Here is an analogy. You can simply talk about a disease in terms of all the chemistry and mechanics involved (dynamic or mechanical or other), and you can talk about disease in terms of the individual experience of the disease. — schopenhauer1

Hence positive psychology. Once you realise that it is all about contextual framing, then the obvious next step is to take charge of your own psychosocial framing. You stop belly aching about the life that has mechanically been forced upon you and take charge of creating a life as you want it.

Of course then if you think you can have a life of untroubled bliss, you don't understand the point of life at all. So there is no point making romantic transcendence your goal. The nature of nature is pragmatic. Suck it up. It ain't so bad once you do achieve that kind of harmonious flow.

Hence positive psychology. Once you realise that it is all about contextual framing, then the obvious next step is to take charge of your own psychosocial framing. You stop belly aching about the life that has mechanically been forced upon you and take charge of creating a life as you want it. — apokrisis

Who is to say that this is not just one more manifestation of self-correction from the system- there to deceive me into future harm, and more future people into harm? Positive psychology is not a panacea, if it was, everyone would literally be promoting it all the time. It's like the 19th century cure-all.

Of course then if you think you can have a life of untroubled bliss, you don't understand the point of life at all. So there is no point making romantic transcendence your goal. The nature of nature is pragmatic. Suck it up. It ain't so bad once you do achieve that kind of harmonious flow. — apokrisis

The nature of nature is pragmatic? You are nature's prophet now? Even if this is so, you are an individual self-reflecting being who CAN see that there is no justification to keep the system going. Again, you have failed to provide a solution except to say that systems don't care about individual preferences. This I understand, but why do we actively have to WANT to perpetuate what already exists just because it exists? We are not here FOR life. And what is that anyways, that you bring up? Dynamic balance, and that gibberish does not really console the individual.. Positive psychology reminds me of "Serenity Now".. Should we gloss over the fact that there is no justification to keep institutions going? Again, you have provided no solution to the question and the bring up this "goal" of life. Besides the fact that you bring up a goal that probably does not exist, besides the fact that you put yourself in the place of a prophet translating for nature its goals to us misguided folks, besides the fact that you provide no solution as to why the system is justified..

You stop belly aching about the life that has mechanically been forced upon you and take charge of creating a life as you want it. — apokrisis

Yes, indeed, one of the most deceptive aspects of positive psychology is the emphasis on the apparent compatibility between freedom and happiness (and, consequentially, one of the most emphasized aspects of cultural pessimistm is the incompatibility between the two). Especially since neither one is really attainable to any significant degree.

It's ridiculous to believe the universe was meant to make anyone happy, so the individual is expected to take up the reigns and bootstrap themselves into happiness - and this is expected of everyone, as anyone in dissent is seen as atypical. But the fact is that the Stoic advice contradicts its own metaphysics.

Neither do we have the freedom necessary to accomplish all our goals and aspirations. Fulfillment is not really about satisfying all your goals but of tailoring them to your environment, learning to swallow mediocrity. You have freedom to manipulate what is given to you in order to better suit your needs, but that's it.

And of course there's the oft-ignored issue of extreme situations. Natural disasters, catastrophes, horrible suffering and trauma - nobody wants these to happen, but they still do. Who is to blame? Are the victims simply supposed to accept that they're at fault?

Of course then if you think you can have a life of untroubled bliss, you don't understand the point of life at all. So there is no point making romantic transcendence your goal. The nature of nature is pragmatic. Suck it up. It ain't so bad once you do achieve that kind of harmonious flow. — apokrisis

And here we have, alongside your previous comment, the aggressive nature of affirmative ethics, specifically expansionary ethics like utilitarianism or pragmatic ethics. Instead of providing a reason satisfactory to the individual, you demand the dissent to suck it up and learn to deal with life. That's not answering the issue, that's just pushing it away as "unimportant" because it doesn't fit in whatever preconceived notion you're working under. It's strikingly similar to the bourgeoisie demanding the proletariat suck it up and keep working under such poor conditions. It's severely lacking in compassion and understanding.

Positive psychology is not a panacea, if it was, everyone would literally be promoting it all the time. It's like the 19th century cure-all — schopenhauer1

Yeah, lets go for a proper 20th century cure like pharmaceuticals or ECT. Have a lobotomy while you're at it.

