i guess what i want to say is: i accept your tragic view - but I'd add: Oedipus cut out his eyes. If he talked about how tragic it was to be oedipus instead - the tragic element would be lost.

and theres sequels, right? there wouldnt be sequels if oedipus was cioran. it would be peverse. "the tragedy of being born oedipus."

Too much unjustified fatalism originating from a false sense of certainty derived from emotional reasoning on the matter. That's my take on these deep psychoanalytic discursive talks. Not saying there's nothing to be learned from it though.

what post are you responding to posty? I hear you talk a lot about maybe transcending ego, but a lot of your posts feel like provocation + plausible deniability. I'm happy to address your concerns, but its hard to ever know who youre talking to, and about what.

Just the general sentiment or trend that I have noticed on these forums of using psychology as a weaponized means to prove a point in many of these discussions about human nature and such matters. Such discussions have no end and only fester resentment and anger over disagreements which in some sense are unavoidable since there's no real authority on the matter.

What's interesting is that the above phenomenon which I'm alluding to did not.occur at the old PF due to emotions and feelings being compartmentalized, allowing for more cool and rational discussions. Everything here seems to be mixing and mashing together. That's all I have to say on the issue.

I’m not sure if that’s aimed at my posts. I’m most interested in human existence qua existence- so I’m line with certain existential elements which will inevitably touch upon phenomenogy and the anthropic point of view whether that brings in elements of evolution, biology, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. Also related and most poignent is the human’s experiences as they relate to suffering. Is existence structurally negative for the human? Again, there will be many phenomenological angles to explore that issue and mine certain ideas that can be intuited from this kind of rationalizing about the human condition. One can perhaps dig deeper than the ologies and try to mine what is at the heart of human nature and existence in general. Schopenhauer for example totalizedba Will at the root of all contingencies and manifestations. He identified a general lack in the human condition. There was structurally a negative aspect before contingent harms factored in, or perhaps form a basis for many contingent harms.

Most importantly, if we agree on what is the case, we can talk within the same context about what to do. — schopenhauer1

Well, I agree. So what to do?

Suicide? If being alive involves being embodied within this locus of perpetual needs, wants, desires and pains, why not just bring this endless striving to a halt? But, if your consciousness ceases, it's not like you could determine whether or not you're better off than before. Any sort of solution to the 'structural negativity' of your conscious experience can only be found within that experience. But, we agree that the negativity is structural - there is no solution. A headache isn't solved by guillotine (although the blade is always for when the pain gets intolerable).

So, what to do? It then becomes a question not of how to solve the structure of life, but of how to cope with it. And I think it comes back to the standard advice you denigrate in the opening post - get a hobby, find some love, try to laugh, get yourself absorbed into the world, look forward to things, structure your time - find whatever works for you (it seems like what works for you is spending your time writing and debating with others about the structural negativity of human existence :wink: ).

Personally, I really try not to dwell on it, as it leads to some pretty dark places. Is eating a meal made all the better knowing it doesn't solve your predicament as being a human with perpetual caloric needs/hunger? I think a meal is made better eaten in laughter/conversation among people you care about.

What do you think about coping with the 'negative structure' of human existence with a sort of ironic (?) mirth/comedy/sense of humor?

As an aside, for what it is worth... The philosophical discussion of meaning vs no meaning (to put it one of many possible ways) reminds one of the clash of belief systems in the thought-provoking “I :heart: Huckabees” movie.

Is existence structurally negative for the human? Again, there will be many phenomenological angles to explore that issue and mine certain ideas that can be intuited from this kind of rationalizing about the human condition. — schopenhauer1

One can perhaps dig deeper than the ologies and try to mine what is at the heart of human nature and existence in general. — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure if this issue can be addressed via philosophy. Much of the jargon we're using in this thread, "coping", "enduring", and so on are borrowed from the field of psychology. I'm wary of philosophers or anyone who claims to have an astute understanding of human psychology based on some false sense of authority, who then goes on to make sweeping generalizations about the true nature of man. That's not to denigrate or demean your feelings about the issue, though.

I hope that made more sense.

i guess what i want to say is: i accept your tragic view - but I'd add: Oedipus cut out his eyes. If he talked about how tragic it was to be oedipus instead - the tragic element would be lost. — csalisbury

Yes, exactly. There's a perversion of the tragic whereby the pseudo-tragic eats itself and is revealed in the results of its own incontinemce. There's just no philosophical sustenance to be found. So, my major objection to philosophical pessimism of the type presented here is this negative excess. It's kitsch—the self-indulgent explication of the tragic that destroys its value by transforming it into just another mental commodity to be toyed with and ideologically weaponized, and that paradoxically reduces the subject as messenger of the "unpalatable truth" to precisely the kind of meaningless and impotent force that was supposed to be the origin of its angst.

