Well, I'm not sure if living relaxed and free from anxiety is a worthy goal anymore (in-so-far as I see this as an impossibility given human nature). I think if we had achieved this state where we would all be equal, where we all had equal opportunities, where everyone had access to equal amounts of resources, where people didn't have to struggle, and there was no place for anxiety anymore... I would find such a world totally unbearable to live in. I'd much rather die than live in such a world. Life has taste simply because things are unequal and there is struggle. Fighting for equality and all is a worthy goal, but actually achieving it would be the greatest horror. To think that I can do nothing to get ahead of my fellow man is to me incomprehensible. Even the games we play, we keep scores and have a winner and a loser because otherwise they wouldn't be fun anymore. — Agustino

I agree it is true, as some of the criticisms directed at SX claim, that suffering and anxiety is inherent to the human condition. But for me this misses SX' s point, which I think is a similar point to the one that I was making, that wallowing in this aspect of human experience and treating it as though it is the totality is both one-sided and self-defeating, and as SX notes 'philosophically uninteresting". And equally uninteresting, and ultimately ineffectual because equally artifically one-sided, are the kinds of 'power of positive thinking' strategies designed to 'raise us out of this mire' that the post of yours I initially responded to seemed to be lauding.

You say that to be relaxed and to be free from anxiety is impossible. Firstly, I don't believe it is impossible to be relaxed (as contrasted with being 'all tensed up' over things) it is a matter of how you think and feel about things, about how you cling and about how you let go, about what you feed in yourself and what you don't feed.

Secondly, I didn't say it was possible to be completely free from anxiety, I said "free from undue anxiety". Undue anxiety is brought about by feeding the kinds of obsessive negative totalizing characterizations of life that Schopenhauer, Zappfe and Buddhism (interpreted in certain ways) are famed for. The flip side of this is portraying oneself as an heroic conqueror of adversity. Again I think it all comes down to how you cling and how you let go, to what you concern yourself with and what you don't.

Of course we will never all be equal; we are all uniquely different, and different people have different capacities and to different degrees, so that goes without saying. But the fact that some are better than others at certain things does not necessarily support the idea that some should be treated as privileged over others. Of course, the ideal is that all should be treated as equal, but one complication is that those of great ability may be more indispensable to a society than others. It is a complex issue, and of course people are going to disagree over all aspects of it.

What is uninteresting depends on your taste. So statements to that effect are arbitrary and no better than statements to the contrary.

A funny thing is, though, that the topics that SX lists have only an external criterion of significance. That is, if someone doesn't care about them, nothing in the world can make them intrinsically interesting.

Suffering, however, is intrinsically interesting, because it affects you in a way you can't ignore. So you are already dealing with the problem of suffering by being alive, which doesn't require being a continental philosopher, like caring about 'the embodying of bodies' does, since the latter is an intellectual game whose 'sense,' if it can be said to have any, arises only in the context of academic journal articles and white boy graduate students trying to get into 'that cute creative chick with the glasses (also white, or white-bred)' pants.

'Hurr hurr you care about suffering? Read some zizek instead, that's really interesting!' Yeah, I guess if you're the kind of person who 'totally fell in love with Amsterdam' when you visited it. It all just makes me want to eat a bullet, more than usual. I've just found SX totally fucking insufferable lately.

Frankly, there's few things that I feel are 'play' more than the abstraction of suffering that is purveyed by many who talk about it here. Maybe it's not 'hip', but if you want to talk about suffering, then fine, let's talk about poverty, let's talk about war, let's talk about cultural alienation, let's talk about disease, let's talk about systemic disenfranchisement, love lost, friends and family passing. What do you get instead? 'Weltschmerz'. Weltschmerz is what you get. As if this is somehow less abstract, more true to the 'real world' than the fluffy abstractions of 'mainstream philosophy' or what have you. Please. It'd be indistinguishable from parody in any other less self-serious context. The conception of suffering (qua 'human condition' or what have you) that is thrown about here is so bloodless and lazy that the it's no surprise that the threads on the topic are continually monotonous rehashings of almost the exact same ideas phrased differently. The 'life's difficulties' you refer to seem to look suspiciously like the sort of 'life difficulties' espoused by angsty young men who, while perhaps really, honestly are struggling with psychic turmoil, aren't so much doing philosophy than inflecting their attempt to grapple with their issues through it's rhetoric. There's nothing wrong with that, but a spade is a spade is a spade.