Should we gloss over the fact that there is no justification to keep institutions going? — schopenhauer1

That's the beauty of it. We can each do our own thing. You can be miserable and die, leaving behind nothing. I can live a life expecting a mix of the rough and the smooth, bring up kids of a similar mind.

At the end, we would both fulfil our wishes. You would find the ultimate exit door and I would perpetuate something of like mind. So what's there to complain about?

It's severely lacking in compassion and understanding. — darthbarracuda

How can that be so? Your life has to be a vale of tears or else your personal philosophy would be contradicted. I sometimes worry I'm not doing enough to confirm you in your pessimistic opinions.

So once more with feeling - suck it up.

Your life has to be a vale of tears or else your personal philosophy would be contradicted. — apokrisis

Why is this, and why do you assume my life is not a vale of tears? And why is the existence of lives that are vales of tears not important?

That's all you had to say. We are "thrown" into it (living, Dasein). So, how is that good? Or rather, why is this good "for" somebody in the FIRST PLACE? Does this thrown need to take place? Why is this necessary? To continue what? — schopenhauer1

I didn't say it was good. I said it was unalterable. Whether it was good for someone in the first place is neither here nor there (as it happens, I was a late mistake by Catholics where my father refused to adopt sensible methods of birth control, but that too is unalterable however much I contemplate it).

So, I find myself in this living situation. And over time I, for myself, have come to embrace this much of Stoicism: that I will try to understand those areas of life that I can have some effect on, and then have effects if I can, and that I will nod sadly and sagely towards those areas of life that I can have no effect on, and move on.

You wrote early in the thread of 'an ideal society'. But your criticism of what I put forward seems to be a criticism of anyone who attempts any kind of social change. Are there any social changes you admire? What is your ideal society, since you say you have one, and what would it take for it to be achieved? I take that sort of question as my starting-point. I don't know if you saw Mongrel's thread on 'slave morality', or have read any Nietzsche: it seems to me that to focus one's philosophical attention on irremediable injustice is a pointless circular exercise.

You wrote early in the thread of 'an ideal society'. But your criticism of what I put forward seems to be a criticism of anyone who attempts any kind of social change. Are there any social changes you admire? What is your ideal society, since you say you have one, and what would it take for it to be achieved? I take that sort of question as my starting-point. I don't know if you saw Mongrel's thread on 'slave morality', or have read any Nietzsche: it seems to me that to focus one's philosophical attention on irremediable injustice is a pointless circular exercise. — mcdoodle

To be fair, my ideal society is a non-starter. First off, I frequently bring up the concept of "instrumentality". This is an immovable existential problem that does not change with differences in social arrangements. Instrumentality, as I define the term, is the emptiness felt at the end of enterprises. It is essentially the feeling of "doing to do to do" because one is alive and one needs to keep his/her complex mind entertained with things other than purely survival-related activities.

Any activity X only gets you so far before you question why any activity really matters other than your mind craves SOMETHING to care about at a particular time. With this as the core tenet, when this is taken to the social level, where we are confronted with disagreeable people, coworkers, managers, neighbors, and otherwise, where the social arrangements of work, consumption, and government provide negative experiences on top of the existential concept of instrumentality- you can see how the problem becomes a vicious circle. We have the existential emptiness, but we prop it up with all social institutions we are forced to maintain, and perpetuate.

Any activity X only gets you so far before you question why any activity really matters other than your mind craves SOMETHING to care about at a particular time. — schopenhauer1

I often feel very empty at the end of enterprises but I don't think that short-term result is a guide to what value they had in the medium term for me or for other people involved or the wider world around us. I stick with the claim that a multiplicity of 'micro' things I and people I know have done had and have value. If social changes remove some harm, enhance possibilities and are rewarding in themselves for some of the participants, then to me they have value. I don't feel that bouts of existential despair justify inertia. To be self-reflective about the fact that the human creature seems to need something, sometimes any old thing, to care about just doesn't strike me as an argument against social action. But this is indeed an existential thing - because I found Sartre at a critical age and lately have been reading Kierkegaard and Heidegger - I don't think of a sense of absurdity as a barrier to action, but a leap to made over a chasm. That's just how I am. One commits. Then, plonk, here one is.

