The biggest political divide is actually optimist/pessimist not left/right
As I've stated before, the very act of bringing someone into existence is a political act. It is agreeing on someone else's behalf that the ideology of life (finding ways to survive, comfort, entertain in a cultural setting), is worth it and necessary to live out for that other person. Optimists will agree with this point. To them, they will see existence itself as a positive, and they will see the maneuverings of having to survive, find comfort, entertainment, of trying to navigate the contingent harms that may befall as worth it. They may even co-opt the negatives as good and necessary so that the person can "overcome" it in some way and be "better" for it.
The pessimist does not see existence itself as a positive. They do not see the maneuverings of having to survive, find comfort, and entertainment as positive. Rather, they simply view situations of "dealing with" to get by. In other words, Life presents one thing after another to deal with.
I'm claiming that these two positions, are the ultimate political-existential divide. Left and right politics, are intra-wordly and after-the-fact. They are generally already on the same side because they think existence has positive value or that it is good and that the trials and tribulations are worth it for all humans born. They have already bypassed the more fundamental and important question, which is whether this is worth it at all. They assumed "yes" and forged ahead.
A criticism of this may be something like "But people are already born, we must move forward now and that is where the usual left/right politics comes into play". Yes and no. The left/right political assumptions provides reinforcement and feedback to the notion that this should be the state of affairs in the first place. By never discussing the more fundamental politics of whether existence is worth it, the default assumption is that it is, and thus we must discuss the machinations and maneuverings of the institutions of the already existing situation. However, that is not the case. The more fundamental issue is whether the whole life enterprise should be brought about and carried forward, especially on behalf of other people. That is the more fundamental political difference.
The pessimist does not see existence itself as a positive. They do not see the maneuverings of having to survive, find comfort, and entertainment as positive. Rather, they simply view situations of "dealing with" to get by. In other words, Life presents one thing after another to deal with.
I'm claiming that these two positions, are the ultimate political-existential divide. Left and right politics, are intra-wordly and after-the-fact. They are generally already on the same side because they think existence has positive value or that it is good and that the trials and tribulations are worth it for all humans born. They have already bypassed the more fundamental and important question, which is whether this is worth it at all. They assumed "yes" and forged ahead.
A criticism of this may be something like "But people are already born, we must move forward now and that is where the usual left/right politics comes into play". Yes and no. The left/right political assumptions provides reinforcement and feedback to the notion that this should be the state of affairs in the first place. By never discussing the more fundamental politics of whether existence is worth it, the default assumption is that it is, and thus we must discuss the machinations and maneuverings of the institutions of the already existing situation. However, that is not the case. The more fundamental issue is whether the whole life enterprise should be brought about and carried forward, especially on behalf of other people. That is the more fundamental political difference.
Comments (57)
Quoting schopenhauer1
Many of the optimists you describe might advocate for abortion or infanticide in the case of a fetus in utero or a baby that is born and will die in agony before becoming a person. These people are on the left mostly. Would you consider them pessimists even if they believe that people with valuable futures should be brought into the world?
I don't believe that the left and right are on the same side generally; it differs significantly based on context. For instance, on a related note, mostly only people on the left and libertarians believe physician-assisted suicide should be legal. Does this make them pessimists? What if a life is truly miserable and it would be better for everyone involved if someone committed suicide legally? This, while not optimistic, doesn't seem to fit neatly into the category of pessimism; it doesn't express a negative valuation, but rather an acceptance of reality; some lives, in many people's opinions, are not worth living. This loops around to the earlier issue of abortion/infanticide. These same people, mostly leftists, believe that it is at least passable to bring someone who will not suffer unduly into existence. Thus, on specific issues, there are fundamental differences between the left and right when it comes to the valuation of life and all its potential suffering and joy.
Oh forreal? My mate had a few drinks and the last thing he remembered was not being a father. Needless to say, when he came to he was cheerfully informed.
Quoting Outlander
Cheerfully informed that he was a father? Or that he wasn't a father? .
The former. Point being not every life brought into this world is a thoughtful, purposeful, let alone political action. I'll reply more to the OP in a bit I'm sure I just had to point that out. "Gotcha" post I suppose. As is.
