So, if I said Jesus was just a regular guy with some great teachings that I really admire, then someone might ask me why I don’t practice those I teachings which I claim to value so much. On the other hand, if Jesus is God, then of course his teachings are great and valuable, but we normal, weak, sinful human beings really can’t be faulted for not following such elevated and noble teachings. — Art48

Haha, I like this. It is underhandedly criticizing :smirk:. You are rebuking Paul's main argument against the Law (of Moses), and rightfully so, because he was a wanker who didn't know shit from shinola other than to build castles in the sand to build up his new religion he made out of Jesus (meaning they were probably not from Jesus himself).

I think you neglect fear of consequences. It's not just the carrot. It's the stick of being homeless, being divorced, being fired. We are thrown into needing stuff and afraid to lose access. Some do off themselves. Even Kant is surprisingly tolerant of a serious suicide attempt (as I found out recently.) — green flag

But other animals can't/don't say/think/conceptualize
I need stuff or I die. They just do and survive. And there we are a being who has "reasons".

Explain please. — green flag

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah

Evolution is almost tautological once conditions for it arise. Justification is the kind of thing one talking primate offers another for taking the last plum from the icebox. — green flag

I won't let you escape that easily.. Zapffe's paradox...

Quakers didn't procreate, right ? — green flag

It was the Shakers.

I see (let me emphasize) that it's gentle on the surface. It's like euthanasia for those who are not even zygotes yet. Out of disgust for violence, it wants to destroy the possibility of violence. But that means life itself should not exist if it is to be vulnerable. Life is (the implication seems to be) only justified if it's safe and clean and decent. Give us paradise or nothing at all. No compromise. No trust in progress (transhumanism of Pearce, etc.) — green flag

Yes. Who are you to decide for another that non-paradisical existence is thus good in itself or for that person?

Science is about power and glory and wonder, a chip off the old block? Is philosophy not the superscience of being or metascience or neometatheology? Minutuiamongering is just a means, a necearriy evil, which may be becoming less necessary. Bots are going to revolutionize this world.

You ever see the image of a donkey with a carrot tied in front of its eyes and mouth ? For humans that carrot is an updating screen. Thrown chasers after projections. — green flag

How about instead..
It is purported science and technology in themselves provides meaning. And thus, the modern man puts more people into the world, organized by the knowledge classes and organizations that generate and distribute that, but it is just mining minutia into itself. The minutia mines for mining for mining. The search for more laws of nature and technological application doesn't produce any more "meaning" than anything else. It's just figuring out the blueprints and building various projects from it. This in itself is lauded, but its just being pressed into mongering more minutia in ever more projects.

Just to be clear, I think antinatalism is profound. It questions existence itself. It looks down on this great stage of fools like a god. — green flag

It is the ultimate why in the flesh. It compresses all existential dithering into an immediate presentation to the consumer of existence, and asks, "But what for?". It's no longer an abstract question for coffee-shops and leisure but immediate political implications that reflects back to the person themselves as to why they are doing anything on the stage.

To me the question is how it's even possible for life to question its own value. How did 'Moloch' allow this to happen ? — green flag

Indeed, it's that Zapffe paradox again.

In other words, how did 'game theoretical' pressures not 'filter out' such fantasies in us of own extinction ? Does this connect to the age of empires ? Is antinatalism related to intertribal violence? — green flag

No, it's the opposite. It calls into question the whole enterprise, especially the violence, aggression, and unjustified and unquestioned assumptions

Is radical questioning in general justified in the long run (statistically), despite dangerous philosophical byproducts, because of related technical innovations ? — green flag

Antinatalism is a political question. Why are we putting more people and pressing them towards the survival-game-through-technological-innovation-and-maintenance? What's the point? It is a cycle without justification. "I gotta work and contribute" or "I gotta work" and the byproduct is some sort of contribution doesn't matter. But either justification or phrasing- visible or invisible hand, doesn't answer why we want this from (yet more) people.

