There's no such thing as intrinsically good or intrinsically bad. Again, it's simply a matter of how we feel about such things. I feel that pushing people towards realising potentials is a good thing. You may very well feel differently. That's fine. We're not going to all feel the same way about things she it comes to ethical matters. — Terrapin Station

Okay, but I'm not arguing that you cannot feel this way or that (nor can I), I'm just arguing both a) that it is not some sort of binding mission on everyone to "push people towards realizing potentials" which we both agree with apparently and b) that there is no Potentials with a capital P but rather various skills that people may or may not want to acquire if they so choose, which we probably also agree on. You are very disagreeable about things we agree about! Is that just your natural disposition in these forums?

I don't see causing stress in others as good or bad in itself. Some things that cause stress in others are good in my opinion, some are bad, and some are neutral. It's also dependent on the person in question. Not everyone experiences stress in response to the same things. And some people might be stressed at the slightest provocation whereas almost nothing would stress others. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, I completely disagree. All stress is harmful, and true people can be naturally/socially inclined to become more stressed than others.

One example where I think that stressing others is a very good thing is when we're pushing people to get closer to their potentials--performance potentials, artistic potentials, etc. — Terrapin Station

I do not see this as a justification in itself to cause stress as "reaching potential" is not intrinsically good. That seems like leftover Platonic thinking.. Some sort of Form of the Good is reached. Aristotle's Golden Mean is its own Platonic sweetspot. This is an arbitrary goal. One may get better at skills but that just means one prefers that set of skills as the goals one wants to pursue. It is a way to fill time.

I'd say to beget children to experience stress so that they can reach potential just does not make sense. Once one is born, preferences are varied and too nuanced as to lead to one direction of what goals to strive for.

They haven't yet learned to appreciate/enjoy subtleties, simple pleasures and a wider range of interests. — Terrapin Station

Your presumption here is that, even for adults, if they are not able to get even these subtleties, simple pleasures, and wider range of interests, they too fall into this baseline state. I'm assuming another contender here is a sort of idling/meditative state. Perhaps some are better at letting their own thoughts entertain them, but I guess this is just one more layer that can be absent at some point, leading to the baseline feeling which is boredom.

To take this a step further, being born is essentially being exposed to stress. One has to "deal" with things great and small, preferred and not preferred. Why is it assumed that a new human must be born to experience stress in the first place? Does the parent's preference for stress get carried over to the assumption that the child should also prefer stress? Does stress need to exist in the first place if it can otherwise be prevented?

what is the difference between stress and distress? — unenlightened

Well, here is where we are going to disagree as to the characterization of stress, which, if my OP has it right, is one of the two major defaults (boredom being the other). My implicit and controversial idea is that stress is intrinsically harmful. A light version of stress is simply "dealing" with situations. One creates a burden so one can deal with overcoming the problem. This can be seen in something as seemingly innocuous as a game. There is an aspect of competition, executing proper procedures, and practicing for the execution that is unpleasant, but the acute sense of achieving a victory or the relief of figuring out the problem becomes a justification for undergoing the stress. This stress is preferred over dullness and boredom perhaps but just because one's preferences are attuned to prefer stress, does not mean it is "good" intrinsically, it simply means that ones preferences cause one to want to experience more stress than lounging around.. masochistic somewhat. Admittedly, more people may be masochistic than not (i.e. competition may be preferred to being "idle" or passive).

Distress on the other hand, is non-preferred stress. Though stress is intrinsically harmful, distress has the added distinction of being harmful and not preferred. It also has to cross a threshold of being more than the "average" burden. Both distress and stress are forms of "stress", distress is a subcategory that brings with it usually more harm than your average experience of stress and is usually not preferred. It gets tricky though.

However, I may be talking simply about "undue" stress. Distress as normally used is usually a synonym for unpleasantness, anxiety, and concern.

For example, "I'm afraid your leg is gangrenous, and it needs to be amputated or else you will die." Generally, whenever causing them stress is the only way to benefit them in some important way. That this has been used to justify all sorts of cruelty (e.g. spare the rod and spoil the child) does not invalidate it, but should lead to a careful questioning of less stressful methods, and the reality and proportionality of benefits. — unenlightened

How about the stress of being exposed to the harm in the first place? If looked at more closely, is even the self-imposed stress of games/sports/entertainment not beneficial absolutely, but simply a relative benefit in relation to the anxiety of boredom?

