"Comfortable Pessimism"
This is something that I have thought about for a very long time now. It is my belief that the classic pessimists (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Cioran, etc) espoused what I would label “comfortable pessimism”, or perhaps “convenient pessimism”.
What do I mean by “comfortable pessimism”? I mean a descriptive belief that establishes the world and its contents as negative in function and quality, but which there is an absent adequate prescription for its residents. In particular, an ethical prescription.
I will now provide some examples to justify my claim.
The first example is of Arthur Schopenhauer, one of the greatest German philosophers of all time. Truly, an undeniable genius and the number-one icon for philosophical pessimism. Here we have him asking us to compare the suffering experienced by the prey with the pleasure experienced by the predator, or pointing out the tedium and pointlessness of life in general. His prescription to those who read him? Detachment from the material world, isolation, contemplation, asceticism.
This is aesthetically pleasing. Rejecting the world of conflict and strife for a bubble of security. A simple life.
Yet Schopenhauer betrays his own foundations when he became famous later in life. He went out partying and auctioning and traveling. Not exactly the life of an ascetic.
But we have to make sure we separate the actions of the man with the theoretical prescriptions he provided. So I’ll attack his prescriptions, or, rather, the lack thereof.
When Schopenhauer was in Berlin (I think?), there was a massive cholera outbreak. Schopenhauer said he was a “cholera-phobe” and promptly packed up and left, saving himself from a disease. This quotation shows his deep aversion towards the world in general, especially on the aesthetic level.
He later travelled all across Europe, thinking himself to be the bringer of truth to humanity. In his opinion, he thought he shouldn’t interact with the common rabble in the same way Chinese missionaries shouldn’t interact with the Chinese. Thus we have a clear example of separation: a sense of entitlement and superiority.
It’s true that Schopenhauer was very intelligent. But it’s also striking how a man as perceptive to global suffering as he was, he simultaneously seemed to care very little for it. He focused instead of pursuing Truth, and once asked himself what the world would think about himself in the year 2100. He contemplated getting a wife later in his years. After he died, he left all his money to charity - a noble gesture, yet neither did Schopenhauer have any close friends or family in which this would go to.
Despite his acknowledgement of suffering, Schopenhauer continued to see a hierarchy in the world, one in which he no doubt thought himself as residing in the upper echelons.
Additionally, he seemed to have thought that the world was still in some sense aesthetically redeeming. He was fascinated with nature, fascinated with finding out the ultimate reality of the universe. It is exactly this fascination that I use as justification for the view that Schopenhauer was decadent. Schopenhauer was able to enjoy himself in a surrounding world of suffering. Considering Schopenhauer saw married couples as the ultimate conspirators to the continuation of human suffering, I believe I am justified in criticizing Schopenhauer himself as an inactive bystander (passive accomplice) to a world he otherwise saw as horrible.
If it could be summarized, then, Schopenhauers’ ethics would seem to largely consist in “not my fucking problem”. It’s simply enough to recognize that suffering exists.
The same can be seen in the philosophies of Cioran or Leopardi. Leopardi, for example, thought the only thing that could really “save” a person was complete isolation from the material world. And Cioran curiously seemed to have embraced suffering in some sense as a livelihood - he once envied Beckett for his despair. Once again, we have the aestheticization of suffering, or the mere abstraction of a negative feeling. The romanticization of something that really is not romantic at all, but dirty, painful, narrowing, and bad.
Buddhist ethics is a bit different in that it talks about the existence of bodhisattvas, or beings who achieve nirvana yet stick around anyway to help everyone else out. True altruists. Many Buddhist philosophers of the past could be seen as consequentialists. For Buddhists, it is not simply enough to point out the suffering in the world, but to actively promote the destruction of it, as suffering is something that should not exist.
Then we come to Nietzsche, who wanted to say “yes” to everything, including suffering. Suffering, for Nietzsche, is also aestheticized as a necessary prerequisite for power. For Nietzsche, a single joyous experience justifies all existence. This is inspiring but ultimately implausible and actually insulting to those who are suffering greatly.
So, to wrap up, this is what I see to be characteristic features of “comfortable/convenient pessimism”:
Thus I believe that the “comfortable pessimist” betrays their own descriptive foundations by failing to follow-through and pursue their pessimism to a prescriptive end. For the comfortable pessimist, it is enough to merely recognize that suffering is everywhere, but there is no responsibility to clean it up. Instead, the comfortable pessimist focuses on making their own life as comfortable and easy as possible. Thus this sort of pessimism is often accompanied by misanthropy, which oftentimes entails other people as being unworthy of attention.
Unfortunately, this makes comfortable pessimism an inactive and thus self-fulfilling prophecy. One should not be surprised when the world continues be to quite bad when one does nothing about it.
Active, purpose-driven pessimism eschews aesthetic comfort and decadence for a prescription to end the problem once and for all. This entails participating in and supporting public institutions focused on maximizing welfare and making the world a better place, and actively advocating pessimistic philosophies, within the constraints of self-preservation.
Active pessimism recognize how inappropriate it is to find pure enjoyment in the midst of irredeemable suffering. It recognizes that if you enjoy being a pessimist as an identity, you're doing it wrong.
Discuss.
What do I mean by “comfortable pessimism”? I mean a descriptive belief that establishes the world and its contents as negative in function and quality, but which there is an absent adequate prescription for its residents. In particular, an ethical prescription.
I will now provide some examples to justify my claim.
The first example is of Arthur Schopenhauer, one of the greatest German philosophers of all time. Truly, an undeniable genius and the number-one icon for philosophical pessimism. Here we have him asking us to compare the suffering experienced by the prey with the pleasure experienced by the predator, or pointing out the tedium and pointlessness of life in general. His prescription to those who read him? Detachment from the material world, isolation, contemplation, asceticism.
This is aesthetically pleasing. Rejecting the world of conflict and strife for a bubble of security. A simple life.
Yet Schopenhauer betrays his own foundations when he became famous later in life. He went out partying and auctioning and traveling. Not exactly the life of an ascetic.
But we have to make sure we separate the actions of the man with the theoretical prescriptions he provided. So I’ll attack his prescriptions, or, rather, the lack thereof.
When Schopenhauer was in Berlin (I think?), there was a massive cholera outbreak. Schopenhauer said he was a “cholera-phobe” and promptly packed up and left, saving himself from a disease. This quotation shows his deep aversion towards the world in general, especially on the aesthetic level.
He later travelled all across Europe, thinking himself to be the bringer of truth to humanity. In his opinion, he thought he shouldn’t interact with the common rabble in the same way Chinese missionaries shouldn’t interact with the Chinese. Thus we have a clear example of separation: a sense of entitlement and superiority.
It’s true that Schopenhauer was very intelligent. But it’s also striking how a man as perceptive to global suffering as he was, he simultaneously seemed to care very little for it. He focused instead of pursuing Truth, and once asked himself what the world would think about himself in the year 2100. He contemplated getting a wife later in his years. After he died, he left all his money to charity - a noble gesture, yet neither did Schopenhauer have any close friends or family in which this would go to.
Despite his acknowledgement of suffering, Schopenhauer continued to see a hierarchy in the world, one in which he no doubt thought himself as residing in the upper echelons.
Additionally, he seemed to have thought that the world was still in some sense aesthetically redeeming. He was fascinated with nature, fascinated with finding out the ultimate reality of the universe. It is exactly this fascination that I use as justification for the view that Schopenhauer was decadent. Schopenhauer was able to enjoy himself in a surrounding world of suffering. Considering Schopenhauer saw married couples as the ultimate conspirators to the continuation of human suffering, I believe I am justified in criticizing Schopenhauer himself as an inactive bystander (passive accomplice) to a world he otherwise saw as horrible.
If it could be summarized, then, Schopenhauers’ ethics would seem to largely consist in “not my fucking problem”. It’s simply enough to recognize that suffering exists.
The same can be seen in the philosophies of Cioran or Leopardi. Leopardi, for example, thought the only thing that could really “save” a person was complete isolation from the material world. And Cioran curiously seemed to have embraced suffering in some sense as a livelihood - he once envied Beckett for his despair. Once again, we have the aestheticization of suffering, or the mere abstraction of a negative feeling. The romanticization of something that really is not romantic at all, but dirty, painful, narrowing, and bad.
Buddhist ethics is a bit different in that it talks about the existence of bodhisattvas, or beings who achieve nirvana yet stick around anyway to help everyone else out. True altruists. Many Buddhist philosophers of the past could be seen as consequentialists. For Buddhists, it is not simply enough to point out the suffering in the world, but to actively promote the destruction of it, as suffering is something that should not exist.
Then we come to Nietzsche, who wanted to say “yes” to everything, including suffering. Suffering, for Nietzsche, is also aestheticized as a necessary prerequisite for power. For Nietzsche, a single joyous experience justifies all existence. This is inspiring but ultimately implausible and actually insulting to those who are suffering greatly.
So, to wrap up, this is what I see to be characteristic features of “comfortable/convenient pessimism”:
- Excessive individuality and self-centeredness, manifesting as isolation and a sense of entitlement/superiority
- Aestheticization of suffering, manifesting as a romantic narrative more than a feeling
- Acknowledgement of others’ suffering, but a general indifference to it, sometimes manifesting as amusement or disgust and a focus on one’s own priorities (“not my fucking problem” or “I’ve done ‘enough’ ”, aka not having the stomach for active participation)
- The theoretical rejection of the world (negativity) paired with distinctly affirmative procedures, manifesting as a sort of “redemption” or “habit”, i.e. art, calligraphy, fine cuisine, philosophy, etc.
- General melancholy, and an aversion to horror (Cioran as an exception), and a tendency to focus on maximizing one’s own comfort and security (i.e. Schopenhauer’s plush pillows and poodle)
Thus I believe that the “comfortable pessimist” betrays their own descriptive foundations by failing to follow-through and pursue their pessimism to a prescriptive end. For the comfortable pessimist, it is enough to merely recognize that suffering is everywhere, but there is no responsibility to clean it up. Instead, the comfortable pessimist focuses on making their own life as comfortable and easy as possible. Thus this sort of pessimism is often accompanied by misanthropy, which oftentimes entails other people as being unworthy of attention.
Unfortunately, this makes comfortable pessimism an inactive and thus self-fulfilling prophecy. One should not be surprised when the world continues be to quite bad when one does nothing about it.
Active, purpose-driven pessimism eschews aesthetic comfort and decadence for a prescription to end the problem once and for all. This entails participating in and supporting public institutions focused on maximizing welfare and making the world a better place, and actively advocating pessimistic philosophies, within the constraints of self-preservation.
Active pessimism recognize how inappropriate it is to find pure enjoyment in the midst of irredeemable suffering. It recognizes that if you enjoy being a pessimist as an identity, you're doing it wrong.
Discuss.
Comments (105)
Do you get points after you dife for having lived an actively pessimistic life? Do you get to pat yourself on the back for being virtuous and feel pride in your embracement of life's misery? Why would that matter? Or does it just make one feel good?
Me, I'd rather drink a beer and pass the time doing something half-way enjoyable or interesting.
Actually, I'd change this to say what is the point of comfortable pessimism? If nothing substantial changes based on your beliefs, what's the point? Especially when something like this has the inherent potential to be practical and not just theoretical.
Quoting Marchesk
As would I, but this doesn't make anything better. I'd be willing to argue that, from a consequentialist perspective, not doing anything could be considered criminal negligence in some cases (like a drowning child), or inappropriate apathy towards the rest of the world.
Now, if everyone were consequentialist, our responsibilities would drastically decrease. Unfortunately we live in an non-ideal world where not everyone recognizes the importance of suffering, and so we have to switch to non-ideal theory.
The active pessimist would be active in trying for a better context; from a better personal life to a better world, as the case might be. This requires some measure of hope in what could be by definition.
The presence of hope in some possible future may then not equate to optimism. But does it still warrant the label of "pessimist”? If so, how so?
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BTW, a quote from a guy named George Will that I find fitting:
"Had it more self-assurance and better social skills, pessimism would turn its disenchantment into a religion, possibly calling itself The Great Refusal. But there is a negation in pessimism that refuses even such a Refusal, an awareness that, from the start, it has already failed, and that the culmination of all that is, is that all is for naught. Pessimism tries very hard to present itself in the low, sustained tones of a Requiem Mass, or the tectonic rumbling of Tibetan chant. But it frequently lets loose dissonant notes at once plaintive and pathetic. Often, its voice cracks, its weighty words abruptly reduced to mere shards of guttural sound".
..."The very term “pessimism” suggests a school of thought a movement, even a community. But pessimism always has a membership of one — maybe two. Ideally, of course, it would have a membership of none, with only a scribbled, illegible note left behind by someone long forgotten. But this seems unrealistic, though one can always hope"
"And all of this shadowed by an impasse, a primordial insignificance, the impossibility of ever adequately accounting for one’s relationship to thought — all that remains of pessimism is the desiderata of affects — agonistic, impassive, defiant, reclusive, filled with sorrow and flailing at that architectonic chess match called philosophy, a flailing that pessimism tries to raise to the level of an art form (though what usually results is slapstick)."
I'm just saying - doesn't an 'active pessimism' betray... pessimism?
But I think a thoroughgoing pessimism voids the effects of any prescription – it doesn't matter what you do, and not in a meta-prescriptive sense that you 'ought not' to do anything, either. So what we have is an observation about these men, not a criticism of them. If pessimism has truth to it, these observations cease to be interesting.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why I'm tempted to eschew the term "pessimism" entirely. "Pessimism" is only "pessimistic" insofar as it is compared to more optimistic philosophies.
Instead, I prefer the term "negative", emphasis on the "negate", as opposed to "affirmative". Or perhaps rejectionist, although this too carries ascetic connotations. "Negative" it is. While affirmative thinkers base their philosophies on the assumption that life and existence are at least acceptable, negative thinkers find inherent flaws in the system that threaten to undermine the whole thing.
So perhaps you are right that an active pessimism betrays pessimism, but only in the sense that there are two sorts of pessimism - the psychological "everything is futile and everything will fail, waah" and the metaphysical "things are not good". And it seems that people such as Schopenhauer unknowingly adopted both at the same time. When in reality there is nothing logically preventing someone from being a pessimist and yet simultaneously euthymic about the prospects of the pessimistic goal.
Quoting The Great Whatever
At the same time, though, they seem to find some value in the irony they produce when they advocate views like these and yet turn around act possibly even worse than their own contemporaries. If philosophy is anything to its etymology, you would think the wise would do something with their wisdom instead of keeping it all cooped up and sacred.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I'm not sure I would still consider that "pessimism" - just straight up nihilism. Nothing matters because what you do doesn't matter. It's interesting, if you ever take a safari over to YouTube and watch all the bickering between all the self-proclaimed torchbearers of truth, there's typically two sides that both use the same strategy. There's those who bitch and moan about those who have children ("breeders") yet are content with not doing anything about it by claiming nothing matters anyway, and then there's those who try to salvage any sort of value to birth by pretending there is no value and that nothing matters.
To me, "nihilism" is one of those vogue terms people throw around to ignore those who don't have the opportunity to understand what nihilism even is.
Unless your view is that some sort of activity can lessen the poor quality of the world, despite its being in some way fundamentally or irreparably bad. I'm not quite sure of that, largely because I believe that humans are animals that aren't smart enough to figure out how to make things better. But it's a logical possibility.
To the pessimist, nihilism is worse than pessimism because it ignores values and is thus a bystander perpetrator of the whole disvalue game.
To the nihilist, this is all dumb and there's no value for anything at all, including nihilism.
