is effective length(ie)?
Effective length(ie) is the length of an element between two supports.
8. So Sir, what happens to P (ie) if there is a fire and intermediary floors collapse?
Intermidiary floors act as supports, keeping the columns connected together, such that if one column tries to buckle where the middle floor is between a bottom and a top floor, it is restrained by the floor (imagine for example the column in the picture above restrained at the middle where it buckles). Therefore if a floor fails, the effective length of the column will double, because effectively a support has been removed. Fire affects only the Young's Modulus, and it will lead to a reduction in Young's Modulus. How big is difficult to tell. Therefore, at best (assuming no fire) if a single floor collapses the force P will become 1/4 P.
9. What happens if more than 1 successive floors collapse?
A. If 2 floors collapse, the force will become 1/8P, then 1/16P, and so forth, all assuming no fire.
10. What is the factor of safety (ie) that buildings are designed for Sir?
A.1.5 the critical force - this effectively means that the building is designed to take 1.5 times a higher force than it will actually experience in its live conditions. Factors like accidental loads - airplane hits - are taken into account with a probability factor - if the airplane would impose say 1MN (Mega Newton) of force, then this will be factor by a probability of, say, 0.1% before taken into account.
11. So when Sir would we expect the building to collapse?
A. Well - if a single floor collapses, at minimum the buckling load will reduce by a factor of 4. If two floors collapse, it will reduce by a factor of 8. Since the factor of safety is only 1.5 (compare with 4 and 8), it is likely to fail in either cases, but for certain in the second (so long as the plane doesn't hit the very top floor or something like that, evidently :P) - the worst position to hit is somewhere between 50-75% of the tower's height.
12. Could the floors in the tower collapse?
A. Yes, they had not been designed to withstand multi-level fires, nor airplane hits.
13. Why Sir, wasn't this taken into account?
A. Professionals - whether they're engineers, doctors, etc. most of them are a bunch of idiots who thrive from the intelligence of a few (a few like Euler for example). They don't think in practical ways, they rely on dogma, they don't use their imaginations. They don't ask themselves what could go wrong, and when they do, they rely on simple calculations (such as probability factors when taking into account accidental loads for ultimate limit state design). The system is setup to work even when idiots are in charge, therefore their mistakes most often go unchallenged. On top of this, we are trained daily to trust the experts. Never ever trust the experts. If you trust the experts, you will become like Baden, and think that Trump will certainly lose >:O (and we all know how that ended :P ) Always think for yourself. If you use your mind right, you're better than all the experts in the world.
On the contrary, it demonstrates an understanding of the eternal, as far as the human body and mind goes. Spinoza's point is the eternal is an expression of the world. To say: "The soul is only the name of something in the body" is apt. When we serve the eternal, we act for our body and the world around us. The eternal significance of the body (including the mind) is what makes our action important. And why we cannot separate bodies of states out into neat boxes which have nothing to do with our-well-being or other people.
The "material" is not contrary or separate to ethics, but rather what makes them so important. There's a "spiritual/psychological" component all the way down, expressed by every material state and action. Ethical divides are not made on the eternal vs finite, but rather in the context of the eternal-- actions are immoral because those states have an entering expression of immorality, not because they are material.
They were here at the beginning and they are still here. Most species have long, long, long since disappeared. They will be here long after everything else. They are the preeminent success story in terms of survival.
Which goes to show what I told you before. In nature, the fittest doesn't always win - if the fittest always won, we wouldn't be here :P
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
At last! The admission that explains your views. When it comes to the healthy sex drives of 3.5 billion men, you don't know what you are talking about. `
:-! facile to say, but I didn't start here exactly. Back before I had my first girlfriend I experienced this kind of desire for, I guess you could say, orgasm, and probably I did want to have sex with some of the "hot girls". It mostly manifested through watching pornography and masturbation. But after I started dating my first girlfriend, I got cured of the pornography and masturbation (because she "forced" me to stop :P ) and after my second girlfriend was never that interested just in sex anymore. In my mind, from my perspective, I simply understood that there's not much to gain from sex outside a long-committed life-long relationship, and just the physical pleasure, without the psychological isn't much pleasure anyway. I don't understand why people go their whole life without making these realisations, bound in the chains of their sexual desire. I mean common... if I can do it, how can there be folks more than double my age who are still so into their sexual desire - I see old folks running after the young girls it's so hilarious! Like is that for real? >:O That's kind of embarrassing for them I think. Even at that advanced age, when they should be paragons of wisdom, they are still worshipping at the altar of pussy. Give me a break >:O
Sexual desire has its purposes - like survival and reproduction, but to chase it as end-in-itself - that is crazy, or immature to say the least.
Well, there are consecrated and celibate virgins who remain in such a state their whole lives (as I more or less plan to do). Virginity in a historical religious context is usually perpetual and not a period during which one is "saving sex." You probably already knew this, but I thought I'd point it out.
Quoting Benkei
This sounds like Lutheran Pietism and so is only one soteriological conception among many in Christian history.
Quoting Emptyheady
What are you now? And you really saying that you ceased all inquiries into Buddhism on account of a Zizek video?
EDIT: (And what would also not be good in this scheme of things would be to let the biological level (in the form of the sex drive) hijack the intellect and make war on the social level (as in the selfish sex-obsessed individual who manipulates others to get what he wants). A balance is necessary).
Why is it preferable than, for example, to abstain from it until the long-term relationship? It seems you and Bitter Crank are stuck with Freud! Common... there's so much more to psychology than Freud, that's old news today! What's with these three level schemes? Ego, Super-Ego and id become intellect, biology, and social - my days... If I was Voegelin I'd say you two (and your papa Freud) are Gnostics par-excellence!
Yes, like how we treat those who are mentally ill...oh wait.
I don't get the pun? :P My low intelligence isn't sufficient... and I just realised there is no crying emoticon. Tragic.
You blind, Agu?
:-O
Quoting Heister Eggcart
The Chinese have a saying... Nobody knows what the sleeping dragon can do >:O
Not true.
Society plays tricks with the individual in terms of showing the guys who have more sex/money/material wealth as the winners. Children are growing up oversexed and underfucked with all sorts of self-esteem issues due to the image society projects of a 'healthy' and 'successful' male.
Bingo, I agree 100%. That's exactly why I hate this modern Western culture. And people like BC and Baden aren't helping it, that's for sure.
Yes, have you seen this?
This is a presumptuous claim to make. Many people have the self-mastery and sense of self well developed enough to be able to say no to even such a desire as to have sex. The situation is much worse for growing and developing children growing up surrounded by media and advertisements promoting sex at such a young age.
Quoting Agustino
(It sucks that the old PF is dysfunctional, because I have criticised Eastern Philosophy before but I can’t find the post)
It is not the case that a contie like Zizek argued me out of Buddhism, but he is a flavourful person that can show you a different perspective, something you have never considered before -- though 95% of what he says may as well be white-noise to me. Zizek got the ball rolling so-to-say.
It is also not the case that I “…ceased all inquiries into Buddhism on account of a Zizek Video.” I can appreciate some ideas from Eastern Philosophy, Buddhism and Stoicism – like I can appreciate some ideas of Marxism – but I would never label myself with any of those positions because I fundamentally disagree with all of them.
That video of Zizek – which got the ball rolling, I start looking up other texts, videos and did some rethinking -- he made me realise that Buddhism (and parts of Stoicism) drove me towards a deep apathetic state of life, something that I can only describe as alienation – I tried too hard to reject human nature, I tried too hard not being a human being. Brené Brown calls it: not living whole-heartedly.
Buddhist’s views on suffering, desire, attachment, ego with its ultimate telos as Nirvana imply a certain amenable view of human nature, which I think is simply false and utopian. No matter how much you practice or how much teachings you follow, human nature won’t change and neither will you.
And their metaphysical views of impermanence, interdependence and emptiness seem to be either incoherent or too assumptive to me. I think that the fundamental notion of interdependency -- which is often seen in many Eastern Philosophical thoughts -- as incoherent, since dependency is essentially asymmetrical.
You seem to imply that because something is fatalistic in its teaching that that should be avoided; but, then you arrive at the conclusion that the human condition is even more fatalistic. This is a sort of reductio, no?
I can not see how I have possibly implied that. I say that Buddhists attempt something that is fundamentally impossible and cover it with a mix of sophistry and hypocrisy.
Quoting Question
I grew up in a vacuum of information about sex, sexual imagery, sexual content, sexual innuendo, etc. Born in 1946, small town in rural Minnesota. No TV till the late 50s; the local movie theater ran standard fare--westerns, comedies, an occasional monster flick, that sort of thing. Small library, etc. PURE and WHOLESOME.
There was far too little in the way of information, too little content, too little sexual imagery. Like, none. Hey, great for first graders, but not so great for 16 year olds. On the other hand, children don't benefit from a glut of information, imagery, content, innuendo either. Unless the parents are AWOL, there is no reason why children would be over-loaded.
Children can get over-supplied with sexual content too early when they are given the means to peruse the internet and cable TV without supervision and oversight. Even without sexual content being available, it isn't healthy for children (or adults either) to be transfixed by the social media on digital devicee for hours on end--practically 24/7.
Personally, I think Buddhism and Stoicism hit the nail on the head as to living in virtue and true to oneself. Sex is fine in private; but, the reliance of advertisement on sex and other sources of media to sell products is worrying.
It sounds like a good life. Who needs all this fuss over sex? Keep it private and don't harass an individual with the constant bombardment with it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Who needs it?
Quoting Bitter Crank
There's an unnecessary burden on parents to be always there, watching, directing, and supervising children. It's quite a failure of society to leave all the burden on the parents to raise a child, whereas society is just this thing out there not actively encouraging growth and identity formation.
PornHub recently released their 2016 Year in Review, detailing the different search trends and statistics for the users on their website. You can also find results for previous years here.
What are people's thoughts on this?
Well, the topic of the thread is about sex... And, since the source of suffering, according to Buddhism, are desires, then sex must come up in or around the first place as a source of suffering. I only felt it appropriate to mention what Buddhism thinks about sex, along with pretty much every other religion.
But his reply wasn't.... Unless he comes around to correct us.
My reply had nothing to do with sex, I actually forgot the topic of debate until he mentioned it again.
Quoting Question
Fine...
Quoting Question
It is an obvious fact that we are sexual mammals, since that is how we reproduce -- it is in our nature. It is like telling a bird not to fly or a fish not to swim. I do not think that one should be ashamed of it, and I think that it is foolish to deny it. Life long celibacy is strongly selected against. There are exceptions, asexuality is a thing after all. Homosexuality is fascinating, and I read a research paper on it by an economist (I forgot his name, but might look it up later). The evolutionary explanation for homosexuality is complicated and is still largely unknown. Any research on those areas in the light of biology is either not funded or repelled by (mostly) leftists -- this is quite ironic since homosexuality is the only trait that must be natural according to the leftist narrative, all the rest is a social construction.
So given the importance of sexual behaviour in evolution, it is no surprise that it is surrounded with strong moralistic and complicated (evolved) emotions/feelings. If we all suddenly stop to reproduce, civilisation would be gone, but I am not an anti-natalist and keeping civilisation going gives me personally great meaning in life.
I concede that social conservatives turn out to be correct, namely that the optimal time for active sexual behaviour is after marriage -- especially if you hate to see 93% abortion rate out of sheer (in)convenience. It is a concession, because I am naturally not conservative at all. But being prude is not unique to conservatives, leftists are nowadays probably worse. Just Google "rape culture" or "gamers gate" (women being objectified in gaming). Often voiced by the movement of feminism, the same movement that strongly advocated for sexual liberation, oh the sheer irony of progressives...
None of this means that one ought to indulge in sexual behaviour, e.g. sexual harassment is illegal. Like Pinker says: "Well into my procreating years I am, so far, voluntarily childless, having squandered my biological resources reading and writing, doing research, helping out friends and students, and jogging in circles, ignoring the solemn imperative to spread my genes," he writes. "By Darwinian standards I am a horrible mistake, a pathetic loser, not one iota less than if I were a card-carrying member of Queer Nation. But I am happy to be that way, and if my genes don't like it, they can go jump in the lake."
Sexual integrity, dignity and autonomy is one's right, so I would be against any coercion. Your life, your choice indeed.
What's presumptuous is what Agustino is doing, which is posting through his usual prejudicial filter. What I have claimed is either true or false i.e. it's either true or false that long-term abstinence/celibacy is -on the whole for males*- physically and psychologically unhealthy.
There's not a lot of research on the physical and psychological effects of celibacy out there, but here's an article that references several studies about the benefits of sex:
An extract:
"In one of the most credible studies correlating overall health with sexual frequency, Queens University in Belfast tracked the mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade. The study was designed to compare persons of comparable circumstances, age and health. Its findings, published in 1997 in the British Medical Journal, were that men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm enjoyed a death rate half that of the laggards. Other studies (some rigorous, some less so) purport to show that having sex even a few times a week has an associative or causal relationship with the following:
- Improved sense of smell: After sex, production of the hormone prolactin surges. This in turn causes stem cells in the brain to develop new neurons in the brain’s olfactory bulb, its smell center.
- Reduced risk of heart disease: In a 2001 follow-on to the Queens University study mentioned above, researchers focused on cardiovascular health. Their finding? That by having sex three or more times a week, men reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half
...
- Reduced depression: Such was the implication of a 2002 study of 293 women. American psychologist Gordon Gallup Gordon Gallup reported that sexually active participants whose male partners did not use condoms were less subject to depression than those whose partners did. One theory of causality: Prostoglandin, a hormone found only in semen, may be absorbed in the female genital tract, thus modulating female hormones.
...
- Pain-relief: Immediately before orgasm, levels of the hormone oxytocin surge to five times their normal level. This in turn releases endorphins, which alleviate the pain of everything from headache to arthritis to even migraine. In women, sex also prompts production of estrogen, which can reduce the pain of PMS.
- Less-frequent colds and flu: Wilkes University in Pennsylvania says individuals who have sex once or twice a week show 30% higher levels of an antibody called immunoglobulin A, which is known to boost the immune system...."
And coming at it from the other side here's the view of an ex-monk on celibacy:
An extract:
"We sanitize eating and defecating, but you can’t do that with sex. We dance around it with courtship rituals and legal agreements, but the act itself reduces us to our animal nature. For those who need to maintain the illusion of being a rational, chosen species, that’s problematic.
Civilization’s most crucial virtue may be non-violence, but celibacy is its toughest. The enemy is within, never really vanquished — and it doesn’t end there. The sex drive is built in to our animal body, but there’s also the mammalian drive for intimacy. We need to connect, to trust and to love. It often scares us.
Which moves some people to thwart those drives. It’s certainly a sacrifice — but is it healthy, and where on earth does purity come into it? If celibacy is pure, then sex must be dirty. Catholicism supposedly sanctifies it within marriage, but that’s just a way of buying off the laity; the priesthood remains de facto superior. The other Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam, mostly consider celibacy unnatural.
Asian religions place it in even higher regard. For Buddhists and Hindus celibacy not just a source of moral purity but also of meditative prowess. In the tantric traditions, to lose semen is to squander spiritual energy. Women, of course, are hardly in a position to retain their semen, but that’s of no matter in misogynistic cultures.
For the first time, celibacy is under general attack because it’s become public knowledge that many ‘celibates’ aren’t avoiding sex at all. Some are evil and duplicitous about it, but many are basically decent people unable to master their own drives and tortured by guilt. Add to that the burden of having to be paragons of virtue, and you can only imagine the toxicity they exude. The communities in which they operate have built-in safeguards against discovery that are only somewhat less effective in these days of total exposure. They continue to encourage denial and spread deceit.
...
Whether the target is one person or a whole complicit community, you never hear anyone within these traditions suggesting that celibacy is a sick idea, that spiritual teachers and leaders need to experience intimate relationships. Sometimes intimacy goes wrong and sometimes it’s a celebration of life, but what do celibates know of this? Those who promote abstinence for ulterior motives, as I did, who spin it as a source of purity or of power, shove a part of themselves into the shadows and then claim to pursue the light. They think they’re sublimely qualified to lead sexually whole people on their quest for the purpose of life"
Quoting Agustino
Nothing I've said would preclude that. Whether its preferable or not depends on the context. When I was referring to "full top-down intellectual control" to repress the sex drive I was referring primarily to the type of repression that occurs in those who have chosen celibacy as a way of life.
(*This part is important. As I said before celibacy may be healthy for some males, but they would be the exceptions.)
People keep on repeating this as if it were a mantra. This is part of what I despise society at large for doing. "Hey, everyone else is doing it, then I should too!" Not?
It's getting to the point that we feel compelled to have sex just for the sake of it.
Let me ask you this then, apart from the 'health' reasons for having sex...
Why is it those people who do not have sex are viewed with prestige in the form of self-mastery? Isn't it kind of a testament to one's will and commitment that they can overcome this natural urge? Forgive me for romanticizing the matter; but, I find people who can overcome their desires as morally superior to those who can not or chose not to.
How awful.
Let's not fall behind the sex race!
As Jerry Seinfeld observed: "When sex is good, it's terrific; and when it is bad it's still OK."
And forgive the following bit of analysis, but this seems to me to be the nub of it. Ultimately what you want is prestige (i.e. social power) - your goal is to elevate your social self, which is natural enough, but you are frustrated by a society that considers sex as both normal and desirable. You then berate this society for not conforming to a version where your "self-mastery" would put you at the top. But why do you want to be at the top? Why do you want to be morally superior? This is where the neuroticism comes in in my view; prestige and social power are normally desired not simply as ends in themselves but, whether we are conscious of it or not, as furthering the biological end of sex. All other things being equal, those with prestige are more attractive to the opposite sex than those without it, and that's generally the underlying reason for seeking it. That's the way it works with our fellow apes and whether we like it or not that's the way it works at a basic level in human societies. Celibacy taken on as a badge of honour, so to speak, represents a short circuit of this process.
Quoting Question
Context, context. The highway to morality is not so clearly sign-posted. The person who overcomes their desire for violence is sometimes a hero and sometimes a coward. And the person who overcomes their desire for sex is sometimes prudent and sometimes a prude.
I'd say, rather, that it's quite a failure of society to not require parents "to be always there, watching, directing, and supervising children".
I don't expect or want people to be 'helicopter parents'. I expect them to be paying attention to what their children are up to. If people don't feel up to being parents, then they should get their various tubes tied or cut.
It's really fairly simple: Don't give the children a private room, a private computer, and a private internet connection; or a cellphone, or a tablet that accomplishes the same thing. Let them use this equipment in common areas of the house. Parents and children should be interacting and sharing, not all staring at private screens.
Children need age-appropriate information about human sexuality -- particularly their own sexuality. This does not mean, obviously, that 10 year olds should be instructed on the the fine points of sex on PornHub. As children grow, the age-appropriate and sexual-orientation appropriate information they need changes. Post-pubertal gay children need specific guidance, just as post-pubertal heterosexual children do. A lack of information isn't going to prevent adolescents from wanting to, and/or having sex. Without good information, they are sitting ducks for bad experiences.
Young adults can't make good decisions about education, careers, or health (lots of things) if they are totally unprepared to think about the topics. Same with sex.
Even pre-marital hand-holding (which is very sexy!) should be taken very seriously, only done between committed couples. I wish I had someone to hold hands with...boo hoo! :'(
Not to worry, TGW, there's someone for everybody. (L)
Again, "I'm not thinking about sex!"... I think the problem is that people feel compelled to not lag behind and there's quite a lot of peer pressure to join the club, so to speak. I'd argue from a different point in that sex should be treated as not something that ought be done; but, rather as it should be treated, as a private act that should take place in private and the security of a relationship.
People who practice celibacy have taken a shortcut to morality by not engaging in the quite pointless (vain) pursuit of prestige (social power) or show of superiority.
That doesn't answer the question, though. The point is that sex shouldn't be treated as a competitive sport among men. It degrades the act and turns us into beasts acting on impulses and desires only.