I said this in a previous thread and it would apply here:
As far as life is expressed by the work we do.. I don't know, that's a pretty romantic vision of work. It seems like an ad hoc justification for a forced activity. Saying "Hey, we all have to work, but maybe you can find work that expresses your creativity", does not take away the fact that we are FORCED to work, whether there is a benefit we might get out of it or not. The forced part might be the sticking point here.

You're misunderstanding if you think I have said that life is all positive, just a bed of roses with no thorns. Living fully, though, is not a matter of merely coping. Whether you see life as predominately good or bad is always up to you and is a function of your thinking; there is no objective measure even of what life is, let alone of what it is worth. — John

I don't think so. I think by being brought into existence you are exposed to many harms and stress. We MUST put forth energy. There is no default sleep mode that is optional. It is an all or nothing package. We MUST contend with survival, getting along in society, being comfortable, and we MUST go about seeking this or that goal. To have children is to create a situation where they must DEAL with survival-through-cultural-upkeep and boredom-transformed-into-goal-seeking. The perpetual willing nature of the human animal propels us forward. We are always becoming but never being. On top of this "structural" suffering of the pendulum of our survival/entertainment needs and wants, is the contingent suffering of ALL the negative things we encounter. Mindset or not, we are harmed by being exposed to existence.

I contended earlier that families (at least the modern day version thereof) are just ways to combat boredom. It is boredom literally multiplied. One does not want to look inward too much, lest one sees the sheer instrumentality. Rather, it is presumed that if one is concerned with another beings' outcome, this will alleviate one's own need to introspect. Now, of course that is just one "background" reason out of many cultural ones (i.e. social expectations, babies are cute, accidents, the need to anchor one's direction into a role and responsibility, etc. etc.), but it is one manifestation of our own unwillingness to look at our own nature of striving for nothing- boredom and survival-through-cultural upkeep. A family unit to be concerned with tries to deflect the question from oneself and thus perpetuate the cycle.

As Schopenhauer said:
It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one’s finger; or like a planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry forward on its way. Unrest is the mark of existence.
-Studies in Pessimism, by Arthur Schopenhauer
On the Vanity of Existence.

What your describing sounds like a nightmare someone cooked up about a bunch of carbon based lifeforms who are too stupid to see the truth of their own situation and to cowardly to do anything about.

I think monks or ascetics who meditate would be an exception here as they focus on existential despair, emptiness and loneliness all day, although you don't seem to think so as the paragraph in your thread suggested. You claimed the lofty goal of nonexistence or a transcendental existence through ascetic practices is only a coping mechanism for the situation but never truly resolves it. — intrapersona

This is correct, nothing does resolve the situation. You are stuck here until you're not. You will run into harm, you will create your own harm, you will find survival within your culture, you will experience boredom unless you create some sort of entertainment situation.

There is nothing imperative or absolutely true in such a lifeless picture; it is something we do to ourselves, and not something inevitably done to us by life. — John

I disagree. We were born into existence, and it does contain harms and it contains a structure which we did not create. We all cope, that's just a truism, but that does not mean "and then it was good."

Ok, but I still don't see all of that addressing the great one word question... Why? — intrapersona

Why, this is the way we seem to be structured based on our constant willing nature.. we have survival needs and we have entertainment needs/wants to keep us busy. The idea of flow and hope are big parts of this. We want to get caught up in something so that we do not actually see existence itself or contend with our own boredom. We also have hope that some future state will bring more pleasure than the present state. This provides the carrot and stick.

You maintain your little world doing your pendulum swing.. Upkeep is really important here. You survive- go to work, consume, maintain your space.. In modern settings this is your property and living situation.. You look for entertainment.. this can be things to alleviate boredom including loneliness.. You look for a friend group, a mate, hobbies, etc. With a mate you may try to form a family unit so that you have an anchor- a unit to go back to.. A family is almost a manifestation of boredom multiplied.. If you have a unit of people, you will be that much more occupied.. Your world will be filled with concerns of other people at-the-ready for you to have to deal with.. Anything to avoid existence itself.. that churning will that moves your forward to the next task, ensuring you keep following activities related to cultural upkeep (survival, maintaining property, etc.), and making sure you find ways to entertain.