Like I said, I see nihilism as a cop-out. In the past, "nihilism" was seen as anything that threatened the status quo, the teleological status of human civilization set up by the Christian theologians of the middle ages. Nowadays it's seen as a rejection of all value. It's the final stance a person will adopt - a position of no position - in order to deny the reality of value in the world. For the acceptance of nihilism rests upon value itself.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Too many times do people make the mistake that it's pointless to do anything because we'll never fully succeed. Will we ever get everyone to stop popping out babies? Will we ever have the opportunity to nuke the planet (I would prefer more peaceful methods...)? My bet is that we won't.
What I still hold on to though is the fact that the world can be improved without being fully good. There's no need for a good outcome to act in the right way. Getting a C+ on a test is better than an F.
OK, that's what I thought. I'm saying that while logically possible, humans are not very smart, and aren't capable of thinking of very many things, or processing chains of cause and effect complex enough to alleviate suffering in any non-trivial and consistent way. In short, while there are a million infallible paths to unending suffering, there's not even one I'm aware of that people have come up with which leads to its alleviation reliably. So my contention is just that people don't have the skills to improve the world in that way - they're too stupid.
I thought the contention was more fundamental than that. Being born an animal subjects one to a life of suffering in one form or another. Some more extreme than others, but even the richest, most comfortably lived life still has to contend with boredom, frustration, relationship difficulties, possibly addiction, maybe unhappiness or mental illness, etc.
That problem can't really be solved. We can determine what the optimal environment is for the human animal, and aim for that, but it won't get rid of existential concerns and other problems everyone faces to some degree.
All that being said, there is certainly a substantial difference between feeling depressed and bummed out about life, and feeling decently well, and engaged. Or between lots of pain, and minimal daily discomforts. Or I would imagine, between having plenty of food, and starving.
It's not perfect, and it's sort of infected by the scientistic types, but the Effective Altruism movement is perhaps one of the most effective and reliable groups that is focused on making things better than they are right now.
At any rate I sense the same sort of isolation in your response as I did in the writings of Schopenhauer and co. You say that people are just so stupid. Not everyone is. Apparently you and I have enough brain cells to figure some of this stuff out.
It'd be nice to be able to just say that the world is kept alive by the zombies. Unfortunately humans aren't zombies because they can feel. And every now and then there's those like you and me and others here that pop out and wonder why the fuck they're here anyway.
I conceive of a threshold that people need to be kept above in order so they can take care of themselves so to speak. Prioritize those who fall below this threshold, or those who ask for help. This also means I typically don't tell people to "get help" because they probably already have tried and failed to accomplish anything productive.
So I do share your general pessimistic evaluation of humanity as a whole. We're a sorry lot. So I focus more on non-human animal welfare, those residents of the Earth that are continually neglected and forgotten about.
The sorry state of chickens?
Penguin suicide? How do they manage that?
I'm sorry if video evidence isn't enough for you. :-}
A few years ago I was standing next to a penguin researcher when a whole gaggle of Adeles came waddling past us in the wrong direction in McMurdo Sound. They looked happy enough even though the researcher said there goes another lost bunch headed towards certain death.
Animals are always wandering off because it makes sense to explore the world for new territories. Especially in a changing environment like sea ice where a randomly calving shelf can float in and block off your feeding ground that summer.
It's not, though, since apparently if you picked it up and brought it back to its waddle, it would just turn right back around.
Also animals like penguins, who aren't exactly apex predators, typically wouldn't just go off exploring by themselves, miles away from everyone else in their waddle.
And they go off in whole groups. There were 15 in the group that walked past me.
So you can believe a film-maker or you can believe a scientist. But your "video evidence" is a joke to me.
To be fair a lot of those 'comfortable pessimists' espoused anti-natalistism, something which really would 'end the problem once and for all' once implemented. Neither Schopenhauer, the Buddha, nor Emil Cioran had children.
This made me laugh! If it's any comfort I feel the exact same way.
What about drug use? Have you tried that for your misery? What's your thoughts on it as a means to be happy?
Maybe there could be a progression away from optimistic idealism. Starting with Skepticism going to atheism then to pessimism then to cynicism and finally to nihilism. The only positions beyond nihilism that i can think of are Wall Street banker or national politician. :D
That doesn't change the fact that they weren't really doing anything else. Not having children isn't especially that impressive.
For Dienstag, Active Pessimists include Leopardi, Freud and Camus, while Inactive Pessimists include Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and Cioran. I'm actually surprised that you would group Leopardi with the latter considering that Leopardi writes positively about taking action despite the unhappiness often generated by it. He uses the figure of Christopher Columbus as an exemplar of one who took action despite the risks it involved.
Given the descriptions you provide, I would have to argue that you don't exactly understand the thinking behind Pessimism. For any pessimist, the inaction of a 'Comfortable Pessimist" wouldn't lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of human suffering because human suffering would be unavoidable regardless of any action taken. Likewise, for the "Active Pessimist", there can be no "prescription to end the problem once and for all", as that assumes a linear ending to history which betrays a foundational pillar of Pessimism. An Active Pessimist may attempt to mitigate or eradicate gratuitous forms of human suffering, but would need to acknowledge that such attempts can fail, or that such problems can always return during or after the lifetime of the Pessimist.
This smacks a bit too much of religion- the Kingdom of God and whatnot. However, these apocalyptics were looking for redemption at the end of their actions- the more they helped, the closer the World to Come would be manifested. What is the Pessimist's incentive?
The ordinary human experience is not to experience so much debilitating guilt that they just compelled at all seconds to helping the poor, the destitute, the downtrodden, etc.. So guilt alone does not impel the majority of people, or even the brilliant Pessimist intellectual, to work at all times for the welfare of others. Is it to impress his fellow man as to what a great person he/she is; in other words pride in how selfless he/she is? Most people do not have such hubris, and if they did, it is much too easy to use it to aggrandize themselves in less draining and more interesting ways. For Schopenhauer, perhaps being a compassionate saintly person was ideal, but he also had a view of character which seemed to indicate that only the truly compassionately "gifted" could ever reach such negation of their own will. Perhaps Schopenhauer was too vain to admit his defect of character, but certainly, he did not achieve this ideal and thus was not of a character of one who had the capacity to be so will-less. Perhaps this is a cop-out- some people have the right stuff, and others do not and thus did not give enough credence to free-will to justify why some people are more compassionate than others rather than everyone, especially the Pessimist, doing his/her part.
There are two main points that I can add besides what was said above:
1.) If the point of alleviating suffering is such that those who were alleviated from some of their suffering would then enjoy their lives more, it would be a contradiction of the very logic by not "indulging" in the very enjoyment of life (the positive goods) that were hoped for in the others' alleviation of suffering. Rather, if we were to only think of others' alleviation of suffering, life would be even more absurdly tormenting than it was originally, as not even its enjoyment, that which is the goal of alleviating others' suffering, would be enjoyed by anyone.
2.) As others commented above, Pessimists inherently think that suffering cannot be eradicated. Much of the sentiments you display seem almost religious in character (Abrahamic religions, mostly). However, this religious exhortation to charitable action works in the context of religion due to the idea of an End of Times- that they are working to bring about the Kingdom of God. Without such a context, a cathartic metaphysical "something to show for it", it is essentially putting a band-aid over a mortal wound and then saying- you must be a good Pessimist, like they used to say you must be a good Christian.
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel.
An optimist sees light at the end of the tunnel.
A realist sees a train.
The train driver sees 3 idiots on the tracks.
Does there need to be an incentive?
I think I've explained to you before how I hate guilting people, but all anyone has to do is imagine the suffering a wild animal feels while being devoured by its predator, or sympathize with the unknown nobody in Ethiopia who hasn't had anything to eat for two weeks.
The guilt one feels is incomparable to the suffering experienced by these sorts of situations. As Peter Unger said, it's "living high and letting die."
Quoting schopenhauer1
Not precisely, and I would personally feel bad about intentionally bragging about my adventures in altruism. Although I will admit that at times I feel a sense of superiority that I can only see as justified.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I might be willing to argue that since nobody asked to be born, nobody has an obligation to clean up to the mess and do anything for anyone else.
This of course conflicts with intuitions regarding drowning children, but it's at least coherent.
Scheffler argues that there should be nothing preventing people from doing good, but there is no obligation to do so. Perhaps he's right. I'm not too sure, cases like drowning children make me believe we do have some obligations.
And anyway if we eschew obligations then Schopenhauer and co. have absolutely no right to condemn those who have children, as they have no obligation to care about the welfare of their offspring. It's a double-bladed sword.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I would say that there this sort of enjoyment is not as important than minimizing the suffering these people feel. This goes back to distributive inequality issues. I believe that the angst and ennui that characterized pessimistic philosophies in the past is largely irrelevant when compared to the feelings experienced by those worse-off.
Indeed it seems wrong to feel ennui because one knows someone else is being tormented, because this means one is viewing them as some kind of tarnish in a world they would rather see as good.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, indeed, I have quasi-religious conceptions but they are only inspiration, not legitimate options I think. Like I told TGW, it's not about eradicating suffering, it's about minimizing it.
Perhaps an argument against mine would be that we can never distribute altruistic care equally. There will always be someone "left out" wondering why they didn't get help. If you care about equality then perhaps this is important - maybe it's more important to preserve equality than to minimize suffering. I don't think it's very strong, though, because you yourself would be left out of the equation. And in ideal theory, those worse-off would still recognize that there are those who are equally as worse off as they are.
One can sympathize, but most don't go out of their way to take a plane to these impoverished regions to stop it. That does not seem to happen. It's not prescriptive but descriptive of what appears to be ordinary human behavior. The Pessimist, though shining a light on such sad situations, seems to also have no more innate impulse to take that plane either. Is this hypocrisy? I'll explain that with some of your other quotes.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Perhaps there is a thrill in feeling a bit superior, but my guess is most people feel good when they help others. However, this diminishes over time, hence its commodification- almost as a lifestyle choice. The realization that they feel good helping others, makes it so they may volunteer, and perhaps during special times of the year (holidays for example). It's like getting a hit of oxytocin or serotonin. They may exercise, play some game, and then volunteer. However, as soon as it becomes a burden to themselves, whereby their own pursuits are being heavily diminished only to pursue others' welfare, this becomes a negative outcome for themselves and thus loses the incentive- the good feelings are no longer there associated with it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Again, people just don't work like that- even Pessimists. Let's take homelessness. It is a large structural problem. If you went to certain neighborhoods or regions, you may be approached every five minutes by those asking for food, a ride, and most likely money. You may help one guy, you may help two guys, but this goes back to the commodification that most people unintentionally place the act. It made them feel good- "Today I helped these two people by giving them $20 to eat for the day" each. As soon as it becomes a financial burden, the activity is stopped. However, the real cost to "really" help these people is actually in the tens of thousands of dollars and up to millions of dollars. There is mental health care, substance abuse rehabilitation, housing projects, etc. Even for one person, this is expensive. This actually takes political and community action to help solve, and even then the problems don't just disappear but are cyclical. Anyways, this is just one social ill that is way beyond one person's charity or volunteering or even a lifetime of a Mother Teresa lifestyle.
Now, the Mother Teresa types are often religiously inspired- so they much of their actions are trying to model a religious ideal or mandate and even using it to proselytize. They are trying to get a metaphysical change from the action and save souls while they are doing it. The good deeds are bringing about the Kingdom of God or bring about a spiritual change. Some people might genuinely be doing these actions out of some sort of innate capacity for extreme altruism, but this is rare, as Schopenhauer pointed out.
However, are you committed to Schopenhauer's metaphysics whereby the saintly compassionate person legitimately lessens their wills? I do not think that is your position. You are trying a more consequentialist/pragmatic approach which is based on some sort of knee-jerk empathy reaction. This just does not happen. The absurd end goal of such a philosophy would be the logic whereby we all suffer equally in the slavish notion of extreme self-denial and altruism. Thus, the goods that ARE available in life are negated for all (or at least the Pessimist). The consolations of goods (especially long-term goods), may be seen as an addiction, but this too is part and parcel of the fact that we suffer. This addiction, while being an addiction (life is just okay enough to deal with), it is still a necessary component right there with the suffering. It cannot be annihilated from the equation. Thus the best one can do is make do with long-term goods, help out as much as possible without it becoming simply a negative slavish force for oneself and strip all long-term goods from one's life (thus making one's goals to help others more meaningful as they too can pursue long-term goods), and finally, to not procreate, and thus end the harm and addiction to the next generation.
Right, this is why more "sophisticated" consequentialists typically advocate change through institutions and organizations. A mass effort. For the consequentialist, the state of affairs is what matters. What is moral is not always what makes you feel good. Of course, people are needed to actually go out and interact with those in need. But it's similar to a military campaign. For every soldier, there are ten support units behind him. The support units are necessary and important but don't get the "glory" so to speak. They are the units "behind the scenes".
I have an acquaintance who decided to switch majors to social work because he wanted to "help people". True, social work will help people, but he was more concerned about human interaction and all that. The "good feelings" of helping people. But let's not forget that impersonal donations of money or labor can do just as much, if not more, good. Giving $20 to a homeless person might make you feel good. Donating this $20 to a food charity will help far more people, though, and it will guarantee this money will go to good use. But it doesn't "feel" as good...
For Schopenhauer, then, its seems that he was committed to the view that there are some things you just don't do, like murder or rape, but generally being an altruist is entirely voluntary and only worthwhile so long as you experience some form of compassionate aesthetic. The "bonding" moment.
Those who are consequentialists are given an unfair amount of responsibility, since reality is non-ideal and not everyone are consequentialists. For consequentialists, one does not necessarily need to feel sympathy all the time, but merely recognize that their cognitive faculties are preventing them from seriously sympathizing with those in need.
Quoting schopenhauer1
True. Actually Mother Teresa once said that it's not about the people you help, but the relationship between you and God. She cared very little for the suffering of others, it seems. Rather it was merely a way of getting closer to God. Twisted if I say so myself.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Generally I agree. We're not robots that can just do something 24/7. Those who do typically do so because they like doing it or like you said they have a metaphysical redemption in mind.
Now that I think of it the greatest threat to my view has got to be the fact that those who are better off could become very much worse off at the flip of a coin, perhaps in the process of doing altruism. I already recognize that one shouldn't be obligated to kill themselves for the benefit of others, that is too extreme of an obligation to be seriously expected. Yet every day we expose ourselves to life-threatening risks, even if we don't recognize it.
Labeling these figures generically as "pessimists" is somewhat misleading.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The validity of this statement hangs on the word "adequate," for Schopenhauer and Nietzsche do propose an ethic. Cioran may be different, but that's because his preference for obscurantism elides any attempt to extract coherent philosophical positions from his writings.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Ah, this canard again. I suppose you were about due for an ad hominem attack on poor ol' Arthur!
But wait, I see a shaft of light piercing through the clouds:
Quoting darthbarracuda
Good, let's see if you succeed.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Really? I would say it shows his deep aversion to dying of cholera, a quite natural aversion for a person to have, surely.
Quoting darthbarracuda
And entirely justified.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You're confusing "caring" with "acting." Schopenhauer undoubtedly cared about suffering a great deal. But did he perform heroic acts of altruism sufficient to meet the heavenly standards of a certain darthbarracuda? Perhaps not.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So, he's damned if he tries to marry and damned for not having a family to give charity to. He cannot win on your terms.
Quoting darthbarracuda
And justifiably so. "What is modesty but hypocritical humility?"