ing Kierkegaard and Heidegger - I don't think of a sense of absurdity as a barrier to action, but a leap to made over a chasm. That's just how I am. One commits. Then, plonk, here one is. — mcdoodle

But when one is forced into a negative situation due to social challenges of the existing structure, and then when one realizes that at the end of these challenges there are only vague notions of entertainment experiences- this is not very consoling. Maybe you really do have a magical life of flying into the abyss with abandon and enlightenment.. Many people are just trying to get over enough obstacles, whether they be self-caused, other-caused, or existential-caused.

Only if you don't have anything you care about. For many, the mind craving something to care about amounts to the destruction existential emptiness. More specifically, it quite literally the only reason to do anything. If one wasn't driven to care, it they were caused to not care, they would not act as they do. "Reasonless" they would be, for the mere fact of their existence would mean an absence of motivation or any worthwhile outcome in their mind.

It's not about obstacles either or the "ideal society." Frequently, obstacles are what the mind cares about. People love them, so they can care about overcoming them. A lot of the time people even care about them more than what's given to them without conflict.

But when one is forced into a negative situation due to social challenges of the existing structure, and then when one realizes that at the end of these challenges there are only vague notions of entertainment experiences- this is not very consoling. — schopenhauer1

You seem to view this arse about face for some reason. You appear to treat misery as an inescapable end rather than the escapable beginning.

So misery exists (in nature) as a signal to get changing. It says you are in the wrong place and need to head to a better place.

Of course pessimism thrives on the claim that misery (for us, in this era of history, due to the way we live) is inescapable.

But that is what makes it superficial as philosophy.

Only if you don't have anything you care about. For many, the mind craving something to care about amounts to the destruction existential emptiness. More specifically, it quite literally the only reason to do anything. If one wasn't driven to care, it they were caused to not care, they would not act as they do. "Reasonless" they would be, for the mere fact of their existence would mean an absence of motivation or any worthwhile outcome in their mind. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I wasn't quite sure what you were saying here. I already stated that our complex minds crave SOMETHING to care about, so you are preaching to the choir there.

It's not about obstacles either or the "ideal society." Frequently, obstacles are what the mind cares about. People love them, so they can care about overcoming them. A lot of the time people even care about them more than what's given to them without conflict. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes I can agree with this. However, some feel the acute feeling of emptiness- the instrumentality. Perhaps not everyone sees it.

Of course pessimism thrives on the claim that misery (for us, in this era of history, due to the way we live) is inescapable.

But that is what makes it superficial as philosophy. — apokrisis

Not really.. How is instrumentality being the core of the existential issue superficial? It may be ignored, or distracted from, but it is there. Society building social relations that cause conflict for the maintenance crew who keeps it going to but for no justification is a related problem that is not superficial. Quite the contrary, it gets to the heart why we are motivated to continue the human project in the first place. Systems theory is nothing without more humans willing to buttress the whole edifice so that you can entertain systems theory ideas.

Of course pessimism thrives on the claim that misery (for us, in this era of history, due to the way we live) is inescapable.

But that is what makes it superficial as philosophy. — apokrisis

No, I think what makes pessimism so idiosyncratic is how easy and obvious it is but how paradoxically difficult it is to accept. Whereas other philosophical projects are somewhat successful at solving problems, the issues pessimism brings up are not really all that solve-able. And that's probably the rub of it. It's only superficial if you expected anything more.

Actually I'd say pessimism can be deeply interactive.

So misery exists (in nature) as a signal to get changing. It says you are in the wrong place and need to head to a better place. — apokrisis

But of course this better place has to be existence, right? :-}

But of course this better place has to be existence, right? — darthbarracuda

And that existence is what you make it.

Of course Pollyannaism is as superficial as Pessimism. There are limits to what any individual can change. So Pragmatism accepts the necessity of working within limits.

Yet in accepting responsibility for playing a part in the making of a better world, at least we start acting like a grown-up. And that responsibility starts at home with ourselves - hence positive psychology.