Quoting Question
I think that "sex in the west" varies. Not overly surprising unto itself, but it should be noted because our views of sex -- especially when it comes to how we might see people behaving differently from us -- are not likely to match up even on the most basic of terms or desires.
My initial instinct to your OP was to say, yes, I agree that there is an oddity with sex in the west -- but I think this is more the result of the love/hate relationship which we (at least in the U.S. -- I don't like the term "west" too much) are ingratiated to. It's something which we should shun, but the very act of shunning increases our desire for it -- and so we want to have sex, but we also want to not have sex in order that our desire for sex is intensified, and the satisfaction of said desire is more intense (not necessarily pleasurable) than if we just followed and acted on a desire for sexual satisfaction.
This is something that I think is basic in the U.S. regardless of religious affiliation. Religious affiliation can even work against this sort of "teaching", though also integrate with it of course. But I think the obsession with sex in the U.S., at least, has much to do with this simultaneous push and pull intermixed with moral and religious sentiments.
In addition, your second comment I've quoted speaks to something specific to U.S. masculinity (not that it doesn't apply elsewhere, but I prefer to limit myself to what I am at least familiar with). There are healthier forms of masculinity, of course, but the one projected upon us is one which is impossible to live up to, causes people to make poor choices and commitments, and in general is sex-centric in a way which is (so i believe, at least) unhealthy.
I should note here that I have no problem with casual sex, at least in a moral sense. I don't think it's something to be avoided, though I don't think it's something to be pursued -- at least for everyone -- either. Just as some people enjoy playing cards, and others enjoy watching baseball, there are also people who enjoy having casual sex. Why not, right? If all precautions are taken, and everyone is in agreement, what is the difference in a pleasurable evening over drinks and canasta vs. a pleasurable evening over drinks and fucking, morally speaking? There are religious prohibitions, and there are superstitions about what this does to our ability to form bonds with others or our current bonds with present partners, but I don't think these are necessary by any means. I can see them as possible for some people, but not for everyone -- they are not imperatives.
But that being said, the kind of masculinity we are all taught -- and our parents and religions have no power over this -- is an unhealthy sex-centric objectifying masculinity that, in some very weird way, equates sexual relationships with sports, and thereby counts sexual partners as a measure of "winning".
And that sort of sex is something I have no desire to participate in, though sex proper is really quite wonderful by my estimation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2868060/ <- this is study of the potential benefits of abstinence
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2595009/pdf/jnma00304-0164a.pdf <- this is point of view published in a medical journal
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1113245/ <- This is a criticism of another study, which by the way, you should read because you'd see how science ACTUALLY gets done
http://chastityproject.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Teen-Sex-Academic-.pdf <- this is a study of abstinence in teenagers/young adults
And I could go on... However, I only do this to show how futile this is as a way of achieving apodeictic knowledge with regards to what the case really is psychologically. Celibacy has far more health benefits than sexual intercourse if the participant is ready and prepared for it, and evidence abounds, especially historical evidence. The greatest of warriors in history for example - Miyamoto Musashi for example - practiced celibacy. It's a pity that we have these big brains today who question what is backed up by all of our present and past knowledge based on some variation of the now defunct Freud schemes, and in accordance with the dominant worldview of their culture.
I'm not sure this is the case - I've visited and lived with monks before on Mount Athos, and there is no neuroticism there, I can assure you of that. You give me a call when you even speak with a monk, much less live for awhile with them. You sound like one my friends who thinks that the celibates (monks) have orgies when no on is looking... >:O
Quoting Baden
Prestige in this context isn't equivalent to social power - it's equivalent to personal strength. It has to do with, as Kant would say, respecting your own self, and to respect your own self you have to act in accordance to the dictates of practical reason. If you give in to your lusts, then you don't respect your own self, you are shameful.
Quoting Baden
Why do you presume that sex is the biological end? That's false as I've shown in the post to BC and to you which both of you haven't addressed. Reproduction and survival - NOT sex - are the biological ends. Having sex at the wrong time or with the wrong person is CONTRARY to the biological ends. There's nothing wrong with sexual desire per se, it must be ordered to its proper aims - which aren't sexual pleasure, but love and reproduction/survival. If you're having sex in any circumstance where there is neither love nor reproduction/survival benefits then you're a fool. Please refer to my previous post on these matters a couple of pages ago for more detailed explanations
Why are you ceding the point? Pounce on it man! He says, for example, that those who have sex have lower rates of depression... isn't that because those who don't want to have sex are pressured day in and day out by the media and the surrounding culture to have it? Isn't it because modern Western culture creates an image, and enforces a standard of self-esteem on all? Don't let Baden get away with nonsense.
Nope.
Quoting Question
It's not a case of either celibacy/monogamy or sex being a competitive sport among men, so this is fallacious.
Quoting Question
Your sense of moral superiority is misplaced, or at the very least unjustified.
Your opinion isn't sufficient reason to reject a possible explanation for the data as false.
And those who practice chastity are obviously morally superior to those who do not as chastity is a virtue.
Are you blatantly lying here or have you not even read through your own links? These are not "studies showing the opposite". Your first paper is about women. I specifically said I was talking about men
Quoting Baden
(And all it finds anyway is that "Periodic, voluntary sexual abstinence was associated with positive health behaviours"). The second reference is a letter from a 21 year old woman (again) to the editor preceded by the disclaimer "The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of the National Medical Association". The third is a minor criticism of the methodology of a study that showed some benefits of sex (so what?) And the final one is about teen abstinence, which in general I think is a good idea, but which finds laughably "Current scientific evidence shows that teens who abstain from sexual activity are less likely to have children out-of-wedlock." :-|
In other words, despite obvious efforts you've turned up precisely nothing on the benefits of long term celibacy in adult men, which is the focus of my discussion with Question.
Quoting Agustino
There you go again. Having lived in a Buddhist country for almost 10 years, I've had plenty of contact with monks. Anyway, it's getting boring correcting your ignorant comments about me. Stick to the argument.
You should read the conclusion:
"Future studies should address whether abstinence has a causal role in promoting healthy behaviours or whether women with a healthy lifestyle are more likely to choose abstinence."
And the discussion:
"Due to the nature of the study, it was not possible to determine if abstinence had a causal role in these favourable behaviours or if the type of woman who exhibited these behaviours was simply more likely to choose abstinence."
No they're not, and no it isn't.
Your entire position seems to be based on what I'd say is a fallacious moral system (Christianity, I'd wager). This goes back to what I said before about using spirituality and God as justification for a claim directed at someone who believes in neither of these things. Your arguments fall flat given that I reject your premises.
What makes men different to women regarding abstinence? :s
Quoting Baden
Yes, as I said it's an opinion piece they agreed to publish. I have given you different kinds of sources if you actually bothered to pay attention. I could have given you multiple of one kind if I wanted to. But I meant to show you the directions criticisms could come from.
Quoting Baden
:-}
Quoting Baden
What's funny about this? You do realise that contrary to the twisted thinking you're inferring here, they're not suggesting that not having sex while they are teens will cause them not to have children out of wedlock when they are teens - that would be fucking self-evident. They're suggesting that if they don't have sex while teens, they're less likely (later on) to have children out of wedlock (when they're no longer teens).
Quoting Baden
I didn't know you meant celibacy in adult men, because I don't share your views. For me there's not much to distinguish men from women with regards to celibacy, or adults from teenagers for that matter.
So fine - let's talk about celibacy in adult men from now on. I'll come back to smite you with more studies soon! :D
It seems to be you who is obsessed with sex. I dont notice it in the streets, because its normal to me. To have sex is just a playful act to me, but it seems to be you who gives great importance to sex because you notice it everywhere and even make a topic about it on a internet forum.
Yeah, just a playful act, you probably have it with your mother also right? >:O
And? How did you find them?
Quoting Michael
Yeah at least I gave articles sanctified by respected medical journals not articles for stupid people from forbes. Of course, any scientist who respects himself will not jump to conclusions (unlike stupid Forbes journalists, and the quasi-scientists they quote). I hadn't actually read that Forbes article, but now that I had a look I'm utterly disgusted how, for Heaven's name, that can pass for science >:O
"But is there such a thing as too much sex?
The answer, in purely physiological terms, is this: If you’re female, probably not. If you’re male? You betcha.
Dr. Claire Bailey Claire Bailey of the University of Bristol says there is little or no risk of a woman’s overdosing on sex. In fact, she says, regular sessions can not only firm a woman’s tummy and buttocks but also improve her posture."
>:O Look! I actually can't believe my eyes. All the feminist propaganda. Just look at it. Men can have too much sex (but women can't have too much sex - which is contrary to the MEDICAL study I shared). And sex improves their posture! My days >:O
"Women who abstain from sex run some risks. In postmenopausal women, these include vaginal atrophy. Dr. Winch has a middle-aged patient of whom he says: “She hasn’t had intercourse in three years. Just isn’t interested. The opening of her vagina is narrowing from disuse. It’s a condition that can lead to dysparenia, or pain associated with intercourse. I told her, ‘Look, you’d better buy a vibrator or you’re going to lose function there.’”
(not only do they not run risks in fact, they may actually have benefits as my medical article suggests) So the doctor measured the opening of her vagina >:O and compared it with previous measurements! And then, he recommended her to buy a vibrator - what a pervert! >:O
Please this is enough. I can't read this shit >:O I actually thought Baden had provided some serious evidence before I actually opened it now. I hadn't even bothered to check until now, I took him on his word.
Quoting Michael
:-}
Baden's article is a reflection of a culture obsessed with sex, and a culture which idolizes sex, exactly as the OP states. A culture which seeks to BREED AND PRESSURE people into having sex (and seeing them as SICK if they don't - health becomes the dangling carrot to get the fools on the train). There can be no better proof for it than such an article. I can't understand how any normal and sane person can even stand to read something like that, much less give it credence. This sexual obsession is really a cultural disease of the most perverse kind - that people salivate feeding on "reasons to have sex" so they can hide their immorality behind rationalizations. I can't believe that folks actually take this seriously.
As I've explained, having no sex before marriage allows one to have a potentially stronger bond with their partner ceteris paribus, and therefore allows the creation of a strong family which can dominate the social milieu and thus ensure the greatest likelihood of not only your genes surviving, but actually thriving. Because it's of little use to spread your genes, if most of those are likely to fail to survive - that's an idiotic strategy. Monogamy and no sex before marriage originate in our biology - unless you take the dim-witted view of biology as all about sex. It's not all about sex, it's all about survival and reproduction (where sex is merely a part of that). But if you notice - nobody bothers to discuss this, and other criticism I've illustrated here:
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/44803#Post_44803
To me the silliest thing is that those people who love to be promiscuous hate having children, many of them don't even want to get married! In what way are they even fulfilling their biology? >:O They prefer to point fingers and say how I hold religious motivations, and that's why I believe so and so, but they forget that I became a social conservative before I became religious, and even if I was an atheist, I would be a social conservative. Then they prefer to repeat "Oh you haven't proved anything!" as if they expected some logical proof, the kind of proof one would give for the Theorem of Pythagoras. The only truth in this matter is the broadness of your explanatory framework and its simplicity - in other words, the more your explanatory framework can explain, the more likely it is to be true. That's how we judge psychological theories. It's about their explanatory power. And the sex-centered model just fails to account for large parts of human behaviour, human biology, and actual reality - not as we find it culturally conditioned.
The rest of what you say is unpersuasive pseudo-wisdom, reciting the terms under which you've found meaning in your life, like anyone finds it important. Tiring evangelism of sorts really. Has your prosthelsyzing brought you any converts?
No they suffer of a different kind of problem than your society, that much is obvious.
And if you imply that I think women should dress in heavy clothes to hide their "sexuality" - you're very deluded. First of all, clothes have nothing to do with sexuality. A woman can dress fully covered and still behave sexually in her flirting, etc. Really, this is so tiring to deal with, it's hardly even worth refuting. When you bother to form some coherent argument, give me a call.
Second of all - I don't think women should dress in heavy clothes and cover everything. There's a difference between decency and covering everything you know... Decency - perhaps you should remember that conservative virtue.
Quoting Hanover
:-d Why would I need or want converts? I am just investigating the prejudices that others have, and outlining the mechanisms by which they are enforced in the current social milieu. I think you should be worried if you call yourself a conservative and you don't see a problem with current Western society with regards to sexuality. The fact is, it's a pity - you're not even standing up for real Western values - it's folks like me who are doing that. You're standing up for an ideological virus that has infected modern culture and has run our civilization amok towards destruction (you should ponder the meaning of that 50% divorce rate, the rising out-of-wedlock birth rate, and so forth). You should read up on what the Ancients who lived in the West thought about, that virtue called chastity for example. You may then find something interesting about the real Western culture which is currently buried in this rubble of hedonism and progressivism.
Anyway, goodluck in your conservatism - conserving the virtue of sex before marriage and promiscuity! Russell Kirk would certainly be proud of you sunny! ;)
How long did you live with them? Details, please.
Around 2 weeks. It was a very nice experience, I'd go there again sometime.
Had the chance to stay at Mount Athos and you left, lmao.
This is very sad. Does anyone else see this as a great fall in the importance of wholesome and pure relationships? So many people are growing up with false expectations from their partner, and it only seems to feed of itself.
Not really. People who can abstain from sex and not be guided by desires are indeed in some sense "better" individuals than those who only act on instincts and desires. Ask any woman...
Yes, but there are other benefits to celibacy and abstinence than those detailed in scientific papers. I will actually agree with you that on the whole of it, sex, has a bodily function that leads to better health. However, this is not the point I am attempting to make. Morally a person who can abstain from sex is a much more mature person than one who "needs" it.
People who can discriminate on "needs" and "wants" are, in my humble opinion, more mature and rational individuals.
Why? >:O For someone like me, going there is good for spiritual regeneration, but not to stay there completely.
And... as for pink ploughing, why not join me? :D
Advertising is all about selling products--one of which is not sex. The sexual allure promised for the many products advertised is limited to the product. It doesn't, it shouldn't, extend to actual sex. That would defeat the whole bait & switch purpose of advertising and selling.
The amusing ads for Old Spice deodorant are a good example:
Old Spice, or anything else, won't make you the man of your dreams, and it won't get you the woman of your dreams, either. It isn't intended to. The product is a means to profitability, not to personal fulfillment, which is the bait.
Commercial programming is also bait -- to keep you in front of the TV so that you can view the commercials. Titillating suggestions of sex will keep you on the couch longer than public policy discussions.
How do people get sex? They go out and look for it. They hunt--maybe at work, maybe at a bar, maybe at church, maybe on the school bus--wherever. They go out with potential partners, they plead, whine, coax, pet, kiss, pounce, and so on and so forth. The thing is, they don't get sex from advertising, and in reality, advertising doesn't tell them how to succeed.
Changes in sexual behavior have occurred over at least 60-70 years, 2 or 3 generations, and have been brought about by things like oral contraceptives, population mobility, women's and gay liberation, changes in the workplace (a large percentage of women in the workforce), mobilization and demobilization before and after wars, a decline in church attendance and interest in religion, secularization, changes in welfare spending, and so on and so forth.
People having sex is a market - for condoms, for sex toys, for medication for STDs, for abortions, for contraceptives, for pornography, for dating agencies/websites, for alcohol, etc. So what you're saying isn't the complete truth, again. People having more sex = more business of all sorts - including psychotherapy, and whatever else people need because they fuck themselves up through improper actions. The more hyped up the desire for sex is - as you are hyping it up for example - the more markets exist, and the more stupidly people behave, and so the more others can earn. Having folks in the chains of lust is a good way to sell to them. If we didn't hype up people's sex-drive, we couldn't even use sex in advertising. We use it precisely because we have gotten to the point where we've destroyed morality, and have gotten most people to give in to their lusts. And so, if they give in to their lusts, they will keep buying our products. Quite simple math. If I was a rich capitalist, I wouldn't want the common people to be free of lust... that would be fucking terrible, how I would I get them to buy all sorts of shit then?
Advertising sex as good for health is, for example, a way to get people interested in sex. Then when I advertise my deodorant, people are more interested in it, because they associate sex with something far more important than it actually is. Why? Because I have trained them to do so. And it's always easier to train people to give in to lust, than to train them in virtue. That's actually an interesting subject - why is that?
1. Plane hits WTC, there is fire on the floors around where the plane hit and a big hole in the building.
2. The building ultimately falls, straight down, collapsing upon itself.
Now notice that in the facts, there is no independent evidence for explosives being placed in the building. Explosives are at best a deduction from (2). Now my argument is that if we find a way to account for the collapse based solely on the facts, without appealing to additional elements (such as explosives through the building) - then that hypothesis is preferable for its simplicity, until and unless we have independent evidence for explosives (this fits in with the idea of Occam's Razor in philosophy). I have produced a mechanism which can explain the collapse given just the two elements of evidence we have. I'm unaware of any independent evidence for explosives. Thus I will prefer that hypothesis, because there is no independent evidence to give sufficient reason for hypothesising explosives, nor are explosives necessary to account for the facts.
Consider also that placing explosives through the building would have been a complicated procedure, especially considering the number of people that were and worked in there. Overall, while it is a possibility - I doubt it. I wouldn't be willing to bet on it.
Better in what sense? Morally? Again, no. And it's not a case of either you're celibate or you act only on instinct and desire, so that's a strawman.
But they are morally better than folks who give in to their lusts. Proper relationships are a different game, we're not discussing that here. We're discussing casual sex vs celibacy. Certainly celibacy is infinitely superior from a moral point of view. Why would you hold they're not morally better? I'm actually curious, why would you say that?
Yes; but, no plane hit WTC7, and yet it fell symmetrically and on its own footprint. Steel framed concrete buildings don't just fall from office fires. It's just impossible unless the people who designed the buildings were high on LSD.
No they're not.
Quoting Agustino
No it isn't.
Quoting Agustino
You might as well ask why I don't think that not eating apples is morally superior to eating them every now and again. To claim that it is is completely unjustified, as is the claim that celibacy is morally superior to casual sex.
So are you, or are you not able to give a reason why you hold your position? In the former case, I'd like to hear it. In the latter case, then I'll ask you to agree that as you have no reason for holding it, to do so is irrational.
It seems that all you can do to refute my statements is to say no. That ain't good enough mate.
I've given you the reason. I have no reasons to believe that celibacy is morally superior to casual sex. All you have is a bare assertion that it is. That ain't good enough mate.
Okay so the reason is simply that you don't know, so you're afraid to say it is so for fear of making a mistake, when you don't in fact know what the case is. If this is so, why are you saying my statement is false, instead of asking me what reasons I have for holding it as true?
Because it is false.
I'm guessing it has something to do with your Christian faith. Either that or, based on some of the things you've said before, a naturalistic fallacy.
Ah so you do have knowledge about it. Why do you think it is false? Not having reasons to believe it isn't sufficient to hold that it is positively false. So what are your reasons for holding it is false?
Quoting Michael
How is this possible granted that I became a social conservative before I became a Christian?
It can be. I don't need evidence that there isn't a cat in my kitchen to believe (and claim) that there isn't a cat in my kitchen.
And at the very least, I'm free to reject your claim that celibacy is morally superior given that it hasn't been justified. I think that in lieu of evidence to the contrary it's reasonable to assume moral equality (or even a lack of a moral value altogether). It's enough to justify my claim that not eating apples isn't morally superior to eating them every now and again.
But if you must know, when it comes to meta-ethics I'm an anti-realist, combining emotivism, prescriptivism, nihilism, and relativism. I interpret your claims as being of the realist bent, and moral realism doesn't make any sense at all.
But you do have evidence in your knowledge that you don't have cats in your house + neither do you have a reason to believe that one could have gotten in. So you do have evidence - namely your knowledge about what is (or should be) in your house. The framework against which you judge - that is the evidence (which of course you built from experience etc.)
Quoting Michael
Ah good, now we're getting somewhere. Explain this more please.
Exactly. And I don't have a reason to believe that celibacy is morally superior to casual sex.
Sorry, can't be bothered with a debate on meta-ethics.