If you do not want to read all those thread, I'll copy and paste the first paragraph about instrumentality:
Here is the idea of instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice. There is also a feeling of futility as, the linguistic- general processor brain cannot get out of its own circular loop of awareness of this. Another part of the feeling of futility is the idea that there is no ultimate completion from any goal or action. It is that idea that there is nothing truly fulfilling. Time moves forward and we must make more goals and actions.

So yeah I have come to a very similar conclusion. Essentially the ethic starts with antinatalism.. a questioning of why even bring new people into existence. Antinatalism not only solves the problem of future suffering, but it puts your own into perspective too. As the already-existing people experiencing existence, we must constantly be aware of the instrumentality of things. Do not flinch from it and move away to distraction. Rather, it is okay to bitch at the situation.. Be proud to be a Philosophical Pessimist.. Most people are going to tell you to be happy in the absurdity (Camus/Nietzschean style). This is an acceptance of the situation and take the good with the bad. I say it is okay to bitch at it. Philosophical Pessimism is a philosophy of consolation. There are innumerable amounts of harm, many quite nuanced and personalized for the individual. Instrumentality is the background harm out of all of them..it is the absurd angsty feeling.. It is the knowledge that we are going in day in and day out one day rolling into the next. It is the result of a self-aware animal contemplating its own situation. You will have wants and needs that will never be satisfied.. You will have contingent harms (as defined as circumstantial harms that are unwanted/unforeseen), and you will have to contend with the pendulum swing of your own willing nature which is survival through cultural upkeep on one hand (through all the various ways you keep yourself alive and well-adjusted in your cultural setting) and boredom on the other side which, if experienced for a measure of time, will lead to ideas of ennui (world-weariness) and instrumentality (things just do to do to do).. Inevitably, we must go from boredom to entertainment-seeking in our cultural settings.

I basically go over what you are trying to get at in these threads. You may want to check them out and if you want to discuss any of the points, especially about the idea of instrumentality, feel free to make a comment.
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/519/instrumentality/p1
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/652/technology-and-science-and-our-lifes-purpose#Item_20
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/642/the-nature-of-the-individuals-responsibility-to-the-group-or-society#Item_28
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/657/relationships-are-they-really-a-source-for-meaningful-life-and-optimism#Item_56
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/669/how-many-different-harms-can-you-name#Item_103

I don't see a problem with being hip or in vogue. Even if something is hip or in vogue, that doesn't stop it from being what it is. Lady Gaga is a musician, whether she is hip today or not so tomorrow. What does it matter if someone is self-aware that they are revolting against the absurd, that they are smiling, that they reference Nietzsche, that they think of themselves in a Sisyphean manner? How does that take away from the Absurdists revolt? — Moliere

I didn't mean it's wrong because it is in vogue.. If Schopenhauer was in vogue, he wouldn't be wrong.. People would just be more right :D. But what I was really saying is that these themes seem to be the Zeitgeist for a long time and THOUGH it is popular, that doesn't necessarily mean it is right. That's all.. However, being popular does not negate something's truthfulness either.

I don't think there's some kind of real revolt to uphold people to. I think that this is the solution to the problem, the result of the absurd reasoning. It seems to me that you're saying a person has to hide that they feel a certain way from themselves, and purposefully go against the "status quo" in order to revolt. — Moliere

No not really.. What I am saying is that "revolt" in the context of how Nietzsche and Camus explained it, is simply acceptance of the situation said in a different way. This "joy" is actually not the life lived..which is as I explained the pendulum swing and contingent harms. It is another false escape hatch...The Zen absurdist hero- more artistic than realistic.

On a side note -- hope is one of those terms frequently spoken against in The Myth of Sisyphus. Hope is a form of nostalgia which one gives into to nullify one of the two terms which results in the absurd, at least as it is used in the essay. I mean, you're free to posit what you want obviously, but it struck me as odd to say that Camus hopes and feels very hip and cool about hoping when he speaks explicitly against hope, at least. — Moliere

I wasn't speaking there about Camus' notion of hope per se, but about a common notions people have to find a reason to keep going. Like relationships, flow, aesthetics, the onward march of science and technology..it's just one of those human reasons for continuing themselves and procreating future people so they can too can continue themselves for those reasons. Hope, in particular is the carrot and the stick.