How does the 'demon' of the will-to-live manage to question and sabotage itself ? — green flag

And an animal that must provide justifications for its actions and to hold onto narrative fictions. "I got work to do" is one of those oddly revealing phrases...

Also expansion and conquest, a forward march without a definite destination. To more go and to more go and to more go. — green flag

More information and application of information for varieties of outputs, and? Any value put on this becomes suspect as a whole range of assumptions is being questioned. Circularities, instrumentality, etc.

How does this not become a circularity of reasoning?:
Humanity mines more information from the world and its own historical information to gain new insights to improve the survival of the species and we are all doing our part to bring about more refining of information to bring about more improvement of survival.

a) How is that ethic itself a justification for itself?
b) Isn't this a value we are imputing and thus making assumptions from the start? Unlike other animals that just survive. We survive because we justify it with reasoning. The hunger we feel, and the sickness we can get, the physical pleasure of taste and sex are about as close to the animal as we get. Beyond that it's all justifying without foundation. We are always putting the cart before the horse. Even survival itself is just a concept reified into some sort of societal motivation to get shit done. We can't escape justification being unfounded.

Ecclesiastes.

I don't think Solomon actually wrote it, but it's a nice story. The king who has tasted all pleasure and all knowledge can see through to the void behind it. — green flag

A classic.


Ok Green Flag, I'm going to give you three concepts. I'd like you to string them together:
Science (and technology), minutia-mongering, meaning

There is too much existence. Schopenhauer might have had the notion here:

Their wealth becomes a punishment by delivering them up to misery of having nothing to do; for, to escape it, they will rush about in all directions, traveling here, there and everywhere. No sooner do they arrive in a place than they are anxious to know what amusements it affords; just as though they were beggars asking where they could receive a dole! Of a truth, need and boredom are the two poles of human life. — Schopenhauer

This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. — Schopenhauer

The brute is much more content with mere existence than man; the plant is wholly so; and man finds satisfaction in it just in proportion as he is dull and obtuse. Accordingly, the life of the brute carries less of sorrow with it, but also less of joy, when compared with the life of man; and while this may be traced, on the one side, to freedom from the torment of care and anxiety, it is also due to the fact that hope, in any real sense, is unknown to the brute. It is thus deprived of any share in that which gives us the most and best of our joys and pleasures, the mental anticipation of a happy future, and the inspiriting play of phantasy, both of which we owe to our power of imagination. If the brute is free from care, it is also, in this sense, without hope; in either case, because its consciousness is limited to the present moment, to what it can actually see before it. The brute is an embodiment of present impulses, and hence what elements of fear and hope exist in its nature—and they do not go very far—arise only in relation to objects that lie before it and within reach of those impulses: whereas a man's range of vision embraces the whole of his life, and extends far into the past and future.

Following upon this, there is one respect in which brutes show real wisdom when compared with us—I mean, their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment. The tranquillity of mind which this seems to give them often puts us to shame for the many times we allow our thoughts and our cares to make us restless and discontented....But the brute's enjoyment is not anticipated, and therefore, suffers no deduction; so that the actual pleasure of the moment comes to it whole and unimpaired. In the same way, too, evil presses upon the brute only with its own intrinsic weight; whereas with us the fear of its coming often makes its burden ten times more grievous. — Schopenhauer

Has anyone ever had the feeling of a sort of emptiness or ennui? Science and technology, for the "thinking man" seems to be the things that confer any sort of inherent meaning. But is it not a manifestation of our own discontent? Science is delving into the walls of our confinement, looking at the cracks, and the specs on the wall with closer and closer examination. Mining more and more minutia. It's almost a masturbatory gesture in that it reveals our discontentment. And then, its usefulness in bringing the comforts simply amplify the need for need and its instrumental nature. We must keep reorienting to a value, but what for? Survival, comfort, entertainment, repeat.