Quoting darthbarracuda
I would hesitate to say that Schopenhauer "enjoyed" living. What do you know of the man's inner life? You're just armchair psychologizing here, creating an image of Schopenhauer suitable to reject, for reasons you have yet to make fully clear.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But he didn't marry and never desired to have children, so he is not an "accomplice" to human suffering at all, given that, as you admit, its origin is found in procreation.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No, his ethic consists in treating other living beings with compassion. You're still desperately trying to paint him as "uncaring," but that impression simply does not stand up to the facts. Another aspect of his philosophy you have neglected to consider, but which is relevant to this discussion, is his determinism. Even if I granted to you that he were an uncaring individual, he could no more change this aspect of his character than the saint could cease to be holy. As Voltaire says, which Schopenhauer quotes somewhere, "we shall leave this world as foolish and as wicked as we found it on our arrival." The truth of what Schopenhauer describes of the world is not made false by the life he lead, decadent or not.
Quoting darthbarracuda
There may be some romanticization going on, but these men also realize that "suffering is the fleetest animal that bears you to perfection."
Quoting darthbarracuda
Only if you buy what they're selling! In any event, the "help" consists in being reborn as a monk or a lama ad infinitum, which, given the drift of your comments addressed above, you would likely be dissatisfied with as not being "altruistic" enough.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Excessive in comparison to what?
Quoting darthbarracuda
False.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, for we all know that whoever advocates asceticism but does not sleep on a cement block next to a charnel ground in the howling wind is the vilest of hypocrites. And, obviously, to hell with animal companionship.
Quoting darthbarracuda
In other words, as per usual, you're disappointed that Schopenhauer et al haven't lived up to their own ideals to the degree that you would like. But this is of no surprise to the pessimist, if we must use that term. Would that the world were a nice and pleasant place! Would that all men behaved like saints and lived up to the highest ethical ideals! But they do not, and it is precisely this realization that makes one a pessimist, generally speaking. Your criticism is therefore entirely impotent because it fails to understand all of what pessimism logically entails.
Please don't psychoanalyze me, I'm not "desperate" to prove these people as devils.
Quoting Thorongil
Not having children isn't too impressive. He was an accomplice to suffering in the same way standing by while a child drowns in water is criminal neglect. Once you know what life entails, sitting on your plush pillows is neglect. With the stakes as high as they are, allowing becomes rather similar to simply doing.
Quoting Thorongil
In comparison to what he could have done.
Quoting Thorongil
True. X-)
Quoting Thorongil
It's pretty obvious visiting a whorehouse is not the ideal of an ascetic.
Quoting Thorongil
And so what does it "fully entail"? Please enlighten me.
I'm not surprised that these people didn't live up to ethical standards. But I'm disappointed that they didn't even seem to try given what they obviously understood about life.
Funny how you seem to focus only on Schopenhauer when I mentioned other pessimists, like Leopardi, who intentionally isolated themselves from everyone else.
So what are you trying to prove, hmm? That you're "disappointed that they didn't even seem to try given what they obviously understood about life?" That's it? That's a waste of breath to point out. If in your estimation they didn't "try" hard enough, then so what? They might agree with you on that point! We all fall short, every last one of us. To be disappointed in what one cannot change is foolish.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The claim isn't about its impressiveness.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I don't recall any incidents in his life that are in any way comparable to this.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The pillow one sleeps on makes not one iota of difference, positive or negative, to the sufferings going on in the world. If a rock were his pillow, is he suddenly absolved? If he went down to the Main river, found a nice stone, and replaced his "plush" pillow with it, is the world suddenly a better place? What pillow do you sleep on? Judge not lest ye be judged.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Which would have been what? The kind of free will you seem to be attributing to Schopenhauer he would reject: "Let us imagine a man who, while standing on the street, would say to himself: It is six o'clock in the evening, the working day is over. Now I can go for a walk, or I can go to the club; I can also climb up the tower to see the sunset; I can go to the theater; I can visit this friend or that one; indeed, I also can run out of the gate, into the wide world, and never return. All of this is strictly up to me, in this I have complete freedom. But still I shall do none of these things now, but with just as free a will I shall go home to my wife."
Quoting darthbarracuda
The figures you mentioned were not "indifferent" to suffering. One would be hard pressed to find a more false claim one could make about them.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It's not funny, since the vast majority of your post was about Schopenhauer.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I don't have any interest in trying to define pessimism here. I'm content simply to point out that one of the things it entails is that humans do not behave as they ought or would like.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So why dwell on what cannot be changed? Focus on living morally in your own life, which is the only one you have any control over.
Rather it's about effectiveness and direction.
Quoting Thorongil
I'm not saying there were any incidents like this. I'm saying location and distance have no bearing on our knowledge of suffering. What difference does it make if the person is next door or down the street? What about a few miles away?
Quoting Thorongil
Well actually technically it would make a difference, as he could have used that money for better use. But that's not really the point. The point is that Schopenhauer and co. all seemed to focus on their own comfort more than anyone else's. And I argued for this by pointing out his plush pillows and poodle, his want for aesthetic and his love of nature.
Quoting Thorongil
So not only was Schopenhauer a determinist, you're saying he was a fatalist as well?
Quoting Thorongil
Well, remember the point of the OP, man. You're the one who is taking this personally and claiming I'm attacking these people in an ad hominem fashion.
I'm not, at least not directly. I'm pointing out how it can't really be denied that they were, in some sense, limited in what they accomplished to actually do something about the suffering in the world. They were not bodhisattvas. The claim is that their pessimism was comfortable/convenient because, as I see it, they did not follow through with their pessimism. One wonders how much they actually accomplished to reduce suffering in comparison to all those comparatively-optimistic social workers who didn't know two things about metaphysics but were more effective in reducing suffering as a whole than any one of these great thinkers.
To summarize, then, I'll quote Adorno: "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric." The natural world as a whole is like an Auschwitz. Pursuing things like philosophy or art that have no real contribution to the rest of the world as a whole, exclusively, means to prioritize oneself over another.
Again, like I mentioned earlier, Leopardi was a loner and an egoist, who thought being true to himself was all that mattered. Cioran obviously was not a public figure, just more of a shadowy outsider. Schopenhauer didn't just run away from cholera like any rational person would, he went further and called himself a choleraphobe, as if nobody else was, and focused on his own career and fame (especially later in life). Nietzsche was all sorts of crazy, maybe he can be given a break in this case. Camus didn't put two and two together to realize it is birth, and not just suicide, that are true philosophical questions. Even Zapffe decided to stick to climbing mountains all day and for some strange reason found ecology to be very important.
There is nothing wrong with my statement that these men could have done more. Whether they were obligated to do so is a totally different argument, although personally I think they were.
Quoting Thorongil
...Because I find this to be important and know that my own influence extends beyond my own body in the sense of persuasion.
-
Off topic question: if I remember correctly, you are at university, no? Do you have any thoughts on why pessimistic thinkers typically don't get taught as much as other thinkers? Or generally, why do you think pessimism is not as widely accepted as presumably you might wish it to be?
The difference is that I may not be able to do anything to help the person miles away. This ought to be obvious. If one sees a child drowning, then one if obliged to save it, as the figures you mention would no doubt try to do. But children likely drown by the thousands each year, all over the planet. One cannot hope to save all of them. The magnitude of suffering is so great that there is extremely little one can concretely do to alleviate it in any meaningful sense. And why should the alleviation of one's own suffering somehow count for less than the alleviation of someone else's? Suffering is suffering, so if you are some kind of consequentialist, as I am wont to assume about you based on this discussion, then it shouldn't matter the person from whom suffering is taken away.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So you're a utilitarian. Great, but he wasn't. Nor am I.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Even if this were true, again, so what? That shouldn't matter for a utilitarian. Also, what pillow do you sleep on?
Quoting darthbarracuda
You dodged my question here.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Again, you're judging them on utilitarian grounds, which they would reject.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Adorno is an idiot. To not write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. The existence of poetry is a sign and consequence of civilizational and cultural health. Barbarism is the antithesis of civilization and so the antithesis of the arts and poetry. Auschwitz was therefore an enemy of poetry, such that a legitimate repudiation of the former would be to write the latter.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Poppycock. If you really believed this, you would cease posting on a forum like this. Or perhaps you will admit to your own hypocrisy, in which case your criticisms of Schopenhauer et al lose all their force.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, you're a utilitarian.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Why?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Unfortunately, I am.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Because most college professors are optimistic, left leaning progressives. I will say that there is a certain kind of pessimism which some of them exude, owing to the influence of certain postmodernist hacks, which I absolutely abhor. It's not "classical pessimism," as you put it, but a pessimism about the merits and achievements of science, Western civilization, truth, reason, the enlightenment, democracy, and so on.
This is where you are incorrect. There are lots of effective altruism groups and other similar organizations that operate on donations from people like you and me.
Quoting Thorongil
I'm a welfare consequentialist, yes. And my claim is that any sort of active welfarism is what separates active pessimism from comfortable "not my fucking problem" pessimism.
Quoting Thorongil
I sleep on a pillow imported from the far east, with downy feathers and a silk cover. Some say the prince of Persia once rested his head upon its soft embrace.
Quoting Thorongil
Adorno was being hyperbolic. I was using it to convey a point that you're missing here.
Quoting Thorongil
Eh, no, since I already said you can pursue these things, so long as you're not doing it exclusively. There's obviously a thresh-hold, I'm not saying we should all become altruistic slaves. I'm saying there were things that these pessimists could have done that would not have affected their lives in any unreasonable manner, and they did not do so.
Quoting Thorongil
What about scholars of thinkers like Nietzsche or Freud? Don't they have to read Schopenhauer, for example? Or for that matter, Germany as a whole which sees Schopenhauer as one of the great minds of their history?
I'm curious as to why someone we both see as accurately portraying the human condition could be so neglected. IIRC it was Schopenhauer himself who said most philosophers weren't actually doing philosophy.
Yes, this becomes a political and organizational question. This involves policy, appropriations, non-profit donations, collaboration- actions that actually are being done currently by groups and interested parties (whether effective or with as much revenue is another question). One can give to charity and seek to influence political institutions as an individual donor, but it will take a community of people and vision. Therefore, your consequentialism entails that many people should organize in old-fashioned grassroots politics and thus is a bigger issue than $20 contributions each year. Rather, it entails civic involvement by all concerned parties. In short, your ideas are really political more than anything. It is a more an appeal to "Get out the vote" and be more involved in the community.
Some Pessimists might be at odds with especially utilitarian consequentialism altogether because utilitarian consequentialism assumes that improvements can take place when in actuality we are never really improving. The human condition is such that it does not happen. It is veiled utopianism, the most optimistic of optimistic ideas. It is to buy into the carrot and stick.. if we just work harder to live together better now, we can make it work for a future, more ideal state. That is just something you will rarely see a Pessimist say. So no, they are probably not breaking their own ideals- they probably never had them. If you want to REFUTE their ideals, that is one thing, but I do not think they are being hypocritical to their own ideals. So again, to entail utilitarianism with Pessimism is to unfairly tie two concepts together that are not necessarily entailed. Pessimism actually has very little in the way of ethics- it is mostly an aesthetic comprehension of the world. What one does about it is more open for interpretation. What it does have (i.e. Schopenhauer's compassionate ideal), is not necessarily utilitarian anyways.
This aesthetic comprehension, despite your protestations, does have to do with the ennui/instrumentality/vanity/absurdity of existence. It is the idea that there is an uncalmness to existence. With the animal, especially the human animal, this becomes its own self-contained suffering in the organism. There is the need to survive, and then this need to thrash about on the stage of the world with whatever entertainments we can pursue. We not only deal with present pains, but must anticipate future ones and worry about the past. What there is not, is ability for complete repose. This would be sleep. We MUST get up, we MUST survive, we MUST entertain. On top of this kernel of uncalmness, is the complexities of contingent harms that we must face. Is this the real metaphysical "truth" of the world, or is this just the product of a certain temperament? I brought that up in a previous thread, but indeed, there is a Pessimist aesthetic and a certain byline that runs through it.
As you note, Schopenhauer's ethic came from lessening one's will by way of being less individuated- it was not necessarily about the outcome of compassionate acts. It is much more of a metaphysical problem he is working on. Each person, being a manifestation of Will in some illusory individuation that causes suffering, is supposed to extinguish one's Will by being less individuated and more concerned in others. However, Schopenhauer also thought that character was generally fixed, and only the rare individual had the capacity to be truly compassionate, or at least compassionate in a way that makes them less individuated. Compassionate acts are one step, but even this is not complete in his conception, to be complete everyone must be an ascetic and renounce one's will-to-live. This of course, is a tall order.
Though I know you disagree with the execution of Benatar's consequentialism/utilitarianism in regards to his asymmetry logic, you may want to see what he has to say about ethics outside of antinatalism, as you can see where another antinatalist/pessimist that is consequentialist/utilitarian balances consequences and personal responsibility. I honestly don't know much else about what his ethics entails based on his premises. He is obviously most famous for applying his assumptions to antinatalism in particular. How he handles altruism in general would be interesting to explore.
Personally, I do not think you have to go so deep as to finding starving children and drowning victims. I find it interesting to note that we humans can suffer so much from the minutiae of life. Working with other people, trying to overcome daily dilemmas, trying to deal with annoyances great and small, all the harms I brought up in previous threads- the problems we face are continuous in any economic circumstance- they just get more refined. Yes, water/food/basic needs are the foundation, but the problems do not end, they simply get pushed up the chain. I am not saying we should not work so people get to have less dire problems, but the problems will persist, they just get more nuanced. The Pessimist rightly sees that the problems do not go away. You can pat yourself on the back, have a secular "Kingdom of God" complex by working to end this or that problem, but the problems of existence do not go away. Existence itself does not provide a smooth existence simply because one's basic needs are met. If this was so, Pessimists would simply not hold the notion of Pessimism. There are more problems, especially for the complex human animal, than basic needs. Though this should be met, there are just so many subtle and nuanced ways people can experience harm, including the very instrumentality of existence itself. We have a mouth and an asshole.. stuff comes in, and shit comes. This is like instrumentality in the flesh! Add to the fact our big brains- we have complex social relations and technology. Thus we must deal with our own complex individual psychological/physical welfare, we have to deal with the complex and often negative social relations, we have to navigate the complex technological behemoth of our economy, all in the pursuit of survival and keeping ourselves entertained. We suffer in more complex ways than the animals, and we are aware of it! Bringing another person into existence is bringing another person into the burdens of life. It is literally giving another person burdens to deal with, so they can what? every once in a while feel the goods that life can offer?
Also, there are goods that tend to ameliorate the general angst of life more than others, and, if one were a utilitarian/consequentialist, at the least, I would think that one would want to promote these goods for others. It is not just that one should have the basic goods of life, but if those basic goods are met, what then? It is to pursue some sort of content, even if, as I stated earlier, it just makes one addicted. It is at least a consolation people can have. Thus I see no need in bashing those who indulge in them- even while perhaps, wanting to promote others' welfare. Thus, long-term relationships, friendships, flow activities, being immersed in the aesthetic calm of music/art, and learning can be goods that may be worth promoting for others, or at least hoping they can achieve. Most importantly, if you do not indulge in those goods yourself, your very logic of helping people makes no sense- it becomes an absurd circular logic. We must help people so they can help people, so they can help people. At the least, you want to help people so they can get some enjoyment for life, and thus this implies, you should also get enjoyment of life, just as you want to see enjoyment from others. Now, this does not mean that these goods are worth it to bring new life. They are simply consolations for already being here. In fact, they are always imperfect goods- relationships can lead to strife, art/music can get old lose its luster, flow activities can be hard to achieve and the momentum one had can be lost, learning can simply become tedious.