It strikes me that those who go without are either (1) misled religiously, (2) asexually constructed, or (3) socially incapable. Advocating chastity therefore arises because you either (1) wish to convert others to your religion, (2) are incapable of understanding sexuality due to your own asexuality, or (3) are trying to justify your own social limitations.
Yes but you need to have a background framework which makes this conclusion reasonable - such as you have knowledge about your house, with regards to not believing there is a cat in your kitchen.
:-} And suppose your premise is wrong? Suppose it is nonsense to say that giving in to your lusts is morally superior to being celibate?
Listen mate, the fact you maybe can't hold your dong in your pants isn't our fault. It's your fault for not cultivating the virtue of chastity.
Why?
I have a background framework. I understand that it is good to be kind to people and bad to be needlessly cruel to them. I'm a capable moral agent who understands moral norms. And yet despite this understanding I cannot see how celibacy is morally superior to casual sex.
lawl, thuper thurprised
Morality doesn't involve just being kind to others and not being cruel to them.
The priest on the other hand lives a life being compassionate towards others, focusing on helping them develop spiritually, being unconcerned with sex or making a family because he doesn't want to be devoted just to a small set of people, but rather to everyone who needs his help. Going to Church, counselling people on their problems, being an agent of change in their lives... Let's see, which would I rather choose? The humiliated but socially integrated Russell or the tranquil but family-less priest?
Great excuse not to deal with matters when they get real, not merely some "casual sex" in a beaker isolated from the rest of life. Sure it's difficult in real life. It's not that easy to walk the talk. There are costs to social integration - sometimes it's not worth paying the price. And you laugh maybe, but look at that divorce rate. I wish you luck beating the odds of your social integration mate, you'll need it.
You have high expectations.
A charlatan who'd rather appease his desires of sex and procreative ownership than angle himself fully toward God.
>:O But certainly God must be happy in my happiness no? He made man and woman one for the other didn't he? Why would God have made sex possible if it wasn't meant to have some role to play? I've spent time with monks but the thing is, the vocation of being fully angled toward God isn't for everyone. God made a few like that, and the rest of us not so. It's important to distinguish which one you are. If you are capable of devoting yourself entirely to God, that's great! But not everyone has to live in such a way - it's not an imperative for everyone.
Each one has a role to play in this world. That's what the monks have taught me. You must seek out your role and play it virtuously.
Could you give us a sample of advertising "sex as good for health" or "a way to get people interested in sex"? If you think I was saying that, you are wrong. We are not conditioned to be interested in sex (at least between the ages of 15 and 45). We are conditioned, if at all, to associate products with sex, and the goal of the conditioning is sales of products, not sex. Proctor and Gamble, Lever, et al have no interest in sexual activity, only in selling products.
Quoting Agustino
And condoms and sex toys, medications for STDs, etc. are such a huge business! As for alcohol, back in the sex-restrictive days of Victoriana, alcohol consumption was much greater than it is now. Go back to the 18th century, and the volume of alcohol drinking was amazing. (They weren't drinking large amounts of hard alcohol because the water wasn't any good, either.)
Quoting Agustino
Actually, I have been employed to hype sex -- safer sex, safe sex, harm reduced sex, and harm-reduced IV drug use--in social marketing for AIDS prevention. You know what -- it's damned difficult to get people to change sexual behavior with advertising. People change sexual behavior (or they don't) much more on the basis of personal experience than public messages. Ten friends dropping dead from AIDS motivates more behavior change than all the advertising in the world. A pregnancy scare, an AIDS scare, an STD--all these things are more motivating than preaching.
Tinder or Grindr facilitates sexual partner finding, but it doesn't give people the idea to have sex. It doesn't need to.
Based on earlier testimony, we have already determined that you have no competence to pontificate about people's sexual behavior.
Please refer to the article from Forbes that Baden has linked :P
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes we are, because if we weren't, sexual advertising wouldn't work. We first need to be made to think sex of any kind is a great great thing, only then can we mindlessly start pursuing it. It's not just that we think sex CAN be a great thing - that arises naturally in us. We naturally think sex can be a great thing in love and marriage when it is directed towards intimacy and children. But that sex outside of those circumstances can be a great thing - that doesn't arise naturally. That's a perversion of our sexual instinct.
Let me put it this way. It would be strange to love a woman romantically and not want to have sex with her. Sex definitely has a role and purpose in human economy. But outside of those conditions, it malfunctions; it loses its purpose. The sexual instinct, in its natural and untainted conditions, isn't end in itself. It's a means to some other end. What is that end, tell me BC?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes they do - they also advertise for themselves.
Quoting Bitter Crank
No, based on my earlier testimony we have determined that I'm not a sex-crazed freak, and therefore have all the right to encourage others to become more rational about their behaviour, and stop harming themselves in stupid ways.
Since when is sex a "need" instead of a "want"? Quite confused that people "need" it instead of wanting or desiring it.
I think this raises an interesting problem. Even the materialist and atheist Epicurus considered sex to be a natural desire, but not a need. He distinguished between three types of desire - natural and necessary desires (such as food, water, air, sleep - these we call needs today), natural and non-necessary desires (like sex, this we call a want), and artificial desires (like the desire for fame - which he claimed are empty and vacuous).
To consider sex a need is an entirely modern invention, and quite frankly it screams weakness to me from 100 miles. "woah woah I need my toy!" cries the kid. Really? I thought we're supposed to grow up and put behind childish things, but apparently not. Nobody dies from not having sex. Yet try to go without eating and drinking for a few days, and you'll see what happens.
Personally - I consider the sexual instinct, in its untainted form, to be nothing bad - like Epicurus said, a natural desire. For example, I consider it natural for someone to desire children, a family, intimacy and love. That's not a need, it is a want, although it is a natural want, as opposed to an artificial one. But this kind of sexual instinct doesn't find its fulfilment except in particular circumstances - love, and life-long commitment to each other and the children. However - these things aren't always possible, or at least aren't possible in just about any circumstance or in just about any point in time. And there's nothing wrong in living without them, because again, it is a want. The fact that it is a natural want makes no difference to this. Only the factor of necessity is relevant. It's immoral to deny yourself necessities - like food, water, and so forth. And if you think about it, by not engaging in casual sex you aren't even denying yourself anything, because casual sex wouldn't fulfil the end goal of sex anyway (neither intimacy nor children would occur). You're just recognising that at present your natural desire cannot find the object of its fulfilment. This recognition is the way you accept your sexual instinct without repression contrary to what BC and Baden think. Having casual sex would just make you feel guilty and frustrated at yourself - it would certainly not fulfil your desire. That's why it is irrational. It's not even helpful.
But you see, the moderns, in order to be able to propagate the idea of promiscuity and casual sex, must make sex into a necessity - otherwise how can they claim, as Hanover does, that to live a celibate lifestyle is immoral and inferior? Furthermore, the even deeper problem is that it's not the Churches tricking people into celibacy - even the materialist and atheist Epicurus advocated celibacy for the sage.
I've been listening to this Hanover type of rhetoric almost all my life, especially when I lived in the West. A rhetoric which is actually quite blind to many of the realities of life. I don't mean to insult Hanover, but I often find this rhetoric in those who are well educated, but not very well educated - they are superficial, they see just the surface of the issues.
I'd like to murder people, because that's what I think is virtuous.
Am I doing it right?
No Sir, but that can't be the role God has created for you, can it?
"Need" tends to be understood in a sense of human destiny, as if all human are programmed to perform sex by merely existing. It forms sort of an image of humanity under which there is no question of whether an individual desires sex or if it's an ethical action to take.
Within the context of debates about celibacy and sexual behaviour, it forms a significant prejudice against those who are interested in sex or refrain form having. They are effectively aren't considered human becasue the do not manifest interested and behaviour all humans supposedly "need."
Though "desire" isn't a good term here either because it ignores the issue at stake: empathy for those for whom sex is a good thing.
I would have said that desire and need are two different things, as they are. This changes things considerably.
I'm going to take a Buddhist/Stoic turn here and argue that a person who has mastery over every one of their desires is, by all means, a Sage or has attained perfection in self-mastery. Nothing could bother such a person.
People who are slaves to their desires/urges/wants are weak and slavish. I don't think I need to dredge up the multitude of philosophical positions in favor of this interpretation.
Oh common, as if the whole game doesn't change if they are desires and not needs? Really Hanover. Have some dignity man. This is philosophy, not your local pub, where you can take your anachronistic and medieval views against celibacy for granted.
I mean, don't you look at sages like Epicurus, Epictetus, Aristotle, etc. and what they said about sex and celibacy? Do you really take your own self to be above all of them, such that you can denounce their views without even mounting an argument against it, by mere prejudice and sophistry? Have you made yourself into a latter day Hume? I get that you like to live your life as part of modern culture and buy into the views that the media is feeding you. You think that's normal because that's how you grew up, you're like the man in Plato's cave, you know nothing else about what's outside. And you think celibacy is abnormal because you haven't been surrounded by it, so it is alien to you and strange. Therefore you are prejudiced against it. That's very unphilosophical, and it's sad to see that your argument ended with that - mere prejudice.
When I give you a hypothetical scenario to show you that the celibate priest can have a better life than the socially integrated man you proposed in your views, you refuse to answer and say that's stupid. Really - these tactics are shameful. When things don't go your way, you stop playing. That's not nice. You're doing precisely what the thread title says - idolising sex. You've made yourself a God out of it - you worship it, you NEED it, you can't live without it, and anyone who wants to live without it is crooked and sick. You complain about the celibate priest worshipping at the altar of God, and yet you worship with your tongue at the altar of pussy.
Hmmm... I think this needs to be qualified in some way, and I find it to be more Stoic than Buddhist personally... Buddhism is more about the extinguishing of and limiting of desire (similar to Epicureanism) than the right-ordering of desire (I take Stoicism and Aristotelianism to be more about right-ordering). Certainly being imperturbable is a very good thing. However, there's two ways, largely, to achieve this. One could be imperturbable by limiting their desires, and focusing all their joys in the very basics - as Buddhism or Epicurus would advocate, or one could be imperturbable by understanding their real and true desires, and then seeking to fulfil only those desires which are possible to fulfil at the time being (Aristotle, Stoicism, Aquinas, etc. would advocate this). For example - I can seek to fulfil the natural desire of love and intimacy in a relationship all I want, but if the circumstances don't make this possible right now, all my seeking will be pure suffering and being perturbed at worst, and at best, they'll end up in failure. But if I understand this, then I will not seek it unless it is ready-to-hand, in front of me, guaranteed. I prefer this equanimity which is always at rest, but always ready to move, than the equanimity that results from the limiting of desire.
What are your views on these two ways of achieving a state of imperturbability?
Would God assign you to do evil? Do you think God has prepared thorns for you?
If he orders you to do evil, would he be God? Would God be God if he were evil? Isn't Goodness part of what makes God God?
Because God is deserving of worshipping. God is deserving that you angle your whole life towards Him. If He were evil, instead of good, would he be as deserving? What makes God deserving of worship? Is it his might and power? Or is it his love and goodness?
Who says all this is God?
If this isn't God, would God be worth worshipping?
Why worship at all? And I still am not sure how you've come to know precisely what God is and is not.
God cannot be evil by definition. That's simply part of what we mean by God. If God were evil, then that would be no different than there being no God at all. Literarily it would be indistinguishable from the scenario where there is no God, but there is an all-powerful and cruel evil demon as in Descartes' dreams. Power itself isn't sufficient to count as what we mean by God.
Ah, so you define God, not God, whatever God is.
I'm saying that I simply wouldn't consider that whatever to be God if He is not Good. If God, whatever God is appeared in front of me, and God wasn't good, then I wouldn't consider Him God.
Because I am drawn to Goodness. Goodness is the end in-itself, that for which we do all things. Reason is directed towards goodness - we do things because we think them to be good. Even the criminal does things because he thinks them to be good. He's not a criminal in-so-far as he does things which he thinks good (he's actually a saint in-so-far as he does that), he's a criminal only in-so-far as he's mistaken about what actually is good - it's a mistake of judgement, not one of reason in other words. Because reason functions in this manner all by itself, we only have being in-so-far as we seek goodness; and we lack being in-so-far as we're mistaken in our judgements. But it's important to note that we can't ever be fully mistaken so long as we're still rational. So long as we're rational, we'll pursue the good - whatever we identify the good to be. So in-so-far as we do that, we always have some being. It's all about clarifying judgement, and therefore realising what the good most fully is. If someone thinks the good is killing people, then he's making a mistake in judgement, and he will reap the rewards of what he has seeded - suffering and pain - failing to find his fulfilment.
Because God is Good, God has Being.
Yes, because goodness is telling people they worship at the altar of pussy and using the word "fuck" a lot. No one is falling for your bullshit, Agustino. All you've done in this discussion is distract from a potentially sensible debate with Question and I'm not going to let you continue to get away with that.
I'm not surprised. I am defending the identity of the celibate and sexually restrained. Alas, you do not extend the same curtesy when I point out your naturalistic fallacies about human sexual behaviour.
In logical terms, I fear your agreement is a bit of a marriage of convenience: a pragmatic assertion because it opposes a discourse claims prominent sexually is a necessary human trait, rather than respect for avoiding the equivocation of human behaviour and ethics with status.
But then pretty much par of the course when discussing human sexually. In discussion and debates about human sexuality, most of it is directed towards "justifying" behaviour and status, rather than understanding sex itself and its relationship to ethics. The liberals come our with nonsense like "it's only physical pleasure" or "people should do whatever why want" or "prostitution is always a wonderful service for everyone." On the other side, people like yourself ignore the interests and actions of some people, to entrench an image and status to a particular way of life (e.g. life-long relationships, sexual exclusivity, etc.,etc.) disconnected from people's sexual behaviour and relationships.
>:O
So drawn to "Goodness" that you'd rather please your penis than live a still life among monks, >:O
Quoting Agustino
All things? Nope.
Quoting Agustino
Just how you think having children is good.
Quoting Agustino
So who judges his judgement to be wrong? You? If so, who judges your judgement of his judgement?
Quoting Agustino
This doesn't follow at all.
Quoting Agustino
How'd you figure this out?
Quoting Agustino
One cannot pursue that which he is not pursuing. I've never intended to wreck my car, but if I do, such does not mean that I pursued such an end merely because it happened.
Quoting Agustino
I can say the same of your own judgement, that marital sex in fact propagates suffering and pain. According to your wonky logic, my judgement is as right as yours.
Quoting Agustino
Good is Good, but what is God?
Has? So God's supposed Being is as much a quality as our own being...interesting......
Given your avatar, I'm getting some Guy Fawkes vibes here, >:O
Yeah too bad that my argument wasn't even about that. It was about the direction of rationality itself, which is always aimed at the good. Even if goodness isn't using the word fuck a lot, that has nothing to do with the argument I was actually making there. I am directed towards goodness even when I do bad, because I do the said action thinking it is good. It's a mistake in judgement that makes the difference, as I said.
Quoting Baden
How about you or BC or Hanover actually even start addressing any of my arguments?
We tried and within a couple of posts you descended into a potty-mouthed rant. I guess you need a few more trips to Mount Athos before you can figure out why that's a bad thing.
Well, for the most part, I have found what Agustino has said to be pretty agreeable. I don't think he has said anything outrageous, like the sort you might see coming from a religious zealot about going to hell for masturbating, which is another matter altogether.
All in all, this has been a wholesome and good debate in my opinion.
Glad you're happy. Anyway, that's enough meta for now. Let's get back to the matter at hand.
Fair game, I'll readdress your post.
Quoting Hanover
What my readings in philosophy have taught me, meaning where I'm coming from, is that unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering and anguish, which in turn lead to other undesirable emotions. I don't think there's much controversy over that.
As a constantly aspiring Stoic, I feel compelled to listen to my brethren Christians and not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life. Please understand that I have nothing against people who indulge in pleasures and such matters. However, I hold people who can master their desires and wants in higher regard to those who do not... and the history of philosophy and religion would stand with me in that value of self-mastery.
I hope to have clarified where my position is coming from, rather from some neuroticism or other psychobabble some might assume.
And that is a perfectly reasonable position to take. You are entitled to hold in high regard people who master their desires, if you so wish. I too think it a good idea for people to be on top of their desires, rather than the other way around. I admire people who have been very faithful and devoted to their good political causes, even though they were pretty much lost from the get go. They may have been fools, but... so be it.
Quoting Question
Well, the dividing line between good psycho-social theory and practice and psychobabble has always been kind of fuzzy. I think there is such a thing as good psycho-social theory, and I've heard plenty of psychobabble too.
That I need to find a time machine and go back to the 1950's.
Yes, but if sex is available it would be a fulfilled natural desire like eating and sleeping. And if it's not available, there's no need to make any effort to deny it to yourself.
Quoting Question
I don't necessarily accept that "self-mastery" is the right phrase here. I associate self-mastery with the elimination of negative behaviours and the cultivation of positive ones. Sex is certainly not a negative behaviour on a biological level. It's actually beneficial for health as we've more or less agreed. Then on a social and emotional level, some types of sex may be good, some bad, and it's quite possible to avoid the bad and pursue the good. Finally, on an intellectual level sex is more or less irrelevant either way. Given that, I would refer to the long-term self-denial of sex more as self-mortification than self-mastery just as denying yourself junk food might be referred to as self-mastery while denying yourself the required amount of calories a day -even if the food is healthy- would be self-mortification.
Quoting Question
Hand-waving isn't an argument. We have drives and they have psychological effects and it doesn't take much psychobabble to work out that denying natural drives may cause physical and psychological harm. Having said that, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If you find celibacy works for you, then it works, and no amount of psychological theorizing can make it wrong.
Yes; but, we are insatiable creatures. Nothing seems to satisfy us. I might be taking things to the extreme; but, I deny myself any wants and desires that are contrary to reason.
Quoting Baden
You call it self-mortification, I call it self-mastery. Semantics.
Quoting Baden
But, isn't it amazing that we can overcome these drives and desires? There is an implicit triumph of reason and intellect over the incessant pangs of the most primitive aspect of human nature.
St. Augustine's Confessions can be summarized in that he stopped having sex because he loved God so much more.
Quoting Agustino
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Which things don't you do because you think them good?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Again, this doesn't disprove my point. Even if I'd rather please my penis (he said it!) than live a still life among monks, all that means is that I judge it to be good to please my penis, hence why I do it. I may be wrong now in my judgement - that pleasing my penis is good - but it doesn't follow from that that I'm not directed towards goodness.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Yes kinda like that.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
In this case me. Everyone judges for themselves.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
You are defined by reason - it is part of your essence to be a rational animal. If you don't seek goodness, then you are irrational, and if you are irrational you - the rational animal - doesn't exist.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
By watching the structure of our reasoning faculty, and noticing that it is always aimed towards goodness, even when I do evil.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
My logic doesn't determine which judgement is right. It only makes the point that we're both pursuing our paths because we judge them to be good. That's a commonality we share, despite all our differences.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Goodness is more primary than Being - that's the idea.
I recommend that you set the dial on the time machine farther back than the 1950s. The 1950s were the nativity decade of beatniks, Hells Angels, rock and roll, discovering communists and homosexuals under every bush, and other harbingers of the various sexual horrors that were to come.
Skip the 1940s -- too much WWII. The 1930s were kind of bad, what with the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, and massive government overreach. Prohibition in the 1920s was a great corruptor, with all sorts of people from different races and classes mixing at illegal bars--way too loose. The Klamp Down Ladies had lost their grip. The 19-teen years ended up with World War I, so you will probably want to skip that decade too.
The first decade of the 20th Century might be suitable. There was quite a bit of interesting technical innovation; the Klamp Down Ladies still had society under control what with Jim Crow and Edwardian manners. Hypocrisy was rife but sex was officially out of sight (and not the 60s "out of sight, man" kind). Alert I: the century did begin with a Presidential Assassination - President McKinley on September 14, 1901, so bad things were already happening to good people. McKinley had led America to a Glorious Victory in the Spanish American War, and had erected protective tariffs for the Good of All. Alert II: There were Bohemians in New York who practiced deviant life styles, but you'll be able to avoid them if you settle in Peoria, Illinois -- Bohemians didn't play in Peoria.