The point is you are discounting the very thing, and only thing that, from a person's point of view, makes anything worthwhile. To be pressured or moved is how we care. When one project finishes (be it competed or not), we need our minds to drive us in another (even if it is only basking in the glory of what we have already done), else we are caught in a world where nothing matters.

Take the simplest example where someone completes are project. Why do they feel like it wasn't worth the effort? Well, that's how they feel. Where they were once willed to care, they no longer do. After the project is all said and done, they only will that it was all a waste of time and there is nothing more than they could ever do in life. Their problem is they've stopped willing any project but their own failure and misery.

What they need is a new project, with its pressure to "be" something, its obstacles to overcome and (in some cases) pain and suffering which have to be endured to achieve the goal. For their misery to end, they must will and be content that such willing itself is the point.

And that existence is what you make it. — apokrisis

Empowering, yet false. Again this comes back to the whole schpeel about the requirement of illusions for personal security and optimism.

Of course Pollyannaism is as superficial as Pessimism. There are limits to what any individual can change. So Pragmatism accepts the necessity of working within limits. — apokrisis

Pessimism is pessimistic only in relationship to the very pollyanna optimism that is so widespread in the media and government and general public.

But it's not just blind pollyannaism but the general affirmative attitude towards life. Ever wonder why people are so resistant to suicide being legalized? It's because the existence of death is systematically obscured (oblivion!) and the non-Being of Being is forgotten and replaced by a delusion of permanence and progress.

Yet in accepting responsibility for playing a part in the making of a better world, at least we start acting like a grown-up. And that responsibility starts at home with ourselves - hence positive psychology. — apokrisis

I'm all for positive psychology if it makes us more productive. I'm not for positive psychology if it's seen as the Scientifically Correct way to deal with life.

So the problem with your pragmatic "solution" is that it's using a non-radical therapy to "solve" a radical problem that is not actually able to be solved, especially not by non-radical methods. You might as well just tell pessimists like me and Schop1 to go hit up the bong.

You might as well just tell pessimists like me and Schop1 to go hit up the bong. — darthbarracuda

You smoke your first joint yesterday and today you talk like a seasoned stoner.

The point is you are discounting the very thing, and only thing that, from a person's point of view, makes anything worthwhile. To be pressured or moved is how we care. When one project finishes (be it competed or not), we need our minds to drive us in another (even if it is only basking in the glory of what we have already done), else we are caught in a world where nothing matters. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But I am not discounting it. I very much know that is a motivation factor along with survival itself.

What they need is a new project, with its pressure to "be" something, its obstacles to overcome and (in some cases) pain and suffering which have to be endured to achieve the goal. For their misery to end, they must will and be content that such willing itself is the point. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I am not sure about that last part. You don't necessarily "Will" yourself to be content from existential empty feelings. You may will yourself to start another project, true. My point was the implication of this feeling. What this means. It's not hard to say, "well fill your time with more projects"..Of course, that is a temporary solution.. but it does not solve the problem that nothing is justified to keep the human project going in the first place.. Why there is this emptiness there in the first place. Why we humans can even have this self-reflection.

You smoke your first joint yesterday and today you talk like a seasoned stoner. — apokrisis

What?

I'm legitimately curious as to why you think it's alright to blatantly ignore everything I just wrote by pretending it's the words of a seasoned stoner. Is it the impersonal culture of the internet, cognitive dissonance, or do you have some wisdom from above that isn't just scienced-up "suck it up"?

What? — darthbarracuda

This.

Smoked some weed for the first time last night at a concert. — darthbarracuda

Then.

I'm legitimately curious as to why you think it's alright to blatantly ignore everything I just wrote by pretending it's the words of a seasoned stoner. Is it the impersonal culture of the internet, cognitive dissonance, or do you have some wisdom from above that isn't just scienced-up "suck it up"? — darthbarracuda

If you can't join the dots between the superficiality of Pessimism as a philosophy and the superficiality of pot as a solution to life's problems, then maybe you shouldn't risk knocking off even more neurons.

Smoked some weed for the first time last night at a concert. — darthbarracuda

I don't see how this is relevant.

and the superficiality of pot as a solution to life's problems — apokrisis

Dude, I did it once. It was alright. I'm not a pothead, sheesh.