Wait a minute, if your solution to the world's suffering is charity, then Schopenhauer's giving his money to charity upon his death is more effective than anything either of us could or likely will do. I have substantial student loan debt, a microscopic bank account, very few possessions to my name, and no desire to be extremely wealthy, so I'm not the sort of person for whom these organizations operate.
But think of the ridiculousness of your suggestion. The existence of charities at all begs the question of what underlying features of society, human nature, and the world are broken and corrupt enough that they necessitate their existence. If humans were capable of alleviating suffering through charity, then they would be capable of solving the problems that necessitate charity. But they are not and so you are chasing a fool's dream.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But this means your criticism has been meaningless from the start, since you have been assuming an ethic contrary to those about whom you criticize. In order for your criticism to stick, you would first have to show how their ethical systems are false.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So you're a hypocrite.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Which was?
Quoting darthbarracuda
And why should anyone listen to what you think other people should do? More importantly, what makes you think they will?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Like what? Selling their pillows for crappier ones? Come on, man.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Some of them do, but if you look for scholars who do work on Nietzsche, then more often than not, they ignore Schopenhauer. The simple fact is that, in academic philosophy at present, Schopenhauer is estranged from both the analytic and continental camps. He doesn't belong to, nor founded, any "school," and for this reason is ignored. The analytic camp follows a line of influence from Hume to Kant to Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and the logical positivists. The continental camp follows a line from Kant to Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, then to Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, and finally to the postmodernists of the last century.
Quoting Thorongil
This is correct.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It seems we have a millionaire in our midsts! :D
tl:dr version: folks are hypocrites.
>:O
I don't see the relevance of that quote.
There is no dealing with it at a social level, I agree with that. No perfect society. But the pessimist takes a further step than saying just this. He complains about it - as if such a society should be possible but isn't.
Quoting Agustino
But that still leaves the natural philosophy argument that "perfection" involves only a constraint on variety in pursuit of some global goal. So the goal could be achieved "perfectly" - as in some system level flourishing measured in natural terms, like growth or entropification - and yet individual variation in terms of achieving that goal is not a problem. It is not evidence of some imperfection or failure, but a necessary feature of it being a natural system we are talking about - the "requisite variety" that underpins adaptive tracking of said goal.
Now human society may have sufficient freedom to decide it wants to pursue loftier global goals - like happiness, freedom, creativity, religiosity, military prowess, or whatever. Within the constraints of physics and biology, it can self-define its own cultural utopia.
Yet still the same systems logic applies. The cultural system needs variety to actually be capable of tracking its goal adaptively.
So pessimism fails because it expects reality to be unnatural. Or supernatural. Perfections and utopias are defined in ways that are brittle and mechanical, not fluid and organic.
Now you (the individual) can be a sage all your life. But the whole lot of mankind can never be sages - there's always a tendency towards what is low. You can build that perfect society - only that it too shall disappear.
There is the long-run issue too. But a "perfect" society - that understood itself in these organismic terms - would understand such lifecycle issues and thus know how to guard against them.
The necessity of rise and fall of negentropic structure in nature is due to a three-stage natural sequence of developing organisation. A system develops from immaturity to maturity to senescence.
In the beginning it burns bright and grows fast because it knows little and so is highly adaptive. Young bodies heal fast because they grow fast.
Then you have the mature phase where there is a steadier balance between stability and plasticity.
Then comes senescence which is in fact the highest state of adaptedness to an enviroment. The cleverness of youth has been replaced by the wisdom of age - a collection of habits that have the best fit with the world.
But the drawback of being so well adapted is the rise of a matching brittleness. Now if something big and unexpected happens - a perturbation like drought, war, disease, climate change - the system is so locked into one way of living that it can't adapt to the new situation. That is what leads to the inevitability of collapse.
But a self-aware society - one informed by the science - can strive to maintain itself in the mature stage of development. It can avoid becoming too stereotyped or over-adapted as part of its "perfect way of life".
I'm not saying it wouldn't be difficult. But in fact modern society does a pretty good job at planning for pandemics and climate resilience. It is exactly this kind of organic lifecycle thinking which is starting to be applied (if perhaps not nearly quick enough to actually save our particular neoliberal/globalised/fossil fuel based "utopia"). :)
Quoting Agustino
But this is the point I query. You are saying that perfection is defined by the statistical outlier - perhaps the freakishly athletic, intelligent, beautiful, empathetic, or whatever.
No. I'm arguing that perfection is defined in terms of the whole society, and thus its averages.
So who could argue with a modern society that is producing ever smarter, fitter, better-looking and civilised folk - on average?
And IQ scores, life expectancies, plastic surgery and PC values certainly seem measurably on a steady rise in recent world history.
Of course, we could also say that there is an ever increasing polarisation or inequality about such outcomes. The dumb seem excessively dumb these days. The fat excessively fat. Isis may exceed the past in terms of thinking barbarity.
Yet still, natural science allows us to quantify that also in terms of complexity theory. There are two primary statistical attractors in nature - the bell curve of the central limit theorem and the scale free or powerlaw distribution of log/log growth. So rightful levels of inequality, and excessive levels, can be clearly defined in those terms.
My point is that we now have a sophisticated understanding of natural systems and the reasons that drive them. We can model these things in mathematical detail. So the claims of pessimism can be quantified - so long as it is first agreed that humanity is indeed a natural system and not something else, like a failing divine creation or a fall from Platonic grace.
No, the pessimist merely acknowledges this, because he also knows that complaining about what cannot be changed is a foolish waste of time.
That's unfortunate. Remember I did recognize that Schopenhauer donated all his money to charity. So once again you're taking this personally and assuming I'm attacking the virtues of Schopenhauer and co. directly when I'm really not. If anything, you getting all riled up about this effectively has proven my point. I am using these men as examples of passive pessimism - far from being just about their general hypocrisy, I'm trying to show how they didn't go far enough. They weren't radical enough to see their already-radical philosophical views actualize.
Quoting Thorongil
No, it's not meaningless, as I have argued that welfare consequentialism is the inevitable next-step after pessimism is accepted. Problem-solving instead of simply problem-acknowledging.
Quoting Thorongil
No, apparently you missed the sarcasm. I sleep on a pillow I got from Target.
Quoting Thorongil
Well presumably because I think I have offered reasons why I am to be believed.
Quoting Thorongil
Actually Schopenhauer is a better example of an active pessimist than any of the other ones. He still was decadent and self-centered but at least he did donate the charity at the end of his life. Didn't really do much else, though. Thought it was good enough to just talk about the suffering of the world.
What makes a man great is not just the work he produces but what he does with it. Part of my argument, then, is that Schopenhauer (and co.) felt Truth was still "important" for some reason in a world as harsh and violent as the one their perceived. Truth or bust. They maintain an affirmation of something that is "alien" to the rest of the world - this is what I called their "bubble of security"; philosophy is a sort of reassuring comfort of perfect rational structure that isolates someone from the rest of the dirty, wild world. We see the first thinking on this arise in people like Freud and Peter Zapffe.
I have argued that understanding the world this way should lead one to see absolute Truth as something secondary in importance. Sacrifices must be made. That is what ultimately makes the difference between active and passive pessimism.
Quoting Thorongil
This is unfortunate. I get how some people might think Schopenhauer's metaphysics is a Kantian cul-de-sac, but goddamn are his observations of the human condition on point and shouldn't be ignored.
Quoting Agustino
If only ... looks like mac and cheese is back on the menu, boys!
Quoting schopenhauer1
Very true, this is why we have to be careful and deliberate about who we donate money to. An unfortunately large amount of charities are scams.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, indeed, however I made the caveat that we shouldn't feel obliged to put our lives or general well-being at risk. Try advocating AN to a college crowd. That'll go over great...
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm glad you recognize the aesthetic component of pessimism, I entirely agree. I don't agree that consequentialist theories necessarily require things to reach this utopia. It simply has to acknowledge that things could be better, all things considered; 9 sufferers is better than 10 sufferers.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, I completely agree with all this. The unfortunate ironic truth is that this aesthetic can make living altruistically more difficult than had the aesthetic never been accepted.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Indeed I have been interested in picking up a book on everyday ethics by him.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Right.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Exactly. It makes you wonder whether or not you should help prevent more than just your own children from coming into existence.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Right, there must be a balance. And a threshold. Once people can take care of themselves, they can do what makes them "happy" or whatever that is and also help more people get above their threshold.
Honestly, though, with all the political and social entanglements in the world, helping humans on a large scale is practically impossible. It's why I focus more on non-human animals. Under-represented victims.
On the contrary, pessimism succeeds as it recognizes sentience to be "unnatural" and ill-equipped to deal with the oppressive forces of nature. Instead, sentients have to pretend reality is different than it actually is. To be sentient, then, requires one to live in a fantasy. Everyone has their crutch.
Yep. That would be the counterfactual that my position makes possible as its antithesis.
And history shows sentience evolves.
So your pessimism loses if that is what you believe is its proper basis.
(And if you believe in suicidal penguins, aren't you taking evolutionary continuity to a much greater extreme than I would ever argue for?)
The point I'm making is that understanding such lifecycles does not help prevent them at all. Human nature (or human folly) if you want is such that the said society, will at one point, not act according to such an understanding. It's already starting not to in fact. You think technology can overstep man's morality. But it can't. Technology is of no use in such matters because it cannot alter the CHARACTER of human beings. Too much good and people lose motivation. The Roman Empire didn't disappear because of natural disaster and pandemic - it disappeared due to internal reasons. Internally it became unstable. Why? Because of depravation and loss of moral values - loss of the virtues.
Quoting apokrisis
Except that pandemics and the like aren't the biggest danger. The biggest danger is within man's own heart.
Quoting apokrisis
I think people are actually more dumb than ever before on average. Sure, they have more knowledge than ever before, but certainly not more intelligence - too much comfort dulls down their intelligence, and all that is left is mere knowledge.
Hmm then what about all the talk of "it would be better if there was no suffering"? The pessimist is still engaged in thinking how things could have been better, how they could have been different - instead of being engaged with the world as it is.
You must like being coy, because you have continually refused to give me concrete examples of what they did wrong, what they ought to have done, and why.
Quoting darthbarracuda
1) You haven't argued that here. 2) These figures, or at least Schopenhauer, would say that the problem CANNOT be solved, outside of abstaining from procreation. This is part of what makes them pessimists.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, you're a hypocrite. Think of all the drowning children you could have saved if you slept on a rock and used the money for that Target pillow on them.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Which you haven't done here.
Quoting darthbarracuda
A good deed, but in the grand scheme of things it did absolutely nothing, as is the case of all forms of charity. Human misery is as rife as it ever was, if not more so. Throwing money at the problem will not fix it, for the condition is terminal and permanent. It will merely act as a fleeting and minutely effective band-aid. I am not saying not to give to charity or that I wouldn't if I had the means, I am only pointing out the sheer idiocy and folly in suggesting that it will make any substantial difference.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But in some sense it was, since you and I are now talking about it in large part due to his eloquent observations and arguments. That you're not grateful to be so informed by such a man doesn't negate his value.
Quoting darthbarracuda
And I believe this too. What's wrong with seeking the truth? Presumably the harshness and violence of the world is true and requires pointing out and defending as such.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So surely we should be advocating for more of if it's a means of obtaining comfort. Or do you not wish comfort on your fellow men?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well you haven't convinced me of this I'm afraid. I shall seek the truth above all else.
That's a sweeping claim.
All earlier examples of social collapse (as evidenced for example by Jared Diamond) were societies that didn't understand their natural basis sufficiently.
So your sweeping claim is yet to be empirically tested.
Quoting Agustino
Technology is a tool for amplifying human action. The moral issue (in terms of a naturalistic perspective) is that we've let technological possibility also make the choices for us too much. So "utopia" would be about striking a better balance in actively choosing the actions we ought to amplify, not simply plug our traditional values (like an eye for an eye, eat until you burst, or whatever) into whatever is the lastest technical possibility.
Quoting Agustino
I know it is your thing to play the conservative. But again, I have outlined the grounds on which I am founding a view. It is the one supported by science and philosophical naturalism. So just repeating your own paradigmatic assumptions in reply is otiose.
Quoting Agustino
Anthropological bollocks. It over-ran its ability to control an empire. It ran out of new grain fields to occupy.
So it had a brilliant social formula - for its time. But then fell apart because it over-ran what its hierarchical organisation could contain.
So it arose on things like speed of communication, coherence of action. And fell apart after the social technologies involved could no longer cope with the scale of the task.
Quoting Agustino
Pandemics are definitely ranked by national governments as the biggest actual threat they face (on the timescales/consequences that matter most to them).
See a standard indicative national risk model....
Quoting Agustino
The Flynn effect is well known by now.
But you are arguing from your own personal vague definitions of intellect and morality. As a naturalist, I aim higher. If nature is in fact intelligible, these are things we can properly define and measure. They are not just matters of opinion.
:-} To say it is yet to be empirically tested is to misunderstand it. It cannot be empirically tested, because every new society that comes up will still be puffed up by this self-belief and this delusion that it really is different than all those that went before it. All it takes is one sufficiently bad leader/administration and things will be over - for any civilisation.
Quoting apokrisis
Right - so if human beings statistically have a tendency towards immorality, that means that given technology, their immorality will have much greater consequences now than ever before, because it too will be amplified. This pretty much suggests that we're going to end all of human civilisation in nuclear war.
Quoting apokrisis
I'm not against naturalism - I fail to see how naturalism would fail to note the inability to alter man's character, and if man's character is a large driving factor for his actions, and man is naturally predisposed or has a tendency towards immorality, and technology amplifies man's actions, it kind of only follows that things are going to get worse quite quickly.
Quoting apokrisis
Not only this. If you read accounts of the fall of Rome from historical sources you will see a multitude of factors among which loss of discipline, and loss of motivation which permitted them to be defeat by barbarians.
Quoting apokrisis
Sure, so?
Quoting apokrisis
If you're referring to Guns, Germs and Steel, I've read it and I'm not impressed. My reading of history shows that these weren't the main factors. The main factors were always social - in the evolving social mentalities. Baghdad at the height of the Islamic golden age lost its virtues - people became like today - many academics, many scientists, lots of musicians, a flowering and promiscuous culture, loss of motivation amongst the youth, a very extensive compassion, an anti-military hippie kinda culture etc. Then it collapsed.
http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
You can have a look at the summary at the very end if you want it in short form.
I agree Trump is a good test of civilisation's current level of foresight and resilience. But surely you can rely on the CIA to arrange an accident for the sake of the prevailing neoliberal elite?
Quoting Agustino
OK, back to seriousness.
Is war immoral? Or just not a very helpful expression of the natural imperative towards productively competitive behaviour when it is taken to a globally damaging level.
It is not immoral to defend yourself by blowing up your own species and planet. Just a rather impractical way of achieving the flourishing co-operativity that is the basis of any long-run persistent social identity.
So again - seriously now - Houston we have a problem when the nation that controls half the world's military power can vote in one person of doubtful decision-making who apparently has ultimate say over whether the red button gets pushed.
Trump has surrounded himself with generals. So maybe we can rely on a military putsch in extremis. Although some of those generals seem as much bad decision makers (the technical term is "bonkers") judging by background reports.
But in the end, the world has managed to avoid nuclear war, while also collectively waging war on the various causes of pandemics.
Now I am far from an optimist about the human capacity for wise self-governance. But that is simply because - as with the Roman Empire - we may again have outstripped the technology of governance which we have currently put in place.
However - and I'm pretty involved in the detail of what governments do - humans also show an impressive ability to respond intelligently to what they actually understand as threats that must be faced. We could easily fix climate change if we could manage to overcome conservative habits and take the problem seriously.