Yeah I think the OP is a good one. Do you think that if the optimism/pessimism dichotomy presupposes the left/right that the politics of the left/right can affect the optimism/pessimism? Or do you think it isn't transitive?
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
I disagree; as discussed in my earlier post I believe that the politics of the right/left concern the optimism and pessimism that the OP describes and that they do differ significantly in terms of what they say about bringing people into this world.
True, but there should be a more fundamental debate going on.
Yeah, culture affects our modes of survival, comfort, entertainment. In the spirit of fairness and equality, even the "noble savage" of the primitive world, should grapple with this question. It is as much their problem as ours. This is true that they may never think it though on their own.
However, the fact that it can be thought by a human means that there is already something there that was able to be accessed.
No because they think that existence is generally worth existing for most people. They don't advocate abortion at all times. Something about existence is good for some people to them.
Quoting ToothyMaw
I am not sure we can say it is due to optimism/pessimism really. Rather, this has to do with rights of people to do what they want with their life. They may think life is great and that the people are making a terrible mistake but believe it is okay to end one's life when one wants easily. Also, often religionists are very pessimistic even though they are anti-abortion/assisted suicide. Rather, they want everyone to live so they can see the End of Times. Some also believe suffering is a virtue and all that.
There's a few ways to answer that.
1) Almost every adult knows the consequences of sex.
2) Abortion is an option, though people may not believe it is right so may not see that as an option
3) My bet is generally speaking, the person thinks it was not a tragedy but a mistake and thus the person born, they think (like so many others) will be better off for it. It will be seen as a good thing, the right thing, etc.
If not then, the friend is a pessimist who made a mistake. That doesn't negate the divide.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Good point; many people probably would recognize the assisted suicide thing as an issue of rights. But the second part of your statement about the religious only supports the point I made about the right and left disagreeing on different issues and feeding back into the pessimism/optimism politics. I don't think that the pessimism/optimism political divide is required to make the right/left politics coherent.
But it remains that the right to assisted suicide is predicated upon the conception that a life isn't worth living; perhaps it isn't worth living merely because you want to arbitrarily end it, or maybe it is because you wish to end your own suffering or the suffering of your family and friends. But the right doesn't exist without people believing that some lives aren't worth living and thus voting accordingly. Thus this feeds into the optimism/pessimism divide.
Once again I'm having difficulties understanding you. I guess you mean what if people voted for laws based upon optimism/pessimism lines? I don't think that most issues are related to the ethical ramifications of bringing a person into this world. For instance, combating climate change has nothing to do with the human population (not saying humans don't contribute to climate change) as far as I know, other than that the earth will not be able to sustain the current population after a certain point. But the more pressing issue is how to avoid a scenario in which the population cannot be sustained.
I am not saying it has to be valid for left/right. Rather, whether life is even worth starting for someone else is the more fundamental political question. People will have a general attitude and belief that yes it is, but this is the question at hand in the optimist/pessimist debate.
"Conservatism" could be seen as a kind phrasing of regressivism or indeed pessimism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This then is the fundamental political question because it determines what sort of institutions we build or hold onto, what sort of communities we want to live in. The left/right divide ignores the implications, and then addresses that original political question by how best we should live now that we are here.
You'd have to explain that.
Left and right's opposing moral stances are the main reason for political divide, and optimism/pessimism are responses either rational or irrational to current state-of-affairs or circumstances which either hinder or help progression and improvements. Conservatism and liberalism are on a similar boat. There are pessimistic conservatives biased by ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declinism ) but then there are optimistic conservatives ("lets never change"), and more. The core here is still their opposing moral stances, unless you are arguing that such states have an effect on how one approaches morality. This may be true, but I do not think it's just political in nature. What leads to people viewing the world in such a way? Seems to be more complex than simply just a pessimistic/optimistic state of mind, maybe a lack of and then some.