So, insofar that you're not the absurd man, that you don't feel that your desires can not be met by the world and you continue to desire anyways, that the world has meaning (if a pessimistic one) -- the result of all of this would amount to saying: "I don't just disagree with your reasoning, but the premise upon which your reasoning starts". Which, of course, I don't see a problem with that, but I don't see it as a strike against Camus either. After all -- the absurdist can say the same to you, since they started their premise with the absurd. — Moliere

At the end of the day, you still must deal with survival and entertainment, in other words, the structure of one's very willing nature. The instrumentality of existence.. and how we are forced everyday to deal with our wants, needs, and contingent harms. I have sympathies with Camus' idea of the absurd, as indeed the idea of instrumentality, the absurd feeling we get when we realize our constant need to put forth the energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any actions that takes up our free time simply because we are alive have no other choice. My disagreement is with his conclusion that all is well in the joyful Zen-like Sisyphus accepting his fate.

In addition, he states explicitly that complacency is exactly what the absurd man does not allow -- this is his criticism, in a way, of both suicide and existentialism. — Moliere

Well indeed, it is this equivalency of the sub-clerk and the conqueror that allows The Dude and Peter Gibbons to be the middling existential hero... Both the extreme absurdist model (the actor, seducer, and conqueror), and the subdued version of it (the sub-clerk who knows the absurd situation but still roles with it because he is free in his mind).. Are both bad version of the revolt of existence.

The three examples of the extreme version are clearly destructive to others, despite its irony in its own pursuit of quantity of experience (oh so hip)..

The examples of the subdued "everyday" man, living the absurd life but in the everydayness of things...because well, it is just complacency..despite if one is self-aware of the absurdity..

A revolt comes not when one sees the absurd and decides to live life in this full good faith view. But rather, the revolt comes when one sees the many harms one is exposed to, and the ever-present pendulum of one's own psyche- moving from survival as cultural upkeep and boredom turned into entertainment seeking.. The fact that we must rely on hope and "flow" experiences to try to sustain us or give us "justifications" for why every day is not so bad.. It is realizing that hope and flow are just ways to isolate the fact that life can be quite harmful, causes much stress, and forces us to constantly deal with our homeostatic/cultural thing. It is a burden or series of burdens that most constantly be confronted. If we can see this aspect, and not flinch, and not try to run away from it with more flow activities and distraction, that is the revolt.. If one can actually bitch about it without resigning to thinking that they are a smiling Sisyphus.. Then they are actually revolting.. Sisyphus smiling is simply the status quo. Accepting fate, Nietzschean and Camus style may be hip and in vogue amongst those who care about that, but it's not revolt.

it can answer more of the Big Questions — wuliheron

Somehow knowing "how" something developed and living with the manifestation of that development seem like two very different questions or at least approaches to the question. Existential philosophizing is the DaSein, the person as being lived- the ready-to-hand of phenomenology. The present-at-hand of how and discursive reflection of how my own emotions came about is not equivalent to the actual experiencing of emotions.

It may put the emotions into perspective, but gives me no real direction of what to do, or how to think of the situation. In this case, the ready-at-hand experience is that of the human animal with his immense self-reflective abilities confronting a world that has no direction. That is the absurd according to Camus. Of course my difference with Camus is how he interprets our ability to be free within the absurd.. We are constantly impinged by the set-up of the world and our own psyche.. The need for needs and wants, the harms of the environment, the harms of every contingent unwanted pain, etc. etc.. The suffering of the world is sort of not addressed very well. This is where Schopenhauer's understanding fits much better.. His pendulum swing of survival through cultural upkeep and boredom and the subsequent entertainment-seeking that ensues.. The revolt then isn't being the "absurd" Nietzschean superman who climbs mountains, lives a bunch of lives at once, and conquers nations (the man of action without dithering thought)..these are all manic thought-experiments that have little bearing to the life lived of the human animal. Rather, the revolt comes from the ability to see the situation for what it is without flinching or distracting oneself from this idea.

This is certainly an aside, but just fyi, Africa is actually as complexly varied as the rest of the world. We're talking about 54 different countries, and most of those countries are complexly varied, too, with the complete range of economic, technological, ideological, — Terrapin Station

This is obvious Terrapin, but that was not the point. It's not about Africa's complex varied range of economic, political, socisl phenomena, but the idea of poverty in Africa as a way to try to diminish the relative suffering of "complainer" in the first world. It's a strategy to keep the malcontent at bay and regulated. It's simply a meme that is used against those with negative experiences..similar to other memes of this variety that tries to stop the malcontent in their tracks by comparing to "worse off" situations.