Once you leave the 20th century, you'll have to choose your times carefully. Sex reared its sultry head ever so often. Mozart wrote an opera about a famous serial seducer, Don Giovanni. It premiered on October 28, 1787.
It is always difficult to grasp precisely what people did or didn't feel or do in historical periods to which we are not privy. Whether such a thing as "self esteem" exists now, or existed in the past, and whether it has any importance at all has been debated here recently. My assumption is that good sex (however the two parties defined it) has usually been pleasing to people, but not always. Individual psychology usually plays a bigger role than culture when it comes to personal satisfaction.
I would agree that manners have often ruled out open, certainly public, detailed discussions of sexual behavior. I don't know how my parents talked about sex (they were born in 1905 and 1907) because they practically never did. We children were raised in a small crowded house, so... We are all pretty sure that they didn't.
Quoting Agustino
You may not, but I think there is a difference between manners and morals. Morals might dictate that infidelity is wrong. Manners might rule that discrete infidelity without messy entanglements (like inconvenient offspring) is socially acceptable. In saying that, I am not saying that manners trumps morality, (Donald doesn't seem to know the difference) but, for some people, manners governs behavior more than morals--and it has for centuries.
Please don't argue with me here; I am not claiming that infidelity is OK. I am only claiming that the rules of morals and manners are not the same thing. Personally, I generally favor morals over manners.
Manners have at various times been at odds with morals, and people did sometimes opt for good manners over morals -- thinking of some characters in the Canterbury Tales for instance, which Chaucer started writing around 1389. Several of the Tales are about sexual (mis?)behavior, with details (check out the Miller's Tale).
The lesson here is that including these ribald tales in the book for public consumption was OK in 1389. People enjoyed the story about the young lady who thrust her derriere out the window (in the dark) to be kissed, rather than her head, and the man being surprised that "the lady had a beard".
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) wrote the Decameron, which is like the Canterbury Tales -- it's a conceit that a group of people told these stories to each other to pass the time. There's also hanky panky there -- some of it involving nuns, as I recollect (it's been a long time since).
How can it be discrete if there's always the possibility that the other party will find out? :s It seems to me whoever thinks it can be discrete is deluding themselves.
To me that reads more like a question of ignoring the behaviour or not raising it, rather than it being beyond discovery. Something like a society which pretends nothing is going on for social decorum, where manners are more important than recognising or stopping abuse.
I agree with you. But I'm asking the question to BC, apparently he thinks it can be discrete, and if it's discrete, it's somehow less morally wrong than otherwise because, for example, he might think someone can only be hurt by what they know, not by what they don't know. So say I cheat on my wife, BC may be of the opinion that I've done no wrong, so long as I'm careful to cover the tracks and my wife never finds out. This opinion is very common actually in the public at large.
Typing on a keyboard is not a good, or any other amoral action.
Quoting Agustino
Casanova might have said and done the same thing. He was having sex because he judged that it was the good.
Yep, you may be wrong. You also may be wrong about your judgement of the good always being sought, regardless of wrong judgments!
Quoting Agustino
Great, so you judged God to be and not the other way around. Glad we've settled that!
Quoting Agustino
Goodness is not rationality, however. One may be rational without striving for the good. If you contest that, okay, but then what will you, and I, use in order to best find the truth to our disagreement? Ah yes,reason.
Quoting Agustino
Sounds like a good excuse to fuck bitches since we're aimed at "God" regardless of what we do.
Quoting Agustino
As I said before, you have judged that we all pursue the good, which means that such a judgement cannot be true because you've already said that "logic doesn't determine which judgement is right."
Quoting Agustino
And an unintelligible one at that.
You type on a keyboard because you want to communicate, and you want to communicate because you see it as good no?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Sure.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
That's not a judgement but the observation of the way reason functions.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I agree.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Nope. They will think they're striving for the good, even while they're not - just like Casanova.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Our faculties of judgement.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Nope - that's not what I said. If you know that ****ing bitches is wrong, and you go and **** bitches, then you're just acting irrationally. (I promised Baden not to say that word >:O but you're tempting me :P ) If you don't know that doing the bitches is wrong - and instead you think it's good - then you are sinning, but you are acting rationally.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
A judgement isn't the same as an observation. We observe facts. We judge meanings.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Not to Plato ;)
I did not say that manners were more important than morals. I said "I generally favor morals over manners". In the judgement of people who value manners very highly, however, "discretion is the better part of valor" as Falstaff says to King Henry IV in the eponymously named play. In the past as in the present, those with lots of power and wealth to control their PR could get away with more than you could, for example. The associates of the rich and powerful almost always had a good deal to gain by (almost always) valuing decorum above legal proceedings.
Quoting Agustino
Anyone who has worked in public health programs knows that what people do not know can definitely hurt them.
As for your cheating on your wife, especially considering everything you have said about adultery, you would be so very, very guilty of sin that possibly your burning at the stake would not be too severe. But I digress.
Sins, crimes, and wrong-doing not discovered are still sins, crimes, and wrong-doing whether anybody knows about it or not. That said, the consequences of sins, crimes, and wrong-doing might be greatly lessened for everyone concerned IF nobody new about it. For instance...
Russia and the United States spy on each other. Everybody in the spied-upon-country counts this as a very bad thing. But it continues, and is carried out between many allies and enemies. It is normal operating procedure. Spying causes real losses to the spied-upon and real gains for the spying upon. Again, SOP. The worst thing that can happen is for a spy operation to be revealed. Revelations disrupt SOP in the spying nation as well as the spied upon nation. It is better for covert operations if the two nations acknowledge (very privately) that there was a slip up, and then carry on as per usual.
Carrying on as per usual doesn't mean anybody is happy about spying; it just means that they recognize that spying is a matter that should be kept private--at home and abroad. Revealing all this stuff is just bad manners. Putin was publicly caught trying to fiddle with American Elections and the Russians have been punished, both publicly and (presumably) privately. (Nobody thinks the punishments were very painful, except perhaps to a few very inconvenienced operatives who had to return to Russia, of all places.) No more beach side clam bakes for them! Putin said the Russians would magnanimously not retaliate in kind. Does that mean that Putin is taking the high road? Heavens, no. It just means that Putin will proceed to retaliate in private. And when he does, we will probably not say anything about it.
A different case: If a child is found to have had sex with the child next door (lets say they are 8 and 10), the worse thing that can happen for the two children is for the 4 parents to go berserk on the two children that had an unauthorized sexual encounter. The parents' hysteria means that the children will never discuss sex with their parents again--ever. The consequences are worse than the "crime".
I don't intend to do the good by typing on a keyboard, no. It's about as amoral an action you can get.
Quoting Agustino
Fine, it's my observation that you're wrong. We good, now?
Quoting Agustino
How do you know that he's not?
Quoting Agustino
The same faculties that brought you to the conclusion that we only seek the good, >:O
Quoting Agustino
You're not allowing for disagreement between judgments.
Quoting Agustino
Fucking bitches is not factually wrong. And if you'd like to judge whether it's morally wrong, then what do you have to use in order to do that? Reason. The same thing that governs why someone may think the complete opposite.
So, you're OK with bestiality then?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Do you intend to communicate by typing on a keyboard? If you do, then why do you intend to communicate? Because you think this is good.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
You don't OBSERVE right and wrong, you judge things to be right and wrong. You observe facts - for example the color of leaves of the tree out your window.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
My judgement tells me.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Actually no, because the faculty of judgement =/ reason in the way I've been using it. Reason is the way we function - we do things for certain reasons. That's what rationality is - a creature is rational if it holds reasons for doing X and Y.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Yep, we judge it to be wrong. But this isn't to say our judgements can be objective.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
If I judge it to be wrong, I clearly am not using reason to do it.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Differences in judgement are not differences of reason.
Okay I agree.
Quoting Bitter Crank
>:O I won't do it don't worry.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Okay. Say I cheat on my wife. Now if I don't tell her, she may never find out, and our relationship may go on. But - that's like tricking my wife to stay in a relationship with me, that's wrong. Withholding the truth from her is immoral, because she should be able to decide if she still wants to stay with a man who cheated on her or not. Sure, the consequences of sin may be more severe this way, so? That's preferable to being a little snitch and lying your way. So if I have any honor or dignity, I will tell her, and if she decides to leave, then she's in her full rights to do that, as I have done wrong. If she decides to forgive me and stay, I'll be very grateful to her, but I certainly don't EXPECT her to do that, nor should I force her to stay with me against her will by lying to her.
Quoting Bitter Crank
What's bad about a child of 8 and 10 "having sex"? :s Or what's sinful about that? At that age they don't even know what sex is, they're just learning their bodies and playing around with each other, including with their sexual organs. They don't even know what they're doing. I did that too at that age! >:O 4-5 of us would do that together actually when we were kids at 8ish, both girls and guys. Does the fact that I put my penis around another male's anus and touch his penis at 8 mean that I am a homosexual to you?! >:O Or does it mean that I had sex with them? Does it mean because we used to touch each other's organs and so forth that we were having an orgy?! In fact, our parents once heard us talking about it, and they lectured us for 15 minutes, then let us go, and we were back to doing the same thing almost immediately >:O - children don't take these matters seriously, they're just learning about their bodies at that young age, which is actually great! It's not actually possible to "have sex" until you're around 12 or perhaps even older 14 and onwards. That's when it becomes sinful, because it actually becomes possible to have it - your psychology is sufficiently developed to allow for it. I also remember we were playing soccer and when one of us would bend over to pick the ball up, the dog would jump on us and start humping us - we had a lot of fun because we were curious what the hell the dog is up to! Does that make us practitioners of zoophilia according to you? >:O In fact, even now I tell this story to people when I want to shock them - my girlfriends actually all found it hilarious!
For example ... I never even knew what ejaculation was until I was 12, when I accidentally found out and got scared >:O and then researched online to see what the hell had actually happened! Then I tried to do it again and make it happen out of curiosity. Then I started to research and investigate these matters, and then got into pornography etc. until I met my first girlfriend at around 16-17. And I never talked with my parents about sex, but that would just have been embarrassing. They did try to talk to me about it once when I was around 14 but I wasn't very welcoming to the talk. So they stopped. It's kind of embarrassing to do that, I don't understand why anyone would talk with their parents about it. Even when I had a girlfriend, I never told my parents about it. But I've seen folks who talk with their parents openly about that kind of stuff, and I'm like WTF :-O - disgusting! Why would anyone do that?
If my child actually tries to talk to me about sex, I'll send them off to learn by themselves by directing them to the right books. But I'd definitely not discuss things with them.
Right. Well, I didn't talk to my parents about sex, either. Quite unimaginable. But... There has to be something better than overly frank sex talk between parent and child at one extreme, and nothing at the other. An encyclopedia was the only impersonal source of information I could consult and a 1950s encyclopedia wasn't all that helpful, either. (It was fine for anatomy, but that's about it.)
A personal question I suppose, but it does bear some relevance, which is whether you are intentionally and rationally denying yourself opportunity or whether the complexities of initiating a relationship have simply been too great for you to overcome, so you've rationalized your disengagement as being a decision of a higher order, as opposed to admitting to and attempting to correct social ineptitude. It's relevant simply because it goes to whether your Stocism is a choice directed to higher happiness, as opposed to it being the path of least resistance. I can say that it's far from certain (and candidly doubtful) whether abandoning desire will lead to happiness as opposed to robbing you of those things that really do matter. That is, have there been available women in your life that you pushed away to both of your dismay, or has it never come quite close to that?
Whether this smacks of personal advice as opposed to philosophical inquiry, I don't know. It's certainly not analytical philosophy, but more of the type of philosophy practiced by the various ancient Greek schools, where philosophy was more about trying to figure out how to live one's life than in whatever we do now. But, regardless, when one tells me that they've consciously denied themselves of the rock star life, the obvious follow up question to ask is whether you had a rock star life available to you that you could deny yourself of.
Just my thoughts.
It is fascinating to see the enormous ad hoc or post hoc rationalisations people make to deal with the biological nature of human existence.
Quoting Question
Hume was on the right track when he said: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."
"The emotions are mechanisms that set the brain’s highest-level goals. Once triggered by a propitious moment, an emotion triggers the cascade of subgoals and sub-subgoals that we call thinking and acting. Because the goals and means are woven into a multiply nested control structure of subgoals within subgoals within subgoals, no sharp line divides thinking from feeling, nor does thinking inevitably precede feeling or vice versa (notwithstanding the century of debate within psychology over which comes first)." Pinker
Well this is a bit twisted from the start. As I have explained, we don't simply have the desire for sex in a vacuum. Sex isn't end-in-itself either, and is rather subservient to the purpose of reproduction and intimacy. In order to get what you want in life, it's always more important to say no than to say yes. "Yes"-saying is probably one of the top reasons why people fail to satisfy the strongest desires of the human organism. They are too impatient, and too keen to satisfy their desires, and they hurry head-on towards their own destruction - because of impatience.
I've known a few of those people who "never" deny themselves "opportunities" - they have never ended up well, even when they succeeded, and that's the saddest thing. The saddest thing is to put up with shit in order to, say, have sex - or agree to be in a relationship with the wrong person, just to have sex - people who do that are weak. For example I knew this girl who was desperate to have a boyfriend after her previous boyfriend broke up with her. So she would take every opportunity. And I remember listening to her telling me that she would date almost anyone she got the chance, she would put up with such and such, and she was always disappointed etc. and I didn't tell her of course, but in my mind I thought "what a ****ing idiot".
I'm speaking honestly here - you have to deny yourself everything so that you may win what really matters. You don't humiliate yourself for a little bit of sex - I've never done that, nor would I ever do it. That's shameful beyond words, and I have distaste for anyone who ever does that. So when you talk about the "complexities of initiating a relationship" it sounds to me like you're talking about sucking up and humiliating yourself in all sorts of ways which may be socially required, just to do what? To have sex. It's not even like you're going to be doing something great! At least when you humiliate yourself it should be for a noble cause. But the man or woman humiliating themselves to have sex? That's disgusting, not even worth mentioning.
So for example when I refuse the advances of a woman - am I denying myself, or am I really winning? Am I lacking social capacity, or am I simply refusing to humiliate myself for what isn't even worth grabbing? I don't want nor need some woman just to have sex with her. What I need her for is much much greater than that, and not many women would be capable of such undertakings. So what point would it be to bother? That would be stupid. It would mean denying myself what is most true of me, wasting my time, risking myself when it's not worth taking a risk.
In psychological circles, to find the essence of one's being, one question is asked - what would be your last words of advice to a child/grandchild on your deathbed? And for me, I'd say "Never put your head down, always keep your head high - never bow, never let yourself be bought with either money, sex or power and never sacrifice your dignity for any of these - for dignity is the one thing you can take with you in the grave, and nothing can snatch it away unless you give it. Everything the world can offer is perishable - more important than winning is not losing - only he who can lose the whole world and not move can also gain it".
Quoting Emptyheady
I agree about ambition, but I think it depends from person to person, not everyone is so constructed. Some people are destroyed by their ambition.
I suppose up until this point my denial of the act of sex has been a semi-conscious decision. I can say that I have had the opportunity to "seize the opportunity," so to speak, but have never acted on it. Like, I said, this is probably due to psychological reasons as it's impossible for me to give you a clear and objective answer as you surely know.
Quoting Hanover
Chicken or egg? Is Stoicism all just a rationalization for, as you say, my personal social ineptitude or has my social ineptitude resulted from my Stoic attitude (as if!).
Quoting Hanover
Maybe not directly to happiness; but, certainly less unhappiness.
This is fundamentally flawed. The success of therapy and psychology along with specific elements of it, like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, attest against this interpretation of reason only being a slave to passions.
That seems to be a fairly empty-headed thing to say. Is this a reasoned conclusion or is it motivated by passion?
But the real and more fundamental question is always whether something really is social ineptitude or the conscious desire of the person in question to act in that manner. Some people view not seizing the opportunity as if it's equivalent with social ineptitude - in their mind, someone who doesn't seize the opportunity isn't aware of it because they are somehow socially inept (or so the story goes). But the truth is often more complicated than this.
Take Myshkin from Dostoyevsky's Idiot. Everyone takes him to be an idiot, and not understand the world he's living in, however, the real truth, as the narrator knows, is that he's actually the one who understands everyone else, but simply doesn't want to behave like them. To me, social ineptitude would only apply to someone who cannot understand the movements of society around them. But I may be perfectly able to understand them, and yet through my actions, it may appear to others that I don't understand them. I too often am like this.
Quoting Question
This is similar to my principle - first do not lose, only worry about winning after you're sure about step number 1 :P
Quoting Question
Yes I definitely agree here, although reason isn't completely independent of the passions in the following sense. What you aim for is determined by your passions. For example, someone plays golf because they like it, while someone else plays tennis because that's what they like. Passion still does that, and it's not negative to that extent. However to the extent that it would make you chase after, for example, sex, I agree it's negative.
While, I do not think we have absolute control over our passions, and would rather live in the world where we don't, as emotions are quite good, as opposed to those devoid of them (sociopaths, psychopaths)...
However, I do think the will precedes reason; but, the amount of work and effort that reason applies in polishing and making a goal a reality is certainly underappreciated in my opinion.
Reason has a will of its own.
I have to read more Dostoyevsky, that is for certain.
Yes I definitely agree with that. (Y)
I often wonder what it would have been like to have had access to the 2017 internet when I was 12 in 1958. There were many things I wondered about for which there was no information available (to me). And not just sex questions. Radioactive fallout from the Nevada above-ground atomic bomb test sites drifted over much of the US, and information about it was sparse. We worried about it. I remember a map in the Weekly Reader showing bands of higher and lower radioactivity. The northern US was under a band of high radioactivity (relative to low levels).
There were civil-defense pamphlets about building fallout shelters; I couldn't quite fit the drawings in the pamphlets into our dirt-floored cellar. There was extreme right-wing propaganda being passed around, published in newspapers, shown in school. Communism was out to get us, like some kind of slithery monster crawling out of the sewers. There was no contrary opinion offered to us, for the most part. I was obsessed with mushrooms at the time, too (don't know how that happened) and quickly ran out of information in encyclopedias. Google would have been very handy.
I do remember orgasms arriving. It was one of the sunny bright spots amid all the gloom and doom.
Heh, even 2000s internet was good! 2017 is more about social media than research and so forth. Back then the internet was quite solitary from what I remember. As in, you'd read and research stuff but that's about it. Few of the communication features were there - they started to appear around 2004/5. Even games, at least for me, were hard to find (and expensive), I had to go to PC cafes to play. Nowadays, almost no one goes to PC cafes - which is quite sad, they were good places for socialising.
I see all sorts of people sitting in coffee shops with a screen in front of them, but they don't socialize. It strikes me as dysfunctional. It's a way of being "less alone" I suppose.
Yeah but PC cafes were different, because it was literarily computer next to computer, and everyone talked with everyone, they played multiplayer games one against each other, and so forth - it gathered people who were interested to do the same things. Nowadays they go sit in a coffee place like Starbucks or whatever with a laptop and surf the net - but you see the place is set up in order to keep them isolated (they are only connected via social media), it's hard to approach someone in that environment with separate tables, and so forth. People sitting with a laptop certainly look like they don't want to be disturbed - as in they want to be amongst people, and yet be far from them too.
dafuq?
Quoting Agustino
I don't think communication is a good in itself.
Quoting Agustino
Mere judgement does not objectively decide morality.
Quoting Agustino
Which isn't always right.
Quoting Agustino
We often judge based on reason, so what exactly are you trying to contest here?
Quoting Agustino
So.....................?
Quoting Agustino
How did you arrive at your judgement? Through reason. What else besides instinct would you be using?
Quoting Agustino
They sure can be.
Quoting Emptyheady
Explain.