Educating people, but mostly emphasizing the point of morality and ethics would alleviate a lot of political emotions seems to be a strong foundation than simply adopting a pesimissistic and optimistic philosophy or way of life, there must be more to it, and without this strong moral foundation we will still have people polarizing and going against one another for groupthink, ignorance and more.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
The use of optimist/pessimist tends to skew the meaning towards happiness and unhappiness, or positive and negative. From a Kantian point of view the negative/pessimist is really the acceptance of the limits of our knowledge to the phenomenal realm.
Really, instead of optimist/pessimist, we’re talking about fatalism and destinism, acceptance versus resistance or the East and West.
For Schopenhauer our lives are swept along by Will. This experience lies behind our suffering and can only be alleviated through asceticism, or particular ways of living according to Eastern philosophy, of acceptance.
The West perceives life differently. It doesn’t accept our condition or any sense of fatalism, it resists that sense of futility.
It’s the response, negative/ positive, that determines our culture and how and why it’s constructed in the way it is.
Politics is the pushing and shoving that goes on within each culture but on the basis that the idea of negative/positive has already been decided.
Saying that, the question of whether reproduction should be regulated i.e. child limits, is a political question.
From your previous posts I take it you don't agree with regulation? Despite us both agreeing it would prevent many people living a life of suffering?
Your premise makes sense to me. It helps explain the deepening divide between the right and the left that started, at least as far back as the industrialists and romanticists. As things get worse, the optimistic have a more difficult time holding on and the pessimists revel in accelerating insanity.
Interesting.
Quoting Brett
My claim was it is decided in the form of "Yes, it is worth it". But the pessimist might say, "Whoa, whoa.. hold on here. You've bypassed the most important debate. Should we even 'be' in the first place?"
The political debate in the latter is about whether forcing the ideology of existence is right. Life is assumed to be the default ideology. It is a given that people should be born, to some people, to perpetuate the cycles of survival, comfort, entertainment, and institutions of the culture that bring this about. That is a massive assumption that is not, in fact, the given that most optimists claim it is.
Good points. I like the reference to industrialists and romanticists. In a way, that is a good analogy. The industrialists being those perpetual optimists, but their optimism is like the soot that blows out of their smokestacks.. toxically moving things forward. I discussed something called minutia-mongering. The minutia of understanding the details of a given part of nature or a given technology. Optimists give proof of the greatness of the human because of our ability to investigate and gather more information and create more technology from this. The engineering, etc. They will say that the fact we have heating, bungee jumping, televisions, cars, electric cars even, bullet trains, jets, phones, underwater video cameras, and name any technology you like.. look this is OPTIMISM showing proof of the ideology of life being good. Look at it!!! Our own survival, comfort, entertainment via the cultural institutions that sustain/perpetuate it has given us THIS.. We should CONTINUE IT!!
The pessimists will claim that this is in fact an ideology. There is no meaning in the fact that we can create technology. Rather, the onus of the balance of life's worth is in the individual and how they must deal with. You are not providing opportunities to participate in the technology-sphere. You are giving opportunities to be FORCED to DEAL WITH situations big and small. This forcing of dealing with one thing after another, is what should give pause to creating more people. Forcing other people to go through burdens and overcome them, for whatever reasons you think (the greatness of technology, cultural reasons of family expectations, the supposed "fun" "happy" experiences) is not worth it to cause burdens in the first place that never had to be overcome in the first place.
Honestly I struggle to understand the 'substance' of either party. I get the talking points and alleged 'essence' from the nomenclature ie. 'liberal' vs. 'conservative'.
One is more about the value of human life in gestation vs. the right to have more freedom over your body. One is 'allegedly' more about the focus on God and the traditional family unit vs. the right to worship (or not worship) freely and raise a family as you please. One seems to be more open to immigration vs. making sure everyone here is on par first. One seems to believe stricter gun control will save American lives vs. lack of strictness is the only reason we still have a country, etc., etc.
I'm sure you can detect in my comparisons I have a slight conservative bias but I was raised around decent conservatives. People who actually gave a crap about others and not the 'hard' or 'extreme' deviation. Those who don't want to just take a machine gun to everyone else ie. not the "God bless America, and the hell with everyone else" creed. God, guns, and the family. That's how it always was and what got us this far, isn't it?
My last post was proposing that if someone is a 'pessimist' they don't have faith/belief in 'the system' and may be disinclined to actually vote/participate in the civil process. Could be wrong.