Quoting Agustino
Naturalism - as in the sciences of psychology and anthropology - notes the great maleability of human character.
Of course, some outliers may have some kind of biological stubborness or conservative propensity. They are rigid for neurobiological reasons (just as others might be "too flexible, too liberal".
Yet you only have to look at the average behaviour of immigrants - such as I believe yourself? Just how quickly does a Korean become an American, especially if they arrive young and are allowed to mix freely with their new native environment.
Quoting Agustino
Yeah sure. There are lots of ways the symptoms might present. But no serious (scientific) historian is going to talk about a loss of motivation when it is instead a loss of cohesion, or the senescence of habit, that removes the possibility to act.
Quoting Agustino
Yep. If it is a choice between your own bias-confirming scholarship and the actual scholarship of scientists who have to go out and confirm their ideas empirically, then surely we are all going to agree ... with you.
Don't you see how ridiculous this sounds?
On the contrary, you seem to just enjoy being an argumentative ass. I've given you plenty of examples already. And I've already conceded that Schopenhauer donated to charity.
And once again, I'm not arguing that they did anything wrong, per se, I'm explaining how they certainly were not what I would call active pessimists. So stop taking this so personally and stop being so belligerent. Whether there is something wrong with being a passive pessimist is not really the point of the OP, although I hope you and others will consider what it actually means to be a passive pessimist in the long run.
Quoting Thorongil
And I have already stated multiple times that it's not about solving the entire problem but of making things comparatively better than they otherwise would.
Quoting Thorongil
I never said I wasn't a hypocrite, just that I'm a more productive hypocrite. :-}
Quoting Thorongil
I'm sure it did a lot to help those who were on the receiving end. It didn't do "absolutely nothing" as you so boldly claim, otherwise it wouldn't actually be a good deed.
Quoting Thorongil
And once again I have to tell you that it's not about fixing all the problems but making things comparatively better. But I guess there's no aesthetic to this, it's more aesthetically pleasing to just give up on everything. Everything sucks and there's nothing we can do about it...except there actually is.
Quoting Thorongil
I'm grateful for his observations because I now am able to do something. It probably would be harmful just to talk about how much life sucks without doing anything about it, because now you've just made everyone's sufferings that much more obvious.
Quoting Thorongil
There's nothing wrong with seeking the truth, per se, so long as you recognize that some truths are sought because you want to know, not because of some "higher purpose" that truth-seeking embodies.
And in the end, truth won't get food on the table. It will leave you on the side of the road wondering why you even bothered with it in the first place.
Quoting Thorongil
Meanwhile in Ethiopia, over 14 million people don't really care about metaphysics. Because they haven't eaten in ten days. If you don't find anything wrong with this, fine. Just don't pretend Schopenhauer and co. did anything substantial over their lifetimes to help people like this. They were passive, focused more on abstract metaphysics than the suffering they were famous for characterizing. And they were profoundly lucky that they had the opportunity and resources to pursue these sorts of dainty hobbies.
The neoliberal elite is finished as far as the US is concerned in my opinion. A new age is upon us.
Quoting apokrisis
Oh yeah... >:O Where do you even take these pearls from? Honestly - read some history. There are no such things as "scientific" and non-scientific historians.
But yes, loss of motivation causes loss of cohesion, not the other way around.
Quoting apokrisis
It certainly sounds just as ridiculous as what you're saying sounds to me. You can choose your own bias-confirming scholarship instead of engaging with the literature and people out there who disagree with you. There is no way to "confirm ideas empirically" in history. You don't make experiments in the past.
And I disagree about this. The money interests are too powerful. It's not our conservative habits, but rather the financial interests involved.
You are happy to just make assertions without evidence. You describe the facts as they need to be to make your version of reality correct.
But the very fact you must still present "evidence" in the form of these imaginary facts gives the game away. You are only pretending be doing what you know you ought to be doing here - supporting your "history" by empirical test rather than simply expressing some personal cultural stance born of long unquestioning habit.
Quoting Agustino
You are welcome to show that "loss of motivation" trumps "loss of cohesion" in the literature. So thanks for that paper by Glubb Pasha.
But don't you see that the very notion of "empires" is already a conception of the "natural human order" which is one of the things to be questioned. Colonisation - as a more economically efficient version of nomadic barbarism - could indeed be another stage we want to evolve past. Not that neoliberalist trade globalisation is really post-colonial. :)
And then, more relevantly, where General Glubb expresses your lament against social decadence, it in fact is an an amateur's way of getting at what theoretical biologists understand as the canonical lifecycle of organised systems.
So yes, that describes how things start immaturely in a burst of youthful zest and energy. The history of the world has been written by the rise of social groups which have "just enough" organisation to be cohesive, yet also a new lack of constraint in terms of some source of power - like horse riding, better ships, social mobility, or whatever. The group can ride out and take over their more conservative and hidebound neighbours.
And then a maturity develops. Even the Mongols and other "barbarians" got quite civilised, leading to a more balanced and persistent state of existence.
But inevitably - in a society that can't foresee the danger - conservative habit starts to create social rigidity and immobility. A fossilised elite develops. Folk start worrying that they aren't the stout stoics that laid the ground for cultural success. The focus goes to the lack of the old discipline, the decadence that is taking over.
Yep, too much flows to the centre which holds the power. And that indeed has an infantilising effect. It returns a mature state of development to an immature one, with too many degrees of freedom to expend. There is energy to burn, and it gets used in unconstructive fashion because individuals are disconnected from the general social project delivering that energy to them.
But equally, the critical problem of the system is the senescence represented by the conservative elite. It naturally thinks the answer to new problems is the answer to old problems. If what is seen as a symptom is decadence, then the cure must lie in exerting even greater control - applying old habits with even more effort.
But social habits make sense because they work. To enforce them is to try to crank a broken system harder. Instead, an intelligent society is one that seeks to evolve new forms of general cohesion. It encourages social experimentation as it needs to strike on whatever it is might be the new better balance.
So of course old values may still be worthwhile. Personally I am pretty conservative in my habits. No one would ever mistake me for a hippy. So I agree with a lot of your own social norms most likely.
But where we differ is that I'm in favour of the right kind of liberality - a science-based freedom of thought. Political and economic systems need to be evidence-based and aimed at the general good. So the fossilised thought habits of religious conservative elites are a clear and present danger for a modern society that wants to avoid its "inevitable" collapse.
I mean this with all seriousness: I have no idea to what you're referring. The only thing that I can recall is pillows. Is that it? What else have you impugned them for besides that, which is clearly an absurd example? Tell me, concretely and specifically, what they ought to have done that would make them into darthbarracuda approved™ "active" cool guy pessimists.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Oh please, your OP is positively dripping with contempt for this made up (read: straw man) form of pessimism.
Quoting darthbarracuda
In other words, they weren't what you wish them to be, and you're upset about that fact. Cry me a damn river. You can't change the past and you can't change other people, so stop acting like a petulant child. Those in glass houses ought not to cast stones. Focus on your own inadequacies before you smugly point out those of other people, people who were infinitely more influential and intelligent than you are, as you readily admit. If provoked, I have many extremely critical things to say about a great number of philosophers. But I don't make it a habit of going out of my way to create essay length threads condemning them.
Quoting darthbarracuda
How confident you are. Productive in what way? Tell us all how great and wonderful darthbarracuda is in comparison with those icky "decadent" pessimists like Schopenhauer and Leopardi.
Quoting darthbarracuda
"In the grand scheme of things...."
Quoting darthbarracuda
And you will notice that I've been talking about suffering as a general category ("In the grand scheme of things").The total amount of suffering is not lessened one single iota due to Schopenhauer giving to charity. Not one. Suffering and misery in fact increased exponentially after his death, as the human population exploded and we embarked on one of the most barbaric and violent centuries yet seen in the history of this sad, pathetic vale of tears.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Like what, buckwheat. I'm still asking for this.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I would describe it as an end in itself.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No, they did nothing wrong ignoring starving Ethiopians. The concept of right, as Schopenhauer contends, and with whom I agree, is negative. I have the right not to be harmed, but I have absolutely no right to receive charity, whether it be in the form of food or whatever. Consequently, I do no wrong in withholding charity from starving Ethiopians, for I am not the cause of, and so am not responsible for, their plight. Now, lest you misconstrue what I am saying, charitable giving is good, undoubtedly, but not giving to charity is not bad.
But we are talking about the US here, aren't we really. So the formula is conservative/religious social norms and economic liberalisation.
Yes, that might seem a curious mismatch. But clearly the two are interlocked because ultimately the only justification for Goldman Sachs and its ilk being allowed to rape the world is that the US is God's chosen people.
And yes, Trump's election shows that the dim and brain washed masses of the US have woken up and discovered that ever since the 1970s - as the US flushed the easy money of its gushing oil wells down the toilet of hippy decadence and world domination - they too are up for grabs by an unholy social system.
Of course I'm being hyperbolic here. The US is still scraping into the top 20 on national prosperity indexes - http://www.prosperity.com/globe/united-states
But any outsider can see that its political system is deeply dysfunctional now. It is powerless to actually "drain the swamp" when all it can do is appoint a nespotic buffoon who exists in a bubble of bias-confirming Brietbart factoids.
Nope, this is just you projecting. I'm disappointed that they weren't active pessimists but it's not like I expected anything more. I'm condemning passive pessimism as an ideal more than I am condemning those who practice it. You're taking this waaay too personally. Boo-hoo, so I pointed out how your idol Schopenhauer wasn't as productive as he could be. Oh well.
Quoting Thorongil
>:O
Quoting Thorongil
Nice straw man.
Quoting Thorongil
Part of Effective Altruism is that EA-ers don't typically go around bragging how much they do. Safe to say I donate to specific organizations and contribute time and energy to local projects. I also am pursuing a degree that not only interests me but will make me a relatively large amount of money, which I plan on donating most of.
So no, I'm not on the front lines, but as I've already said, for every soldier on the front, there's ten behind. EA may be liberally optimistic but they do more good than the alternatives.
Quoting Thorongil
And as I have said several times now, the grand scheme of things isn't important because it's not feasible to work with. But every life is a world-in-itself. Every instance of suffering is important, perhaps even more-so if we take the block theory of time seriously.
Quoting Thorongil
So maybe let's team up and do what Schopenhauer couldn't/didn't?
Quoting Thorongil
Of course you can argue that doing good is entirely supererogatory. This is a popular move. But it still misinterprets the OP, as I already have said how an active pessimist could still see this as supererogatory and yet be a part of it. For example, bodhisattvas.
But consider a drowning child. Do you do anything wrong by not helping the child escape the water? I think you'll probably agree that it's not simply an instance of altruistic good but an instance of moral expectation. To ignore the child is to be neglectful, possibly even criminally.
Or what if you saw a man kidnap a young child, and saw the license plate number on the vehicle? Surely you would think you have an obligation to call the police, no?
And what about those suffering by natural disasters? Who is to blame for this? Surely not the tsunami, but perhaps those who stood idly by and watched as people died. People who didn't have to die.
I have to ask you, what reason do we have to accept this distinction between doing and allowing? Why is it important? What motivation do we have to see morality this way? I suspect many attempts to limit morality in this way are at least partly due to a dislike of how demanding a morality without it would be - yet I've already shown how this is nothing more than an affirmation of the status quo and how the over-demandingness stems from a non-ideal and unequal distribution of responsibility. Not everyone are consequentialists, so those who are are given a taller order than they should.
So it's easy to just say "not my problem" when the issue is thousands of miles away and whose causes are difficult to attribute. In a world as complex as ours, there hardly ever is one single determinate cause for a problem, and no amount of pointing fingers is going to sort things out. That's why the active pessimist is going to say "to hell with it" and start fixing things themselves, even if they don't have to. Such a move could thus be seen as that of virtue. Or altruism, as I had already said in the OP and several times already in this thread.
Schopenhauer, being a pessimist, should of all people been the one to realize that the world is non-ideal and unfair - yet for some reason found room to push in these idealistic, absolutist moral codes that drip with appeals to intention. Once again we have an example of a security-bubble; the world is crazy and malignant, but there's a special code that recognizes intentions when the rest of the world quite obviously does not. A world that harms indiscriminately is not a world which has this sort of morality. To the consequentialist, there is no difference between doing and allowing. To the non-consequentialist, there also shouldn't be a difference between doing and allowing in extreme and non-ideal circumstances. To deny this screams, to me, the just world fallacy.
Sure I did this merely because you were unwilling to engage in dialogue and instead took your views as the definite and undeniable truth. So if you can do that, why shouldn't I?
Quoting apokrisis
I have presented evidence in the form of the paper I've shared, as well as historical examples from the past. I haven't seen much evidence from you except you constructing a possible explanation via systems thinking of what is actually happening. But merely because it is possible doesn't mean it is also right. But I think this isn't our point of contention to be honest. I'm not saying that science (systems thinking) couldn't describe the historical relationships that we understand and know in more precise detail, and reveal more of their features. I'm not disagreeing there at all.
The thing is you misunderstand the science of history if you think that in history we have undeniable evidence one way or another or if we can empirically test claims except by resorting to documentation we have from the past.
Quoting apokrisis
But I wouldn't deny this, and I wouldn't mind if you complement his account with a more detailed one involving systems thinking. Where I disagree is that systems thinking could render his account false - it can only complement it.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes I agree - but now you must notice that this account does little to help one in practice. Such understanding for example doesn't show a leader how to start a nation in "a burst of youthful zest and energy", how to ensure that it has "just enough" organisation to be cohesive, and how to ensure it "has a new lack of constraint in terms of some source of power". This understanding doesn't provide guidelines. That's why most leaders of this kind - I'm not talking of the CEO of Google or an already established company - but people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. who create a new and powerful organisation - they don't need such understanding. It will not help them. A general is better off with understanding the principles expounded in the Art of War than learning systems theory. The principles are heuristics, which enable quickly "zooming in" on the right set of possible answers.
Quoting apokrisis
But apart from social rigidity and immobility, it is precisely the disintegration of these that lead to collapse. I agree that the fossilised elite becomes blind to the problem - in fact they become part of the problem - it's quite often this fossilised elite that becomes decadent first - they cease being the stout stoics that laid the ground for cultural success. There are just a few in society who remember the old discipline and who warn about the dangers of its abandonment. The rest are caught up in the zest and new found possibilities of the culture to notice.
Quoting apokrisis
You have to explain this in more detail. What does the collapse of society have to do with a conservative elite? To me, they aren't conservative at all - the elite in US, for example, isn't conservative at all. The Clintons aren't conservatives... In fact the collapse of the US is precisely due to the loss of conservative values.
And don't misunderstand what being a conservative is. Being a conservative isn't dogmatically refusing change. It's more of an attitude that one has - for example, in order to keep a white post in front of your house white, you can't just leave it as it is. If you do, it will become dirty and black. Every now and again you need to repaint it. Being conservative corresponds more to concentrating on avoiding loss instead of gaining - realising that one loss is more significant than one victory. "Make sure you don't lose first, then think about winning" is a conservative principle.
Quoting apokrisis
To enforce them is impossible. But don't lose sight that their loss led to the current situation. Why did we lose them? Because human beings have a natural tendency towards immorality and dissolution - they have a tendency towards entropy. Negentropic structures ultimately collapse.
Now don't misunderstand me. This isn't to say we don't need social experimentation, only that this needs to be contained.
Quoting apokrisis
But why do you think we differ on this? I agree with you.