As for the 'academic issues' that I want to valorize, they sure are filtered through that set of references you mentioned, but they aren't only drawn from there. There is plenty that harkens back to, and places itself in communication with the ancient problematics like that of the One and the Multiple, the place of the body and the organization of the polis and so on. Not, of course, and an appeal to tradition means much at all. But I'm happy to affirm philosophy as a discipline, one that does require an investment in time, knowledge and understanding - like any other discipline, rather than something can be be sprouted off the top of one's head as if Athena from Zeus. For some reason, this annoys people, because apparently the humanities aren't allowed to have any specialized knowledge, and unlike sciences, is supposed to be graspable by anyone, anywhere, because arts are supposed to be easy and intuitive or some nonsense. It isn't, and too bad for anyone who thinks it is. This is the internet of course, so I'm not really expecting too much different, but I can call it out when I see it.

To be honest, I am really confused when people complain that philosophy is too abstract and needs to get back to "concrete lived experience" (whatever that is). I want to talk about the problem of universals. If you want "concrete lived experience," go look at a wall or something.

On a less catty note, I guess it just annoys me when philosophers use "real world" rhetoric, because I feel that they are dishonestly trying to co-opt philosophy for whatever faddish political movement they're a part of.

I don't really have much to say about Camus - I've only read Sisyphus and The Stranger - and it's been a long time since I read either. I think I once took issue with the abstraction of both - the protagonists lack a certain affective depth - which is meant to be the point - but also ends up painting a distorted picture of humanity in the process. They are good thought exercises in that regard.

As for Sartre - he was a philosopher of freedom above all. His 'existentialism' was a product of the marriage he attempted to make between Marxism and phenomenology (the relation between which evolved over time between his works) and was grounded in a rigorous study of both, together with a great deal of political awareness. The anxiety that Sartre talked about was of interest less in it's own regard than as a sign that indicated to man a freedom inherent within him that Sartre was above all interested in theorizing. In some sense the 'existentialist' label was a PR move - one that worked perhaps too well. Everyone knows Sartre today, but who in fact has read the giant tome that is Being and Nothingness? Or the two volume Critique of Dialectical Reason that followed it up? I've only read bits and pieces myself: Merleau-Ponty is where it's at, as far as French phenomenology goes.

What do you get instead? 'Weltschmerz'. Weltschmerz is what you get. — StreetlightX

I get that your opinion over all of this is that it is caused by decadence. Nietzsche thought Schopenhauer was pissy because he was decadent, for example.

But Weltschmerz is caused because our completely natural disposition towards the world is consistently disappointed. It takes effort to tame this disposition. The fact that it even has to be tamed says something about the world. The disillusionment, which originally was shock or despair, leads to general apathy as one realizes that nothing is going to change. It's a meta-suffering, if you will; the psychological pain resulting in the realization that the world is filled with so much suffering and clearly wasn't meant to be an environment to house entities with egos.

Again, these sorts of claims leave me indifferent. The so called 'distorted natural disposition' you speak of seems like nothing more than an idiosyncrasy on your part, extrapolated to a universal experience on the basis of... what? What authorizes this claim other than your own personal psychology? Whence the argument? Perhaps you want to argue that people ought to feel world-weary or whatever have you, but then the idea that feelings and affections can be motivated at a purely intellectual, rather than lived level is, well, naive to say least. 'You should feel like how I'm telling you, dammit!'. And so long as your 'suffering' remains at this abstract, bookish level of calculation, it's has about as much motive-force as a storm in a teacup.

If one were to translate what Nietzsche understood as 'decadence' into modern terms, it'd be precisely this lamentable attempt to reason one's way into despair as the expense of Life. So decadence isn't a bad way to think about it, although even that term is also overwrought and affected.