While I agree that he falls broadly into the existentialist camp, it's also fair to say he's writing in response or as critical of existential philosophies (as he defines the term, of course). So it's also fair to say he is not an existentialist. On one hand you have the broad historical category where we group some authors together because they have similar themes or moods, but on the other you have a crisper definition offered by Camus which he is critical of. — Moliere

Yes, I agree that he emphasizes the "absurd" while Sartre emphasizes freedom. There are some differences like Sartre's freedom seems to be intrinsic while Camus seems to be contingent upon only confronting the "absurd". I am still critical of Camus ideas in regards to his "solutions" which amount to a sort of quantity of experience (the actor, the seducer, etc.). Though probably not to be taken literally, to me, it is very much (along with Nietzsche's ideas) provided the ethos of the "hip" manic lust for voracious experience seeking.. which actually just amounts to the cliched ideas of the traveling gypsy lifestyle, the party-goer, adrenaline junky, etc. etc. It seems very self-absorbed.. You know just "Do the Dew" as Mountain Dew would say...

Existentialist themes in media have been quite extensive since the end of the end of the 20th century..You have themes from movies like Office Space and the Big Lebowski... which kind of sees the Dude and Peter Gibbons as your everday man that faces realities in stride.. and then you have movies like Fight Club and such which were more of the Camus variety that you should live extreme experiences, and be happy that you made your own decisions while living in the absurd.. These kind of solutions, though presenting themselves as just entertainment, convey the general ethos of the middling existentialist idea that one can be content in the absurd.. That is not revolt but complacency.. Really looking at the situation head-on would be more of the Schopenhauer variety and seeing the structural situation we find ourselves in.

I mean even if his response to 'the absurd' was to think suicide IS the best option, it's still a gigantic leap from there to actually DOING the act. He was never going to actually kill himself - at least not as a response to 'the absurd'. His solution to this supposed issue was already a foregone conclusion before it was raised. There's no serious issue of suicide if you were never going to do it in the first place. It doesn't need to be argued against or even thought about at all.

"Should I kill myself because the world is absurd?" There's no point even asking this question because I'm not going to actually lethally harm myself even if the answer is yes. I suspect Camus was never going to either. It's a non-issue. — dukkha

I agree..but I think most people reading the essay also know he wasn't meditating on suicide as a way to explore the "real" sociological reasons for why people actually commit suicide. Rather, he was using as a device to explain how to live a "meaningful" life. It was a rhetorical device and a signal that the book was about the worth of what we do. However, for all the reasons I explained in my previous post, his solutions are not very convincing and he overlooks a lot of baked-in things about the human condition. Remember, he broadly falls into the existentialist camp (though he tried to renounce this label). One reason he does fit in this camp is the idea of authenticity and radical freedom. The problem is that humans simply aren't as radically free as we think. There are psychological mechanisms that keep us more conservative than willing whatever we think we are free to do. Also, the structural conditions of life essentially make it the same kind of life for everyone- survival through cultural upkeep/routines and entertainment-seeking through cultural means. Schopenhauer, in this regard was a much more astute existentialist than the 20th century versions of it.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. — Kazuma

@Bitter Crank
This question is most pertinent on a Monday before work. This is sort of a joke but it is also a metaphor for the instrumentality of things. You do your little work week, consumption, cultural upkeep thing and then the weekend comes and goes and it seems like a sort of vapid affair as you start all over. Those moments where you got caught up in the "flow" of your hobbies, past times, and friends cannot be maintained for longer than certain span. The routines of life give you a bit of angst as you wonder what it is for. However, if you were given unlimited freedom, and no routine, you would still ask what it is for. Thus, there is no way out of the situation.

There is a pendulum swing between survival through cultural upkeep (all the routines needed to survive and be well-adjusted in your culture) on one side and boredom on the other. Ennui is kind understanding the vanity of existence, and an acute awareness of one's own need to need and want because you will need to sustain and entertain day after day. Throw in the idea that you may be harmed in various contingent (unwanted/unexpected/circumstantial) ways and Camus' question becomes pertinent.