Quoting apokrisis
You have to explain in more detail why. Also you have to explain in more detailed how the fossilised thought habits of neo-liberals aren't an equally big danger. I am all for reason as opposed to dogmatism even though I am religious myself - we need to do things because they make sense that we do them that way. So for example I'm not opposed to people living together if they're not married - most religious folks would be. I consider marriage a spiritual bond - so the physical institution of marriage is only good in-so-far as it points to the spiritual realm. And I acknowledge that some wouldn't need such an institution.
Quoting apokrisis
Maybe it was meant to be like this, but in practice it clearly isn't how it is. In practice we see economic liberalisation and social progressivism.
Quoting apokrisis
I don't think the powerful need a justification - except to throw it in the eyes of the fools. Sure, in that way, they do need a sort of mandate of heaven - as Chinese rulers would say. But in the end, what allows them to rape the world is that the world can't do anything to fight back. Because they can - that's why they do it.
Quoting apokrisis
I think that as much trouble as Trump is, Clinton and her ilk would have been much much worse.
Projecting what? You continually attribute callous disregard for those who suffer to Schopenhauer et al, which is the reason why you label them "passive" pessimists, a term not meant to praise but to rebuke. In doing so, you assume that they did not suffer or that if they did, their suffering does not matter as much as other people's. But this doesn't follow on consequentialist grounds, as I pointed out earlier. If they single-mindedly endeavored to rid themselves of their own suffering, and were in any way successful, then the result conforms to your goal of "making things comparatively better." Perhaps you will say that if they had given more to charity then things would have been comparatively better still, but this assumes you have some criterion for determining the adequate amount of charitable giving a person is obligated to meet, and that one is indeed obligated to meet it, which you have not yet divulged.
Furthermore, you implicitly and without warrant privilege certain forms of suffering as being worse or as deserving of more attention than others, namely, physical suffering over and against psychological. But "in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Thus, it could be that Schopenhauer et al suffer more profoundly than the Ethiopian villager, in which case your priorities ought to be reversed. What is more, if you bring the Ethiopian out of his physical misery, then you have merely served as the enabler of his entering new forms thereof, that is, forms common to the materially satisfied and affluent, such as depression, substance abuse, risk of suicide, and other psychological disorders and conditions. In the absence of physical suffering, one creates fresh desires to strive after, whose unfulfillment causes yet more suffering. Paradoxically, then, the materially disadvantaged Ethiopian villager may actually be happier and more content than the materially prosperous American.
I am not here suggesting that one ought not to provide material assistance to those in need, but I am pointing out the naivety of your position. Your continued attempts to paint me as a spurned groupie are therefore ridiculous. I do not worship Schopenhauer and have serious disagreements with the man; I simply think your criticism of him as being a "passive," and hence "bad" or morally inadequate, pessimist fails to convince.
Thirdly, if you wish to end or alleviate suffering and agree that procreation is the principal cause thereof, then you ought to be focusing all of your efforts on encouraging people not to have children. By not doing this, and instead providing charitable assistance, you're acting in conflict with said goal. In other words, to use a word you accused Schopenhauer of earlier, you are in fact an accomplice to suffering by refusing to address the source. If the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by the consequences of it, and the desired consequence in this case is an end to suffering, then it is wrong to give to charity, since it frees people to have children, which is the cause of suffering.
Quoting darthbarracuda
By doing what? I already said that if I were or became wealthy, I would give most of it away. I absolutely loathe money and desire only what will enable me to survive and pursue my interests, the principal of these being the truth. Once again, you must take into consideration one's character. Not everyone is so disposed that they can be charitable übermensch, as you apparently are or would like to be. The professions that pay the most, which would in turn allow one to give the most to charity, do not suit or interest me. They would, on the contrary, likely cause me to suffer more than if I had pursued other ends. Instead, becoming, say, a professor, teacher, monk, hermit, or priest are the paths that befit my character. Simply put, I am suited to the vita contemplativa, rather than the vita activa, and civilization needs both. If you are suited to the latter and wish to pursue it, that's great, but the expectation that everyone else is capable of doing so or ought to is hopelessly naive and inconsiderate.
Quoting darthbarracuda
And I have never disagreed or meant to disagree with this. Of course one could and ought to do as much good as one can even if one is not obligated to do so.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If one happens upon a drowning child whose death can be prevented by one's aid, then one naturally ought to help it. If one doesn't do so, then one is responsible for its death. The same logic holds for your other examples. But even though one does hold responsibility in these cases, there is no categorical obligation to save the child, for all obligations, imperatives, and duties are hypothetical. What you have done here is subtly switch from consequentialism to deontology, which Schopenhauer and I also reject.
Quoting darthbarracuda
An ethic isn't more true to the degree that it is demanding.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No, if by "not my problem" you mean "not responsible," then it's simply correct. If you honestly think that I am responsible for people starving in Ethiopia, then your definition of responsibility is in error, since it would say of me that I caused or intended to cause their suffering, which I clearly did not. Nor, as I said, do I have the means or the power to end it, unlike the drowning child example.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I have no idea what you're talking about here.
So, yes, we of course have to take into account input as well as output. However like I said I am focused more on passive pessimism as an ideal. For Schopenhauer et al, it's about minimizing harm that you yourself experience, even if it's just small bouts of anxiety or what have you, since that's a symptom of the overarching metaphysical "problem" so to speak. It's why Schopenhauer advocated contemplating the aesthetic as a means of calming the Will, or "escaping" the Will's grasp.
The fact that they didn't seem to really advocate anything more is the main point here. Their actions themselves of course are also evidence but the fact that they offered no real plan of action is what separates them from active pessimists. Not everyone has access to the aesthetic. Not everyone has the opportunity to contemplate the universe as a leisure. Not everyone even has the intelligence to think about their condition (non-human animals for example).
Their emphasis on the "big problem" is what made them overlook the smaller problems.
The criterion imo would be to at least emphasize charitable and altruistic actions for the benefit of others, so long as you yourself don't drop below whatever you would see to be the line between "manageable" and "okay I'm suffering big time now".
Schopenhauer got a lot of inspiration from Buddhism and other Indian religions that emphasized non-self, yet curiously seemed to be overly-concerned about his own well-being and status in mainland Germany and Europe as a whole.
Quoting Thorongil
Just...no. To attribute the angst and ennui Schopenhauer apparently felt as "suffering" is to bastardize suffering and insult those who actually are suffering. Like it just boggles my mind how someone can actually think this, that a first-world countryman somehow inherently suffers more than a third-world "country"man. Maybe Schopenhauer should have just left Europe and hung around the slums in Zimbabwe or something if he really thought he was suffering more than anyone else. That sounds more like a him-problem than anything else.
Schopenhauer can say all he wants about how increasing knowledge increases suffering, yet if he actually was suffering because of it he wouldn't have pursued knowledge. Thus his decadent and indecent equivocation is apparent. And if he thought this way then he probably shouldn't have taught or done anything related to philosophy as a whole. That's just bourgeois entitlement - decadence.
Quoting Thorongil
Again, just...no. I don't know how I'm supposed to argue against something like this, or how anyone for that matter can actually take this seriously. It's just obvious that extreme starvation is worse than ennui. One is manageable - you can still produce philosophical works if you experience it. The other one is cripplingly overwhelming.
So maybe Schopenhauer was more focused on the increase of melancholy in those who are more intelligent or knowledgeable, a so-called "burden" of the academic. This might be true but I think it's blatant equivocation to see this as legitimate "suffering" and not just a general disenchantment with the world. This is exactly why someone like myself sees Schopenhauer and co. as almost solipsistic in their philosophy. They "recognize" that other people exist but don't seem to really act like it, as they seem to be caught up in their own world of metaphysical theorizing. Suffering is analyzed in an abstract manner and detached from anyone actually experiencing the condition.
The threshold I typically like to use is the one that establishes a point in which someone can "take care of themselves". Schopenhauer obviously wasn't doing all that bad considering his biography and works, so he wouldn't be that important in the prioritarian/sufficientarian sense (consider how absurd it would be for someone like me to knock on his door and tell him I'm here to give him a massage or something because he's suffering extraordinarily). The Ethiopian obviously isn't, so they are who we would be focused on (consider how welcoming the Ethiopian would be to even the smallest of aid).
Also, those who are extremely disadvantaged and are brought up to a higher level of living typically have a lot more appreciation for their new living conditions. They may still be in an all-things-considered "shitty" existence but they don't seem to recognize this as such.
But again, like I said, I have very little hope for humanity as a whole. Human-oriented charities are inevitably fucked by the corrupt governments of the countries they're trying to help. This is why I said I'm focused more on non-human animals, the sentients that don't have representatives, who can't contemplate the aesthetic, and who probably actually suffer more than higher-intelligence sentients. That's one point Schopenhauer was 100% wrong about. Higher-intelligence does not necessitate higher suffering. Lesser-intelligence oftentimes constitutes a higher likelihood to suffer, as one doesn't have the capability to grasp and understand the cause of the condition but rather simply has to endure. They have two options: endure or escape. Humans have a third: fix the problem, or even a fourth: dissociation/distraction thanks to our "will" or what have you.
Quoting Thorongil
Not necessarily. I mean, I could go up to my university's speaking ground everyday and advocate antinatalism. I could blow up a sperm bank or put sterilization chemicals in the water. I could.
But this probably wouldn't be as effective as you might envision it to be. Nor do I think I have the guts to do something like this. Furthermore, this could actually be counter-productive; if everyone's sterilized, then suddenly research into test-tube babies will skyrocket exponentionally as everyone freaks out about the prospect of extinction.
Trying to advocate AN to even my closest acquaintances is like talking to a brick wall. It just doesn't compute. Whether this means I have to resort to violence, I'm not sure. It's one of those things I'd rather not do. Thinking about this makes me feel like a supervillain. But there's always that veil of ignorance - I don't know how effective things like this will be. It might be really effective, or it might backfire. Who knows. It's easier and more effective, I think, to focus on educating the public and increasing the welfare of those already alive. I may not approve of birth but I also harbor disapproval of extinction. There's all sorts of goofy and uncomfortable clashes in intuition. I accept this.
Quoting Thorongil
Civilization only needs the vita contemplativa, or whatever you called it, as long as they make their ideas known and try to put them into practice. Otherwise you're just as you said: a hermit, irrelevant to the rest of the world as much as the rest of the world is irrelevant to yourself.
If that's the case, fine. Okay. But this doesn't change the fact that you are not an active pessimist. Again, if you don't find anything wrong with this, fine. If passive pessimism suits you and fulfills whatever ethical criteria you see as important, fine.
Burn-out is real. You can't pursue a high-paying job that you hate. I recognize this. EA is all about doing the most you can do, which is also why we typically don't like comparing how much we all do. But the focus of active pessimism is involvement in the world at large and being a productive asset to the overall increase in welfare of sentients.
I've always loved this quote from Julio Cabrera:
"The negative human being has a greater familiarity with the terminality of Being; he neither conceals it nor embellishes it, he thinks about it very frequently or almost always, and has full conscience about what is pre-reflexive for the majority, that is, all we do is terminal and can be destroyed at any moment.
Negative life, in this sense, is melancholic and distanced (but never distracted or relaxed), not much worse than most lives and much better than them in many ways, a life with neither hope nor much intense feelings, neither of deception nor even enthusiasm. And, above all, without the irritating daily pretending that “everything is fine” and that “we are great”, while we sweep our miseries under the carpet. Therefore, it is usually a life without great “crisis” or great “depressions” (by the way, depression is the fatal fate of any affirmative life); negative lives are anguished lives, poetic and anxious, and almost always very active lives.
In the Critique, I have already written that a negative life shall emerge, basically, on four ideas: (a) Full conscience about the structural disvalue of human life, assuming all the consequences of it; (b) Structural refuse to procreation (a negative philosopher with children is even more absurd than an affirmative one without them); (c) Structural refuse to heterocide (not killing anybody in spite of the frequent temptation to violence); (d) Permanent and relaxed disposition for suicide as a possibility."
The only part I really disagree with is his views on heterocide, as I see murder as an open possibility in extreme cases.
Quoting Thorongil
Right, but I see these sorts of ethical limitations as ultimately baseless.
Quoting Thorongil
You didn't intend that they starve, but you did intend to ignore their plight. There is no "no action" here. Every single thing we do is an action. Allowing something to happen is still an act. You intended to allow something to happen so long as you are knowledgeable of it and did nothing to interfere. And if you're not knowledgeable of it, you're at least knowledgeable of the general existence of things like it.
Again, I ask why intentions have any importance here. They might be important in the legal sense, sure. But in the moral sense, what is so important about them?
I just spoke with Donald J. Trump on the phone, and he told me this is just some crap that I shouldn't be listening to >:O
>:O >:O >:O
Dear God in Heaven, is this a philosophy forum or a cook-book message board?
If it wasn't apparent, I was trying to show how intentions have little importance. One can always characterize any situation to suit one's needs by invoking intentions here and there. That's the lesson of consequentialism - the only thing that matters at the end is what's left over.
That's silly because all my claims are framed in terms of observables. I've talked about ideas that are factually tested.
Quoting Agustino
But I am talking about Big History. So that includes the evolution of the Cosmos, Life and MInd. :)
If you want to understand the rise and fall of empires, of course thermodynamic, biological and cognitive models are relevant if you indeed aspire to a generalised understanding of history as a natural developmental process.
So sure, history is also a search to uncover "the facts of the past". You need the phenomenon that motivate grander theoretical narratives.
But history has suffered as a science in not being terribly mathematical in its theoretical thinking. That is what importing the mathematical tools of other sciences is all about.
Quoting Agustino
I'm not sure then why people form rational policies around ideas of creative destruction, flat hierarchies, the value of managerial retreats, campaigns against red tape, skunk works, and a thousand other completely standard approaches to loosen up organisations, foster youthful energy.
Do you believe in neoliberal politics and not understand it?
Quoting Agustino
Not perhaps great examples as they understood the power of monopoly. Which IBM taught them was the way to go.
Quoting Agustino
But the Art of War is applied systems theory. It talks about the mature stage of systems development - flexible and not hidebound, energetic but not rash.
Quoting Agustino
Yes Cato. :)
But also "the old discipline" is not about rigidity but capability. The ideal is people who can think for themselves - along the lines proven to strength coherent social action.
So if the world changes, the "right stuff" also has to change. And your problem - as a social commentator - is telling the difference when change is now happening within one's own lifetime.
Now more than ever we need a scientific, and not a heuristic, definition of decadence (and its obverse). We can't wait for the new mindset to prove itself in another generation. We have to be able to predict that things are on track or headed for the dogs.
Quoting Agustino
Yep. After you have been around long enough you will by definition have accumulated stuff that is of value - wisdom, property, power, resources. So attention does turn to risk-avoidance. It's classic investment behaviour. And senescent.
You don't take risks if you intuitively understand you have long lost the youthful powers of recovery from destructive perturbation.
But life should look very different from the perspective of a youthful "investor". Failure itself becomes the valuable learning opportunity - as every Silicon Valley entrepreneur chants as a mantra.
So my argument is that the right place to be is somewhere mature inbetween risk-seeking and risk-aversion. That should be the politics and economics of a society hoping to be resilient enough make the longest run at history.
And again, if you hang around the circles of political or corporate power, that's their understanding.
Quoting Agustino
That's more hyperbolic nonsense. Humans have the opposite tendency - if you check the anthropological evidence - to accumulate negentropic structure ... because it is negentropic structure that allows a successful acceleration of generalised entropification.
A car that works is the one that is on the road and burning fuel. The broken car just sits in a field and rusts. Measurement tells us which achieves the greater rate of entropification.
So structure can always collapse. And theory tells us that collapse grows steadily more likely with senescence - the loss of recuperative powers in the face of unexpected events.