Quoting Emptyheady
So a pedophile's innate desire cannot and should not be eradicated or suppressed because doing so will produce "nasty unforeseen side effects"?
Quoting Emptyheady
Bruv, what'd the fat man ever do to you?
Do you like BDSM, by chance?
Quoting Emptyheady
Pedophiles rejoice! You can now fulfill your desirous passion for child flesh because who the fuck needs reason 'til after you done it?! :D
Quoting Emptyheady
Jokes on you when you look at what they're doing and they're feverishly lurking TFP, 8-)
" Fucking bitches"...a bitch is a female canine, no? :s
Which is why bars where 80% or 90% of the inhabitants are standing are much much better than bars where everyone has to be seated. People on foot mix readily.
The thing I really don't understand about coffee shops is "How do they make money on the large amount of space occupied by a few asocial people who aren't buying that much coffee and are at the same time soaking up WiFi and heat (or AC) and sitting there for hours? Are these people like duck decoys--attracting more profitable live birds in off the sidewalk? Are there secret fees being paid to sit there? Are they acquaintances of the owner who would rather these lumps stay at the shop than coming round to his house to bore him to tears? Are they in a witness protection program -- hiding in plain sight?
Quoting John
"Yes, Virginia; a bitch is a female canine. Like, "bitch, re, me, fa, so, la, te, bitch. "Bitch, a dog, a female dog, ra, a drop of golden sun; me, a name I call myself; fa, a long long way to run; so, a needle holding thread; L. A. the land of Hollywood; te, a drink with jam and bread, which brings us back to you, you fucking bitch!" Maria von Trapp sang. But then they cleaned things up and rewrote the song.
John, you really have to stop reading everything so literally.
"Dafuq" and "fucking bitches" are coded words with layers of meaning. "Dafuq" for instance, has a layer of proletarian bluntness on top -- "da" in place of "the"--always a proley give away. "fuq" is a kind of hipster spelling of fuck. "Fuck" is a multi-functional word providing noun, verb, adjective, intensifier, etc. functionality. "Dafuq" (which spell check wants very badly to change to "daft" is code for "I'm sorry; I don't understand what you are saying." Or "I'm sorry, but what you are saying doesn't make any objective sense to me." So, "fucking bitches" is adjectival (something unappealing about bitches") or verbish (something so and so is doing at the time) or both at once. Referencing a female human as if she were a female canid is an ancient insult, and adding "fucking" deepens the slur to reference said bitches as unusually promiscuous and atrociously vindictive.
And so on.
Margaret Atwood, the distinguished Canadian Novelist, ended the Madd Addam Trilogy by explaining to human beings' successor species what "Fuck" is. They had been hearing the almost disappeared old-design homo sapiens using the term and they wondered what it meant.
"Fuck is a god. Pray to Fuck in times of need and adversity, like we do: Oh Fuck! etc..."
You will be free to complain when you yourself can pack so much dense meaning into words as efficiently expressive as "dafuq" and "fucking bitches".
However, "bitch" as a term of abuse is not referentially confined to, although admittedly more commonly associated with, female humans.
So, I wasn't actually reading literally (I am amazed at your lack of subtlety!) I was just implicitly jiving the jive turkeys, and their excessive big-noting loose use of insulting terms and gratuitous invective.
To what desperate lengths will a lumpen prole go to appear to be a man?
:) None taken BC, none at all taken...and just in case, and just to be clear, the "lumpen prole" comment was NOT in the slightest degree directed at you, but at the invectivores (you have to eat it before you can vomit it forth).
I actually enjoyed your pedagogical outpouring. 8-)
www.gbv.de/dms/ub-kiel/21559682X.pdf (eskimos)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trobriand_Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sexuality_in_India
Quoting Question
Quoting Baden
Unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering.
I feel compelled to not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life.
Therefore I suffer.
The proof of the pudding is that there is something wrong; one does not need to theorise, merely read the 19 pages of anguish, aggression, fear, ignorance, and naked suffering already presented.
But let's do some sociology. Virginity and monogamy is important to patrilineal societies. The weight naturally falls on women, because there is rarely much question who the mother of a child is. Thus, as one might expect, matrilineal and matriarchal societies do not tend to value virginity or monogamy very much. The Abrahamic tradition involves a lot of begetting because it is patrilineal. Nobility, kingship, class, race, wealth,etc, are heritable constructs that require the control of sexual expression just because they are social constructs and not actually inherited genetically.
The conflict played out in these pages is an expression of the decay of some of these constructs as central social values. The arguments between participants are the least of it; the conflict is largely internal to individuals. To a great extent, the conflict is inherent in patrilineal and particularly aristocratic and capitalist societies, but it has become more open starting with WW1. For a good rage against sexual repression, and exposing the hypocrisy of the time, I can commend to you Death of a Hero, a novel worthy of being more widely read.
I agree, although I would say that suffering voluntarily taken on as a kind of purgation has a particular character that's worth recognizing. A moral vision is like a mini-society in the psyche; it can raise esteem by reflecting torment as a victory of sorts. In the case of celibacy, I consider the process untenable, but I wouldn't rule out there being exceptions
Quoting unenlightened
Indeed.
And guess what, Augustino has no criticism of the analysis to offer, and resorts to personal innuendo. There is absolutely no question that the western tradition is patrilineal and has been ever since children started taking their father's name. And that was a while back. So what you term "what he terms" is just the way the term is used by anyone who understands it. What I am for or against is for me to say, not you, so start talking some sense or shut up.
The real fact is that your so called analysis tells us absolutely nothing. What have we found out? There are societies which have these set of values, and there are societies which have a different set of values. Big deal. What's analytic about that? I've been saying that for ages.
That's all you have found out because you are not willing to think. Other people have found out how the structure of society produces its values. They may also have started to see how changes in the structure of western society in the last century have led to a current conflict between 'old fashioned' and 'modern' values. And If they have followed the links I posted, they have started to answer the op's question about other societies.
And that is a great deal more than you have achieved in your interminable pontifications.
I wouldn't even bother to call these 3 people tribes "societies". The only relevant link there was India, and trust me, if you speak with Indians you'll see that Indian society is largely very conservative.
Quoting unenlightened
So? This does nothing to settle the question which are the right values. If you're going to say something about that (matrilineal values are right) then i may have some beef with you, otherwise what you're saying is insignificant for me, and quite trivial.
Quoting unenlightened
No the conflict has always existed - just have a read about Cato the Elder for example, or Baghdad at the height of the Islamic caliphate.
Just unfulfilled ones?
Can't read much? I'll highlight the relevant phrase to help you.
Quoting unenlightened
That is to say, more open in the sense that the conflicts in this thread would not have been so openly expressed 100 years ago. BC in particular would have had to be a deal more circumspect, but generally, talk questioning the value of monogamy would have been extremely controversial.
The premises of the argument are taken from the quoted post by @question. It isn't a position I hold myself.
Any developed society is by essence patrilineal in your definition, because such virtues are needed to build a robust, self-perpetuating and strong society. You'll pretty much only have savages which organise themselves in matrilineal ways.
That it happens to be currently so is certainly true, though savagery is by no means confined to undeveloped societies. But I would like to see some argument as to why it is so 'by essence'. You might take the following into account, taken from here.
I think there's a misconception here. Take the following:
1. Unfulfilled wants and desires cause suffering.
2. I feel compelled to not indulge in the pleasurable aspects of life.
3. Therefore I suffer.
One can imagine desire trying to negate it's own existence through higher level desires (super-ego if you will); but, this indeed would leave an individual constantly in contradiction with their own desires, possibly leading to abnormal/depressive/low self-esteem/yadayada behavior. The reason is the savior here when conflicting desires are at odds with one another. Reason, given enough mindfulness, can recognize desires and NOT act upon them.
My rather important point here is that one not needs (rather wants) to fight a desire with another desire as if being stuck in a Chinese finger trap; but, rather change your values of said behavior or what I have been hoping for, placing value over a certain set of ethos regarding sexuality.
This is not the ideal solution, though, as can be seen through the teaching of Buddhism in regards to unrestrained desires.
Yes, I don't see why not...
I'm definitely socially inept. Even going to places, like yoga that I frequently near daily whenever I lived close to a place I'd say nothing unnecessary, and eventually people begin to think you're stuck up, or something, because they start getting kind of nasty, and I didn't even do anything!
It's beyond miraculous that I managed to get laid... I really made her work for it too, and didn't really put anything on the line myself, and risked nothing. Even with that, my warped by fiction, ridiculously unrealistic ideas about romance, and love proved to be too insane, and I messed that up too. Like the stars aligned to fulfill that desire without compromise, but still wasn't good enough for this romantic idealist. That's what you get for spending years reading about romance rather than doing it.
A couple weeks ago I got messaged by a girl online too, she was attractive, and an artistic to boot, but I hadn't updated my profile info, and she lived in the town I was staying in, an hour and a half from here.
I mean, she contacted me, which pretty much guarantees success, as long as I showed up, and didn't say or do anything obnoxious, but I still didn't do it. Although I definitely like the idea of having all of the hot girls, in reality my social anxiety makes that impossible. I simply couldn't be intimate with a stranger, it would be too difficult and uncomfortable for me.
Maybe if they were unconscious... hmm.
I don't think it's your ideals that are at fault, but rather your expectations.
Quoting Wosret
Again it's not the ideas which were unrealistic, but the fact that your partner didn't share them. And it would be kinda silly to think you're the only crazy one out there - it's just that, probably like you yourself, the crazy girls are hard to find. But to this day they must be waiting for Wosret...
You've determined that such and such a relationship would satisfy you. There's no problem in that, it's who you are. The problem is that you live in a world which, largely, doesn't share your ideals, and therefore you'll be hard-pressed to find people who do share them. But they're not impossible to find. Also material conditions are important to satisfy desires - you obviously must have enough money to be able to enjoy your time with a beloved.
You know how when your pet has been to the vet for an operation, the put this cone on their neck to prevent them from licking the wound. There is a natural itch (desire) to lick wounds, that normally helps clean them and promotes healing, but in this case it is counterproductive as the wound is deep, but also already super clean. So there is good reason in the animal's interest to frustrate its desire. But that reason is not that desire leads to suffering as a general rule, nor that the frustration of desire leads to the extinction of desire. It is particular and limited, and after a few days, the cone can be taken off.
So if it is good to put a cone round one's privates, as it were, because it will frustrate the desire for sex, then the avoidance of suffering the slings and arrows of relationship or children or STDs or some such, or else the promotion of, (shall we say?) spiritual ecstasy on the positive side need to be posited. We might then discuss whether any of these are good reasons in particular circumstances. The latter, for example, might work for monks, but not so much for priests, and even less for the laity.
First, when I refer to patrilineal societies it's not of the essence with regards to them that the male plays a more important social role than the female. For all I care, it could be the female inheriting the property. What is of importance is that certain virtues exist - monogamy, virginity, loyalty, faithfulness, chastity, control of the sexual impulse. These virtues permit the creation of relatively stable families, where the members work together for the achievement of higher, common goals, with the elimination of potential sources of inner conflict like jealousy, hatred, anger, etc. Families are necessary for building up a strong and healthy society which focuses on its survival and flourishing instead of merely on pleasure.
To say that developed societies could be matrilineal is no worse an absurdity than to suppose that an army could exist without discipline.
And what is of importance is that you have zero basis for your declarations thereafter; as if other cultures have not been at least as stable and survived at least as long and flourished as well, with just as stable families.
And I would point out that it is just this stable family focused sexually righteous society that has degenerated into the abomination that is modern liberalism. Now how did that happen?
Yes you did, but I have no beef with it. It's not about using language to talk about my own prejudicies, it's using it to talk about what's important (and let me remind you that you've associated those virtues with patrilineal societies as well, so I merely identified the important point and went on from there). If you care about the fact that man or woman has a more leading role in society than the other, or whatever other incoherency, that's your problem, and you can go on caring about it day in and day out. I don't. If you disagree that the virtues are necessary for a stable family environment/society, I would like to hear arguments, not quibbles about what words mean.
Quoting unenlightened
No they haven't actually. You name me just one such society. Societies have thrived from social conservative values - the Middle East and India from arranged marriages for example, Europe from the virtue of chastity, and so forth. The only ones who thrived from other values are the savages.
Quoting unenlightened
How is that any different from the Rome of Musonius Rufus and Epictetus (who advocated chastity until marriage for example) degenerating and collapsing in its morals over time? How is it any different than the very religious Islamic caliphate started by Muhammad degenerating into the liberal Baghdad at the height of its powers? A time always comes when people no longer see the value of discipline and virtue, and think they can do without it. Their parents couldn't enjoy life because they were burdened by the virtues - at least they should enjoy life now! It's like an army - if the army is always winning, and they even forget that losing is possible, they lose sight of the value of discipline. They forget that they won in the first place because of discipline. So likewise these young people forget that virtue is actually what made enjoyment possible in the first place, and not happy with the amount of enjoyment possible, they want to extend it, and conclude that removing virtue is the way to do this, without understanding that virtue is what made it possible in the first place.
Societies go through cycles. Growth and decay. That's all that's happening to modern Western society. People who see this and are different are few, and they are thought to be mad-men by everyone else. It's always been this way. There's nothing new under the sun.
Then they are not stable. People who see that progress and stability are incompatible are different and few, and they are thought to be mad-men by everyone else.
There is no progress in terms of societies. It's the same cycle having played itself out through all of history, and which will play itself out through all of history. The reason for this is the fallen nature of man.
Progress is restricted to technology. And all stability is temporary (though not logically temporary, it just happens in the world to be temporary because men are never, in masses, good). But it doesn't follow that because it is temporary it's not worth striving for, or that it is logically impossible to achieve it. Indeed the intelligent amongst us seek to progress towards stability, ever-aware of how effervescent the nature of stability can be, and how even their progress will one day most likely be undone. The journey up towards the peak is worth it, even if you will inevitably fall back down and have to climb up once again. As Camus would say, we must imagine such a person as happy.
*nods* (Y)
So where do I sit once I find her? :-O
Sure, not everyone can be Marcus Aurelius or a St. Augustine or a Buddha; but, from a peculiar point of view, when someone values the teachings of Jesus or Zeno or Buddha, which aren't that many people, then one feels compelled to imitate them and try and follow their footsteps. While, you may say that "truth is a pathless land" according to one of your favorite philosophers, I would have to say the is some truth in what they say. Time would attest to that fact.
If society is obsessed with matters such as sex and sexuality, then I say fuck society. Erich Fromm would agree?
Of course. Society is obsessed with wealth and power and status as well, at least it is if you attend to the media. It is easy enough to dismiss all that. At least, it is easy in theory. In practice, one must be very wary of one's motives. Is there some kudos in celibacy? Does it give rise to a feeling of spiritual superiority? Spiritual practices always have such dangers.
The land is pathless because one is not going anywhere, but staying with the truth. To be going somewhere is to be moving away from the truth of what one is, towards the image of what one might become.
Let me put it very simply; if one sees clearly that sex is not necessary to one's life, then there is no difficulty. I am like this with cars. I know most people around me have a car, and I see the use, but also the problems, and it is no effort for me to decide to avoid having one. Sometimes I have difficulties because I don't have one, but those difficulties are small compared to the trouble and expense of owning one. If sex is like that, then there is no problem leaving it behind. But If I found that I was constantly thinking about having a car, and disparaging those that have them, and lauding myself for doing without, then the truth would be that I was more obsessed with cars than those that had them. And that would be silly.
So to be free from the obsession with sex that some people (but probably fewer than appears) have is certainly to be looked for. But celibacy maintained through gritted teeth, as it were, is not any kind of freedom, and maintains the obsession far more strongly than having a sexual relationship.
Yes; but, don't you feel joy from not having a car and smile to yourself at times when you see that someone gets a ticket or is stopped so the Bobby can reach his quota?
I feel different. Different in a good way. I feel happy that I am not like the rest of people, whom I find more strange than relatable. Maybe it's my genetics or maybe it's my psychology, maybe it's me just being me? I find it funny that people tell me that I will be unhappy or miserable or not fulfilling a bodily need. It's really hilarious the belief people have about sex, and mind you I keep a mental record of how often I think about it, and it ain't that much (hopefully less and less as the years go by)!
Cheers.
No, not at all. People on my street have constant problems parking because there are more cars than spaces. I don't have their problem and am glad of that, but it would bring me joy if their problems could be solved, if only because happier neighbours are more pleasant to live with.
It is not for me to tell you whether you are miserable or not, or obsessed or not, or indulging in a sense of superiority or not. Or even being ruled by a fear of relationship - that is a possibility too. But comments elsewhere eventually drew me to read this thread, which I found rather sad and unenlightening, so I thought to make some contribution to the rather overheated conversation. Good luck to you in your abstinence, and there's no need to justify it to me or anyone here.
The thing is, if someone is sexually obsessed - then celibacy or no celibacy, he's likely to be just as obsessed, because it's a problem of his mind, not of anything else. It's a mistake if a celibate sexually obsessed person thinks that engaging in sex and leaving his celibacy will actually cure his sexual obsession - in fact it's likely to lead to potentially serious psychological trouble as his core values suddenly change, and this sudden movement tears the entire sense of self apart. Sex cannot cure sexual obsession, and neither can celibacy for that matter. That's what reason is for, as for example cognitive behavioural therapy or Stoicism teach. Now reason doesn't advocate either for indulgence of the sexual appetite, or for its prohibition but rather will proceed to identify what matters for the person - ie, why are they sexually obsessed, and what are they really looking to gain from sex that becomes all the more elusive the more or less sex they have? Now this is an individual struggle for everyone to one extent or another, and it's probably most intense when one is around 16-19 - after that age I found that it's not that relevant anymore. In either case, the most important point I have to make is that indulgence isn't any better than celibacy in such cases.
The problem is precisely the dependence and enslavement one has towards their sexuality - the fact that their reason, and other faculties are twisted, and re-directed towards the achievement of sex. The person governed by lust gets that prestigious job IN ORDER TO have sex. He goes to that club IN ORDER TO have sex. And so forth. Now indulgence will clearly not make any difference, as it will be no different than continuing to allow the faculties to be enslaved by one's sexuality - this would basically result in the practical worldview that all that matters in life is having sex. Celibacy on the other hand would lead to inner turmoil. I've spoken to a monk about this who expressed the fact that he's been a virgin his whole life, and he has no regrets about it - he expressed that life is to be lived without regrets - the one born without arms and legs shouldn't complain, and neither should the one who doesn't have sex for whatever reason, whether this is medical, social or anything else. This monk I spoke to came from a very rich and strict family, and he explained how, due to his circumstances, he simply never got the chance to have sex because he wouldn't relate much with most other kids as a teenager. But he learned that the mind makes a mistake when it enthrones any one aspect (other than God) as supreme.
Now most people are sexually obsessed - and this includes many celibates as well as most who engage in sex. This is just a fact. They undertake actions for the end goal of having sex - they direct their faculties, including reason, towards the achievement of their sexual aims. Now how one handles the struggle (and please note that handling the struggle isn't a way to resolve it) - whether it is through abstinence, or through indulgence makes less of a difference. What is of importance is that they solve the problem - they dissolve their obsession.
Now there is a possibility to have sex without obsessing about it, but probably very very few people do this. That would be the "innocent" person who never does anything to have sex, but if sex is there he engages in it, otherwise he doesn't. The person who simply takes no steps towards fulfilling such a desire, but just goes after what is ready at hand. But this is so rare it's hardly worth mentioning.
For me, for example, after breaking up with my second girlfriend I just had an insight into the matter - people go on wasting their whole lives running after sex, and in the end they lose even that. How sad and miserable to waste your time gaining something only to inevitably lose it later - and you have to take such big risks for such petty gains. For me, the central tenet of my life is never to lose. It doesn't matter if I win or not - losing is the problem. That is the essence of who I am. So in my case, everything revolves around that - gain as much as you can, but be more careful about not losing anything than you are about gaining something. I also found that it's harder to recover from losses while gains don't make life much easier. So that is let's say a methodological principle of my life. Now I'm not much sexually driven anymore, because I've realised that what I really desire is intimacy and a big, large, stable family. So the sexual drive itself is pointed towards this overarching goal - sublimated you could say in Freud's language. So opportunities to have sex simply don't interest me much - I simply don't desire them, because what I really desire cannot be found there. Someone like me is a practical celibate until marriage. But I've achieved this freedom from the oppression of my sexual drive by understanding what it was really pointed to - by reasoning and seeing what it is that I really and truly and actually wanted.