I guess it depends what kind of optimist/pessimist you are. Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding of the two, at least what I'm going to use for this example is 'faith, confidence, or lack thereof in either human life, society, or oneself.' I do believe it can span all concepts or just a select few. Example, someone who thinks "I'm just fine, everyone else is crazy" can be either optimist or pessimist. They're optimistic in their own self, their actions, choices, and beliefs, they just happen to believe they're right all the time, though by discounting humanity as a whole there is a shade of pessimism that bleeds through. Or it could be the opposite, you may have low self worth, confidence, and think everything you do is worthless, but believe that humanity as a whole has amazing potential evidenced by the innovations and breakthroughs achieved in both science and society. Basically, I wouldn't say being an optimist or pessimist dictates you have to hold a single, static attitude toward literally every single aspect of life and existence. Does it?
Politics, like religion unfortunately, offer an incredibly vast, opaque, and above all inconspicuous covering to mask one's various mental illnesses. If not just from themselves. You shouldn't blame either.
You are correct to identify the conflict between pessimism and optimism. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (2019), has captured this inherent tension, in saying that,
'You can predict thinkers' place in the political spectrum by looking at how optimistic or pessimistic they are about the human condition. On the one hand, optimists, who think human nature is good, want to liberate the human spirit to fulfill itself. Pessimists, who think humans are irremediably wicked or corrupt, prefer restraining or repressing institutions that keep people under control'.
In this respect, I would argue that your most extreme pessimism and antinatalist stance represents an extreme example of a wish for control, with absolute lack of any creativity and scope for freedom of the human spirit.
I'm using the definition of Philosophical Pessimism which means that life has an inherent suffering or negative aspect to it. Further, that these aspects are not worth bringing more people into it. It is not the common notion of something like "half is glass empty". It should also not be confused with misanthropy which says that humans are inherently corrupt. Though they are often seen together, they are not always the same. By contrast, I suppose, is a sort of optimism, though the term isn't used as much in a philosophical sense, probably cause its the default, is that there is something inherently good or possibly could be good about living that would be worth the human enterprise and bringing more people into it.
Its not a wish for control. I am not forcing the stance, for the umpteenth time. It is up to the parents to decide to not have the child. Decide is the key word. And that requires a certain point of view. It is I am arguing a political view. One that says living is good, and it is good to make the decision on another's behalf to be begetted into life. The other is that life is not worth living and it is would be better not to be begetted. It is also the best decision not to make that on behalf of another person.
But you are trying to enforce the position by coming up with endless reasons for your antinatalist stance.
It is a personal decision whether or not people bring people into the world and you are constantly coming up with reasons against it, and ultimately this indicates that the matter is your problem.
Who cares about what you believe about your concerns about suffering, as none of your posts convey any empathy regarding suffering or any compassion. The appeals to emotion which you make are shallow in this respect.
Maybe our definitions of force are different, but arguing for a position and enforcing something are two very different things and a misuse of language for emotional appeal in argumentation.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Actually it is not. It is affecting another person's life, not just your own. Granted, I agree it is a decision that only one can make on one's own. Other people can have a strong stance on the decision though.
Quoting Jack Cummins
Um, the whole point of not procreating is to prevent suffering. The world is full of it. The question is, is it okay to continue it. You clearly have an opinion on the matter. You cannot stand on the sidelines.
You make your case as if it is benefiting others, while in an actual fact it benefits no one, including yourself. What you have said is empty rhetoric, playing with the appeal to emotions, but not in any genuine sense . As such, I am afraid that it does not deal with the problem of of suffering at all.
Quoting Jack Cummins
It is benefitting others. Just not in the ways you find valid. So be it. It is about an evaluation of life, and the forced ideology when procreating someone else.
I am afraid I don't see the point in discussions the matter with you further, because you are completely fixed in your belief. But I am left wondering what you have to gain in your argument. Is it the attention your posts create? But, I would rather move on because from my point of view, you use and abuse the idea of suffering in a meaningless way.
With no explanation why, youre just saying meaningless things yourself. I've argued my point plenty. Just because you say something, doesnt make it true. Its just rhetoric.