I am impressed with the idea of Happiness being U shaped. Thank you for taking the time to share it. :)

I share Ciceronianus the White's attitude with a bit of a twist.
My mantra for the last 20 years has been: that if YOU set up an expectation for anyone other than yourself, prepare to be disappointed. Rather instead set no expectations for another and allow yourself to be gently surprised.
It works too. I know that when I start to feel a disappointment in another creeping in, I take the time to search back to where it was that I set up that expectation and make note, not to do it again. I am by no means perfect in exercising this mantra at all times but I have found I am healthier, emotionally, when I am aware that I am the one actively responsible, for the way I am feeling.

'Hurr hurr you care about suffering? Read some zizek instead, that's really interesting!' Yeah, I guess if you're the kind of person who 'totally fell in love with Amsterdam' when you visited it. It all just makes me want to eat a bullet, more than usual. — The Great Whatever

Good point.

Frankly, there's few things that I feel are 'play' more than the abstraction of suffering that is purveyed by many who talk about it here. Maybe it's not 'hip', but if you want to talk about suffering, then fine, let's talk about poverty, let's talk about war, let's talk about cultural alienation, let's talk about disease, let's talk about systemic disenfranchisement, love lost, friends and family passing. — StreetlightX

Sure, these are also important matters to discuss, I don't think anyone has argued that they shouldn't be discussed. In fact, underlying the sense that has here been called "Weltschmertz" are often these problems.

The 'life's difficulties' you refer to seem to look suspiciously like the sort of 'life difficulties' espoused by angsty young men who, while perhaps really, honestly are struggling with psychic turmoil, aren't so much doing philosophy than inflecting their attempt to grapple with their issues through it's rhetoric. There's nothing wrong with that, but a spade is a spade is a spade. — StreetlightX

So, in your opinion philosophy holds no potential to help angsty young men overcome their psychic turmoil?

But I'm happy to affirm philosophy as a discipline, one that does require an investment in time, knowledge and understanding - like any other discipline, rather than something can be be sprouted off the top of one's head as if Athena from Zeus. For some reason, this annoys people, because apparently the humanities aren't allowed to have any specialized knowledge, and unlike sciences, is supposed to be graspable by anyone, anywhere, because arts are supposed to be easy and intuitive or some nonsense. It isn't, and too bad for anyone who thinks it is. — StreetlightX

Well I think of philosophy as a serious discipline, and I agree that it's not something that anyone can sprout off, as most common folk often believe. Serious philosophy requires rigour and submitting oneself to reason itself and its capacity to determine truth from falsity. However, I still disagree with you. I still believe that the problem of personal suffering is essential, and I remind you that many schools of philosophy (Epicureanism, Stoicism, Cyrenaicism, Skepticism, etc.) were aimed at solving precisely this problem, that you deem to be insignificant to philosophy. And yes, this type of philosophy aimed at resolving personal suffering does take effort and dedication - otherwise, we wouldn't see people complaining about Weltschmertz. The fact we do see it happen, suggests exactly the fact that excellence is as difficult as it is rare.

So, in your opinion philosophy holds no potential to help angsty young men overcome their psychic turmoil?

Sure it does, but one mustn't confuse philosophy's being able to be used as a crutch for philosophy being nothing other than a crutch. This sort of instrumentalization of philosophy as a tool for the consolidation of egos denies the autonomy of philosophy as that which subjects us to it's own imperatives, travels according to it's own history, and co-opts thought by disorientating it with respect to it's comfortable zones habitation. If philosophy ends up helping you with your 'suffering', then so be it. But philosophy is no more one's teddy bear for all that. Philosophy doesn't serve anyone, not least the "miserable".

Sure it does, but one mustn't confuse philosophy's being able to be used as a crutch for philosophy being nothing other than a crutch. This sort of instrumentalization of philosophy as a tool for the consolidation of egos denies the autonomy of philosophy as that which subjects us to it's own imperatives, travels according to it's own history, and co-opts thought by disorientating it with respect to it's comfortable zones habitation. If philosophy ends up helping you with your 'suffering', then so be it. But philosophy is no more one's teddy bear for all that. Philosophy doesn't serve anyone, not least the "miserable". — StreetlightX

But I don't think it's used as a crutch. A crutch suggests a cripple, and it suggests a temporary aid, not a fix to one's condition. If the crook was straightened, he would no longer be in need of the crutch. I think one job of philosophy is to straighten the crook. You seem to think that helping angsty young men with their psychic turmoil through philosophy is providing them with a crutch.