So, you get a self-stroking, self-fulfilling, and self-serving form of angst that revels in its own odour while its observers can only continue to comment on the bad smell. The unpalatable truth then turns out ironically to be the degraded subject of the ideology himself who misses the entirely obvious point that should be accessible to any person capable of basic linguistic abstraction from lived experience that the structural negatives of life are precisely the elements that make possible an orientation within which life as recognizably human, as having value, can subsist.

There is simply enduring and coping. Again, troubling. — schopenhauer1

I don't view this as troubling. For one it does seem there are people who do not feel this way. All the better for them.

But for those of us who view life as full of suffering, I don't see that as a troubling conclusion.

It's just the way it is.

We would need to care about suffering in order for us to believe that it were important.

But if life is absurd then we need not be attached to such notions. We can grow from enduring, to coping, to non-attachment, to joy. Where once we were a Donkey attached to the notion of life, and then we were a lion rebelling with declarations of the absurd, we can become a baby -- innocent and creative.

You live in a time of "positive psychology" wherein healthy=happy, wherein negative=sick. The positivity of the times is shallow. People are expected to get with the program and cheer up, or at least, shut up about their darker views.

I have been very unhappy and depressed for years, and during those times felt like a failed outlier. "Negative expressions" are very unpopular. Perhaps I now have a brain tumor which is causing me to feel much happier and contented these days. Tumor or not, I agree that there is good reason to hold that the conditions of life are really quite unsatisfactory. Our hunter-gatherer brains now labor over mostly inconsequential tasks in gray cubicles for long hours, or are chronically unemployed and smoke dope to get through the day, find entertainment through the cable box, and so on.

Your threads have a monochrome leitmotiv, but that is not a great fault. Perhaps your threads would benefit from more novel approaches to the problem of life having no inherent meaning.

If life is absurd (unreasonable, illogical, preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous, farcical, idiotic, stupid, foolish, insane, unreasonable, irrational, illogical, nonsensical, pointless, senseless...--but no joke) then there must be many angles from which to attack the bourgeois delusions about a purposeful universe, meaningful life, potential for happiness, and so on, not to mention other worldly schemes that make this world a processing mill for the hereafter.

Finding fresh approaches won't make your threads popular. The scintillating, positive-minded intelligences here will attack your views just the same, but a novel approach might drive a larger dose of cold rain under their shingles to spoil the faux perfection of their painted ceilings.

I stumbled across this article through Scientific American and had to think of you:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/mental-health/the-science-behind-5-classic-happiness-clich-s

The scintillating, positive-minded intelligences here will attack your views just the same, but a novel approach might drive a larger dose of cold rain under their shingles to spoil the faux perfection of their painted ceilings. — Bitter Crank

:lol:
I do like rain, even when it's cold. But I'm also pretty good at carpentry, metaphorically as well as literally, so bring it on :)

through Scientific American — NKBJ

Through, not IN Scientific American. The 5 quick and dirty tips are clichés, indeed. Such 'tips' are effective for people who are already happy-minded. Lots of people are, and in itself expecting to be happy isn't a fault. Schopenhauer isn't "happy minded" and not being "happy minded" isn't a fault either. But one can not flip a switch and reverse poles.

What Schopenhauer wants is not different than what most of us want when we post a thread or a comment: validation that our views can be taken seriously. I have been guilty of countering Schop's posts with negative responses, or self-help advice. I've probably suggested he should see a psychiatrist. What Schopenhauer1 is saying is not an SOS disguised as philosophy. It's unsettling philosophy because it undermines basic assumptions that are common in our culture: Life is good. Life is worth living. Our desire for children is good. Our children will be glad they were born. The future is full of opportunities. And so on.

One can question thee basic assumptions. In an over-crowded world, one heading for ecological catastrophe in the not-distant future, are you sure adding several more people to a consumption-intense society is a good thing? It's questionable. As your children and grand children live into the economical disaster, are you sure they will be grateful to you for bearing them into a world you knew was falling apart? Are you sure the future is full of great opportunities? Life may be good, but maybe the way we live isn't so good.

As Bob Dylan says,

It's a hard rain that going to fall.