Camus may have meant it to be a question one asks continually to see if one is really just going through the motion or gaining as much as he/she can out of their time. The problem with Camus' is its a mirage of freedom. Cultural upkeep is just part of surviving as a human and is part of our situatedness and throwness into the world. Human needs are also not simply willed, but are an integral a part of or psyche (things like the need to be with others, etc).

Also, the notion of instrumentality may overcome any feelings of intense freedom as one's options are played out and one becomes aware that first, we have to have an image of what makes one free, and then we realize that this image itself is simply grounded in cultural expectations (i.e. traveling must be good because that is how books and movies and media portrays what freedom is).. These images are really no more free than the cultural milieu that one finds oneself in.. So "freedom" actually becomes a cliched version of itself by living out exactly what the culture wants you to live out as your sense of freedom..

Camus then goes on to give his own cliches which feed back into what an acceptable version of freedom is.. live like an actor he says..because if you are a different person you can live a bunch of lives in one.. (forget the fact that this creates havoc for any relationships and is quite selfish at best)

Or have many lovers like Don Juan.. (again a lot of selfishness here)..

Camus seems to have a theme of freedom in the selfish ME culture that we see playing out today. At the same time, the ME culture is no more than just a socially accepted way to relieve ones daily routine. Group oriented cultural cliches (on the opposite side of things.. family, tribe, religion, etc.) really won't do much either.

So we simply go back again the idea of that life is really just the pendulum swing between cultural upkeep and finding various ways to overcome boredom through goal-seeking. To go beyond that and say you have the magic elixir of life which is some sort of hip manic living as various characters in some tragic-comedy, questing for quantity of experiences, lovers, etc.. is not really going to solve anything. It's trying to make a satire of life.. like a laughing Sisyphus.. But sometimes one cannot laugh through everything.. One still wants and needs and cannot escape certain things with ones own sense of revelry.

However, what does seem useful from Camus is his idea of revolt. By living, you are in a sense living a revolt because you realize your situatedness, and this pendulum swing, but you decide to live it out. However, this is not to romanticize it. The revolt though can also be about constantly being aware of the situation and not letting yourself pretend it's not there.

You seem contradictory.. Acknowledging that trade barriers are good for developing countries but then saying it is bad because of its possible slower growth in first world countries. What is the goal here of trade barriers? It is to protect jobs for one's own country right? However, those jobs just aren't there anymore due to mechanization.

I guess my point is what is the goal of any economic policy? If it's just "growth for growth's sake" then it really doesn't say much. Growth without allocation to more than a small group of people might be really means nothing.. Put it this way, if people can get by making shit cheaper by ensuring people who make it get as little as possible, then they will do this. So all boats rise when there is free trade, but they rise because some people are able to live with less while others want to pay less.

It's kind of like a big game of tag "you're it". Once you move into the next rung in the ladder due to more education, the next group of people get to be on the bottom rung.. I guess the hope is everyone can step into the higher rungs while mechanization slowly takes over the lower paid jobs.

Of course the other problem is the profit motive is what keeps technology going. Free trade allows for ideas to have a smooth transition from one region to another. If technology cannot be created cheaply or there are barriers to collaborate and trade ideas, then trade barriers pose a problem here as well.

"Why don't you just kill yourself?!" or "Stop being a lazy fuck!" — darthbarracuda

Indeed along with this is the need to compare our situation with Africa. It's as if Africa exists solely so Westernized countries can have something to compare their pain to. See, until all the aide, Peace Corp., microloans, World Bank loans, missionaries, charities, and any other non-profit/government/private forms of help works out over there, we really cannot have any suffering over here. Didn't you know? I use Africa as a stand-in for any underdeveloped region, but you get the picture.

Of course if I had my way and can use a magic wand, Africa would be on par with Europe, America, Japan, or at least China and thus double their efforts in questioning the existential conditions. That's not to say, your average "impoverished" villager in sub-Saharan Africa cannot bring up these issues on his own, but if carrying buckets of water from location a to location b and hundreds of other tasks of daily living take up most of your time, it's probably hard to contemplate much more than getting through the day I would suspect. Of course, even during mundane or strenuous tasks, one's mind can wander and perhaps have these thoughts. Maybe they are not voiced but they are roughly the same kind of existential questioning that occurs in Westernized and "developed" regions. Impoverishment does not negate existential thinking, and perhaps it can amplify it. That would of course be a matter of empirical data gathering to those in that part of the world and as far as I know, most social scientists do not ask people about existential questions in underdeveloped parts of the world, and make it more about broad social categories like economics, religion, politics, etc. I would like some anecdotal evidence of an impoverished tribe discussing the point of their life and the ennui they felt at the end of the day.

