• Is Pain a Good?
    Let me ask you this then: Is it okay to risk putting someone in pain because there is a chance they may get pleasure out of your decision without asking for their consent first. An example would be buying you things with your money because they were on sale without asking for permission. In that case if you like the thing I buy all is well and good but if you don't then I have harmed you. Is it okay for me to do that? And does it become worse or better the higher the risk? (is buying lottery tickets with all your money worse than the previous example?) — khaled

    Good example.

    There is a difference between worth living and worth starting. I don't think schopenhauer1 is saying life isn't worth living because of the pain in it but he's saying that it is not worth starting.

    For example: Life is still worth living if you're blind, but that doesn't justify going around blinding people. Just because it is bearable once it has begun doesn't mean it is worth starting.     — khaled

    Yes exactly.
  • Is Pain a Good?
    You say that we have agency to prevent pain but this is not a straightforward. — Jack Cummins

    I meant in relation to preventing it for future generations (by not having them). It's too late for us. We are in the pain boat. And again, I don't think it is awe-inspiring that we have this pain to appreciate the happiness.. Don't agree with the need the downs for ups (or that this is good), don't agree that pain adds something "more" to the human experience so is needed.

    But even then, we are not gods and cannot control nature. For example, no one a year ago would have expected Covid_19. Some people put the blame on a laboratory mistake in China, but even then, the virus as a deathly aspect of nature is hard to control. Of course, decisions made by politicians may have not helped but none of the decisions have been clear because the virus once it is spreading is a force of its own and human beings cannot master it. Also, preventing certain people's suffering may be at the cost of other people. For example, lockdowns may prevent deaths for certain vulnerable people but create poverty for others. — Jack Cummins

    All reasons not to procreate life with suffering, yes.

    Another complication is that physical pain is easier to define than emotional pain. Certain experiences such as abuse and bullying are highly likely to lead to emotional suffering but beyond that emotional pain can be subjective. Two people can be in a group discussion and one person may come away feeling uplifted and another one may feel completely depressed. — Jack Cummins

    Yep I agree, emotional suffering is also a huge factor in life, and hence another reason not to procreate a life that has it.

    However, I think the issue is a very important area of philosophical discussion. — Jack Cummins

    Perhaps one of the most important in the realm of existential thought and ethics.

    I would argue that we should do the best we can to prevent all suffering but we can only do this to this. To intentionally create pain for others on the basis of promoting growth through suffering would be dangerous indeed. However, by the very unpredictable nature of life it is inevitable. We may fall apart or be transformed by it and this is a quest, but the creation of pain itself only partially preventable. Utopian attempts be worthwhile to eradicate a fair amount of suffering as humans are complex creatures it is likely that suffering would still exist in some form or another. — Jack Cummins

    Yes, and because of this, we should not create more humans who suffer. Hence, the OP where because we can't get rid of suffering, I suspect some people try to justify the need for it, so they can justify creating new people in a life with suffering as well.
  • Is Pain a Good?
    I want to ask you a question. What if we could anesthetize ourselves completely and live a life free from all suffering/pain? Would you then agree that life is worth living? — TheMadFool

    What do you think? I do not think pain/suffering is redemptive.
  • Is Pain a Good?
    Sorry, I couldn't make head or tail of this. — TheMadFool

    We have agency to prevent pain. Whether the pain is some yin-yang with positive moments, you can make a decision to prevent future people from pain. Just because this up and down is part of the current reality, we do not have to procreate the current situation, just because it is the current situation and can't be anything else.

    As I said Caldwell, to use a sexual metaphor, one can get some, "adequate"???, idea of what a home run means if you get to first base. Praticals, as part of learning, are controlled environments, carefully designed simulations if you will, with the option, hopefully, to pull out. — TheMadFool

    And now I, can't make heads or tails of this.


    To reiterate, emotions can't be conveyed with words, making it impossible to understand what they involve or mean through discourse, written or spoken. This is a major obstacle if one is seeking knowledge of emotions which ultimately narrows our choices down to one viz. actually, directly going through, experiencing in an immediate sense, emotions if we are to ever know/understand them. — TheMadFool

    So what is your point with emotions and pain? Are you trying to say that since it's hard to put some sensations into words, that therefore pain is okay to create for other people?
  • Is Pain a Good?
    The general idea behind such a theory is dualistic, the yin-yang. I've always had a hard time understanding yin-yang. The claim is that to understand yin, yang must be understood but the problem is to understand yang, one has to have a grasp of yin and so on in an infinite loop that precludes any understanding at all. — TheMadFool

    That would assume we are all in a scheme of yin-yang with no self-agency. For example, If pain is necessary for pleasure (which I still don't think is proven, so we can go back to that), one can choose not to continue this scheme unto a next generation rather than saying "it is what it is" which would be a false presentation of the choice. There is a choice, it isn't.. "So let's continue forward with more people.".