I think we have ample reasons to think that promiscuous sex is immoral, with the exceptions, as I mentioned above, being so rare they're hardly worth mentioning. In addition to this, I think it is evident that most people are sexually obsessed, regardless of their sexual practices (whether this is indulgence or celibacy or in the middle). We also saw that neither celibacy nor indulgence can cure such an obsession. Rather it is therapy - reason - that can aid a person who faces such a struggle to find a cure. Often what I found out is that the most promiscuous people also don't want to be promiscuous deep down - they regret being like so, but simply for some reason don't stop. So indulgence isn't going to cure their struggle - it may make it worse. Celibacy too can't cure such a struggle, which originates in the mind and not in the external world.
Monks, nuns, and priests became in time the workhorses of the church -- running schools, hospitals, orphanages, universities, and so on. Having a celibate workforce which resided in-house was tremendously advantageous for the church, whatever the costs to the individuals were.
And there were costs.
Life in the convents, monasteries, and priests' residences could be pretty dreary. The orders of nuns, monks, and priests were vastly reduced during the 1960s and since. The orders didn't empty out so that the formerly professed could have sex (though many of them did marry). They left because the orders had become too dissonant to the spiritual and psychological health of its members -- and not merely sexual needs.
So, while celibacy could be an advantage, could be a blessing, it could also be part of a repressive system under which the very well educated, hard working, devoted professed members chafed to the point of being ready to leave--and they did.
I agree to this, but then again, full life-long celibacy isn't for everyone. Furthermore, there are difficulties in practicing celibacy - people expect it (or sex) to be a cure of all problems, but it isn't.
Maybe I need to feel special? Maybe I want to be closer to God? It might be that I want to be an angel when I die... Who knows these things? Rarely reason precedes emotions, which is not to say that reason can't steer emotions or limit their scope. Forgive me, I have a fetish with reason over emotions. Perhaps I'm a German at heart?
I try and be a philosopher as I am one at heart. My love for knowledge overrides my desire for sex. Something tells me it's overrated, senseless, trivial, and a waste of time. I have not only done this to 'sex'; but, also to my social life, and other areas of my being. There is nothing more enjoyable, for me, to do on a Friday night than to read some philosophy or think about what Wittgenstein would have said something so fascinating.
Quoting unenlightened
Now, that is an interesting hypothesis. I suppose it can be true to some degree. Doesn't bother me though. Strange, eh?
Quoting unenlightened
It may be sad; but, it is true. And that it is true is an affirmation of my petty and rather uninteresting life, which is fine by me.
Well it is important to understand yourself and what you want or desire to be honest. I've done similar to sex and to my social life, simply because most of the people I can be around I don't find sufficiently interesting or worth spending time with. But say, if you could spend time with Wittgenstein talking, would you not? Of course you would! So your problem is merely the fact that the vast majority of people around aren't at your level. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm not saying this to suggest you're superior or they're inferior, but you just have to accept that this is who you are, and these are your desires. It's not, as some others may be telling you, that you're missing out because you're not spending time in community etc. indeed, you would be missing out if you spent time in such worthless company. You're just looking for a different sort of community, and a different sort of people than you currently find today. But that's fine - there are others like you, who are also struggling with the same problems.
I agree that sex in and of itself isn't worth pursuing. If all one wants is the release of orgasm, then they could resort to masturbation. If someone wants something more than orgasm, they're unlikely to find it in most relationships today or in most people. So it's something that would take time to develop - maybe years. You also need to associate yourself with the right people - for example in a religious community you may find a woman who would even be willing to be in a relationship without any kind of sex (if that's also what you want - in other words a woman sharing your values - would you say no to such a relationship? What if she also enjoys spending her Fridays reading Wittgenstein and contemplating?). You could also find her in a club - theoretically - but practically speaking very unlikely. So you need to steer away from mainstream culture and towards religion and philosophy, especially more ascetic communities. You need to become affiliated in areas where your probability of finding someone similar to you is greater if you do indeed feel a need for community.
People go crazy when they're no longer able to withstand the narrative that society and the rest of the world imposes on them.
Quoting Question
Well why do you think it should bother you? Your fear is perfectly normal - you fear you'll stumble over some person who is sex-obsesssed herself and who will make your life a living hell, and pull you down into petty jealousies and the like. What's wrong with that fear? I mean who wouldn't be afraid of that if they shared your values? That fear is useful - it's keeping you away from all the bad relationships you could end up forming.
Quoting Question
"petty" and "rather uninteresting" are value judgements. Is your life petty and rather uninteresting to YOU or is it petty and uninteresting to unenlightened? If you lived as unenlightened advocated, would you like that kind of life?
Sometimes you go to the doctor for abdominal pain, and they press you in the lower right quadrant and they ask - does it hurt here? And you say - no, not really. And they go like - are you sure it doesn't hurt? Be careful and tell me again if it hurts. And then you actually start to perceive some pain - because the indication from the person you see as a source of authority is that you should feel pain - you are conditioned just like Pavlov's dogs. So you say "Ah yes, maybe actually it hurts a little" - and that's how you get misdiagnosed for appendicitis, even though nothing was wrong with you.
No, it isn't. If it were so, I wouldn't be talking about it. You might also notice, but seemingly haven't, that I have carefully refrained from advocating a way of life. I know we agree about a great deal on this topic, but nevertheless, please try to reign in your tiresome habit of derogatory innuendo; this is a serious matter.
:s Why do you think it is derogatory? I haven't meant it to be derogatory at all. You may have not meant things that way, but clearly that's how Question took it, at least from my perspective - hence my comments.
I don't know that actually, you've certainly never expressed agreement :P
Yes, you don't know it because you are argumentative and do not read carefully or charitably. Instead you impute views that have not been expressed. Rather than looking for the common ground, you fasten on the differences and assume they are global. You fabricate an enemy where you could have an alliance. This makes discussion unpleasant and unproductive, and indeed, I am too busy denying your endless straw men to leave much space to develop any expression of the common ground.
I think I try to read as it is written. If I want to clarify something, then I will state it no? I wouldn't leave it merely as a possible way of interpreting my statements would I?
Quoting unenlightened
Well instead of denying, wouldn't it be easier to say "Umm you're mistaken about disagreeing with me there in such and such a way, because actually I agree with you in such and such a way"?
Quoting unenlightened
The "probably fewer than appears" suggests you don't think sexual obsession is a problem for most people - at least it does so to me unless by probably fewer than appears you mean 99.9% instead of 99.99% kind of thing (I chose the percentages just for illustration) but then why bother to state it? So if you do think that most people aren't sexually obsessed, then I think you're making a mistake. I think what is considered normal in today's society is in fact a certain level of sexual obsession. So I don't mean my interpretations to be uncharitable, but it seems to me that this is what your writing is suggesting, and if so, then I would disagree. I mean it doesn't take much looking around to see how much attention of all kinds people pay to sex - an extraordinary amount of attention. They don't talk much about eating or drinking - but sex is a favorite topic. That certainly seems quite obsessive. Even our advertisements are full of it.
People are terribly conformist, and the media work hard to convince us that we should be wanting grab women's pussies if we are real men. But actually, few of us do. Politics, sport, work, money holidays, food, even children and pets dominate my interactions with folks both face to face and on the net; sex is hardly mentioned, for all its pervasive presence in the papers and television and film. But your friends seem to be different. Perhaps I live in a little island of rectitude, but I have been propositioned once by a woman of the streets and that aside, I cannot remember having talked about sex with anyone but Mrs un to any significant degree in twenty years, excluding the odd philosophical comment or joke that is hardly obsessive. So I speak as I find, that the folks I come across are by no means obsessed with sex, but have much more interesting things to obsess about, much to the chagrin of the media, no doubt.
Well you are describing a world that is different from the world as I know it. Quite possibly because of our age difference. The younger generations who are currently <40 are obsessive about sex to a large degree. I think that your generation wasn't so influenced by the media as future generations were - the effect of the media has grown tremendously with the increase in technology. If you look at today's millennials who are currently in their teens, you'll see a lot more sexual obsession than you probably saw in your own time as a teenager. I certainly do in comparison to when I was a teenager.
Ah, great minds! I see you have just posted about the urban rural thing.
I would suggest that the corporate environment is a place where folks conform their talk to the corporate needs, which are to promote sexual insecurity in order to sell more make-up, room fragrances to cover, I mean eliminate, the smell that you cannot smell because you've gone "nose-blind", or the kind of car that the babes will love you for ( it also magically eliminates traffic).
So I agree with you that there is a lot of pressure, particularly on the young, who are most ignorant and susceptible, and I agree too that there is probably an increase in sexual obsession. But I'm also pretty confident that it is still a minority sport in practice, even if schoolboys and executives like to brag.
I didn't mean to suggest the actual figure is 99% that's why I said I give the figures of 99.9% and 99.99% merely as examples to illustrate the point I was making there. But I do believe a majority (meaning more than 50%) amongst the younger generations are sexually obsessed. At least this has been my experience so far. We as a society though - as illustrated by our culture, what we see on television etc. are definitely sexually obsessed though >:O
Quoting unenlightened
Yes, but being interested in money :P I always live close to that environment, even though I'm not exactly part of it anymore, and since I switched my field, I work in IT and for myself, nowadays my clients are much smaller businesses. I never understood why people interested in money are interested in sex - this hasn't always been the case, it's a very recent phenomenon. The likes of Rockefeller back in the Standard Oil days were definitely not the playboys of the time... These folks are interested in money because it gets them sex, instead of being interested in money for its other uses - seems quite stupid to me.
Quoting unenlightened
Okay I agree here.
One can make the case that sex is idolized and hence many people are not "living up to" their expectations about sex. Ever notice the Viagra commercials? Why are so many couples basing their marriage on the sexual performance of their respective partner, as absurd as that sounds!
For example, why is pornography so littered over the internet? Seemingly because people can't satisfy their own wants for their perfect version of sex and start searching/fantasizing for their favorite videos online, rather hopelessly.
I find it somewhat paradoxical that I (as a not trained psychotherapist) would have to make the case to a trained psychotherapist that sex makes the world go round. Perhaps, you have concluded through the many years of experience with people, that they don't really care about 'sex' as it is hyped up to be? Then next logical question, is then, what the hell is wrong with society if there is a disconnect between the individual and social 'operant' behavior?
I'm not a therapist of any stripe, but only a psychology graduate and interested layman.
Ok, let me be clear; sexuality is important, and if it didn't have importance to the psyche, the species would go extinct. The same can be said of eating and breathing, but it does not entail that everyone is obsessed.
Now, the media are not the psyche. The media are obsessed with sex amongst other things, and I do not deny it at all. The media distort the psyche, and the history and ecology of this stretches back to Freud and the beginnings of the Science of Psychology. This probably needs a thread of its own in which I will fulminate at length against the scientistic psychologies, and expose them as the Great Shaitan. Suffice to say that science deals in objectivity, and when you study people as objects you learn only how to manipulate them. Out of this 'science' comes propaganda and the advertising industry both of which are injurious to mental health.
So yes, people buy viagra, watch pornography and a simple example of the distortion that results is the current fetish against female hair. Shaving the genitals in particular is an aesthetic dictated by graphic pornography that has become mainstream. What was done for the benefit of the camera has become a sexual norm, despite the discomfort and increased risk of STDs and other sores and infections.
But even such a distortion, though foolish and unnecessary, does not amount to an obsession. It is the dearest wish of the media to convince you that everyone is getting it or thinking about it all the time, and if you are not, you need to buy - something or other.
It is not true and you are being manipulated. Resist!
I might start a thread on all this sometime, but this one is long and rambling enough, so I think I'll stop here.
The only reason why, I would hypothesise, that there is a disconnect between the individual and society is that the individual has constraints which he must play under - for example, he can't just have sex with any other woman because then he'll be considered a promiscuous man and less women would be interested in him. But - if he could somehow remove those constraints - he would most certainly give into his lusts. If, for example, he had sufficient power, such that women would be guaranteed to surround him anyways. So the individual has reasons to fake decency. But in culture, there is no reason to fake anymore. There the fantasies of the individual are allowed to run free. Sexual advertising works because people salivate like dirty dogs watching it. They fantasise about it day in and day out, otherwise why would they advertise like this? Because it works! They know that secretly this is what most people want.
Quoting unenlightened
Ehmm this sounds kind of fishy - especially since you compare it to eating and breathing. What do you mean? If I don't eat and breathe I die. If I don't have sex, I also die? :-O This is what I mean when I say that you sometimes sound exactly like the media, at least to me. It seems - and I may be wrong, but your language sometimes certainly gives me this impression - that you have adopted some of their principles.
Quoting unenlightened
This is interesting. I agree that the media and business interests want you to be sexually obsessed. But the only way they can pressure you into it is because they know that this is who, at heart, you really are. If you aren't like this, then they wouldn't be able to pressure you (but most people are - hence why they use the strategy). The reason why most people are pressured is precisely this. If they weren't pressured, they'd close that damn TV and never watch any movie again on it. But they don't do this. For example - I never watch TV (and because it's full of sex is one of the many reasons why I don't watch it). Most folks aren't like me. Sure someone can avoid being sexually obsessed if they are like me and don't open that TV. But if they are people who open the TV - they almost can't avoid being sexually obsessed because they see sex everywhere, so their brain will naturally think that sex is some very important God that must be worshipped, and life without it becomes unthinkable.
If we live in a sexually obsessed society, then we're more or less sexually obsessed ourselves, unless we severe links with our society. This would mean things like not watching TV, being careful who your friends are, being careful where you work, and so forth. It's really ridiculous if you think about it >:O
Even going through the city I will see some sex-related advert. It's crazy! >:O Honestly if you stop and think about it, it's actually really fucked up. I never realised actually in how many places one encounters sex. Even when you go to the supermarket, you see the big condoms section and see posters of young women, etc. >:O No wonder that some of us are getting disgusted by it!
Such blasphemy! How can you NOT watch your favorite puppet regurgitate some narrative that was passed down to him from the 'aliens' at the very top?
Quoting unenlightened
Ahh, a Marxist interpretation of capitalism bellows the mob! The free markets know what is best for you!
Quoting unenlightened
Shouts the crazy at Hyde Park. Resistance is futile! Consume, procreate, spend.
I think that, to be honest, the media actually are in some way the psyche. They are a representation of the psyche of most people - of their hidden wants and desires. They wouldn't have any influence if they weren't... the media must give people what they want in order to earn from them.
Not entirely. Why would people settle for bread and circuses only? I mean, after all, one does get quite bored with bread after a while. I see the media as tapping into the rather primitive aspect of human nature...
However, things were not always like this. There was a time when facts mattered and truth was sought after. An understanding was important before committing to a position. Am I romanticizing the past? Perhaps, but I never really liked the invisible hand directing my behavior.
Anyway, how about we start speaking of something more productive? It seems that we are all agreed, more or less, that there is a problem with modern society and culture regarding sex. A deep and serious issue that is making a lot of people, both those who engage in it and those who don't miserable.
First - why does it have such an effect upon people? Where does its sting come from? Let's think about both the celibate here and the indulgent - taking the two extreme cases. Why do both of them suffer?
Second - if the media is the psyche of society, then we'll notice that the media has gotten progressively more and more sexual as time went on - this reflects the changes we have seen in society, starting with the sexual revolution for example, in the 60s. It seems to be like a vicious cycle - the media both encourages people to be more sexual AND identifies with a desire that already exists in most people's psyches. So if the media is the psyche of the people, then we can analyse it, and hopefully prepare some antidotes. How can we fight a counter-sexual revolution? Since the psyche of mankind is open before us, presumably we can take steps to alter it.
Third - how is one to live in a sexually obsessed society without being themselves sexually obsessed?
Fourth - is the media by any chance attempting to blur the difference between fantasy and reality? Many could fantasise, for example, about cheating on their wife without ever actually doing it. The fantasy alone could, for example offer pleasure. They could even play out their fantasy with their own wife. But the media doesn't want this - it doesn't want that the couple roleplay - they'd rather that they really do it in real life, preferably through a website like Ashley Madison, especially made for married people. So why is it that some of us seek to convert fantasies into reality, instead of leaving and enjoying them as fantasies, which is actually the only way we could truly enjoy them? Fantasies are fun because there are no consequences in them. Cheating on your wife in fantasy has no repercussions in the world - it doesn't hurt anyone. But the power of the media - methinks - comes when they confuse people about the boundary between fantasy and reality - when they seek to bring fantasy into reality while still maintaining it the same as in a fantasy - when they tell people that their fantasies are really and actually true - there really are not consequences to cheating - for example.
It seems that we are sort of cursed precisely because we - unlike animals - can form fantasies, and so we must learn how to relate with them, without crushing the boundary that always necessarily exists between fantasy and reality. I can dream about a world where I cheat on my wife and then wipe it with a brush and it no longer exists. But there is no way to actually change the past in reality.
So one possibility is that people have always fantasised about immoral sexual behaviour - they have always been, in this sense, obsessed about sex, simply because the human mind enjoys exploring possibilities in thought. But in the past, they never acted on it - they never confused fantasy with reality. So all that has changed recently may just be this confusion of fantasy with reality - which the media also encourages.
Both of my grandmothers for example never had sex except with their husbands. Indeed, for them it would have been unthinkable to have done otherwise. BUT - they have imagined and fantasised about other men before getting married (and quite possibly after, though I never asked about this latter piece of information). For them, certainly sex was something that was expected and enjoyable in marriage. The difference between them, and most girls these days, seems to me to be, that while they admitted and enjoyed their fantasies, the girls today are obsessed about making those fantasises into reality! They're not happy with merely fantasising about that rich guy - they actually want to have sex with him in reality!
I think this collapsing of the boundary between fantasy and reality is one of the biggest problems of modern society. People are no longer able to enjoy their fantasises without seeking to bring them into reality, and out of the realm of phantasma. In fact, they confuse reality with fantasy, and this confusion underlies all of the problem.
This fantasy distinction is actually really important - I could enjoy something in fantasy that I would totally totally hate in reality. But most people seem unable to make this distinction anymore.
Rather than people being OBSESSED with sex, I think people LONG FOR warmth and sharing (intimacy). It is to this LONGING that advertising appeals are made, and no product advertised as fulfilling this longing will ever do so. People buy the suit / car / motorcycle / jewelry / bicycle / or whatever it is, thinking that this will make them more appealing to someone. It yields a little satisfaction. Sure it does -- nice suits, good cars, high-tech bicycles, etc. are a pleasure to use, to wear, to drive, to ride... Bit they don't give us love, caring, intimacy, warmth, sharing.
Is sex in short supply? Probably not by much, but we are a lonely crowd; we want and need love, affection, sharing, warmth, intimacy... and these are in quite short supply. Nothing new there -- the alienated quality of life under capitalism has been noted for quite some time.
No doubt, but it's precisely their sexual habits, that to a large extent alienate them one from the other - which is where I come in with all my points. The real desire is for intimacy - therefore the sexual desire must be subjugated to the desire for intimacy, and then all will be well.
Yeah I share your position, except that I also add sex to the mix. For example my wife cheating on me alienates her from me. This is just an inevitable event - part and parcel of the cheating itself. So sexual habits do - whether you like it or not - play a role in alienation. How many couples and relationships break up because of sexual habits? A lot.