Yes. I mean we still see this with rape victims. "You shouldn't have been out at night!"-like bullshit. — darthbarracuda

So what would be equivalent to "You shouldn't have been out at night!" in this situation?

Flow and in particular faith can justify the continuation of a life even if they are not founded well. — darthbarracuda

So is flow and faith a good thing or is it more of a stop-gap from addressing bigger existential questions?

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This is have an issue with. There is no giddyness to torture, horror, or anguish. It's comedic to see how absurd everything seems to be, so long as you aren't being impacted too much by the absurdity of it all. Why should I be giddy that countless animals are currently being ripped to shreds by predators? Why should I be giddy that life is disappointing and painful? This kind of giddyness ends up being not too dissimilar to the crazy guy in the movies who starts out laughing and ends up crying. — darthbarracuda

No I'm with you about actual suffering. What I meant I guess is that if you read a good pessimist writer's turn of phrase (i.e. Schopenhauer's aphorisms), you can get giddy with how well the author articulated the point.

Well, I mean to say that pessimism is pretty obvious. It is based in empiricism, specifically phenomenological immediate perceptions of existence. It's not easy to argue against it. Some people might say that this is simply because it's easy to complain and bitch and moan. Or maybe it's because it's an accurate picture of reality, and a tough pill to swallow. What is worse is when pessimists try to act upon their belief, they're seen as the baddies, destroyers. When really if something really is this bad then it ought to be destroyed. Permanently. — darthbarracuda

Indeed, I am interested in two ideas that you might want to present...

One is the victim blaming phenomena. Do you think it is a strategy for regulating societal expectations? In other words, is it to prevent people from voicing despair and bringing others into despair mode? Is it like a meme that worked well in maintaining the status quo, so remained as part of the social discourse when someone evaluating the negative voices an opinion?

How much do the psychological ideas of flow and hope play into the counter to pessimism? If you think about it, people simply want to get caught up in something that makes time go faster. At the same time they hope for a situation that might be more positive than the current one and possibly plan accordingly. Does flow and hope justify life affirmation? Flow can prevent the mind from thinking of all these larger angsty existential questions.. Hope can cause someone to take a plan of action to get to a more desired situation.

It's less about doing something productive and more about expressing oneself through pessimism, to the annoyance of others. — darthbarracuda

I see, so I should just shut up you are saying. Don't take it so seriously darthy! It partially meant to let people vent if they want..like a shoutbox but for shit we don't like.

I think pessimism can be productive as a philosophy of consolation. It can be a possible alternative to "pick yourself up by the bootstrap" theories. The inherent worth of the individual's suffering is taken into account rather than self-regulating phrases to ensure people do not get too upset by circumstances (by as you said before) "blaming the victim". Anyways, everyone has harms.. some similar, some more nuanced and individual.. It is quite alright to air those to others and find some solace in it.

Besides being a consolation, it may provide perspective on existence itself. Rather than take it as "this is what must be", it provides the individual a way to look at existence as a whole. By questioning the foundations of the human enterprise itself, it lets us look at what is important and what is justified. It allows us to look at how our own psychological mechanisms work to create the structure needed for goals, how it is contingent harms play a role, and confronts the situatedness of being thrown in a world where we are experiencing the pendulum between survival through cultural upkeep and maintenance, and turning boredom into entertainment goal-seeking. All this structural/necessary harm in the background while being harmed by contingent factors along the way.. All the things listed here for example.

Believe it or not, there can be a giddyness to pessimism.. To knowing we are all in the same boat, that it is all part of a similar structure. I dare say, there may be a joy and connectedness in pessimism.

The thing about pessimism is that it is probably one of the easiest philosophies to argue for, yet one of the hardest philosophies to accept. — darthbarracuda

You'd have to explain that. It sounds like you have many things to say in regards to arguing for pessimism but no one to hear it.. You always have me, dark solitary biting fish. Just don't bite me too much, as is your nature or I'll tear you up like a hapless salmon that is eaten by the grizzly in the picture :).