    If I'm correct so far then it implies that happiness, sorrow, and other emotions need to be directly experienced to gain even a modicum of understanding of what they are. Since not experiencing pain/suffering firsthand means that one is completely unaware of a certain aspect of reality, we would, in that sense, be incomplete. — TheMadFool

    Why would that be important? Even if it was, certainly we wouldn't want to experience all manner of pain just to be "complete" (torture, etc.). If this reality is not a utopia. If this reality needs negative (pain, suffering) states in order to have a contrast, then why is that reality seen as acceptable to cause for other people? In other words, anything less than a utopia- a reality where you don't need pain to be complete, or feel happiness, for example, can be argued to be not an acceptable reality to cause the conditions for future people.
  • Is Pain a Good?
    For example, can you try to qualify the below statement -- who says they're more fulfilled or complete after experiencing pain? If a physician must suffer all kinds of cancer, headache, broken bones, shattered limbs, and or cracked skull, then she wouldn't be an excellent doctor, would she? She'd be dead, as in rigor mortis. — Caldwell

    Assuming the person doesn't die from it (that's not overcoming it then, would it?) the theory goes that she would be better for it. Maybe no one would wish it would happen to them, but if it does, they are better. Indeed, I do see the flaw in the argument. It is trying to have your cake and eat it too. Hence, why I say a post-facto justification. Life has unknown quantities of pain and suffering, yet people say this is permissible to continue to a next generation because, they will learn from it. That sounds like "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". Well, certainly it's the only move one can make besides being a pessimist. The life-affirmer would try to co-opt the pain as acceptable, good, or necessary in this argument so as to justify continuing new people who will experience said pain and suffering. It is now "ok" so no problem, apparently.
  • Is Pain a Good?
    ↪Caldwell

    What dont you understand?
  • Is Pain a Good?
    ↪Caldwell

    Yep.
  • Is Pain a Good?
    ↪Caldwell

    And my reply would be the same.
  • Is Pain a Good?
    Surely, it doesn't have to be a definite yes or know. Some people fall apart amidst pain and suffering whereas others learn and are transformed. There is also the extent of pain and how much each person can bear and what support the person has. — Jack Cummins

    How do you know who or when someone would fall apart prior to their birth? If its about "manning up" then why is thst a value people must be exposed to in the first place?

    Even if suffering is a source of growth and transformation it could be dangerous to just say that it is a good thing because that could lead to us to not offer compassion support for those in pain. — Jack Cummins

    So we need pain so we can have compassion for those in.pain ? That sounds circular.
  • Afterlife Ideas.
    And yet: so what? "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." :fire: — 180 Proof

    Is it "must" because there is no other choice? In other words, if one does not, then we are all doomed? Or, is it a moral imperative? In other words, there is some duty to imagine Sisyphus happy?

    Either case seems to fail to me. Sisyphus must be happy because there is no other reality except he current one (and so we must accept the current one). Thus turning what is truly negative into a positive is the only move one can make. But just because that is the only move, doesn't mean that is the ideal or preferred move in the first place.
  • Are we in the sixth mass extinction?
    ↪frank

    We could try for intentional non-procreation. Give it a try!
  • Afterlife Ideas.
    ↪180 Proof

    What makes life worth living again and again, is really the question. It's more, why go through the routine of it, not just the fact that one can feel something positive at some points. It's the tawdry everydayness. I always bring it back that to live in a non-utopia and then to claim that it is good because it is not a utopia, has to be justified. It is not, without performing many contradictions, post-facto rationalizations for suffering and tedium that characterize life. We all know its one thing after the other. Its survival, comfort, entertainment, contingent harm, circular repetition. It just keeps going until death, ugh.