Humans are social animals, and our survival is dependent on social arrangements. From the earliest days of human history, we have formed groups and communities to protect ourselves from the harsh elements, to hunt and gather food, and to care for each other. The philosopher Aristotle once said that "man is by nature a social animal," and this idea has been echoed by many other thinkers throughout history. — schopenhauer1

I would tend to agree that that example doesn't work as a counterexample. But, again, animals and kids will do things that cause pain due to motivations that are not dependent on cultural narratives. — Bylaw

Sure, I agree with that.

And I experience this driving me and others along with cultural beliefs as an adult.

And the tremendous frustration cultural beliefs have added when they have gone against motivations not dependent on cultural beliefs. You can feel these primal motivations chafing against the handcuffs. No one had to tell me to be social - though they sure added a lot of narratives about what was appropriate. I was willing to go through pain to get closer to other beings. No one had to give me a cultural belief to get me to explore and find out. And I was willing to go through discomfort and suffering to satisfy curiosity.

This all may seem tangential, but I think those drives undlie much of what we do, often despite cultural beliefs.

And the practical information I got or learned myself, including tacit knowledge about how to move and find out things, this merely extended the range and nuances of my core drives to be social and find out stuff. That knowledge had nothing to do with warding off the fear of death. — Bylaw

I think I acknowledged all of these underlying desires (both social and "pleasure-based") here:

Humans are social animals, and our survival is dependent on social arrangements. From the earliest days of human history, we have formed groups and communities to protect ourselves from the harsh elements, to hunt and gather food, and to care for each other. The philosopher Aristotle once said that "man is by nature a social animal," and this idea has been echoed by many other thinkers throughout history. — schopenhauer1

and then here:

Despite our general fear of pain and seeking of pleasure, we still must write narratives of motivation. Our behaviors are not fixed for these end goals but are tied to the conceptualizing-human mind in social relations to others. Every single day, every minute even, we have to "buy into" motivating ourselves with narratives. This creates a tension between our individual desires and the social fictions that we create to maintain our way of life. — schopenhauer1

So basically I am saying that although there are tendencies to do one thing (based on various things like pleasure, aesthetic pleasure [such as ones gotten from engaging socially, etc.]) there is the ability (and need) to tell stories to convince ourselves of doing things we wouldn't normally want to do in order to get those unpleasant things done. Again, unlike other animals, that simply exist and do what it needs to get things done and survive. We have an extra layer that makes us tragic in our way as it is a break from being into counter-factual being. We can "trick" ourselves, but it would only be in denying our true capacity for self-knowledge, which is that we agree to any of the story for why we do things, ones we don't even "want" or "desire" to continue doing.

Sure. And I am not in any way denying these things exist. And some of these cultural beliefs even or perhaps often go against our primary urges. — Bylaw

Yes. As an adult human, fully formed with the self-aware bit, there comes an extra layer of reasoning that is a break from the rest of nature. That is the premise and I think it is still valid despite your interesting forays into child development. If a dog is hungry, it eats, it begs, it scrounges, it plays tricks, it fights for its food. There is no meta-narrative to this.

Even T Clark's dishwashing has an implicit narrative. He doesn't like doing dishes, but cleaning them will allow for use in the next round of cooking, so you must wash them if you want that. You don't have to though. You can decide to let it pile up. You can be a hoarder, walk out of the house, break all the dishes and buy new ones, etc. But T Clark is probably going to follow a simple enough narrative.

Now I'm really done. No, seriously, I really mean it. For sure this time. La, la, la, la, la. I'm not listening. I'm going to turn my computer off now. — T Clark

Ah yes, I believe that's Socrates, no? You are sticking your fingers in your ears to not engage.. This is magnificent philosophy discourse.

in fact we will aim towards painful experiences to satisfy our curiosity and social desires. — Bylaw

Aim for? I don't know about that pre-lingual. We do things and learn from them sure. Aiming for is a bit of a stretch. We have targets for our desires I guess, if that is an aim. The toddler wants X, and risks Y to get X and learns of Z obstacle. Aim seems like a self-knowledge that is not quite present prior to conceptualization.