I actually previously entertained the thought that the 'higher ups' knew what they were doing when they designed the 8-hour + travel + lunch time work day, 5-day work week: it provided the right amount of distraction for essentially all of your waking hour, with enough stress and anxiety leftover that you wouldn't have enough remaining energy to use your brain for about anything else but leisure during the weekends and holidays.

People could be much more dangerous if allowed to be idle for long periods of time. — OglopTo

I think people might ask, "Well, what would people do in perpetual idleness?". And there is the existential dilemma many people do not want to face. People want a structure to their life perhaps to keep themselves from mulling over larger questions?

Those are very good haikus!
See, you have good thoughts to share
Let me think about it.

Usually, I think of the tediousness of daily life and seeming insignificance and meaninglessness of it all especially when I'm overwhelmed with so much urgent things-to-do, usually work related. — OglopTo

Some people say work gives life meaning because it provides a direction and "something" for them to put their attention on.

The thinking might go that assuming that eventually all forms of entertainment will get exhausted if that is all they do, people will actually "miss" forced routine of this and that task because it keeps their own mind from wandering about the ennui of existence itself. It gives structure because it allows the brain to be "caught up"... and what does a creature with excess consciousness do but get "caught up" so that it cannot think about its own situation of instrumentality, angst, etc.

Meanwhile of course, the getting "caught up" causes stress, anxieties, and its own spin off harms. Perhaps these spin off harms might be weighed against the harm of being left to our own existential contemplation? Thus, people's attitude towards work is that it gives them "meaning" while causing in some cases immense stress.

That's one point of view. Mine is another. — Terrapin Station

OHH.. Ok, now I clearly see where you were going.. It was still meant to be inciting.. but I see the context. Why didn't you just quote the comment so it was not seen as a general rant but aimed at a particular previous comment?

Edit: I see you did that but you didn't quote it.. Ok.. now I see where you are going.

I expect this in general, but particularly on a philosophy message board, I expect people to be able to think for themselves a bit, to be able to make deductions and inferences and abductions and so on. — Terrapin Station

No I knew what you meant from your original posting..but my point was did you have to come out swinging? I guess I may have misinterpreted this.. The whole possible misunderstanding is, did you aim that quote directly towards me or were you trying to vent about something in general?

But more generally, even if that was not meant to be aimed at me, just realize that to me, trolling can mean that you are trying to provoke a street brawl rather than keep it at a more respectful fencing match (though I don't know much about fencing it seems more coordinated and structured).. If you what you say clearly going to provoke the other guy to want to punch your (metaphorical) face, how is that adding to the philosophical discourse? The immediate emotional response attached to the inciting comment seems to be out of inciting emotional shouting matches rather than advancing any particular idea.

You were asking people to list "harms." I was listing one in my opinion. Part of the point of me doing so is to stress that different people have different opinions of what counts as harms. — Terrapin Station

See couldn't you have said that from the beginning instead of wrapping it in troll-speak? That's a much better place to start to have a discussion or debate.

There was no "mix up" there. — Terrapin Station

So you are trying to make an actual philosophical point or a dig at the OP? But by doing this, I ironically just get sucked into your troll hole, so I'm sort of harming myself here.. but go on and prattle your invective :-}

A lot of them are trolls, I suppose. — Terrapin Station

Do you always mix up your pronouns? Maybe that is what Pink Floyd meant by "Us and Them".

How about the harm of spoiled-brat/coddled/fragile millennials who don't reason very well, who are kind of paranoid, and who have a victim mentality not being able to handle that they didn't get their way, so they throw a tantrum (er, uh "protest")? — Terrapin Station

So the harm of an internet troll?

Have any fresh harms @OglopTo? You had some good ones...
@csalisbury?
@Hanover?
@darthbarracuda?
@dukkha?
@Bitter Crank?

That's a lot of bells, bells, bells!

Bring out your harms!

@Bitter Crank

The harm of your organization or country being run by an incompetent or wrong-headed leader.

My perception is that it's a fight back against the effects of globalisation. I don't know what he will do about that, protectionism perhaps. — Punshhh

I guess that trumped any possible or perceived downsides to the candidate.