    Maybe the carrot and stick obfuscates. It feels like you are reaching next levels of some game or gaining experience points. Head shake, head shake.
  • Afterlife Ideas.
    I'm partial to this view of 'after birth'. There must be some way to make life ... "worth living." :chin: — 180 Proof

    Spreadsheets.
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    ↪ssu

    But did these regional distinctions take place before or after the Viking era? I would imagine it was minor differences the further back you go and then increased over time. But how and when and factors, I am not sure.
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    There simply wasn't any Garibaldi or Bismarck here that would have unified the territories through military force. The political will simply didn't exist and doesn't exist. — ssu

    What's interesting is how the Viking kingdoms turned into various nation-states after conversion to Christianity. Can you elaborate on that process and how Norway, Denmark, and Sweden became distinct but without using post-facto realities? I wonder how much was constructed out of leadership quarrels versus actual differences early on.
  • David Stove's argument against radical social change
    Are there any political philosophies you like that include this existential aspect? — darthbarracuda

    You can make an argument that Marxism has an existential aspect. Because its based on Hegel's dialectic, there is some sort of end-phase to history and the economy. However, this end-goal doesn't change the existential condition. Even if this utopian vision of a classless, fully worker-led, robot-powered economy were to take place, this doesn't change the human condition (necessary harm), nor even contingent harms that characterize it.

    Certainly, the supply-demand models of Smithian capitalism seem like a mindless hive of producing and consuming, with not much end goal in mind except larger amounts of specialization, products, and services that inflate and deflate as markets equilibrate. There is no reason for anything, just "this is what happens when supply meets demand".

    It can be argued that on the political side, liberal democracies are based on principles of Enlightenment, specifically people like John Locke where supposedly, protecting rights dictate political framework. So do rights provide an existential outline? Jefferson's "Life, liberty, happiness.." is that some sort of existential statement of what our lives entail or should strive for?

    I think most of these political and economic philosophies fall flat in addressing our existential situation. Rather, they are just frameworks for how institutions should operate. Existential questions address things like whether it is worth existing at all, why we do anything at any particular moment when we can do another thing, what is the point of doing anything while being a self-aware being, the underlying motivations- things like survival, comfort, and entertainment, deprivation of needs/wants, the circularity of doing the same thing everyday to stay alive and occupied, the vicissitudes of daily life, the "dealing with" of being a self-aware being that does one task after another, suffering, emotional and physical pain.

    One can argue that antinatalism can be a sort of existential political philosophy, as it questions the whole enterprise of why we exist in the first place. It is the opposite of minutia-mongering. The engineer-mathematician, the accountant, etc. are the opposite of existential matters. One is focused on the "why" of doing anything in the first place- the big picture. The other is not even recognizing this, ignoring it, to focus on details, but affords no reasons for doing this in the first place. Political-economic discourse shuts out existential discourse, perhaps because it doesn't want to look behind the curtain. It wants to assume that things need to move forward, and go from there, rather than questioning all of it.
  • David Stove's argument against radical social change
    ↪darthbarracuda

    I never understood either of these positions. So conservatism is conserving what great thing really? All I see is a maintaining shit so you can produce and consume more to maintain shit again.

    And "innovators" (leftists/liberals/progressives?). What are they innovating? Other ways to distribute the pie for maintaining shit so you can produce and consume more to maintain shit again.

    Until these political philosophers go existential, they are all fucked.
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    Do they have innate knowledge of where to build their house, or do they reason that it would be safer uphill from the wet ground? — Sir2u

    Depends on the animal. A rabbit is probably closer to innate.

    Either way it puts human into a bit of a pickle. Is our reasoning ability based on innate knowledge or do we learn to reason? — Sir2u

    If you mean innate knowledge of what to do, no. The ability to deduct, inference, predict, may be different in us due to linguistic-minds that allow for higher degrees (or degrees at all) of constant deliberation and decision-making. This means I can have a thought about a whole variety of things that something like a rabbit cannot. "I want to put a green monkey on a blue house in the middle of winter". A rabbit doesn't generate ideas like that. However, with these greater degrees of freedom we have, we are still (mainly) driven by certain necessities (survival, comfort, entertainment). So here we are with this highly deliberative/deliberating brain that must contend with unmovable circumstances. Thus you have a gap in this particular human animal, not seen in the rest. Here is the existential gap.
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    A lot of them yes, but not all help us to live better.
    Having a job is a social construct, designed to help us survive. But, as you say, lots of people hate what they do. Getting married is a social construct, designed to manage the properties and belongings of the people and to a certain degree stop bad genetic problems. But how many people hate being married?