Further all sorts of practical information is plopped on top of them, without the qualities of the belief systems you are talking about. IOW we are given knowledge of 'how things work' and 'where things are' and these add nuance and individual characteristics and more inspiration for individual ways of expressing curiosity (wanting to learn about things, people, the world, ourselves) and social urges. — Bylaw

This is narrative. Though positive ones I guess. I was discussing ways we use narrative to overcome things we don't want to do.

the complexity of the ways these motivations can be expressed increase with practical knowledge accumulation, each step in the mastery of movement and communication and exposure to different facets of the world, including people. other creatures, things and enrivonments. — Bylaw

Perhaps there, it is more like animals pre-conceptualization. For example, learning to walk is somewhat by environment, not completely innate but doesn't take any self-talk to do it of course.

Humans have these things regardless. They don't need a theism or set of morals or idealogy to have a sense of purpose and meaning. Given that we are always exposed to belief systems it may be hard to tease out what causes what, but a look at children can see that one has little need of any -ism to leap out of bed, demand things, express curiosity in a wide variety of ways and deliberately engage with others. — Bylaw

Again, I am not talking about an ideology like a religion necessarily, but cultural beliefs that confer a motivating force. The belief that for example, "Work brings money. Money brings necessities for living in a certain cultural way. This knowledge means I must keep working even if I don't really want to." This is not something any other X animal generally goes through. The animal doesn't have complex conceptualization with recursive language capacity, letalone concepts like, "I don't like this, but I will do it anyways".

Sorry. That's enough. I'm all done. — T Clark

Ahh, glad you are coming at this with good faith and seeing where this goes.
Anyways, the point is that you have a narrative of why you clean the dishes. You have just taken the narrative for granted to the point that to you, it seems the answer was written on high from Moses as to why you must do them.

If you want X, you must keep doing this task, is the narrative. That is the extra human layer other animals don't deal with!

I can't complete that without doing the part I don't enjoy. — T Clark

How do you know that? Is that a concept you learned or are you born knowing about how to clean dishes and its association with cooking foods?

This is where you and I always run into a wall. It's not unfair that life includes a bit of pain and unpleasantness. — T Clark

So you are changing the subject. I am not talking about fairness right now.
Why do you do the dishes even if you don't like it?

That's not true. Your OP was about how people use narratives to provide motivation. What does that have to do with me saying:

Of course I've done things I didn't want to do. Jobs that need to be done are not necessarily enjoyable. All worthwhile activities include aspects that are unpleasant. I don't see that as unfair or unreasonable. It's just how the world works.
— T Clark — T Clark

Why is "it's just how the world works" connected with you doing a job you would not want to do, but doing it despite not wanting to do it?

Of course I've done things I didn't want to do. Jobs that need to be done are not necessarily enjoyable. All worthwhile activities include aspects that are unpleasant. I don't see that as unfair or unreasonable. It's just how the world works. — T Clark

Exactly, and you are LITERALLY displaying the point I am making in real time.

Freedom-responsibility is a beautiful ideal. Do people really choose ? — green flag

Well there is a substratum of some determinism there as acknowledged in my OP. Here I said:

Additionally, humans generally fear pain, displeasure, and the angst of boredom, while seeking pleasures to distract from this angst. Aesthetic and non-physical pleasures become a built-in mechanism to deal with this fear. However, this also creates a need for fictions to explain why we must do anything, which is a tragic break in nature, as philosopher Peter Zapffe argued. — schopenhauer1

I'm not angry or upset at all. I went back and reread my post. It was polite, respectful, and responsive. I tried to make sure I left out any provocative language. I've always tried to treat your ideas with respect, even though I strongly disagree with them. It's true, all verbal and written communication is narrative, but communication is not motivation, which was the primary substance of your OP. — T Clark

Motivation, as in why you continue to do something you might not otherwise want to do. The thing is, you are going to claim you have never done something you never wanted to do. Is that right? You are going to claim that no average human has ever had a thought of "I would rather not do this task right now, but I will because of X". Is that right?