I am not trying to be harsh with you, but I am not convinced that you even understand the basics of suffering at all.
Would antinatalism, as a practice, therefore be considered a boycott? Or perhaps a political protest?
Yes both. Good analogies.
I consider myself an optimist, but that doesn't mean I deny reality and insist there is no suffering. The position is that through suffering much is gained and that the wisdom and accomplishment you gain through struggle are the things of most value to you. The optimism lies in the fact that there is a higher level you will be elevated to as the result of the struggle. That is not to say there aren't things that have occurred that have caused more suffering and evil than they've created good, but an optimist would still be inclined to find the good in what had occurred.
You seem to be isolating your inquiry to whether one should decide to have children or not, which I really don't see central to this inquiry. I would agree that an optimist would likely not be an anti-natalist, but I don't think there is anything inconsistent with an optimist choosing not to have children for any number of reasons.
Yes, I think you are correct to see that the whole problem of suffering is not merely about whether to have children or not. I think that this post and the whole question of pessimism and optimism could have been a fantastic area of discussion if the focus was not simply about whether or not one should procreate.
I've talked with schopenhauer1 about this topic a bit, and I think his position is more accurately categorized as one that is anti-being than anti-suffering. I remember I asked schopenhauer if he'd still be a pessimist even if the world was basically perfect, and he said that he would be. Even in a perfect world you'd have to deal with the deaths of your grandparents or parents - otherwise you're the tragedy. If life inevitably involves some tragedy, which it always will to some degree or another, then according to schopenhauer we should do away with it. Even if the vast majority of one's life is amazing, no one can consent pre-birth to being born into a world where tragedy inevitably lives.
For the record I don't agree with schop. I just wanted to sketch out the position here.
I am aware of the antinatalist stance of Schopenhauer 1. I just think that he wrote a good thread discussion and it could have been better if the discussion could have been more expansive.
I believe that suffering is at the heart of human existence but even if you are an antinatalist that does not mean you can only discuss suffering, as well as the pessimist/political divide in view to your conclusion. The actual subject of pessimism and optimism in politics is worthy of discussion as a topic in itself.
Yes, this is a perfect example of the common Nietzschean narrative optimists tell each other. In a world where suffering is inescapable, the only way to make it okay is to co-opt suffering as "good", "necessary for meaning" and the like. It is a predictable move. However, creating known and unknown burdens to overcome, what I call "dealing with situations" for another person, and letting this continue is wrong. If I throw you into a pit with obstacles I know you must overcome and then say, "You'll appreciate the suffering later", that is wrong. Now broaden that to the necessary situations of overcoming survival, comfort, and entertainment needs in a cultural milieu (socio-economic setting). Now add in the contingent sufferings of all the harms that befall someone. These are just more dealing with situations. No amount of post-facto rationalizing of the "good" of suffering mitigates actually creating conditions for the suffering that do not have to take place.
Then the conversation turns to humanity as a whole rather than the individual. This will end humanity! Cries the optimist. And? What of the human enterprise besides your thought-projection of accomplishments and future endeavors matters to itself? In other words, its an abstract thing, not a real person with identity. It is the individual who suffers, not an abstract concept. It is the person who deals with, not humanity. Individuals shouldn't be created so you can shed a sentimental tear at the greatness of human achievement and all the other romantic waxing.
Quoting Hanover
Optimists don't have to have children themselves. They just have to think that it is worth it for people to be born in a world with suffering, as you seem to hold yourself.
Wow! Not what I had in mind. I look at the industrialists and their descendants as utterly pessimistic. "This is the best we can do and it's important, even if we wreck the world doing so." They perceive it as important because we can do it and there is no difficulty in doing so. Much, much more difficult is seeing beyond the obvious to perceive the real situation, which is not at all as it seems.
But they in a way are optimists in their devotion to the technology, capital investments, and economic system. They call it "good".
Fair enough. I will add that a world that is complete or nothing would be akin to perfection. This is getting a bit Platonic and Buddhist but if we take as a template Schopenhauer's idea of striving Will, it represents an incompletion in our needs and wants. Thus, a complete or nothing existence would be the opposite. My guess is, this is akin to his idea of the saint's Enlightenment, Nirvana, Moksha, or the like. It is some state of being/non-being.