    Lots of these social constructs make your life suck. Taxes, social security, pension plans, mortgages, child support, alimony, credit cards, were all designed to make life, survival easier. But a lot of them don't do that, even if they are as some say "necessary evils"

    Political parties(not politicians), armies, professional groups, social groups suck up peoples money and time and most people do not benefit in the least from them except as a pay check recipient or a most liked idiot on the site.

    And not fitting in to, not agreeing with, not living up to the expectations, or not getting what you expected from these social constructs is what makes people hate things.

    Why would anyone want to waste time and energy hating something, just because we can. Is it because we can reason?     — Sir2u

    So this is the real issue. Since we are an animal of social constructs (mediated through a highly plastic brain), we can deliberate and constantly struggle doing things we don't want to. Of course, we can try to follow culturally-instructed habits of mind to repress or sublimate these feelings, but we can have them none-the-less. Because so much of life is socially constructed- because so many things we do are acts of deliberate, conscious decisions, we decide at every moment whether we want to keep doing something. Usually, even if we don't like it (and are highly aware of this!), we might still do it anyways because of the needs for survival, comfort, entertainment in a socio-cultural-historical milieu. We know we have to do certain things, in other words, if we want other things to happen. We might resent doing these things, but there is little way around it because there are even worse alternatives if we don't. And yet, even if we follow the course, and do these things we don't want to do to get more optimal end outcomes, other unintended things pop up which create more harm, and we have to deal with, and then we must contend with those, so we can get back to doing the sub-optimal things to get to the more optimal outcome. And on and on the "dealing with" cycle goes. And again, all in our own full awareness of how we might not like these things. And then, inevitably, the self-help people will try to make the "dealing with" sound like it's your problem, because what alternative is there except being a pessimist? Yet, we are aware of all these sub-optimal circumstances as we do them. This is where we find ourselves.
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    Like this guy says, it's "always something": — Inyenzi

    Excellent video! I like his quote at the end, "It wears on you over time- that's life".
  • A diagram about the value of life (re: antinatalism, suicide, etc)
    And thus further...
    There is the popular notion that we need the suffering to experience a feeling of overcoming the suffering.

    The pessimist would retort that in a better world (which is indeed possible to imagine, though not be in), there would be no need to suffer to feel the enjoyment of not suffering anymore. No pain, no gain, has no traction in pessimism. It may just be a defense mechanism to justify that indeed much of life is discomfort, pain, one damn thing after another, bespeckled by peak experiences every so often. That ever sought-after peak experience possibility drives the non-pessimist in exclusion of seeing the bigger picture. But then the non-pessimist thinks they are clever by co-opting pain into their view "no pain, no gain.. so I guess we need that pain!"

    And thus, pessimists see happiness as often the cessation of what is mostly a life characterized by necessary suffering (i.e. wants/needs) and contingent suffering (anything circumstantial that causes pain).
  • A diagram about the value of life (re: antinatalism, suicide, etc)
    It's a simple graph. I don't see how you don't understand it, or think there "could be anything" in those quadrants. — Pfhorrest

    Um no, just looking at that, there needs to be explanation. The opposite of non-existence isn't necessarily a roller coaster. So maybe something like inactivity/activity, or something like that. I don't know. I could easily have non-existence/constant struggle. It is not obvious what should be opposite other than non-existence/existence. That one makes more sense as an obvious symmetry. Calm/chaotic might work better.

    If what you are saying is, that it is better to have peak experiences (e.g. flow states) than be non-existent, that is of course, the whole discourse. Pessimists would say that just focusing on peak experiences as a possibility negates the nature of living itself, which is characterized by unfulfiillment and thus misses the point of the bigger picture to focus on this narrow possibility of experience. And, though it is often touted as something to aspire to (to increase peak experiences), why is it that it's only rare occasions that there is a life that is primarily peak experiences? And of course the answer is always that "you're not doing it right" (e.g. Do the Dew!), and of course, if it's not easy to "do it right", that in itself is an indication that something is wrong.
  • A diagram about the value of life (re: antinatalism, suicide, etc)
    ↪Pfhorrest

    But what's with the nonexistence and roller coaster?

    The problem is that these aren't necessarily symmetrical. There could be anything in these quadrants.
  • A diagram about the value of life (re: antinatalism, suicide, etc)
    ↪Pfhorrest

    But again, "classic pessimism" is oriented towards seeing the world's unfulfilled needs causing dissatisfaction.