Notice that this view that "philosophy doesn't serve anyone" is itself a philosophical position, one that I dare say can't be very well defended. Surely you have to agree that we can't say "agriculture doesn't serve anyone", or "tailoring doesn't serve anyone", or "science doesn't serve anyone". These domains all have a practical purpose. Even literature, history, and poetry have practical purposes: namely in allowing us to understand other human beings, society, our own emotions, etc. better. Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther based on his own emotional turmoil for example - it served a very practical purpose, which was sublimation. Had he not killed the protagonist, he may have very well killed himself. I don't see why we should excuse philosophy from serving anyone. Afterall, philosophy is created by human beings, and if we had found it useless, we certainly would have got rid of it. It's man who is the master and maker of philosophy, not the other way around - although I do sympathise and agree that philosophy also changes man, and through the process man does become a "slave" to philosophy/Reason.

I agree that one who does philosophy must submit themselves to the demands of Reason, and must be rigurous in his thought. Otherwise he'd be doing a perversion of philosophy. But these "rules of the game" do not indicate or suggest that philosophy is not useful to man.

Philosophy puts man in touch with the more-than-human within him: Nietzsche's inextirpable lesson, threatened with eclipse every time philosophy is placed on the same footing as tailoring or agriculture. Anyway, I think I've said all I want to say here.

more-than-human — StreetlightX

What is this "more-than-human"?

http://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Spirits-Cambridge-History-Philosophy/dp/0521567041

I've read Human, All Too Human, but translated by Marion Faber. It's been awhile since though - do you have any specific part that you are referring to?

But Weltschmerz is caused because our completely natural disposition towards the world is consistently disappointed.

In what sense is it "completely natural" to be disposed to think the world will or should comport with our expectations? It seems to me that only a child, and likely a very spoiled, sheltered one at that, could seriously believe that to be the case.

[ I still believe that the problem of personal suffering is essential, and I remind you that many schools of philosophy (Epicureanism, Stoicism, Cyrenaicism, Skepticism, etc.) were aimed at solving precisely this problem, that you deem to be insignificant to philosophy

I don't think Epicureanism or Stoicism has anything to do with solving the problem of WORLD-PAIN! (I think it should be written this way; it's such a HUGE pain, after all). The others I haven't spent much time on, but I suspect they wouldn't have anything to do with it, either. I think WORLD-PAIN! is a peculiarly Romantic notion ancient philosophers would have had no time for, and indeed would find baffling. Epicureanism or Stoicism may be remedies for WORLD-PAIN! but Epicureans and Stoics didn't address disappointment or disillusionment with the world, but fear, anger, worry, etc. of the kind encountered by people with no expectation that life would or should be good and satisfying to them, but every expectation that they would encounter pain and suffering in this world if not the next if there was to be one, through war, famine, disease, slavery, the malice of the powerful or the gods, and natural disasters.

It's not that certain individuals are spoiled. It's that it is natural (i.e. the state we exist in without any conscious will to not be in) to hold desires. This is a teaching of the Buddha.

It is not easy to tame this. We get comfortable in a situation, only for it to change and for us to experience suffering or disappointment when it does change. We find ourselves desperately wanting the universe to say something back to us, to validate our egos, and it does nothing.

Depends what meaning we attach to "WORLD-PAIN". I choose to be charitable :)

It's natural to have desires, certainly, but most of us recognize that some desires are unlikely to be satisfied, for various reasons. Among those is the desire that the universe explain itself to us.