That is indeed a natural lifecycle. But humans - being intelligent - can now hope to form the new goal of persisting in a state of maximum adaptive resilience.
And as I say - illustrated with that government risk management chart - this is the new frontier for political science. It is what people are actually doing as they think about coping with sea level rise, antibiotic resistance, aquifer depletion, peak oil, and all the rest.
Quoting Agustino
Well, they got too big to fail, didn't they. They used to buy governments. Now they dare governments to act against them.
The whole world sits on zero interest rates because governments are too scared to impose normal financial discipline.
Quoting Agustino
But that just shows how badly US needs youthful reform. It's like having to choose between McDonalds and Taco Bell for dinner. Same shit in different wrapper.
How could it be "mathematical"? It seems that you have ignored Aristotle's dictum that not the same degree of precision and certainty can be expected from all sciences, and this doesn't make them any less scientific.
Quoting apokrisis
Well if you really ask me, because they are idiots. Well actually they aren't really idiots, they are only consciously idiots. Because in truth flat hierarchies, managerial retreats, creative destruction and the like are PR moves - moves to make people willing to work for you because direct power is no longer effective - also a way to justify actions like firing people (ahh we're just being creatively destructive). Big business is more politics than real business.
Quoting apokrisis
I definitely don't believe in neoliberal politics. To a large degree actually, I despise neoliberal politics.
Quoting apokrisis
:-! So? I understand the power of monopoly too. Does that help me in any way? To say they understand the power of monopoly is so facile it doesn't explain anything about them. If you say something like this to a pragmatic businessman, and they are free to express themselves how they wish, they will laugh in your face. We're all trying to be monopolies. So the fact they have also tried to be monopolies doesn't explain why they in fact are, while the rest of us aren't.
Quoting apokrisis
Which is the optimal stage - and I would characterise that stage by conservatism - not losing becomes more important than winning. The only time when taking risks make sense is when you have no hope of otherwise winning or surviving. Then, when you are cornered, then risks become worth taking, even very very big risks - that's why Sun Tzu advocates for example against cornering your opponent, because then he'll start taking the very very big risks, which could very quickly reverse the situation.
Quoting apokrisis
Why do you think a heuristic understanding of decadence isn't sufficient to distinguish between a mindset which will work and one which will fail?
Quoting apokrisis
Have you ever wondered if there is an advantage in faking senescence? :)
Quoting apokrisis
Personally I'm still very young, and I never had the "youthful powers of recovery from destructive perturbation" that you're speaking of. I think people who think they have such powers are deluding themselves. And in many cases when they do "survive" - it's just luck and chance. They should never have taken such a risk in the first place if they were smart.
Quoting apokrisis
:’( I think unfortunately most youthful Silicon Valley "investors" are idiots. A few of them get lucky, sure. But it's not a good business strategy. Most of them who ever try fail. And as we know, it's not worth always trying if you always fail.
For example I switched to IT and self-employed recently. People think I took a risk, but in truth, I took no risk at all - I had a few prospective clients. I'm secretly laughing in their face - if it was about risking, I would never have risked. I wouldn't make any investment if there's risk - I want deals, good deals, which means deals where there is, in real terms, no risk. For example, if I buy a property worth 50,000 dollars with 20,000 dollars total, where most of that is leveraged from the bank (say 18,000 from the bank, 2,000 from me), there's no risk there (assuming I can also unload it - and even if I can't do it immediately, I'll just be stuck with it a longer time but still wouldn't lose). Sure the market could tank by what, more than 50% of its value and I will lose. Likely? Never! Only fools risk. In fact, because there are many fools out there, some people can earn big big money. The whole secret lies in how to get those kind of deals. If you can secure such deals - you're winning, nothing else matters.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes I am aware of this. That's their understanding and it is absolutely wrong. They are simply deceiving themselves, and this becomes possible because large corporations are more about politics than actually making money.
Quoting apokrisis
In terms of technology yes, but where is the evidence with regards to social organisation?
Trying and failing, yeah.
Truth undergirds intention. Merely because one might falsely claim good intention does not make intentions unimportant in themselves.
Consider yourself falsely accused of murdering someone, when in reality you merely acted in self-defense. Regardless of this fact, however, you have been sentenced to life in prison without parole. If you wanted to contest such a verdict, how ought you go about doing so? Ah, yes, through an appeal to good intention. Otherwise, you must accept the wrong done unto you simply on the grounds of "what's left over" - i.e., you killed someone, they're dead, and because you done did it, you're guilty, whether you intended to kill the intruder in your home, say, or not.
Schopenhauer described himself as atheist, and is usually taken to be one, however I think what he meant by that is his rejection of orthodox Christian dogma. In fact he had quite a religious attitude.
I think the difficulty for Schopenhauer, is that he never encountered a 'spiritual exemplar' who could help him understand how to 'actualise' such a mode of life, so for him it remained a remote (and impossible) ideal.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Buddhist ethics is completely different, because it recognises 'the end to suffering'. So contrary to popular myth, the Buddha was not fatalistic, pessimistic, or 'resigned to suffering'.
Okay, then...:-}
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Right, so there's a difference between legal code and moral code - justice and values. Some might argue that justice is a value, but for a consequentialist, justice is merely an instrumental value of a rather ritualistic and vindictive nature.
Morality precedes legality.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Okay? Tell me more.
Schopenhauer's main ethical principles are: "Harm no one; rather, help everyone as much as you can." That's not far enough or amenable to your position?
Quoting darthbarracuda
No plan of action?! That is palpably false. They do offer plans of action, it's just that they're not the plans you like, apparently.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But those who do have access to aesthetic enjoyment, contemplation, and the gift of intelligence aren't bad for making use of these things.
Quoting darthbarracuda
And who's to say they did not do precisely this? You? Why should we believe you? Your only argument to this effect has involved the ludicrous complaint about the quality of their pillows, something I doubt you have much expertise in. Unless you have the bank account records of these men and have deduced from them the precise amount of money they could have given to the equivalent of whatever infallible charity you give to, then you will have confirmed the feeling of hot air emanating from your posts.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This is so vague a charge as to be meaningless. I feel that any amount of specificity would bring about its death.
Quoting darthbarracuda
But this is not an argument.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You again assume he had a free choice in the matter!
Quoting darthbarracuda
No, it's not. There are ascetics who literally starve themselves to death, such as the Jains with their practice of sallekhana. They clearly prefer that to ennui and might even say that they suffer less thereby (since it's their ticket to leaving samsara, the world of suffering, behind). Less drastically, fasting in general has almost universally been seen as something positive. Lying behind your thoughts seems to be the assumption that suffering, especially physical suffering, is always bad. I disagree and have intimated my disagreement before. Suffering is sometimes the fleetest animal to perfection. Gratuitous suffering, that is, suffering perpetrated for its own sake, is clearly bad, but suffering directed toward certain ends is not necessarily bad. Now, maybe you want to say that the third world peasant is suffering gratuitously, and that may be true, but then we come back around to the issue of whether poor, bed-ridden Leopardi, for example, was really in a position to feed starving Africans or what have you, in addition to whether he is responsible for their plight. Consider also that some philosophers, like Galen Strawson, object even to our being responsible for anything at all! Thus, your position is very far from being as obvious as you claim.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Maybe because they can't help it, owing to their characters! Once again, I find myself repeating the same unanswered questions and objections. This will likely be my last post to you here.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Dubitable, but I could grant it for the sake of argument, as it doesn't affect much.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I actually don't recall you saying this at all, anywhere in this thread at least.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If we assume that Jesus is God, then the highest intelligence of all suffered most horrendously. That's not an assumption I would make at present, but it's an interesting thought that might bear noting. At any rate, I'm not sure Schopenhauer said what you attribute to him here. I only offered that claim as a possibility. I think Schopenhauer would say that the third worlder and the first worlder do not generally experience suffering any differently in terms of its amount and quality, owing to the fact that they share the same essence of will, though they may suffer differently in terms of its form.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No we don't. You sound for all the world like an optimist here!
Quoting darthbarracuda
Hold the phone! Darth is appealing to his character to explain why he might not do something?!
Quoting darthbarracuda
Victoire si douce!
Quoting darthbarracuda
What does "ignore" mean? Not doing anything? If so, then sure, I didn't do anything to help them. But I've already told that I have no means or power to help them. But if by "ignore" we mean "not caring about or indifferent toward," then you're very wrong and I think you know that to accuse me of this is wrong and highly uncharitable to say the least. I'm not a sociopath thank you very much.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Uh, no. I don't think you know what the word intention means, for you have completely obliterated its meaning here. Intentions are important because my walking toward you with a knife means something completely different depending on if I intend to murder you or intend to chop up some onions for dinner.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Most laws are based on moral principles, so this is a false distinction.
Quoting Wayfarer
No he didn't. In fact he objected to the term.
Quoting Wayfarer
From what? It's not completely different from Schopenhauer's.
'Whatever remains after Will has vanished must seem to those who are still filled by it nothing. But to the man in whom the Will has turned and negated itself, this world, so real to us with all its suns and Milky Ways, is nothing.'
Schopenhauer quoted in Abelsen.
That's a good representation of what I would say active pessimism is about. I just don't see how Schopenhauer embodied this principle, nor do I see this principle in effect in his writings. Why didn't you bring this up earlier?
Quoting Thorongil
The problem, unfortunately, is when those who have the opportunity to enjoy these things mistake their own existential luck as desert and pursue these things exclusively, or at least are focused on these things as a high priority.
Quoting Thorongil
Come now, I've offered more than just the plush pillow and poodle example. I've shown how Leopardi intentionally isolated himself and was a thorough-going egoist - "be true to oneself" was his motto; he missed an epithet, though: "by neglecting everyone else". And I've shown how Cioran was curiously drawn towards suffering and intentionally submerged himself in its depths, and analyzed suffering as an abstract notion pervading time and space. I've shown how Nietzsche's amor fati is flawed and insulting to those who are suffering. Please don't ignore these examples anymore.
Quoting Thorongil
No, I'm getting this from several sources, including a biographical account of Schopenhauer in The Philosophy of Disenchantment by Edgar Saltus, who is extraordinarily praising of Schopenhauer in general.
Quoting Thorongil
Come now, open your eyes man. I've said it multiple times now, even to yourself. I prioritize non-human animals.
Quoting Thorongil
Determinism? Is this what this is all about?
Quoting Thorongil
Clearly if someone willingly undergoes torment and turmoil, they aren't really "suffering". They're experiencing pain and discomfort but they aren't suffering because they have freely chosen to experience these things. In short, they prefer to feel these things, they are more satisfied by doing so.
The ascetics don't starve themselves to escape ennui, they starve themselves in pursuit of a metaphysical end-goal.
Quoting Thorongil
And once again I have to tell you that active pessimism does not require moral responsibility, but merely altruism.
Quoting Thorongil
Maybe it's just my "character" to point out hypocrisy.
Quoting Thorongil
Same, but mostly because you seem hell-bent on misunderstanding the main thesis of the OP and instead try to bring it all back to me apparently hating on Schopenhauer or something.
Quoting Thorongil
You cut yourself on a piece of wood. You don't just give up, you find a goddamn bandage to stop the bleeding. That's the point of intelligence, of rationality: problem-solving.
Once again, it's not about fixing the metaphysical problem. It's about making hell a little less hellish.
Quoting Thorongil
I'm saying it's one of those things I doubt anyone could seriously condemn me or anyone else for not doing anything about. Just how you can't seriously condemn someone for not failing to kill themselves for the benefit of everyone else. It's too extreme.
And the argument in the OP is that these sorts of things are not the things an active pessimist would be expected to accomplish. You might as well ask them to teleport or shoot lasers out of their eyes. It's not reasonable. But the things that separate an active pessimist from a passive pessimist are reasonable. The passive pessimist just doesn't see them as important enough to pursue.
Quoting Thorongil
Umm, okay? It's not as if you "won" anything, as I never said there was inherently something wrong with being a passive pessimist. You just played yourself...
Again, I have presented the descriptive qualities that separate active from passive pessimism. Whether you see this as a "threat" to your way of life is a you-problem.
Quoting Thorongil
But, you do...
Quoting Thorongil
Nor do I think you a sociopath...? What the hell?
Quoting Thorongil
Yes, as a means of predicting what you're going to do with the knife. As you said you're not a sociopath so I doubt you'd have the intention to stab or slice me.
Quoting Thorongil
Most laws are based on common-sense moral principles, sure. There's a reason legal issues are tangled up with moral issues, as common-sense morality, the one that drips with ad hoc intentionality, is inadequate in many cases.
Quoting Thorongil
Oh?
Quoting Thorongil
But there are differences.
I'm saying "justice" is no longer about finding who is responsible for whatever action but rather a means of preventing this occurrence from happening again. Is it not fair to say that as the stakes become higher, the more value we place on justice?
Most people, it seems, see justice as a way of "setting things straight", and "getting back" at whoever "intentionally" perpetrated the event. Vengeance masked by ritual.
I come from a different perspective: justice is a means of "showing an example". Those who disobey civil order will be dealt with. Cause and effect. It is based on an element of fear and intimidation, just as practically any social relation is, or any legitimate learning process for that matter.
I'm not sure Schopenhauer really wanted to be a "spiritual exemplar" himself. As he put it, the job of the philosopher is different than the job of the saint.
Is this to say that one is both angel and devil?
Is the unreality of life equivalent with the fact that life's pleasures are deceitful, and the existence of suffering?
Why not?
This is the most important bit of the passage I think. Does one bad action guarantee numberless others will be committed when circumstances permit? For example, as we grow up as children, it takes time for us to realise which actions cause suffering to ourselves and others. So I may commit a bad action, and from the suffering that entails from it, realise my sin, and thus abstain in the future. Indeed this has happened numerous times to me.
What makes the difference between the two modes of perception?
Yes no doubt that some of these characters had all sorts of troubles. You would too if you had devoted your life to struggling against the same problems they have devoted their lives to struggling against. Schopenhauer abandoned a career in business and trade to become a philosopher. Just imagine if he had stuck to business - he would have probably become one of the richest men in the world, considering his intellect. He would have towered materially above everyone else, he could have surrounded himself with all the luxury he would have desired - he could have enjoyed his life while everyone else suffered. That's the amazing thing about him - as it is amazing about Wittgenstein - they gave up what they had or could have had. When you give up riches, you're not doing shit. You're giving up like the fox who cannot reach to the grapes and calls them sour. Even your renunciation sounds hollow and void. But if suddenly your situation changes - you stumble upon a great source of riches - then all your previous renunciation will go to waste, and be long forgotten.
The only real renunciation is the renunciation of one who either HAS everything, or CAN have everything. Imagine that you're in a position where you can order the Prime Minister of a country or the President of the United States to do this or that, and they do it. If from that position, you abandon it - then you have renounced something, willingly. Then your renunciation makes sense - then it proceeds from real understanding. If on the other hand, you're not in that position - there is no renunciation to make, for you simply lack even what to renounce.
"Be true to oneself" by "neglecting everyone else" can have a deeper meaning than the selfish superficial top that everyone sees. In some situations, by not neglecting everyone else, you will all fall into the pit. And it is better that you save yourself and let those who you cannot save fall into the pit, than that you yourself fall into the pit along with them. Some people are naturally stupid - there is no stopping them from heading towards their own destruction. Character is destiny.
For example, how could Nietzsche renounce anything? He didn't have anything to begin with! He was always low on money, he failed to win Salome's heart, etc. etc. Such a man doesn't want to renounce - renunciation is foolish to him! Why should he renounce?! And more importantly, what to renounce? There isn't anything to renounce...