    I don't really understand the chart. What does "worst and nonexistence" or "best and nonexistence"?
  • A diagram about the value of life (re: antinatalism, suicide, etc)
    My takeaway from that is that it's best to keep open the possibility of things getting better, than to give up and accept the mediocrity of non-existence as the best there could ever be. — Pfhorrest

    So "classic pessimism" (as I'll call it) views life as constantly in deprivation of something. The deprivation naturally indicates unfulfillment or incompleteness. Thus the top of the chart would be something like full completeness. Ironically, being complete may be something akin to non-existence. Buddhism might call this state nirvana, for example.
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    And I believe that having the opportunity to choose whether we die fighting or just die is beautiful.

    What do you think?     — dussias

    It's just dealing with one damn thing after another. And then we are supposed to like the game because there's no choice.
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    Would this be acceptable to you as well as footnotes on the pages you are cited, pointing to your UN here? — MSC

    ok
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    Now, why would these people get miserable about these things? Not all but a lot of them are just plain social constructs, nothing at all to do with real life. — Sir2u

    Humans socially construct almost all cultural elements- which we use to survive.

    Do you think that many of the animals have these problems in their lives? Surely if they don't have the same reasons for not wanting to have been born, or for wanting to kill themselves then they would not think about it. — Sir2u

    That's assuming animals can have "reasons" in ways that humans do.

    May be that is what is missing from the people that hate what they do, they cannot see the benefit of doing it. If there is no benefit, why are they doing it? — Sir2u

    This goes beyond the job itself to the needs behind needing the job. Remember group-think. Are you going to put out defenses, like a squid its ink, that reinforce not resenting the situation because of X reason (Don't be a whiny bitch.. etc.)?
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    it assumes human consciousness is the highest degree of consciousness that can be attained by animals, it is highly likely there exists non-human animals elsewhere with higher degrees of consciousness to where "existential thoughts," do not plague or exasperate them. — Cobra

    No, this is an assumption you are making about my argument. I never said human consciousness is the highest degree..

    I would say "existential thoughts," are quite primitive and come from neurotic lower degrees of consciousness, in fact, I'd even say it arises from being one of the most stupid, in comparison to a more advanced brain. — Cobra

    That is an assertion, ok.

    you begin calling the moral framework of animals into question — Cobra

    I hadn't done that anywhere.
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    And so forth, — Gus Lamarch

    Granted, but I mean literally, how does it look for a pastoral people to turn farmer? What would a hypothetical generation of change of this economic type look like? What are the nuts-and-bolts of this kind of lifestyle change? Is it by force? Is it circumstances? Is it a concerted change? Incentives and motivations?
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    @Gus Lamarch
    Yet, feudalism was dominated by crops, farming, planting, etc. How and when did this take place in the years between lets say 500 and 900 CE? — schopenhauer1
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    So it is this weird in between time in Europe, between the Roman fall and the rise of feudalism, roughly about 400 CE- 900 CE, whereby the (often) migrating Germanic tribes transformed more-or-less into non-tribal, yet feudal entities. There are things to unpack here:
    1.) The Germanic tribes prior to the post-Roman times, were largely pastoral. Cattle and livestock defined their economic lifestyle more than planting and farming.

    2.) Post-Roman Empire the feudal system relied on farming to increase production for feudal lord in a more-or-less self-sufficient manner. This may have been an import from the manorial system in southern Europe (read Roman Empire's influence) whereby there was a Roman elite and his landholdings. However, due to the economic collapse, which you rightly point to, this manorial system went from commercial agriculture (to be sold in wide networks of trade), to local use (very short-distances, local, and often self-contained). Thus the slave systems of old gave way to peasants and surfs. However, these peasants and surfs must have slowly themselves turned away from their ancestral pastoral lifestyle as land was closed in by armies and such. Actually, I don't know the details of this transformation of Germanic pastoral to farming feudal, so that would be interesting to explore.     — schopenhauer1
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    So it is this weird in between time in Europe, between the Roman fall and the rise of feudalism, roughly about 400 CE- 900 CE, whereby the (often) migrating Germanic tribes transformed more-or-less into non-tribal, yet feudal entities. There are things to unpack here:
    1.) The Germanic tribes prior to the post-Roman times, were largely pastoral. Cattle and livestock defined their economic lifestyle more than planting and farming.