As for the 'academic issues' that I want to valorize, they sure are filtered through that set of references you mentioned, but they aren't only drawn from there. There is plenty that harkens back to, and places itself in communication with the ancient problematics like that of the One and the Multiple, the place of the body and the organization of the polis and so on. Not, of course, and an appeal to tradition means much at all. But I'm happy to affirm philosophy as a discipline, one that does require an investment in time, knowledge and understanding - like any other discipline, rather than something can be be sprouted off the top of one's head as if Athena from Zeus. For some reason, this annoys people, because apparently the humanities aren't allowed to have any specialized knowledge, and unlike sciences, is supposed to be graspable by anyone, anywhere, because arts are supposed to be easy and intuitive or some nonsense. It isn't, and too bad for anyone who thinks it is. This is the internet of course, so I'm not really expecting too much different, but I can call it out when I see it. — StreetlightX

You are simply betraying your biases for certain areas of philosophy. However, meaning of life, what makes the good life, what makes something valuable, what is right or wrong, what makes life worth living, suffering, birth, death, these have always been part of the philosophical tradition. They are not as amenable to logical-sounding concepts such as "a prioricity" "interior anteriority" Existential quantifiers, modal logic, and the rest, but they can still be discussed. One doesn't need to enshrine and entomb language in specific jargon to be philosophical.

Remember, that even if we are to tackle things like poverty, warfare, and other sociological issues, the existential issues of what makes a good life, what are we living for are at the bottom of it. It is the worth or value when all instrumental imperatives are removed.

Maybe it's not 'hip', but if you want to talk about suffering, then fine, let's talk about poverty, let's talk about war, let's talk about cultural alienation, let's talk about disease, let's talk about systemic disenfranchisement, love lost, friends and family passing. — StreetlightX

Yeah, because you've got so much to say about that, I'm sure. I can't wait to listen to your wisdom on these topics. (This is sarcasm; I believe you have literally nothing to say about any of this, and never will).

The 'life's difficulties' you refer to seem to look suspiciously like the sort of 'life difficulties' espoused by angsty young men who, while perhaps really, honestly are struggling with psychic turmoil, aren't so much doing philosophy than inflecting their attempt to grapple with their issues through it's rhetoric. There's nothing wrong with that, but a spade is a spade is a spade.

Then may I retort that your 'more-than-human' sounds suspiciously like something not more than human, but the specific concerns of a grad student who read Nietzsche. Philosophy also puts us in touch with paychecks and conferences! LOL!

Oh, brother. As if there's a class of people out there preserving philosophy in its pure form, free from psychologization and instrumental ends, and doing it for 'real.' Please, please, please, stop deluding yourselves. Your motives are not any less transparent or pure for being more boring and useless.

What authorizes this claim other than your own personal psychology? Whence the argument? Perhaps you want to argue that people ought to feel world-weary or whatever have you, but then the idea that feelings and affections can be motivated at a purely intellectual, rather than lived level is, well, naive to say least. 'You should feel like how I'm telling you, dammit!'. — StreetlightX

I most definitely have a problem with people assuming their idiosyncratic feelings are universals. Just because someone is depressed does not mean everyone is depressed.

However, I have to object that my characterization is not merely an incarnation of my own personal psychology applied to the rest of the world. Rather, it is actually what I observe to be not only my own personal feelings but also the feelings of everyone else. I'm not assuming everyone experiences the same negative feelings I do, I know people experience these same feelings. It is not difficult to see this in public. Stress, heavy eyes, perpetual melancholic behavior, the occasional impulse of anger and violence. A happy person is a delicate person. Happiness, true contentment, is short and sweet, usually obtained by a mixture of satisfied desires and willful ignorance. Our society runs off of unbelievable and unattainable ideals, powered by endless desires. It is, to be tart, a useless rat race, and oftentimes a malignant one at that.

It is the realization that this is what life is which leads to Weltschmerz. I'm not claiming that everyone experiences Weltschmerz, though. Weltschmerz is a meta-emotion, a reaction to the observation of all the other emotions we experience. So it is not surprising that not everyone experiences Weltschmerz because not everyone has taken the time to objectively look at life in all its colors, pretty and ugly alike.

Your anguish is adorable. :)

That'll show 'em how above this conversation you are...

Keep suffering. It's amusing as hell.

Rarely does the veil come off for people to speak with this kind of honesty, I guess. Remember that these sentences ^ are what underlie every 'philosophical' argument a shill wants to peddle. That's what it boils down to in the end.

What is it that's so amusing about watching you nail yourself to a cross?