I think this is an artificial distinction. Animals can also behave in ways that don't directly impact basic survival needs. They play, wander around exploring, and spend a lot of time napping. They hang out with their families. I'm not saying animals are the same as humans, but you are exaggerating the differences. — T Clark

We've been through this before. You tend to conflate what animals do and what humans do, and I don't even want to bother pointing out the difference in an animal that can use recursive linguistics to tell stories about itself and then buy into those stories, versus what animals do. But I guess I just. did. right. here. So please read that, and then re-read that to get my gist.

It is possible to act without intervention by narratives. Much of the point of Taoism is learning how to act spontaneously in line with our true natures. It is called "acting without acting." It is understood as the true source of human motivation. Narratives interfere with this rather than supporting it. Narratives don't generally promote action, they are more able to put the brakes on, to stop us from doing what our natural inclinations indicate. A lot of narratives are also post hoc additions put on to explain to ourselves why we did what we already did. — T Clark

I just don't find this Taoist stuff compelling. In fact, if it was natural, we wouldn't need Toaism or anything related. We would simply BE. But we aren't. And so there in fact IS something in the way of that. I am saying that contrary to what dichotomy fiction you are purporting on me, the animals are living Tao. Humans are never doing so, and are always trying to get there. Hence TaoISM.

I'll say it again. I don't think this is true, or at least not necessarily true. It's "seems to me" psychology/philosophy and I don't think it represents how people actually feel or behave. — T Clark

You keep saying that, but here you are using language, having a narrative of being angry and upset. Think about it.

How does one escape metanarratives? A certain kind of 'strong pomo' tends to threaten itself with cancellation. My theory is that we are wired or programmed to perform some version of 'the hero with a thousand faces.' But what the hero myth of the person with the theory of the hero myth ? Self-knowledge, right ? I know and confess that I'm caught in this game of playing the hero, and that's how I play the hero. Does this relate at all to your own thesis and the position it puts you in ? If you inspire agreement and build community, does that not put another brick on the tower for Moloch ? — green flag

So my theory, along with Zapffe's, is more about our essential "break" with nature. We use narratives/fictions to create reasons which give us motivations. That's how a conceptualizing animal with recursive language capacity parses and synthesizes the world- one in which social arrangements are paramount. These personal fictions (partially drawing from meta-fictions of the culture) then must network with each other to get stuff done. Me agreeing to these conditions and parameters (what it means to "work" and constantly motivating to complete this "work", is an example here), is based on "reasons" that I have created for why I am going to continue to do something. I may not even like what I do. In fact, I may hate it. However, I can decide to continue on anyways, because the "reason" (fiction/narrative) is that 'I must do this so that I can make money. Money is this thing to buy the products and services of other people's labor'. However, every one of those conceptualizations and all of that narrative is indeed made up from cultural cues that I have (chosen to?) internalize. There is nothing inherently compelling about "continuing to work to make money". It is something I can freely choose to buy into everyday.

No other animal has such baroque mechanisms of "being-in-the-world" (for lack of better terminology). If a dog is hungry, it eats, it begs, it scrounges, it fights for its food. There is no meta-narrative to this. That's just a truism. The same for even higher order animals, even ones with rudimentary "language-like" capacities (dolphins, chimps, etc.). As Zapffe notes, this detachment from "being", represents a permanent (and tragic!) break with the rest of nature. It is why we are exiled from the Garden of Eden ("being"). We are always but a virtual self of a self, but never being a self.

Yes I understand the distinction being made. But when that is transposed to a psychological as distinct from philosophical context, I think ordinary language needs to be at least acknowledged, because the terms are going to apply to pronatalists as well as antinatalists. That's the premise, at least. — unenlightened

Granted, I just think it's a matter of defining the terms and making sure we are not playing language games- Wittgenstein stuff.