I've also stated that perhaps another version of a utopian-world would be being able to dial in as much pain as one wants. Of course that doesn't exist. The reality is we live in a variable world of varying amounts of pain, both known and unknown. Recently, my argument has emphasized that it is wrong to make others have to overcome burdens. Certainly, it is wrong to make them overcome burdens and then to poor salt on the wound say, "But you see, it is good for you to experience the hardship so you have a more meaningful life". Yes, I know that is the traditional narrative, but is wrong in that if it is known, then it is simply creating a negative situation in order for people to overcome it for someone else. If it is unknown then it is a post-facto rationalization of why the person had to deal with the pain in the first place. Either way, preventing people from having to live a life of dealing with one thing after the next is the right thing to do. There IS an ideology behind having children. It is promoting the idea that we want people to deal with situations. Just because people don't commit suicide at all times, doesn't mean it is thus right to go ahead and put people in the dealing with situations.
I took the OP as a probably accurate observation that there is a significant divide between optimists and pessimists. Why the two see the world distinctly is an interesting question, likely involving personal history, psychology, and religious beliefs. There are also pragmatic issues to look at, as in who makes for the happier, more successful, and more fulfilled person. The responses to all of those questions seem to favor the optimist.
I take your response to my post as an unrelated discussion as to whether optimism or pessimism is more philosophically sound, as if you're intent is to try to persuade me of the wisdom of pessimism. You will no doubt fail in your effort to make me more pessimistic, and, in fact, my laboring through your arguments will only convince me of your folly and will make me more convinced an optimistic outlook is best. That is to say your pessimism will only make me and the rest of the world a better place, as it will inform all who may stumble upon you of the misery that befalls the pessimist and they will therefore adopt a more optimistic outlook.
:100:
I am 100% a more optimistic person since engaging with Schop and pessimistic philosophy.
And so you see, there is good in everything, even in those who insist there is good in nothing.
Because Schopenhauer1 supports a non aggression idea for ethics, it’s pretty clear why this wouldn’t be okay. Nobody needed to come into existence, but some would-be parents have a strong interest in procreating and I don’t think it’s clear that just because something didn’t have to be it’s always impermissible. I don’t think this idea renders procreation 100% impermissible for those who don’t support a non-aggression pact
Yes that is a good summary of the standard Nietzschean parent stance.
Quoting Albero
Sure, if the don't believe the reasoning, then they wouldn't follow it. But the point is to go back to the reasoning and see it as sound. Creating situations of harm, negative states, deprivations for someone else, so that they can POSSIBLY feel the benefits of overcoming those very hardships, and even if just to purely benefit (in other words, maybe not to just overcome hardships to gain more meaning in life, but to simply enjoy things), is still wrong, because indeed, you are making negatives, hardships, deprivations for someone else in the first place. It is hubris to think that you are doing something grand on someone else's behalf by creating a situation of negative states for them. It is post-facto reasoning to then say, "Well, these negative states can provide meaning". I mean, yes anyone can rationalize anything at that point. Without X bad thing, this good thing wouldn't come about.
The paternalistic idea that YOU have a notion that life is good, therefore other people should live through life is hubristic in many ways. At the least, can you admit that this should be questioned? Just because you can do it, should you?
I think there is an illusion that if a society is one with sufficient choices, people can't complain that life is an imposition on someone else. But if anything, my constant theme is that life really isn't as free as we think. We have necessary forms of suffering and contingent harms that befall everyone. This is all well known.
This isn't really on the topic, but as an antinatalist how do you feel about nature/animal rights groups who wish to re-populate animals to help with biodiversity or revive extinct animals or something. Some antinatalists think abstaining from procreation ought to apply to all life. Your arguments seem to be more deontological and human-centric, so I was wondering your thoughts on the matter.
Yeah I would say I'm more in line with the human-centric. Suffering takes on different characteristics in our distinct species, involving linguistically-adapted minds, high levels of deliberation, self-awareness and the like.