    2.) Post-Roman Empire the feudal system relied on farming to increase production for feudal lord in a more-or-less self-sufficient manner. This may have been an import from the manorial system in southern Europe (read Roman Empire's influence) whereby there was a Roman elite and his landholdings. However, due to the economic collapse, which you rightly point to, this manorial system went from commercial agriculture (to be sold in wide networks of trade), to local use (very short-distances, local, and often self-contained). Thus the slave systems of old gave way to peasants and surfs. However, these peasants and surfs must have slowly themselves turned away from their ancestral pastoral lifestyle as land was closed in by armies and such. Actually, I don't know the details of this transformation of Germanic pastoral to farming feudal, so that would be interesting to explore.     — schopenhauer1

    ↪Gus Lamarch

    Yeah, I don't really have any qualm calling it a "Dark Age", one of many in human history. Dark Ages tend to be ages that occur after flourishings. They are sort of desolutions of empires, ideas, commerce, and technology. Many societies have had them for environmental, cultural, and economic reasons. Label it whatever you want, but Dark Ages fits fine with me. I also think the years you use are well enough. I've seen everything from 800s-1000s, so anywhere in there probably works, depending on how you demarcate the age.

    I guess I pose the same question to you as SSU:

    So it is this weird in between time in Europe, between the Roman fall and the rise of feudalism, roughly about 400 CE- 900 CE, whereby the (often) migrating Germanic tribes transformed more-or-less into non-tribal, yet feudal entities. There are things to unpack here:
    1.) The Germanic tribes prior to the post-Roman times, were largely pastoral. Cattle and livestock defined their economic lifestyle more than planting and farming.

    2.) Post-Roman Empire the feudal system relied on farming to increase production for feudal lord in a more-or-less self-sufficient manner. This may have been an import from the manorial system in southern Europe (read Roman Empire's influence) whereby there was a Roman elite and his landholdings. However, due to the economic collapse, which you rightly point to, this manorial system went from commercial agriculture (to be sold in wide networks of trade), to local use (very short-distances, local, and often self-contained). Thus the slave systems of old gave way to peasants and surfs. However, these peasants and surfs must have slowly themselves turned away from their ancestral pastoral lifestyle as land was closed in by armies and such. Actually, I don't know the details of this transformation of Germanic pastoral to farming feudal, so that would be interesting to explore.     — schopenhauer1
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    From 2020 to 1520 is five hundred years also, and during that time there's been a lot of transformation too. The fact is, we can notice the transformation that has taken in our lifetime, in 50 years and perhaps understand that 100 years, and we typically can have some artifacts or old books that are a hundred years old. But once you are talking about 400-500 years, it is no wonder how distant the times are. There is a huge time gap between Charlemagne and Augustus and the height of the Roman empire. — ssu

    True, though I thin the "Dark Ages" in Europe had a slower progression of change than say the 500 years after the Renaissance. But I guess my question is, how is it between that time, that the Germanic peoples went from tribal to feudal? Specifically in my last post, it seems that Germanic tribes were more pastoral than they were farmers. Yet, feudalism was dominated by crops, farming, planting, etc. How and when did this take place in the years between lets say 500 and 900 CE?
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    Have to comment here. The biggest change from the Roman Empire and Antiquity is the collapse of the "globalization" of agriculture, which made large cities and advanced societies impossible. If Rome had been fed from Northern Africa, Constantinople had been from the Nile delta. Once these places were lost large cities as Rome and Constantinople simply couldn't be fed by the local regions and the city populations withered away. Might have some impact on Roman culture and the rise of feudalism. — ssu

    So it is this weird in between time in Europe, between the Roman fall and the rise of feudalism, roughly about 400 CE- 900 CE, whereby the (often) migrating Germanic tribes transformed more-or-less into non-tribal, yet feudal entities. There are things to unpack here:
    1.) The Germanic tribes prior to the post-Roman times, were largely pastoral. Cattle and livestock defined their economic lifestyle more than planting and farming.