It's philanthropic because it is out of empathy with humanity. It is misanthropic because it is out of "frustration" with humanity, for lack of better term.

Thank you for clarifying the distinctions between forms of anti-natalism for too, that was very helpful for me. However, I am not sure about planets status as an 'ethical agent'. That may represents something a little beyond my philosophical understanding, but as far as I can tell people and anthropomorphize things that don't have agency and assign symbolic meanings in animate objects. I don't see why some people cannot be acting in the interest of the planet in its own right in a sentimental way. — Chris H

Sentimental and then providing a whole ethic to justify action for it, are two different things. Writing a poem about and then taking very serious actions for something, for example seem very different in the import that the term “sentimental” carries. It’s purely aesthetic at that point but it’s the humans viewing that. The planet itself is not knowing. It’s the planets relation to a knowing aware subject that confers it with a value.

Your claim about human experience. Very broad.

You make too many assumptions of my statements and prematurely reached your conclusions on me self-refuting. — TheMadMan

Well, when you make broad statements with no reasoning behind it, kind of makes sense then that I would do that with just a claim without support.

Antinatalism makes good logical points but they fall short within the context of the whole human experience. — TheMadMan

This itself is so value-laden and personal in its opinion, that it self-refutes the earlier point here:

It's more an emotional reaction to negative life experience coated in "philosophical" language, which makes it intellectually dishonest. Thus I don't put much value in its arguments. — TheMadMan

So rather, it is actually quite a "rational" response to the problem of suffering, and deontological questions of not causing unnecessary harms unto others, and ideas of autonomy, so it's much more complicated than your characterization.



So I write a lot about antinatalist topics and pessimism on this forum, and very familiar with Benatar and the notions of misanthropic and philanthropic antinatalism and I do think they are useful distinctions.

Environmentalist antinatalism falls under misanthropic. This means humans are a problem, and antinatalism in either limited or universal forms, are meant to solve environmental degredation, species-extinction, animal suffering (as far as domesticated animals), pollution, and other such things.

I myself am not this kind of misanthropic antinatalist. I am more on the philanthropic end. That is to say, I think that there are deontological (and perhaps consequential) reasons that procreating a new person is wrong (mainly because of following the non-harm and autonomy principles and considering the dignity of the person being born). Environmental / Misanthropic antinatalism too easily disregards the human element for other elements, as if making this switch confers a superior position. I am not sure in ethical terms if discounting human ethical considerations for abstract "environmental" or animal suffering is really the proper focus of human ethics. Rather, ethics is always human-centered first, as we are the social agents that are conferring the very idea in the first place. It is self-refuting to not consider other humans first as ethical concern, as the very being conferring ethical value is the human.

However, I do have sympathies with the notion that humans are causing mass suffering for other animals. As far as the planet, it is not an ethical agent. It is just the place where ethical agents live. Thus it would still have to be attached to how it is harming living beings (plants, animals, humans). Otherwise, it is an odd idea that the Earth itself (without these things) is conferred some sort of ethical consideration detached from this.

At the end of the day, philanthropic antinatalism simply being followed, would positively impact the goals of misanthropic antinatalism, so they can be mutually beneficial even if starting from radically different starting points.

You might like this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14172/a-simple-theory-of-human-operation/p1

That's an interesting angle. And I have often felt this way myself as I have made my choices and a part of me dies... — Tom Storm

This fits into my thread here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14164/existentialism-vs-personality-types

Perhaps your choices are constrained, to some degree, by personality anyways. Thus existentialism has some opposition with personality type theory. That someone perhaps is bound to have tendencies of patterns that lead to decisions.

The interesting twist, however, is that these dispositions and the actions which result from them are what (arguably) define us. So are we, in a way, slaves to "ourselves"? — finarfin

Interesting question and indeed in the vein of what I am asking.

