Unconsciously, this new type of person is a passive, empty, anxious, isolated person for whom life has no meaning and who is profoundly alienated and bored. — Erich Fromm
Instead of being related, being in touch with love, with hate, with fear, with doubt, with all of the basic experiences of man, we all are rather detached. We are related to an abstraction, that is to say we are not related at all. We live in a vacuum and fill the vacuum, fill the gap with words, with abstract signs of values...
The reason for this is the ambiguous character of our social reality. In mastering this reality, we develop our faculties of observation, intelligence, and reason; but we are also stultified by incessant propaganda, threats, ideologies, and cultural 'noise' that paralyze some of our most precious intellectual and moral functions.
there is a genuine, reciprocal unity between the self and the external world, and a pseudo-unity based on an emptiness or alienation glued together by consumerism. — TimeLine
They instead opt for psychological placebos such as new ageism and mindfulness to try and accept the happiness of the situation, despite the fact that they are crying out through their feelings. — TimeLine
As mentioned, a person could consciously enjoy the consumerism, have a perfect life, partner, family and everything could be great, but they are deeply miserable and are unable to ascertain why. — TimeLine
No. This is outright BS. The only reason why consumerism is bad is because it leaves you vulnerable to the loss of the pleasure of consuming, through your susceptibility to loss of health, loss of money, loss of friends, loss of social status, etc. If it didn't leave you vulnerable to those things, or if you could be invulnerable to them, then it wouldn't be bad. But life is so structured, that suffering is an intrinsic aspect of it, and consumerism doesn't help to minimise it.Only then can we be enabled with the right solutions to make real changes. As mentioned, a person could consciously enjoy the consumerism, have a perfect life, partner, family and everything could be great, but they are deeply miserable and are unable to ascertain why. — TimeLine
No. This is outright BS. The only reason why consumerism is bad is because it leaves you vulnerable to the loss of the pleasure of consuming, through your susceptibility to loss of health, loss of money, loss of friends, loss of social status, etc. If it didn't leave you vulnerable to those things, or if you could be invulnerable to them, then it wouldn't be bad. But life is so structured, that suffering is an intrinsic aspect of it. — Agustino
A beautifully worded statement, but just because it's beautiful doesn't mean it's true. In what sense does the rose "see me"?When you look at the saying I do not only see the rose, the rose also sees me, the rose itself is no longer an object because there is a genuine reciprocal unity. — TimeLine
I don't see how consumerism implies that you treat others as objects. The world is as much a forum for action, as it is a place for things. The rose is a thing - how I relate to that thing is a different question from what the rose is.This is impossible if our relatedness to others has no substance, is not rooted with feeling but rather viewing others as merely objects that one can acquire and dispose of. — TimeLine
Respectfully, this is risky territory. How is one consciously enjoying a consumerist life, for instance, and yet deeply miserable? A misery that never becomes conscious is hardly a problem. — foo
The more likes, the more worthy the object. There is an inherent emptiness in this, a lack of relatedness, or substance that despite the fact that we are dynamic, active, energetic and doing things, all of it is really nothing. — TimeLine
What do you think of the following quote: I do not only see the rose, the rose also sees me.
The homo consumens culture, that dynamic ideology where everything becomes an object for consumption including yourself, has symbolically become a cure for our alienation. The narcissistic and selfish qualities inherent to those that believe in this ideology peculiarly stems from a type of hatred for themselves or quiet desperation, an insecurity and lack of self-esteem. — TimeLine
The more man transfers his own powers to the idols, the poorer he himself becomes, and the more dependent on the idols, so that they permit him to redeem a small part of what was originally his. The idols can be a godlike figure, the state, the church, a person, possessions. Idolatry changes its objects; it is by no means to be found only in those forms in which the idol has a so called religious meaning. Idolatry is always the worship of something into which man has put his own creative powers, and to which he now submits, instead of experiencing himself in his creative act.
For Marx, as for Hegel, the concept of alienation is based on the distinction between existence and essence, on the fact that man's existence is alienated from his essence, that in reality he is not what he potentially is, or, to put it differently, that he is not what he ought to be, and that he ought to be that which he could be.
↪unenlightened Of course, but why speak of roses, when truly it is the giving to another person that provides the greatest rewards? Are we just not restating the Golden Rule? — Hanover
A beautifully worded statement, but just because it's beautiful doesn't mean it's true. In what sense does the rose "see me"? — Agustino
I don't see how consumerism implies that you treat others as objects. The world is as much a forum for action, as it is a place for things. The rose is a thing - how I relate to that thing is a different question from what the rose is. — Agustino
How are these likes different from the rose's looking at you?
I understand the contrast between the mutuality of relationship and the one way relationship of possession, but to the extent that one sells oneself and buys a trophy husband, at least the semblance of mutuality is restored. Can you articulate why it is only the semblance and thus unsatisfying? — unenlightened
And so respond to your question. What is it that is of real value if not the acquisition of things and fitting perfectly in to societal expectations. If others don't determine your value, and if your proof of self-worth isn't proved by tangible wealth and success, then what is the answer? — Hanover
Sounds to me like you're waxing poetic as you gaze into that bouquet you got from your sweetheart on Valentine's Day. Awww. — Hanover
That is not the rose seeing me, but rather I seeing myself in the rose, through the way I choose to relate to it.Projection. In the end, the representations we make of objects in the world is a projection that determines the quality of our own mental state. — TimeLine
The thing-in-itself is not accessible.This dichotomy between the thing in itself and things as they appear to us. — TimeLine
No, that's not true. Some people's value depends on that, because they let it depend on that, since they want the good things in life, but are not aware of Epictetus' dichotomy of control. Some things are in our power, and some things are not. Their mistake isn't with regards to the preferred indifferents - they are preferred for everyone. Their mistake is with regards to the fact that they cannot wield control over success, if that is defined by having your experiences approved. So in choosing to place your value in that, you give up control to others, and hence are vulnerable to be disappointed.Our value depends on the success of how well we sell ourselves. It is no longer about the quality of our experiences, but whether our experiences are approved. The mode of having. — TimeLine
The thing-in-itself is not accessible. — Agustino
That is not the rose seeing me, but rather I seeing myself in the rose, through the way I choose to relate to it. — Agustino
In a word, anthropomorphic. Maybe on a deeper level, that we appreciate the rose for its beauty and meaning rather than its rational value. — praxis
It's not about what you can accept. You can't just pull out a term out of Kant's philosophy and completely misunderstand it. The nature of the transcendental aesthetic precludes whatever is empirically real from ever giving us access to things-in-themselves. To claim otherwise is just to misunderstand Kant's metaphysics.I can't accept this. — TimeLine
It's not about what you can accept. You can't just pull out a term out of Kant's philosophy and completely misunderstand it. The nature of the transcendental aesthetic precludes whatever is empirically real from ever giving us access to things-in-themselves. To claim otherwise is just to misunderstand Kant's metaphysics. — Agustino
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