    2.) Post-Roman Empire the feudal system relied on farming to increase production for feudal lord in a more-or-less self-sufficient manner. This may have been an import from the manorial system in southern Europe (read Roman Empire's influence) whereby there was a Roman elite and his landholdings. However, due to the economic collapse, which you rightly point to, this manorial system went from commercial agriculture (to be sold in wide networks of trade), to local use (very short-distances, local, and often self-contained). Thus the slave systems of old gave way to peasants and surfs. However, these peasants and surfs must have slowly themselves turned away from their ancestral pastoral lifestyle as land was closed in by armies and such. Actually, I don't know the details of this transformation of Germanic pastoral to farming feudal, so that would be interesting to explore.
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    The Lombards live and dress as if all the land they currently inhabit - referring to Italy - was their native land: We are from Lombardy! Some would have the courage to shout - referring to the Lombards who called Italy as Lombardy -." — Gus Lamarch

    The only real barbaric people who were completely assimilated and tried to maintain Roman order during the fall of the Roman Empire and afterwards, were the Visigoths. The Visigoths were romanized central Europeans who had moved west from the Danube Valley. They became foederati of Rome, and wanted to restore the Roman order against the hordes of Vandals, Alans and Suebi. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD; therefore, the Visigoths believed they had the right to take the territories that Rome had promised in Hispania in exchange for restoring the Roman order - and they tried -. — Gus Lamarch

    Yes, this goes along with point 3 in my theory. However, I think this gets less tenuous as you went more North and East in away from the big Roman cities. In that case, I would gather it is more a case of 1, 2, and 4. Would you maybe agree there? Is there something else I have not mentioned that could be a factor in the de-tribalization into that of a more hierarchical feudalism?

    Perhaps economics have to do with it as well. The agricultural practice of the three-crop rotation system spread from southern Europe to North, replacing the more pastoral into an agrarian, land-based one.
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    @Olivier5@Gus Lamarch

    So as a path to an answer, I would say we can start somewhere in the reign of Charlemagne and the beginning of the "Holy Roman Empire" as to how Germanic tribal identity and culture were eventually replaced with feudalism. It is obviously complex and hard to pin down, but here are three things I think should be considered:

    1.) The Catholic Church had no interest in competing with tribal chieftains for power and conversion. Local chieftains often had the backing of tradition (including pagan religious practices) to keep them in power. Wherever a chieftain converted to Christianity, so went the tribe. Thus converting to Christianity, often stripped away tribal privileges and rites to Christian ones, taking away local identity and replacing it with a more universal one.

    2.) Charlemagne's own policies unified Germanic tribal identities. His court was filled with key positions from leaders of different tribal affiliations. He can have Saxon, Gothic, Jutes, Burgundians, all in the same court. This intermixing led to slow dissipation over probably 100 years of keeping tribal affiliations intact in favor of hereditary identification only.

    3.) Roman Law- With the integration of Germanic tribes into the Roman political and military system, these Germans became more Romanized. This in itself, could have diminished the identity with tribe for identity with a territory or legal entity. Thus various Germanic "dux" (dukes) within the Roman Empire were already in place along Spain and southern France (as were ancestors of Charlemagne). Being incorporated in a multi-ethnic Empire itself could diminish the fealty towards local affiliation with any one tribe. With the Church's help in keeping records in monasteries and libraries, these leaders retained Roman law far into the Holy Roman Empire's reign.

    4.) Nobility transfer by kings- Since the unification of Charlemagne, there was a conference of land and title from top-down sources. As local tribal kings (chieftains?) were quashed during the wars of Charlemagne, he then doled out titles of land (dukes and counts) to those he favored, thus diminishing the local identity of leadership further.
  • The (?) Roman (?) Empire (?)
    ↪Olivier5

    An interesting question I had a while back was what are the major differences between the Germanic tribes of the Lombards, Vandals, Saxons, Franks, etc. versus the Medieval Europe of around 800 CE? What constituted tribal identity versus territorial/state/vassal identity? When did tribal (lifestyle?) identity slough off and identification with propertied Lords, kings, vassals, and general territory take its place?

    I know the common answer is that Germanic tribal society had elements of this already in it (pledging a loyalty to a king, let's say), but that transition always seemed a bit "just-so" for my taste. To what extent was Medieval Europe a continuation of "barbarian" Germanic tribal culture? There just seems to be a sort of gap when discussions of "barbarians" during the Roman Empire turn into Feudalism after the Roman Empire.
    @Gus Lamarch You might be interested as well.
  • The animal that can dislike every moment
    Added more there.
    Notice in the OP:
    Yes, you can have depressed animals, but not ones that wish they were never born. Not ones that know they don't live in a utopian world. Not ones that can at any moment, hate what they have to do to get by.[/u]

    So where does that leave humans? The existential animal that just keeps on going, knows we don't have to, but does it anyways.. is not driven by real instinct in decisions other than the limits of fear of pain and the unknown. A fish swims in its tank, and doesn't know or care why. A tiger chases a zebra and doesn't know and care why.     — schopenhauer1
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