I side with the idea that our brains -- cognition, personality, movement, etc. -- are plastic, but the plastic is fairly stiff. There are limits to how much one can reasonably expect to change. Further, our characters are formed early on--before we have enough experience and knowledge to direct the process of our 'becoming what we will be'.

So, having survived childhood and adolescence, we arrive at adulthood in a nearly finished state which will tend to stay the same as we age--with the proviso that we possess some plasticity.

We WISH we could be whatever we want to be. Popular culture promotes the idea of open-ended opportunity change. "Bend me, shape me, any way you want me" malarky. The gradually attained understanding that popular culture's optimism is just so much advertising sloganeering is a necessary part of maturing, but the realization might also feel like betrayal. — BC

Good stuff. Pulling this back a bit, I find this phenomenon strange that we are a creature reliant upon a mix of personality and choice. Other animals some say have "personalities" (more social/less social, etc.) but humans are so plastic that (if their personality allows!) they can prefer things that are not practical (I don't want to do this task which is required to make me money, but I will so I can get the money). It is all strange that nature went out of its way and took this contingent path down this rabbit-hole. The human animal is its own impediment to its own (personality-willing of course) through the very mechanism of its survival (plasticity and self-awareness). Yet other animals don't need this existential layer of struggle. They do or do not. And apparently the pragmatic-minded, also can "do or do not". They hit the nail and build the fence. They measure the planks and the beams. They don't agonize over it. They don't need to conjure the self-motivation.. Although, sometimes, every once in awhile, even they may have to do this. How odd this whole thing is.

What do others think about the role of death in their lives and the concomitant role it plays in their philosophical speculations. Was Montaigne right to say, 'To philosophise is to learn how to die.' — Tom Storm

Creating more life is scarier, Sisyphean, and more ever-present than the "spectre of death". But that being said, if you are in your deathbed, actually feeling the impending inevitability, then the existentialist ideas might come crashing in about it. But otherwise, I agree more-or-less that the notion of death is often just reified romanticism.

Yes, and of course it is self-praised. Voices float to the top, predictably, which praise themselves and their listeners. Have you heard of the concept of Moloch ? It's a game theory metaphor. I think it's great. Production cannot stop. The machine is deaf. Self-cancelling memes are eliminated. Once one grasps 'Moloch' in its Darwinian grandeur, once grasps also the futility of hoping for more than a secret handshake here and there. — green flag

You'd have to unpack this a bit for me to comment...

Sickle cell anemia. A few on the cross, the rest obey the boss. — green flag

Haha, nice little ditty.

I agree and would interpret this in terms of something like a 'hero program' which I take to be fundamental. We are programed to put on a costume and rut and grunt our hour upon the stage. — green flag

Yet some people anchor more than others... That they take on the given values to "get the thing done". Others do not do this as easily. Is this natural based on personality-types?

I'm a fan of Zapffe. Do you like Leopardi ? Discovered him recently. I respect the courage of pessimism. It looks at the world as at a painting that perhaps ought not to have been painted. There's an old book where the gods snuff out mankind because we're noisy and they are trying to sleep. — green flag

Haven't read much of him, but have indeed heard of Leopardi.

Also, I would consider my own worldview as informed by philosophical pessimism. That is to say, there are overriding negative aspects of human life.

One of my many themes is the idea that humans, unlike other animals, have to contend with an extra layer of self-awareness. Usually this is praised, but it actually represents a kind of "break" in nature (similar to how Zapffe characterizes it). This break is one whereby you are aware of preferences and feelings you have that are contrary to that of surviving (i.e. not wanting to do this immediate task related to surviving in this socio-cultural world of ours). Other animals, simply "do" or "exist" and we think about it as we are doing it. We can always do contrary to what is necessary. If an animals is hungry, they find ways to eat. They don't have the cognitive phenomena that goes something like, "Oh damn it, I got to forage again today.. just another freakn day of foraging, I hate this stuff.. This infinitely recursive self-talk.