No, again, you're misconstruing the argument. They don't live up to my ideals, true. But I have specifically stated that the actual argument here is that they don't live up the ideals of an active pessimist. They did not advocate what I have articulated to be active pessimism.
The fact you seem to be getting all pissed off about this says more about yourself than anything I've said.
>:O Are you for real right now?
I disagree. Why can't it change? After all it was Schopenhauer who said it takes time to get used to isolation and asceticism. Character can change, for the better.
It's a shame pity and good intentions won't help anyone unless it motivates action. Simply recognizing suffering, as I've already said, is the hallmark of passive pessimism. The active pessimist goes further and fights back.
Quoting Maw
Is that book any good? I heard you're re-reading it. I was thinking of picking it up.
Quoting Maw
I mentioned Leopardi because I'm currently reading The Philosophy of Disenchantment by Edgar Saltus, and Saltus spends almost an entire chapter talking about Leopardi's life and how he, at least for a while, intentionally isolated himself from everyone else, and thought the only duty one had was to oneself: "be true to oneself".
Quoting Maw
Right, exactly. Some people seem to be missing this point. It's not about making the world a utopia, but making it comparatively better than it is right now. We have made progress. It's not perfect and it never will be, but progress has still happened. It's ridiculous, I think, to say we haven't progressed at all. Of course we have.
No amount of passive lamenting is going to stop the machine of blind ambition from spreading to places where it ought not go. The active pessimist, then, is one who does not approve of this continuation, but nevertheless follows along to offer advice and clean up the mess made by these fools.
Also I will point out that it's not just about anthropocentric suffering, but sentio-centric suffering.
Dienstag's book is excellent. Highly recommend it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I am not familiar with Status' book, but he is correct that Leopardi was a withdrawn figure. He was also a sickly man, and physically frail, which also heavily contributed to his isolated nature. However, I think there is a noticeable contrast between his views on leading an active life, versus, say Rousseau or Cioran.
Have you read John Gray's Straw Dogs? The belief that we have progressed is merely infantilism. We just have better sticks and stones today (technological advances), but otherwise no progress, maybe even a regress if you consider what is largely happening with our climate, what is happening with some people around the world who live worse than they have ever lived in history (consider for a moment people living in Syria), what is happening with certain aspects of virtue and morality, what is happening with certain animal species (disappearing), etc.
Honestly, if I am a pessimist, I'd be a Daoist Pessimist :P - the Ancient Chinese understood this probably better than anyone else. The fact that we haven't progressed isn't to say that one should resort to non-engagement with the world though - that's far from what I would hold. However, over the long-run we'll stay around the same level - we'll have periods of regress compared to this level, and periods of progress, but ultimately in the long-run we're all back to where we started from.
Pessimists focused traditionally on quieting the Will, the unrest that is the metaphysical kernel at the heart of existence. What you discuss is what I call "contingent harms"- they are circumstantial harms that humans face based on their biological/psychological/social/cultural/environmental circumstances. Traditionally, pessimists are concerned with the kernel. To admonish them for not focusing on contingent harms, is a bit misleading as Pessimists rarely focused on contingent harms- it is what makes a Pessimist a Pessimist. It is like admonishing a cat for not being a dog.
However, one might characterize Eduard von Hartmann as an "Active Pessimist" as he thought we have to hasten the time when everyone can come to the conclusion that we should not exist anymore, which I would assume would mean providing material well-being so we are all to become aware of our own pessimistic situation. Although, one can be a pessimist about his pessimism- or at least a defeatist :).
[quote=From the Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann article on http://www.iep.utm.edu/hartmann/]Because of the wisdom displayed in the action of the Unconscious, this is the best possible world; only this does not prove that the world is good, or that the world would not be better, the latter of which is true. Human life labors under three illusions: (1) that happiness is possible in this life, which came to an end with the Roman Empire; (2) that life will be crowned with happiness in another world, which science is rapidly dissipating; (3) that happy social well-being, although postponed, can at last be realized on earth, a dream which will also ultimately be dissolved. Man's only hope lies in "final redemption from the misery of volition and existence into the painlessness of non-being and non-willing." No mortal may quit the task of life, but each must do his part to hasten the time when in the major portion of the human race the activity of the Unconscious shall be ruled by intelligence, and this stage reached, in the simultaneous action of many persons volition will resolve upon its own non-continuance, and thus idea and will be once more reunited in the Absolute.[/quote]
Also something to consider- leaving behind Pessimism and whether it should be utilitarian as you conceive it, your utilitarianism itself may be flawed. If everyone simply went off to help in whatever situation they can, that would leave little time to develop things and improve them in terms of technology, ideas, social change, etc.. There are so many ways that people create utility unintentionally. Who are you to decide which actions lead to the greatest good? The sports-watching couch potato could think of something on his spare time that immensely increases the utility of people and animals around the world, that he would never have done simply by directly providing aid/volunteer opportunities. In fact, if this guy volunteered, he would have not thought of that novel innovation that increased utility way more than direct aid. Further, the factors that lead to outcomes for greatest utility are so numerous, there is no reliable probability one can calculate to account for everything in terms of which action leads to greatest utility. Instead, direct aid would simply be following one's own notions of what's good, not bringing about the actual greatest good. This then would mean that one would simply follow one's own inclinations, neuroses, and etc. and not what is logically the best thing to do to increase utility at that particular time.
This then brings me to another objection... You say your philosophy is not about intentions, but it clearly is now that we see that it is inefficient to not pursue one's own utility in the free-market. Thus any imbalance pursued in light of this, would be about our intention of action rather than the outcome. The outcome of direct aid unintentionally creates more inefficiencies and to continue on the path despite this, would be simply to place value on the intention of the action.
Further, if you counter that we should do what we normally do, but on every waking free time, we should use it to "help" people, and thus provide utility ON TOP Of that which we like doing anyways, a) You would not know by any measure, whether this actually created DISUTILITY overall and b) you almost certainly would be creating a situation where life would be a tormenting robotic affair- where one does not even get to pursue the goods that are life's consolation.. Even the starving Ethiopian, if he/she was ethical himself would hope that you would also pursue a life with some happiness that goes beyond helping him/her.. even if he/she appreciates the immediate aid you gave him right there and then.. The hypothetical starving Ethiopian hopefully has ends THEY would like to pursue.. just like you or I.. Pessimists are under no more obligation to have a tormenting life of than others merely because they see life as unrest.
Metaphorically, it would seem so.
Quoting Agustino
This essay is taken from the PP, so I don't think Schopenhauer is speaking with the precision that your reply here is couched in. That being said, I think any idealist philosophy, properly so called, would hold that life is unreal (or less real).
Quoting Agustino
Because virtue cannot be taught. I know you think the opposite, but I, like Schopenhauer, have never been persuaded of that.
Quoting Agustino
It depends on one's character, naturally.
Quoting Agustino
I don't understand the question.
Quoting darthbarracuda
For what purpose do you try to distinguish them from so called "active" pessimists? I've asked you this before, and I think you will find that your answer circles back around to the fact they they don't live up to your ideals, in which case, my being "pissed off" or whatever you perceive that I am (I wouldn't use such language), is justified.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes.
This lecture may be of some interest to the denizens of this thread.
Very well said. This was one of my repeated objections in this thread. The rest of your post is excellently stated as well.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I will grant that the metaphysical "kernel" as you mention is at the heart of pessimism, but I'll also argue that it's not just the "Will" (as that's Schopenhauer's thing), and neither is it exclusively these kernels.
In fact I would argue that contingent harms are necessarily part of human existence. To exist means to be harmed in some random and unpredictable manner. Schopenhauer himself used many examples of contingent harms - think back to his analysis of the pain of the prey and the pleasure of a predator. This isn't the "kernel" he speaks of, but it's nevertheless an example of a contingent harm that characterizes an unfairly and unequally-distributed experience machine we call life.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Great stuff by von Hartmann, I had forgotten his name and couldn't seem to find him. Bit of an obscure philosopher, unfortunately, who nevertheless mirrors a lot of my own thinking.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, again I mentioned earlier how it's not that we all have to get up and slave away doing things. There's charities that we can donate to and local events that we can participate in to help out the community and society at large.
You mention how many good things can come unintentionally. Yet I would argue that you're missing the far greater goods that come with intentional focus! For every lazy sports-watching couch potato that comes up with a marvelous new idea, how many other lazy sports-watching couch potatoes don't, and live their whole lives with their asses glued to their seats?
The fact is that, just as you said, we don't know how to perfectly maximize utility. We don't know whether or not excessive luxury or leisure will result in these marvelous new inventions that will save countless lives. So the best thing we can do, given our epistemic stance, is to do what we do know will help. Not sit around waiting for inspiration to pop into the minds of your everyday hill-billy in Alabama.
Quoting schopenhauer1
True, I accept that the Ethiopian would be ethically obligated to want you to also be happy, even if she's starving. This goes back to Cabrera's analysis of pain, specifically torture and extreme suffering. He draws from Hannah Arendt and talks about how pain is isolating and controlling. Cabrera describes it as one of the ways a person becomes ethically disqualified.
For example, we cannot honestly expect a spy to keep his secrets if he's being horribly tortured by the enemy. Even if what this man does (spill the beans) is immoral and leads to countless deaths, we can't honestly blame him for his blunder. It's too extreme to act ethically under these circumstances.
Now, again before anyone else jumps on my tail on this, I personally believe we do have ethical obligations towards those who are suffering greatly (what Maw called "gratuitous suffering") within a certain threshold and some other minor qualifications. But you can disagree with this without changing anything about the OP, as the OP sets out to describe the differences between active and passive pessimism. The latter being more contemplative, removed, aesthetically-oriented and redemptive, the former being more pragmatic, radical, forceful and openly-disgusted with the world at large. For the active pessimist, then, there's really no place for any talk of "aesthetics" as a top priority or grand schema. There's really no place for "TRUTH" unless it's instrumental to our own ends. There's really no place for comfort, security, or loftiness unless it's in the service of some greater goal.
If I had to try to summarize it, then, it would be that the passive pessimist, when confronted with the reality of existence, tends to retreat from the world, while the active pessimist tends to swallow the bitterness and remain a player on the field.
So then, from a more personal view, as I tried to explain earlier, I don't see how these great fantastic amazing things like "TRUTH" or "A E S T H E T I C S" or "Transcendence" or any of that crap legitimately "fits" in the worldview of a pessimist. It's the same thing when a tragedy happens and someone says "look on the bright side!" and you just want to slap them silly for saying such a stupid thing. There is no beauty in this world, at least no beauty that doesn't come with a heavy price - and what sort of beauty is that? It's this kind of "clinginess" of passive pessimism that makes it what it is, like it accepts pessimism but doesn't "go all the way". One can wonder if someone like Schopenhauer would have pushed that big red button to end the world immediately and painlessly, or if he would have rather not done this for some abstract idealistic ethics or because he wanted to pursue his metaphysics more or whatever. I get the feeling, when reading his work (and others'), that they actually enjoy complaining about the world, in general at least, and it seems out of place and disingenuous. At least to me.
Assuming there aren't any objections, then, I would argue that unless someone is willing to embrace hypotheses like world destruction or biological sterilization or what have you, they really have no business talking about the suffering that inevitably calls for such action. It's like saying there's a fire down the street but being opposed to calling 9-11: like, then why did you even bring it up? Nobody really seemed to have gone far enough, from my ethical perspective, and it's disheartening. Nobody seemed to have the stomach to seriously consider how their pessimism might be implemented. The state of the world doesn't call for calligraphy or fine cuisine. It's out-of-place, like wearing a wedding dress in a war zone. It just doesn't fit, simple as that.
C'mon, you should have said setting up charitable foundations.. but you can use the long-term argument of creating future utility by getting educated and making more money.. Again, whether your intention was that or not, the most utility may or may not occur as a result. There is no good way to measure. There are simply too many factors. You helping Ethiopians could have prevented you from helping create more money that could have helped 5 Africans.. Oops.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That's just false. So we disagree right there. You are trying to change their argument so you can be seen as railing against it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes he did, but this was in regards to his major premise which was the Will (the kernel) which is never satisfied. It was not meant as simply a laundry list of utilitarian woes- though it may be taken that way if you don't know his major premise. To one not familiar with Schopenhauer, this would probably seem the case.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Which many people already do. Granted, this still does not refute the claim that, people often create utility doing many things besides direct aide, and things unintentionally raises utility.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yep, the ones that create the tax base to help others, who buy the goods that create jobs, that allow for who knows what things that they did not intentionally mean to do. Again, you can never know, and besides the point, being that you are a consequentialist, it does not even matter their intention. The person who becomes a doctor because he vaguely wants to help people, created a lot of jobs, which created a lot of other jobs, and so on. The doctor who became the doctor, let's say did this also because it paid well comparatively and he liked the prestige it gave him. He could have gave direct aid all this time learning to be a doctor.. If every doctor did this, if EVERYONE did this, we would be providing nothing for aid, because we would all be helping so much, that nothing else gets created. As Adam Smith noted, the invisible hand of capitalism creates the most utility.. It need not be an economy, but rather any action whereby one is pursuing their own interests can increase the utility of others. Where there are inefficiencies in human interests or the process as a whole, government can step in to help shape the direction of the actions. This of course, is what we already have. By pursuing his own interests (helping people, prestige, money), he created the most utility for himself and others. The couch potato, has no inclination for any of this let's say.. great, besides his own utility being met, he has contributed by his investments in his 401k, consumption of goods, donations he makes every holiday, and friendships he created. As a consequentialist, fantasies of intentional focus, seem misapplied. Intention does not necessarily create more utility. What has proven to work, is leaving people alone to the invisible hand.. Mother Tereasas would be nothing with the things that are generated from average Joe's following their own interest.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No, this is changing the meaning of what I am saying. By doing what we "know will help", it may UNINTENTIONALLY create disutility. My stance was that we do NOT in fact know what helps overall. Certainly, out of EMOTIONAL DISTRESS/COMPASSION, we help the drowning victim. But, as far as spending all our time with direct aid, because we happen to not have brilliant ideas is a monstrous existence for anyone- Ethiopians and Americans and Pygmies in Africa alike. Your toning it down a bit might help your cause, but then, that really is just stating the status quo except for advocating for a bit more charitable contributions.. which is fine but not the big wave I think you wanted to make with this.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, and I explained how I think you set up a false dichotomy so that you can put yourself in a position of being "right". However, I do not even accept your dichotomy as true to begin with. You created your own categories such that your argument cannot fail. I already presented to you Pessimism is mainly about the unrest of existence. If you do not like that, then perhaps you are not a pessimist. If you want to discuss the idea of giving more to charity, great.. but it does not have to do with Pessimism, but rather your own ethical stance, which apparently, you think all people, should follow.
Quoting darthbarracuda
How is this justified?
Quoting darthbarracuda
I mean these are more your terms, and the way you are phrasing it. Rather, the pessimist sees the world as unrest beneath the surface. The human animal is at least partly able to comprehend this.
Quoting darthbarracuda
By aesthetics I mean more the structure of things- the structure of the metaphysics more than literal "beauty". It is a way of seeing the world.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I enjoy it :). I get giddy from pessimistic turn of phrases. It consoles me that others feel this way. Its cathartic.. Quoting darthbarracuda
And that's just, like, your opinion man. Your opinion by the way, seems like a monstrous drudging one. If you want to help Africans or poor villagers somewhere, go do it! That is your utility that you want to pursue. It is a tormenting vision when applied to all people at all times and that comes out as self-righteous, definitely creating disutility if you want to promote your cause.