I'm not sold on this at all. Sex is often a requirement in modern relationships because most people, in my experience at least, are in fact mortified at the thought of having true intimacy with someone because it means that they must expose the worst in them, which forces them to expose themselves to themselves, as well, often for the first time. This is one reason why successful marriages in the West have rapidly deteriorated because spouses realize too late that they do not know who really is next to them when they go to bed each night. Modern relationships have gone about creating a culture that overemphasizes the gruff physicality of the body, and therefore of sex, as being the foundation for the growth of a relationship between two people. No one gives a hot damn about virtue, only whether you like fleshy dicks or plastic dicks, if you like it in the butt, in the mouth, or in the nose, whether you like black hair over blonde hair, tan skin instead of pale skin - honesty, though? Attentiveness, understanding, compassion? Meh.
We are, clearly, not talking about the same thing. Relationships breaking up because of cheating is one thing, alienation is something else altogether different, even if the term "alienation of affections" is used, which is what you are talking about. People usually feel very bad when they are abandoned (by a spouse or lover, quite legitimately, and seek various forms of relief. Some drink excessively, some self-isolate, some become very depressed, some become promiscuous... and more, and in combination.
Alienation, as I am employing it here, means:
Advertising featuring sexually attractive people in various forms of suggestive deportment is like a target -- centered on a particular group (males between the ages of 18 and 32, for instance), but being seen by many others (like females between the ages of 65 and 85) who are not the target. Old ladies are a vanishingly small portion of the market for motorcycles--no zero, but close to it. Visa versa for moisturizing skin creams with floral fragrance.
BUT the kind of advertising aimed at 18-32 year old males and 65-85 year old females may have very similar functions -- not to sell sex, but to sell a real product with altogether illusory properties to reduce alienation (and no advertiser uses that term in ads) -- the feeling of disconnection, irrelevance, and so on.
But advertisers play a crooked game, for whatever and to whoever they direct their attention.
Card player to the Dealer: "Is this a game of chance?"
W. C. Fields (the dealer): "Not the way I play it, no."
Another is that one does see deterioration in the capacity of individuals to conduct a well-organized, effective relationship in which they can be relatively happy and raise children successfully. Some of this connects with what you said. More is owing to the circumstances of employment, income, and various forms of insecurity the a lot of people are exposed to: unemployment, under-employment, temporary employment, precarious finances, debt, food and shelter insecurity, inadequate education, drugs/alcohol, bad childhoods, and so on. All this used to be big city, urban problems. Now one finds very disrupted families, unstable living set-ups, and so on in the once rock-solid rural communities.
These circumstances alone can combine to wreck marriages and relationships--never mind immature, screwed up people who aren't ready to enter into adult relationships successfully.
The marriages of successful, middle to upper class people fail for different reasons than lower working class marriages, where life is just much tougher.
I think they suffer due to the fact that as humans we tend towards the mean. Only unique individuals with extraordinary spiritual and intellectual strength can deviate from the norm and not have remorse over separating from the herd or feel depressed about not keeping up with the race to the top of the mountain.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, this has been attempted in the past as seen by social planners and regimes characterized by oppression and brute force and uniformity. Have those social experiments worked? Not in my humble opinion.
Quoting Agustino
I think, strength, courage, and zeal are important factors here in establishing a healthy and independant psyche. Not everyone has the willpower to actually alter their behavior and disregard the collective hive mind.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, it's a rather sad fact that people resort to trivial distractions and such fantacies to defend an overinflated ego or overactive libido, while those at the top are quite satisfied with their sense of status and seek every opportunity to confirm it relative to others. Speaking of which, I never understood the biological need to be competative against your own kin. Was there some evolutionary advantage to this behavior?
Quoting Agustino
I would disagree here. I hold the notion that we are born all equal with respect to each other; but, then through the need to individualize and form an identity, we differentiated some of our characteristics to stand out from the rest of the crowd. I mean, England might be a good example of an outdated political system, that people cling on-to out of sympathy with the past. The advent of the EU and supranational powers and interests seems to unite and enjoy the benefits of cooperation instead of brute competition. Many people still think the EU is a pipe dream, in my view it's one of the more astonishing feats of human achievement in recent history. It would be sad to see it go away.
Quoting Agustino
Ahh, but to live in a fantasy indicates that you know what your fantacisizing about. I do agree however, that it's a hard task to know that you are dreaming, when you are dreaming.
You're saying that many people want to avoid intimacy, therefore sex is a requirement in modern relationships? Do you mean sexual or romantic relationships? I'm pretty sure that sex has been essential to a very large portion of human relationships for a very long time. And you assume, without any justification, that sex is not a part of being intimate with someone, but is rather a way of avoiding intimacy. As I think this goes against the experience of most people--certainly my own--I think you have to properly explain what you mean.
I'm open to the idea that there might be a new and increasingly widespread way of relating to people sexually that excludes intimacy--a kind of relationship that we might call pornographical, both because it is primarily objectifying and also because pornography increasingly shapes our sexualities--but this is a long way from saying that sex per se is an avoidance of intimacy.
This is simply not credible. Do you think that when divorce was taboo and women were subjected to the authority of the husband, "true intimacy" flourished? Do you think that when marriage was more openly and uncontroversially about property and status, couples really got to know each other? Do you not realize that it's only recently that romantic love has become the primary reason for getting married?
This demonstrates prudishness and little else. You do realize that attentiveness, understanding, and compassion, along with gruff physicality, are often essential to good sex?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I do! :D
>:O (N) Don Juan, Don Juan
Yes, the state of being isolated from the family, because you cheated, sounds like alienation to me for sure.
This applies too.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This as well - cheating causes a loss of sympathy between the two people. When you wife cheats on you, you certainly don't have the same sympathy for her that you had before, nor the same trust.
It's not all about you. You die whatever you think or do. The psyche is the generalised human mind, and if in general humanity is not concerned with sex, humanity dies. Sex is not necessary to the individual, but it is absolutely necessary to the species.
What is the generalised human mind apart from its specific instantiations?
Quoting Agustino
This is not at all correct. The media manufacture want. Typically, they do so by creating insecurities. They have to make people uncomfortable in some way and that creates the desire for easement that is then used to sell something.
Thought germs are everywhere, rotting your brain, and there is nothing you can do about it. Until now! Researchers at UNcorp have devised the first and only protective head gear for you and your loved ones that will kill 99% (recognise that figure?) of all intrusive thoughts. Also available in pill form.
The generalised human mind is what psychology studies. It is the average, the percentile. UNcorp doesn't care whether you buy its products or not, as long as 'people' do.
Advertising and propaganda is designed to make people unhappy fearful, feel insecure and inadequate. These feelings create the desire, the need for products. Now if you and I resist, or are unable to obtain the product, we will still be unhappy but who cares? Not UNcorp.
But this generalised mind is precisely the average, which is what I am talking about. Most people are sexually obsessed, otherwise they wouldn't be listening to such adverts - like for example I don't listen or watch them, and find them annoying. What am I getting wrong there?
:-O >:O
Everyone finds them annoying; they are designed to upset. This is the whole foundation of consumer society. We at UNcorp set out to upset you, annoy you, make you anxious and fearful.
Because then you will want the cure for the disease we have created in you. Buy UNcorp's UNique UNderstanding today, not because you're worth it, though we'll tell you you are because we want you to love us, but because you are annoyed and upset.
And here is UNcorp's first rule of advertising:
Incomplete sentences, because if it doesn't quite say anything, it's not quite a lie.
Then why do they watch them? If you find something annoying it's right to not watch it, and seek to avoid it when possible, isn't it? They certainly MUST like it on some level, don't they?
Quoting unenlightened
Case in point; giving a woman a diamond ring when proposing is a norm that developed in response to a marketing campaign by N. W. Ayer for De Beers.
From Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?:
In the end, the idea is that the woman would be looking for devotion from the husband to be - is he willing to stand through difficulty with her? Devotion and loyalty are important virtues, and these are merely ways to test for them, that's what courtship is meant to be for.
Low supply and high demand. Something in low supply but also low demand isn't going to be worth much. It was the media campaign that put diamonds into high(er) demand, which in turn increased their value.
But the point here is that the media manufactured the obsession with diamond engagement rings; it wasn't simply a response to some pre-existing obsession.
Not necessarily. If I spend three months making a very exquisite and beautiful dress for my wife she will most likely appreciate the gift even though it's not in "high demand". It's the effort that I make to get it that matters. Not just high demand and low supply. As I illustrated with Bill Gates, if he makes the same low supply and high demand gift as I do to my wife, his wife wouldn't be as happy, because he makes less effort for it compared to me.
Very glad you pulled out the information on diamonds--excellent example of manufactured want. "Diamonds are forever." Well, no more than H2O is forever, or the lead pipes it is delivered through.
in 2015, 135,000,000 carets of diamonds were produced (mined and exported), or 59,526 pounds. The grade of all this carbon gravel varies, of course. (Google, the usual source).
As Ms. Monroe sang so memorably,
Men grow cold as girls grow old
And we all lose our charms in the end
But square cut or pear shape these rocks don't lose there shape
Diamonds are a girl's best friend
I meant monetary value.
Besides, this misses the point that unenlightened and I are making. The media can be responsible for our obsessions. The sale of diamonds was falling until the marketing campaign promoted them as being some necessary thing, which made us want them more. The same is, perhaps, true of sex. Marketing a promiscuous man as being desirable can persuade men into thinking that they're better if they sleep around and worse if they don't (or the reverse in the case of women).
And, of course, "marketing" here can refer to more than just marketing in the economic sense (e.g. also religious tenets and cultural mores).
You would find it profitable (possibly) to dip into the career of Edward Bernays, November 22, 1891 ? March 9, 1995). He was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda. He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.
He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the "herd instinct" that Trotter had described. Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations.
It isn't just diamonds. Companies who manufacture rather ordinary commodities also think about the herd and their various instincts. They don't do this because they are wicked (well, they may be wicked, but we'll discuss that elsewhere) they do it because their corporate existences depend on selling more stuff than their competitors. If they are honest, they will only manipulate the public with artificial wants. If they are crooked, like the recent example of Volkswagon, they'll also lie and cheat to get their products sold, or poison the public (like the bastard who was cutting costs in Flint, Michigan).
I confirm your point. The reason why I never discussed your point is that I agree with it.
Often it is, yes. Not always, though.
Quoting jamalrob
All sexual relationships are romantic, but not all romantic relationships are sexual.
Quoting jamalrob
For procreation, yes, but not so much for mere copulation's sake.
Quoting jamalrob
I never made any such assumption.
Quoting jamalrob
Again, where have I argued that sex in itself is an act of explicit avoidance of intimacy?
Quoting jamalrob
Intimacy was not the rationale for establishing marriages, historically. Yet, now that intimacy is touted as the goal for love and marriage and relationships in general, my point has been that this is all a facade, because few I've run into really care about true intimacy. They merely want x, y, and z, none of which being what facilitates real intimacy between two people.
Quoting jamalrob
You do realize that virtue has nothing to do with how your penis feels when in this or that crevasse, right?
>:O so true, so true...
And it also has nothing to do with how good you are at keeping your penis away from this or that crevasse (or vice versa).
Some will say that this constant feeling of lacking something or feeling insecure will lead to alienation from the wants of society dictated by the aliens at the top. Personally, I feel like everyone subject to the will and demand of society feel incredibly neurotic.
What's your opinion on this exploitation of basic human instincts? Do you think it's something particular to capitalism or not?
Touche.
Then why do people still put up with this collective neurosis? Can anything be done about this predicament? Excuse me, I need to take my happy pills now.
Unless I don't understand your point, I'm not in agreement. If you can't keep your penis away from someone, let's say like a Catholic priest in relation with an altar boy, then this shows that the priest had no character to begin with. Similarly, if someone lies in the face of his thinking that he is honest, then he was never and is not honest, otherwise he wouldn't have lied.
Obviously rape and child molestation are wrong. My statement was with reference to those who argue that chastity and/or monogamy are more virtuous that casual sex. Virtue has nothing to do with how good you are refraining from legal, consensual, adult sex.
Glad we agree here! O:)
Quoting Michael
Well, I'd probably argue that. How might I be wrong?
Quoting Michael
Mmm, virtue has everything to do with how badly one has failed to refrain from having sex.
What about some one that does not have sex because they do not have opportunity, are they virtuous?
No.
It has to do with resisting opportunity.
Sex is not necessarily immoral.
For example if animals have sex are they being immoral?
Animals that reproduce through sex are immoral?
Because that is just silly.
But you did ask why "sex isn't necessarily immoral" which is kind of strange if you think it isn't necessarily immoral. Anyway, what does "inherently" mean to say in the above sentence?
Wait, I don't quite understand you. So sex is always immoral but it can be either necessarily or unnecessarily immoral. If it's unnecessarily immoral, then in what condition would it not be immoral? (if you cannot specify a condition, then in what sense are you saying "unnecessarily"?) And if there is some condition under which it wouldn't necessarily be immoral, then in what sense is sex always immoral?
I'm sure that the act itself isn't a desire though. You may mean that a desire leads to the act though.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Why would this be necessarily immoral? What does "necessarily" add to the meaning of the sentence?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
But shouldn't merely the grounds for good feeling count as sex being necessarily immoral? :s I'm not sure I quite understand what you're trying to convey. If I have sex merely because it feels good, that kinda sounds like immoral to me. Whereas the former case you suggested sounds as unnecessarily immoral if anything.
Sex is a desire acted upon, yes.
Quoting Agustino
To not indulge some desires is to set oneself on the slippery slope of creating future ethical dilemmas than need not be. It's an acknowledgment of the fact that masturbation (if one even needs that) is not enough for some people in sustaining a morally, and physically, healthy life. I may come to think this is false in time, but at the moment I'm attempting to give some leeway to the horny beasts out there.
Quoting Agustino
No? It isn't necessary to eat a steak merely because you might find that it tastes good. That would be unnecessarily immoral. Eating a "steak" if you're starving in the wilderness would be a necessarily immoral decision to make because doing so works against future ethical dilemmas, such as you dying!
But certainly what they're looking for isn't masturbation or merely orgasm. The horny beasts out there are looking to dominate the will of their partners - seduction. They're looking to get their partners to love them - to control their will. So the physical pleasure of it is irrelevant to the psychological pleasure they get from domination.
Others - like me - are looking to have life-long intimacy and devotion with another person.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Okay, I think I understand.
Quoting Agustino
If you're merely having sex because it feels good, then you're doing so purely out of ego.
Quoting Agustino
My steak example assumes that slaughtering animals and eating them is always wrong, by the by :-*
Quoting Heister Eggcart
But in my view the ego is healthy. It only becomes unhealthy when it subdues and enslaves reason to do its bidding. If the ego merely acts in accordance with reason, then there is no issue.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Yeah - I actually thought you may have had some religious reason for not eating steak actually :P - but alas didn't mention it because I understood what you were trying to say by the example.
Why is it wrong to do something because it feels good?
I'd presume he's not generalizing as that would entail the claim "For person A to act upon desire X purely because it feels good" is unnecessarily immoral, which would yield results like "For Joe to act upon his desire to drink water purely because it felt good" was unnecessarily immoral. That doesn't help to explain the necessary moral difference between sex and drinking water, but I imagine he has one in mind.
Good feeling shouldn't be the foundation of one's actions, otherwise you allow for all sorts of vile behavior.
Quoting Baden
I'd probably argue that Joe's desire to drink water purely for its good feeling is in fact unnecessarily immoral. Considering myself for a moment, I don't drink water because it tastes good, or feels good, but because it satisfies a problem, the dilemma of thirst. Similarly, I don't eat meat merely because it tastes good, nor do I eat meat because I need to, because I don't, and thus I don't eat meat. If I didn't need to drink water, I wouldn't, just as I wouldn't eat any other sort of food were I not in need of worrying about the problem of hunger. It's just a poor excuse when someone does something merely because it stimulates them physically, and for no other reason than said stimulation. As I mentioned briefly to Agustino, most people are more concerned with how something, or someone, feels to them, what they can get out of it - if a steak tastes good, eat it, if sex feels good, fuck. Who cares about the animal one needn't have been slaughtered, or the person you needn't have been taken advantage of? I'd say that most people only think about those things until after they've done it, and only then, perhaps, find error in their ways. Although, probably not, for few are particularly willing in entertaining the thought of being wrong.
Yes, this is treating others as means to an end, instead of end-in-themselves as Kant wrote.
Also it's not the same I believe with regards to food. Food isn't a person. I can choose to eat food X instead of food Y because X tastes better than Y. The fact it tastes better than Y though isn't sufficient to qualify my decision as immoral - other matters need to be attended to, such as if procuring X involves killing animals, etc. Suffice to say that you are correct and "because it feels good (to me)" can certainly not be moral (but it can be immoral).
There's also another thing, that some people know that it is wrong and still do it. That's what Kierkegaard is digging into in the second part of Sickness unto Death - whether ignorance of the good is sin, or whether sin is more than just ignorance.
'tis what separates one who possesses character, and one who does not.
What is character? Is character something one comes with at birth and stays unchanged through life, or is character grown and developed? I've been asking Thorongil something with regards to this in another thread where he quoted from Schopenhauer.
We can take the "unnecessarily" out because it adds nothing to the argument here. What you seem to be arguing is "Drinking water is immoral unless one is aware of a reason one does it". This is very problematic in itself. But I wonder how far you would take it anyway? What about raising my arm, for example? Is it immoral to raise my arm purely because it feels good? Does one have to have a conscious reason for every action to escape doing wrong?
Yes :P
I think you misunderstand. He's using "unnecessarily" in a non-logical sense, which is why I didn't get it at first either. If I'm starving, and I kill an animal to eat, then it is necessarily immoral because I NEED to do that action to survive. So necessary has to do with your own needs, not with a logical connection.
No, it's either moral or immoral. If you need to kill the animal to survive and that's a morally justifiable reason to kill it then it's moral. If the fact that you need it to survive is not a morally justifiable reason to kill it, it's immoral.
Well he is saying that it is immoral in all cases. However in some cases it is necessarily immoral - when I need to kill it to survive. In other cases, it's unnecessarily immoral, when I kill it just for fun for example, as in hunting.
Amoral probably. He didn't disagree with me when I replied to him:
Quoting Agustino
The question of immorality and of necessity are logically independent in the way he uses them.
Read what I just wrote. If it's necessary to kill the animal to survive and that reason is a sufficient moral justification for doing so then the action is moral. All you are saying is that Heister is confused, which hardly helps.
Quoting Agustino
I'll take that as your answer and wait on his.
Yes.
Quoting Baden
Drinking water, eating food, having sex - these all entail someone taking from something or someone else that is giving. Raising your arm for pleasure seems amoral to me...up until raising said arm punches someone in the face. I'd be on board with stretching my argument all the way, though. I just wouldn't put as much value in the immorality of raising one's arm for pleasure compared to the immorality of someone shanking you with the same arm.
*facepalm* - no he's not confused at all. If it's necessary to kill the animal, that still doesn't make it moral - that's what he's saying. The question of morality (whether action X is moral or not) is logically independent of the question whether action X is necessary or not.
No, the reason for the action is moral, not the action itself. Slaughtering the animal is still immoral, but it is necessarily immoral, in this example, because it brings about the good (one's moral reason for performing the action.)
Edit: This can be evidenced, say, in self-defense. If someone breaks into my home and attempts to choke me to death, but I choke him to death first - so as to prevent him from killing me, of course - then I've committed a necessary evil, to put it another way. I still killed someone, which is immoral, but I needed to in order to preserve the good. On the flipside, the person that breaks into my home and tries to kill me is attempting to do that which is unnecessarily immoral, because one need not choke someone to death unless, as I've said, you're acting out of self-defense, just as I would be acting in self-defense by trapping an animal out in the wild so that I might survive.
I'd say that at birth character is like an empty ocean basin that only love may fill toward having a more full actualization of itself.
I'm not currently down on the whole, "character comes out of no where, and some people are awesomely moral studs, while others are not. Why? lul, who knows, unlucky."
Hmm - so character is always good? Someone can't have a deficient or evil character?
Because if love actualises the character, this implies that the character is good, because I suppose you won't tell me that loving someone will actualise their evil character would you?