But then I thought of the idea of personality-types.. That there are some who seem at least to have less of this self-talk and more of the mentality of just "do this task as it is required" and conformity of values given in general. That made me wonder how ubiquitous this existential phenomena of self-awareness is. Is it more pronounced and less pronounced in individuals? It seems that there is a divide between the two views and a fundamental lack of understanding of one side with the other.

Otto Rank has a theory about the artist being a certain kind of neurotic, who has escaped or rather tamed the terror of life by a certain kind of externalizing and universalizing of that crisis. We are gods stuffed into dying meat. Is there therapy and even a dirty ecstasy to be had in spelling this out ? Gallows humor. 'Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.' 'To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.' — green flag

Well, this is also akin to Schopenhauer's idea of the artist or artistic genius seeing the Forms and presenting them in an objective way via the medium of art. Art reflects a higher understanding of the objects-themselves according to Schopenhauer's theory. It stops the Will temporarily, and thus we get some reprieve, though short lived.

Don't underestimate the permanent revolution in the means of production. Wild imaginations and daring egoism can pay off hugely in certain sectors of the economy. You will probably have to build the better mousetrap first, but you fill get yourself paid and worshipped like an old fashion Romantic genius. We need to get that carbon out of those hills. — green flag

But notice, the things that count are creative within the system, not questioning it altogether. Useful not questioning the system itself.

Also, brining this back to existentialism. Society values the guy who swings the hammer and only thinks about what is needed to complete the task. Society (especially those paying for the service) don't care if the guy swinging the hammer is having an existential meltdown whereby he really hates swinging the hammer as he hates all practical tasks, but overcomes his preference for not swinging the hammer and swings it anyways to get the task done).

We cannot repeat too often the great lesson of freudian psychology: that repression is normal self-protection and creative self-restriction-in a real sense, man's natural substitute for instinct. Rank has a perfect, key term for this natural human talent: he calls it "partialization" and very rightly sees that life is impossible without it. What we call the well-adjusted man has just this capacity to partialize the world for comfortable action. I have used the term "fetishization," which is exactly the same idea: the "normal" man bites off what he can chew and digest of life, and no more. In other words, men aren't built to be gods, to take in the whole world; they are built like other creatures, to take in the piece of ground in front of their noses. Gods can take in the whole of creation because they alone can make sense of it, know what it is all about and for. But as soon as a man lifts his nose from the ground and starts sniffing at eternal problems like life and death, the meaning of a rose or a star cluster-then he is in trouble. Most men spare themselves this trouble by keeping their minds on the small problems of their lives just as their society maps these problems out for them. These are what Kierkegaard called the "immediate" men and the "Philistines." They "tranquilize themselves with the trivial"- and so they can lead normal lives.

Excellent quote!

Peter Zapffe has some similar ideas here:

Zapffe's view is that humans are born with an overdeveloped skill (understanding, self-knowledge) which does not fit into nature's design. The human craving for justification on matters such as life and death cannot be satisfied, hence humanity has a need that nature cannot satisfy. The tragedy, following this theory, is that humans spend all their time trying not to be human. The human being, therefore, is a paradox.

In "The Last Messiah", Zapffe described four principal defense mechanisms that humankind uses to avoid facing this paradox:

Isolation is "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling".[5]
Anchoring is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness".[5] The anchoring mechanism provides individuals with a value or an ideal to consistently focus their attention on. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society and stated that "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future"[5] are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.
Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions".[5] Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation.
On the occasion of the 65th birthday of the Norwegian–Canadian philosopher Herman Tønnessen, the book I Choose the Truth. A Dialogue Between Peter Wessel Zapffe and Herman Tønnessen (1983) was published. The two had known each other already for many years. Tønnessen had studied at the University of Oslo together with Arne Næss.[6] — Peter Wessel Zapffe