I don't see how this is relevant. — darthbarracuda

It is relevant that in one breath you tout the mood enhancing benefits of pot, the next you imagine it as the very worst advice I might give you and Schop (when it is as far away from sensible as any advice from positive psychology would get.

So the protest is double, You both strawman me and also do that in a way that is inconsistent with your own expressed views.

Thus the relevance is illustrating what awful arguments you make.

It is relevant that in one breath you tout the mood enhancing benefits of pot, the next you imagine it as the very worst advice I might give you and Schop (when it is as far away from sensible as any advice from positive psychology would get. — apokrisis

Mood enhancement is hardly a genuine solution to anything pessimism focuses on (or really anything for that matter, apart from maybe glaucoma or something), that's why I brought it up as an example. There's nothing incoherent in having a generally euthymic equilibrium while simultaneously having negative beliefs about life and existence. I've mentioned Leopardi's spontaneous explorer and Nietzsche's ubermensch before as examples. Leopardi's especially works well with what you implied elsewhere, the obvious aesthetic of the scientist (explorer of sorts).

For the record, I wouldn't get high again for the funnies. I'd do it to cope with the anxiety and tension I deal with on a daily basis, since years of therapy hasn't done much to ease my stress. There's a whole lot of ifs involved here, chances are I'll probably never get high again in the near future.

Thus the relevance is illustrating what awful arguments you make. — apokrisis

By planting a red herring and misdirecting the focus off my actual arguments and onto my so-called worship of weed.

There's nothing incoherent in having a generally euthymic equilibrium while simultaneously having negative beliefs about life and existence. — darthbarracuda

Of course it is incoherent.

If you see the world is generically grey, you can't coherently claim it to be black on the grounds it is not white. Just as the pollyannaish reverse is also an incoherent claim.

Most people seem to have this strong drive to reproduce, which I suspect a lot of pessimists lack. For a lot of people, what comes first is this drive to procreate, they then procreate in response to this drive and then as a byproduct of this biological drive these institutions perpetuate themselves.

Most children are just unthinkingly brought into the world by people who haven't given a single thought to examining the reasons or justifications for their actions.

Basically these institutions perpetuating themselves is more like an epiphenomenon resulting from an unexamined biological drive that the vast majority of humans posses, unexamined.

People never really reflect on why they are bringing children into to the world. They want children, it's a biological drive, children are born and these institutions perpetuate themselves as a byproduct of this.

Not many people seem to go further in their justifications for bringing children into the world than "I want a child". It's sad really. Suffering perpetuates itself for no reason other than selfish desire to satisfy ones biological drive to procreate (and probably to satisfy some sort of existential drive to 'create a legacy', or to continue ones existence beyond themselves as some sort of quest for life beyond death, something along these lines).

On my view having a child is highly immoral, based on the needless suffering the child will experience.

If you see the world is generically grey, you can't coherently claim it to be black on the grounds it is not white. Just as the pollyannaish reverse is also an incoherent claim. — apokrisis

But I don't see the world as generically grey, I see it as structurally black.

How I act upon this belief is entirely different. There is nothing stopping me from appreciating the ambiguity, or vagueness as you so love to say, of sentient welfare and the irony that this cultivates. Part of the pessimistic, or even just plain old existentialist, literature is the focus on the apparent paradox of human sentient existence. If you think the ways I cope with existence are not compatible with a belief that life is structurally unsound, then that's fine. Indeed it would be strange if the methods of coping were perfect, for there wouldn't be any reason to talk about the issues at hand.

So you're assuming pessimism has to be accompanied by a poor attitude. Not surprising, as I doubt you've actually read anything substantial in pessimistic literature, despite your ironic belligerence against it. If you had, you would have been familiar with the words of Camus, or Nietzsche, or Leopardi, who explicitly deny this assumption.

But I don't see the world as generically grey, I see it as structurally black. — darthbarracuda

So you agree that your perceptions and conceptions are incoherent. Great.

False. Getting real tired of you setting people up only to claim victory when you switch the bait. I have no idea what you mean when you say my perceptions are incoherent, nor how it's even coherent to say perceptions are incoherent. Perceptions are what they are, they may be false but they certainly aren't incoherent.