You're giving a good example of the reason I don't want to use Heister's terminology. Read our conversation again and I think you'll see my point. Or just let me finish my exchange with him before you jump in again.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
To clarify: A person drinking some water from a river is immoral when done purely because it feels good because it involves someone taking from something (a river) whereas raising an arm for the same reason isn't immoral because it doesn't involve that?
Unless you're saying that having sex because it feels good is vile behaviour then this is a red herring.
And if you are saying that having sex because it feels good is vile behaviour then what's vile about it?
Or maybe you're saying that because doing things because they feel good can lead to vile behaviour then anything done because it feels good is wrong? That's a slippery slope fallacy.
Using another as a means to an end for one :-}
In terms of using another as a means to an end, how does having sex differ from, say, playing tennis?
Perhaps. How might this be incorrect?
Quoting Michael
I am, yes. And no, I don't see how anything I've said is a red herring.
As I replied to you just before, if good feeling is the foundation of your having sex, then you're way in the wrong. The pedophile can use the same excuse as you by appealing to his desire to have a good feeling by having sex with a minor as being his first priority. Such is, however, especially wrong. Pretty sure we agreed on that, yet you're still uncertain for some reason I can't divine.
How am I using another as a means to an end when I play tennis? What is the end, and what is the means? Is the other person even the means through which I play tennis? :s
How am I using someone as a means to an end when I engage in promiscuous sex? They are the means, my pleasure is the end.
I'd say so. "Evil character" is an oxymoron to me.
Quoting Agustino
Hmm, love sparks the good in Man, although this is not to say that Man, therefore, is good. If we're still sticking with the poetic language, character is of the ocean, and the fallen nature of us is found in the desert once ashore.
Edit: I suppose that if one were to say that I had "poor character", they'd be referring to my shoddy inability to do the good, not that my character is somehow inherently bad. The struggle that I have found is to remain of good character even when love has been given less in my life, and only I am one who is giving my love to others. Unless I'm receiving as powerful a giving as I myself am giving, then I'm unintentionally draining my ocean of love, which can lead to cracks and fissures where I might lie, hurt someone, do something I didn't mean to. I know of a few people in my life that once had a surplus of character, but which has since eroded because of, well, lots of reasons.
When I play tennis with someone my enjoyment is the end and my opponent is the means. Playing tennis on your own isn't fun.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
It would have been a red herring if you weren't saying that having sex is vile behaviour.
The child molester isn't in the wrong because he's doing something because it feels good but because what he's doing is abuse. Whether or not it feels good is irrelevant. So this isn't a reason for consensual, adult sex for pleasure being vile behaviour.
Again, it seems like a slippery slope fallacy. You're saying that because some things done because they feel good can be wrong then anything done because it feels good is wrong. It just doesn't follow.
No, not at all. Your opponent is in no way like a tool that you're using to play tennis with... your opponent isn't your racket. Your racket is the means by which you play tennis.
But with regards to sex, it is your partner's body which is the means by which you pleasure yourself. That's just fucked up, sorry to say.
So consensual adult sex can't be abuse? :s
It isn't abuse tout court.
Right, only when it is done without real love for the person in question, I agree :D
I don't understand how you distinguish using someone and not using someone.
I don't use them to pleasure myself. I allow them to (of their own choice) pleasure me whilst also choosing to pleasure them (and so they're not using me to pleasure themselves).
Clearly the problem is with how you view sex. You're not me.
I didn't say that, so the "I agree" here is inappropriate.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Well, generally moral systems require that for an action to be deemed immoral it must at a minimum result in some kind of harm to another moral agent (or at least another sentient being) either directly or indirectly. There's no more indication that drinking water from a river (whether it feels good or not) does that any more than raising one's arm all other things being equal.
It doesn't mean that either action is necessarily amoral either. There may be a moral element in the wider context. But it's not present in either example given. You just don't have enough information to make a moral judgement. The same applies to having sex simply because it feels good. The lack of a mental narrative doesn't ensure the immorality of your actions any more than the presence of one ensures their morality.
The pedophile is in the wrong for many reasons, one of which being my qualm.
>:O How is this an argument?
Sure, so the cannibal who finds someone that has the fetish of wanting to be eaten alive isn't doing any wrong because the relationship between both of them involves consenting adults! :D
Why? If a principle has exceptions then it's not a principle.
Quoting Baden
I wouldn't say that morality depends upon physical harm.
Quoting Baden
I'm not conjuring morality into my actions willy nilly, Baden. If I had doubts about my actions, I would not do them. I've attempted to reason, and thus remove all doubt, from why I do what I do, and subsequently what I do not do. Seems like the person that doesn't consider the morality of their actions is rather the more dangerous individual, no?
:-} Right, if you don't want them to pleasure you, why aren't you stopping them? And if you do want them to pleasure you, then how are you not using them to pleasure yourself?
Quoting Michael
For the simple reason that I'm not using someone to play tennis. Playing tennis CAN involve another person, but they aren't used because they aren't a tool permitting me to engage in the activity. My racket (and my balls) is the tool which permits me to engage in the activity. Without a racket I can have as many people as I want, and I still won't be able to play tennis. I can, however, play tennis by myself, so long as I have a racket and balls.
Now I cannot engage in sex without another person - that's a similarity with tennis and with all other activities that can be group activities like dancing. BUT there is a difference between what the means used in sex are, compared to the means used in tennis. In tennis, the racket and the balls are the means. In sex, your partner's body is the means. The game of tennis involves hitting a ball with a racket - makes no mention of a partner - the partner is non-essential. I could indeed have a ball-machine feeding me balls on the other side. But sex cannot even be conceived in the absence of a partner. So in sex, the partner is the means, if your aim happens to be your own pleasure. If your aim is different however, then the same logic obviously doesn't follow.
It is a damned if you do damned if you don't.
>:O
Is steak a means of abstaining from steak? What kind of nonsense is this? If you don't eat steak, then you're using steak as a means of being moral (ie abstaining from eating steak, cause that's just what being moral fucking means in this context) >:O
If you are treating people a certain way just to be moral you are using them as a means to the end of being moral.
Again, it isn't wrong simply because it's done for pleasure. It's wrong because eating someone is wrong. It would be wrong even if it wasn't done for pleasure.
You just keep repeating the same fallacy. You need to show me that having sex is wrong because it's done for fun. Giving examples of things that are wrong because they involve abuse and killing people doesn't show me this.
Quoting Agustino
That I want something done isn't that I'm using something to have it done to me. You've already accepted this with the example of tennis. I want that person to play tennis with me and I allow them to, but according to you this doesn't count as using them to (non-sexually) pleasure myself.
I wouldn't count hitting a ball against a wall as playing tennis. But if you're going to be pedantic like this, then let's use arm wrestling or a thumb war or judo as an example.
That all depends on where their moral considerations lead them. Some will end up saving whales and others flying into tall buildings. However, I don't want to get sidetracked on this. I've edited the post to make my main point clearer, which is this:
Quoting Baden
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I accept that you've attempted to reason and I'm not accusing you of anything except overestimating your moral reach in the context of the examples given.
Not at all. Your proposition is a tautology once it is unpacked, and for this reason tells us nothing.
If not eating steak is being moral, then one doesn't use (eat) steak, when one is moral.
If A is identical to B, then ~A is identical to ~B.
To use something means to do something to it. I'm not doing anything to steak when not eating it, and not doing something to it isn't itself doing something to it, that's a contradiction.
Why is eating someone wrong?
Quoting Michael
Answer the above question and maybe I'll start to make more sense.
Quoting Baden
How else might one come to moral judgement if not through reasoning with the mind the validity of a statement or action through the means of removing all doubt? Can something be moral, however you think of it, if there is doubt surrounding it?
It certainly doesn't, because again, what you're using to pleasure yourself is a racket and some balls.
Quoting Michael
In judo you're training. Training is different from doing something for pleasure. I don't practice martial arts for pleasure for example. I practice them for virtue. If you are however practicing martial arts for pleasure, I think you're doing something wrong though >:O
If you don't eat steak just because you believe it is moral to abstain from eating steak then you are using steak as a means to an end of being moral.
The same applies with a person, treating them a certain way because you believe it is moral means you are using that person as a means to an end of being moral.
Quoting Agustino
Sure, unless you claim not eating steak is moral, then you are doing something, you are being moral by not eating steak.
So if not eating steak is the equivalent of doing something moral, then you are using that steak as a means to the end of being moral.
This is really simple I don't understand why you are having trouble following along here?
Racket, balls, and the other person (and a net). It's a two- (or four-) player sport.
Plenty of people do it for the pleasure.
Seems like you're resorting to special pleading here.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Physical mutilation and potential manslaughter and whatnot. It's certainly not wrong because it's done for pleasure. Whether or not it's pleasurable is irrelevant. And so, again, saying that this is wrong and is done for pleasure doesn't show that sex is wrong if it's done for pleasure.
The other person isn't essential. Have you never played with a feeding machine?
No, my abstinence is the means, not steak... I don't understand how that isn't clear to you.
Quoting m-theory
This is a strawman. Read my post again. Am I doing something TO IT, to the steak? NO. So yes, I am doing something by abstaining from eating steak, but not to the steak.
I wouldn't consider that as playing tennis. But if you're really going to go this route then just read my mention of "tennis" as "two-player tennis".
The suicide bomber has no doubt his action is moral. He literally bets his life on it. Yet he is mistaken. Does that surprise you somehow? Or does it surprise you that the man who gives to a beggar out of compassion but is not absolutely sure he has done the right thing is judged to have acted morally? Or that the woman who unthinkingly dives into a pond on seeing a drowning child is?
More to the point, do you actually agree with this statement or not?
Quoting Baden
Except your abstinence is not possible without the steak.
Quoting Agustino
If you claim that not eating steak is moral, then you are doing something with the steak, you are not eating the steak and using that act of not eating it as a means to justify the end of being moral.
So if steak doesn't exist, I cannot not eat steak? :s
Quoting m-theory
Once again, am I doing something TO IT? And yes, you are saying something correct. I am using the ACT of not eating it as a means of being moral. But it is not necessary that steak exists for me to be able to not eat it.
If steak does not exist you cannot abstain from eating it.
Quoting Agustino
If you are claiming that not eating is moral then you are doing something to the steak.
You are making steak a means to the end of being moral.
Lack of doubt doesn't just concern what I think. If you're attempting to blow people up in a market square or fuck bitches at the local bar, then your judgement is not the only one that must be taken into account.
Quoting Baden
Yes and no. We all must still make judgments on the rightness and wrongness of things and what we do/do not do. Such judgement is less ensured by the suicide bomber because he's not removed all doubt through reason, he has merely sunk himself into delusion.
Quoting Baden
If a gif can't be posted in reaction to something funny or puzzling or whatever else, then why do we have emoticons on the forum? Come on, we gotta be encompassing in our rules, here!
:s So if steak doesn't exist, I cannot not eat it? That's absurd. I can and do abstain from all things which don't exist by default. I simply cannot not abstain from them.
Quoting m-theory
My "not doing something to steak" - not eating it - is a means by which I am moral. According to you "not doing something to steak" is me "doing something to the steak"! Really...........
That is not what I said.
I said if steak does not exist you cannot abstain from eating it.
There is no opportunity to abstain from a thing which does not exist.
Also I did not realize your argument was that it is moral to not do things to stuff that does not exist?
Quoting Agustino
Again the problem is with claiming that not doing something is moral.
If not doing something is moral then not doing that thing is a means to the end of being moral.
Otherwise what is the point of not doing it?
This is false. If steak doesn't exist, then I am abstaining from it every single moment by default - it doesn't exist, how could I even eat it and thus not abstain from it?
Quoting m-theory
Yes the action is. The action though has nothing to do with me doing something to steak. I'm not doing something to a steak by not eating it.
The definition of abstaining.
If something does not exist there is no opportunity to restrain yourself from doing it.
Quoting Agustino
You are using the steak as means to and end of being moral.
That is doing something to it, it is making a means to an end???
How are you not getting this?
So the definition of abstaining from steak is not eating steak correct?
Quoting m-theory
If so, then this assertion of yours is false.
Quoting m-theory
I am using my abstinence, not the steak, as a means to the end of being moral.
No the definition is to exercise restraint from doing or enjoying something.
Abstinence is a self discipline in the face of an opportunity to do otherwise.
There is no opportunity to do otherwise in the case where the otherwise does not exist.
Quoting Agustino
Except it isn't though.
Quoting Agustino
Again if you claim it is moral to not eat steak, and then you don't eat the steak to be moral.
You have used the steak as a means to justify an end of being moral.
*facepalm* okay redefine terms as you will (because I wasn't using abstinence in that sense). Then I will state:
Not eating steak is moral
I do not eat steak in order to be moral
Therefore I am moral
In no way am I using steak in here in order to be moral - I'm using my non-action - not eating steak - as a way to be moral. Remember, it's the not eating it that is moral. Has nothing to do with restraining or not. I can perceive not eating it as a restraint - but that has to do with my perception, not everyone will so perceive it. So can I not eat steak if steak doesn't exist? Sure. Case closed.
If you claim not eating steak is moral then you have used steak to make a moral claim.
If steak does not exist then you have made no claim at all.
Case closed indeed.
So we go from using steak as a means to the end of not eating steak to using steak to make a moral claim >:O
Quoting m-theory
Not riding unicorns is moral
Unicorns don't exist
Therefore you have made no claim at all
Right - that certainly follows :-} . Something doesn't have to exist for me to make moral claims about it. Worshipping the devil is immoral. That speaks of what morality is - because the devil could, logically speaking, exist.
So now you are admitting that you have used steak?
Yeees, yeeees that's exactly what I've said >:O
You said that not eating steak was moral.
You have used steak to make a moral claim.
Before you refused to admit that you had used steak for anything.
If steak is required for the claim to be moral, then it is a means to an end of being moral.
Yeah I have used it - in this case the word - to make a moral claim. So?
Quoting m-theory
Only in your mind. I refused to admit that I used steak as a means of being moral only.
Quoting m-theory
The moral claim isn't equivalent to being moral... really your logic is pathetic.
I see you are getting upset and resorting to insults.
Perhaps it is best if just agree to disagree.
If that's what you need in order to leave this discussion with your head high and sleep well tonight, sure :D
Is it because of the erosion of a strong public ethos? Is it the sense of 'individualism' instilled on American's? Maybe people have become egocentric to a large degree... due to, what? Is it rampant consumerism?
Any hypothesis on the topic would be appreciated.
Not everyone can become a Cynic or move to India, close to the Dalai Lama.
In my opinion:
1. First and foremost do not participate in such a culture regardless of what you give up in order not to participate in it - similar to Schopenhauer's denial of the Will
2. Second of all, look to form around you small Noah's Arks, where people with different kind of mentalities live their lives. These would become small islands that appear everywhere and in different locations around the globe. So educate people, or try to educate them wherever you go. Stay close to people who are like-minded and gather them around yourself.
3. Third of all fight against capitalism (production for the sake of production, not for the sake of satisfying human need)
4. Fourth, fight for religion and morality - which are virtues which can direct the public at large towards a different kind of culture - doing much as what the media is doing today, except that in the other direction
5. Gather money - to beat capitalism you need money. A lot of it. Gather money, and then use that money to turn the forces of capitalism against itself. Open TV stations promoting virtue - buy nightclubs only to close them down and convert them into different businesses - this will gather you media attention. Use the media attention to make it cool again to take different attitudes - fight the mechanisms of peer pressure. Turn the media against itself - they will be forced to report on your actions because they are new and sensational - this will enable you to attract attention to your message, even though the media doesn't want that. This is the strategy that Donald Trump has been using in fact, only that unfortunately he's probably not fighting against capitalism >:O
>:O - so do well and defund it.
Repeal and replace! :D
In my opinion masturbation is immoral, but since it only involves the self and not another person there are few grounds for "campaigning against it" so to speak. When you masturbate you're not harming anyone except at most yourself - so it's a sin like gluttony is a sin. The fact that someone commits such a sin is a personal matter, and doesn't trouble anyone else. Having sex though involves other people, hence sexual sins are more significant because they are also social sins - those are the sins which trouble us.
This discussion was interesting. Now I don't agree with Muhammad Ali that women should "cover up", but neither do I agree with indecent ways of dressing which are clearly undertaken to sexually provoke. There needs to be a balance. Decency is a virtue - of course decency differs from culture to culture - for example from Islam to Christianity, but there are some universalities between them - some limit below which a way of dressing becomes indecent, and hence immoral.
What if your wife enjoys watching? And what about a masturbating monkey? Is the monkey sinning as well?
Why do you think that would make a difference? She can enjoy watching, but that doesn't mean it's any less harmful for me. (Now it's different when it comes to mutual masturbation if you're asking about that...)
Quoting Benkei
Are human beings monkeys? You should be aware that morality only applies to other human beings - or rather to beings capable of reason (and hence of ordering their passions). A monkey may not be able to do this unless compelled from the outside.
Because it can be part of sex and often is and you've stated that sex as part of a lasting relationship was the way to go. Just wanted to get that straight.
Quoting Agustino
It's an interesting turn of fate that merely because our capacity to reason in a certain way that is different from monkeys that we should therefore obstain from acts that occur naturally within both the monkey and human population. It smells of a capricious distinction to me. Monkeys can reason and do have a set of moral rules. You could look into some of the work done by Frans de Waal to get an idea. Thelatest research in animal intelligence (and morality) suggests a far greater - but specialised - intelligence exists within them than that we've been led to believe. For clarity's sake, I'm not saying that because it naturally occurs it's therefore acceptable, just pointing out that reason and moral rules are concepts other animals have and apply.
How about teenagers who don't have the capacity to reason sufficiently to make these sort of ethical trade offs? If the capacity to reason is a reason why ethics applies to us then certainly stupid or underdeveloped people are excused and not acting immorally when they masturbate.
I'm pointing out animal reasoning and morality and human stupidity as reasons why I think "the capacity to reason" is not a very good measure for whether or not to apply ethical standards.
Mutual masturbation is, not self-masturbation. I haven't claimed mutual masturbation in the context of a committed relationship is wrong.
Quoting Benkei
Only via outside pressure. For a monkey it's not good to abstain from beating the other monkey because it is moral, rather it's good to abstain from it because otherwise they'll be kicked out of the monkey community and die. I don't call that morality. Maybe dogs actually show a sense of morality that is closer to humans (some dogs) but even there it is questionable.
Man is the only being we know of who can engage in actions because they are good - for goodness sake, and for no other reason.
Quoting Benkei
No they aren't excused. Their actions are still immoral, their culpability however may be lessened by their ignorance.
This is simply not consistent with recent research. You can watch this as a first impression: Do animals have morals (spoiler: yes)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Now time to focus on work...
It's not a matter of confirming or not confirming my worldview. This simply has no bearing on it. I don't dispute that animals have feelings of empathy and fairness. But that's not morality.
Quoting Benkei
I trust that they will perform their obligation only because I know that if they don't they'll suffer for it (so assuming they are rational I have no reason to think they will not follow it) - in addition I know that if they want to earn future favors from me, they better perform it. I don't need an effective system of enforcement (judges and police) to ensure that this is the case. Man ultimately takes justice in his own hands. Who knows, if they spite me, maybe in 10-20 years they'll need a favor or mercy from me - and I will return their spite. If they are going to be irrational, they will pay for it. But this isn't morality. This is business.
I repeat what I've said. Human beings are the only creature we know of who can engage in an action because it is good, regardless of the effects this has on oneself. Other animals engage in cooperative actions and practices because it's mutually advantageous, even if not at present, but in the long run it certainly is.
>:O You interacted with me out of your own free will, nobody forced you to, and then you're the one protesting? That is a bit strange. And putting me on ignore will just mean you're too scared of reading my posts - maybe it makes you question your own worldview too much. Anyway, I haven't and I will never put anyone on ignore. I may refuse to engage with some people - that's reasonable. But to avoid seeing what someone says? That's kinda stupid, sorry to say, not to mention that it is an example of intellectual cowardice.