Scenario number one:

Child in back seat of minivan: Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Parent: Almost! Are you excited?
——
Scenario number two:

Child in back seat: Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Parent: No. Not really. We are far away. In fact, where we are going is a shallow substitute for what you really want. Something I cannot give you, even if I knew what on Earth it was in the first place. Sorry... I really am very sorry... to have to tell you this. You have no idea how much.
——

And I write that without judgment of the parent in either scenario. For I am both of them, and the child too. The question that pops into my mind is whether this predicament is general/existential or particular/cultural. In other words, were we born in a dead-end situation, or have we worked ourselves into a corner?

i guess what i want to say is: i accept your tragic view - but I'd add: Oedipus cut out his eyes. If he talked about how tragic it was to be oedipus instead - the tragic element would be lost.

and theres sequels, right? there wouldnt be sequels if oedipus was cioran. it would be peverse. "the tragedy of being born oedipus." — csalisbury

But that is a play/art and this is philosophy. So we are getting right at it straight on. Sure, we can make poems and stories about tragedy using all the allegory, alliteration, allusion, and all the rest, but that is what makes art different than mere philosophy. Here we are using the avenue of propositions, observations, evaluations, logic, dialectic, discovering ideas of first principles, etc. etc. I don't see why being so blatant makes that bad. I will agree it might be less interesting, but I never claimed to be doing art (though perhaps your world view is that everything is art).

Suicide? If being alive involves being embodied within this locus of perpetual needs, wants, desires and pains, why not just bring this endless striving to a halt? But, if your consciousness ceases, it's not like you could determine whether or not you're better off than before. Any sort of solution to the 'structural negativity' of your conscious experience can only be found within that experience. But, we agree that the negativity is structural - there is no solution. A headache isn't solved by guillotine (although the blade is always for when the pain gets intolerable). — Inyenzi

Yes I generally agree with this. Suicide is often about the ideation, but can never be experienced.

So, what to do? It then becomes a question not of how to solve the structure of life, but of how to cope with it. And I think it comes back to the standard advice you denigrate in the opening post - get a hobby, find some love, try to laugh, get yourself absorbed into the world, look forward to things, structure your time - find whatever works for you (it seems like what works for you is spending your time writing and debating with others about the structural negativity of human existence :wink: ). — Inyenzi

Indeed I do. I agree, this is essentially the common sense advice. However, the point was that it is always a lack, of a something that is not there to be reached. Something missing. This touches on the structural negativity you acknowledged.

Personally, I really try not to dwell on it, as it leads to some pretty dark places. Is eating a meal made all the better knowing it doesn't solve your predicament as being a human with perpetual caloric needs/hunger? I think a meal is made better eaten in laughter/conversation among people you care about. — Inyenzi

Sure, the same friends that you were lacking to begin with, and may cause contingent frustrations later on, just to be made up with, etc. But of course this may be a small (and some people say trivial aspect), but it really imbues any most familiar situation or unfamiliar.

What do you think about coping with the 'negative structure' of human existence with a sort of ironic (?) mirth/comedy/sense of humor? — Inyenzi

Yes, that would be Sisyphus laughing as he roles the rock up the hill. That would be Cioran's aphorisms of dark humor. I'm not against it, I just don't think it justifies it nor is it really maintained in the face of some real problems. It doesn't absolve the problems, but as you said, it helps cope, if at all.

You live in a time of "positive psychology" wherein healthy=happy, wherein negative=sick. The positivity of the times is shallow. People are expected to get with the program and cheer up, or at least, shut up about their darker views. — Bitter Crank

Absolutely, this is the trend I see as well.

If life is absurd (unreasonable, illogical, preposterous, ridiculous, ludicrous, farcical, idiotic, stupid, foolish, insane, unreasonable, irrational, illogical, nonsensical, pointless, senseless...--but no joke) then there must be many angles from which to attack the bourgeois delusions about a purposeful universe, meaningful life, potential for happiness, and so on, not to mention other worldly schemes that make this world a processing mill for the hereafter. — Bitter Crank

I will think about this some more.

But that is a play/art and this is philosophy. So we are getting right at it straight on. Sure, we can make poems and stories about tragedy using all the allegory, alliteration, allusion, and all the rest, but that is what makes art different than mere philosophy. Here we are using the avenue of propositions, observations, evaluations, logic, dialectic, discovering ideas of first principles, etc. etc. I don't see why being so blatant makes that bad. I will agree it might be less interesting, but I never claimed to be doing art (though perhaps your world view is that everything is art).

Wait, but the post of yours I was responding to was specifically about aesthetic understanding and had a Bob Dylan quote at its center.

It's kitsch—the self-indulgent explication of the tragic that destroys its value by transforming it into just another mental commodity to be toyed with and ideologically weaponized, and that paradoxically reduces the subject as messenger of the "unpalatable truth" to precisely the kind of meaningless and impotent force that was supposed to be the origin of its angst[..]

[..] the structural negatives of life are precisely the elements that make possible an orientation within which life as recognizably human, as having value, can subsist.

Well-put, especially the last part.

SA had the link to this article... Which, you may notice, itself links to peer-reviewed psychological studies in academic journals. Point is, there's science to back up positive thinking.

I'm not at all against toying with the idea of existentialist dread (which is all this is), and I appreciate Sartre and Kafka and Kundera as much as anyone. My main reasons for thinking Shop just needs to get out of his own head more are the way he repeatedly insists on this view, has at times insisted that's how life is for everyone, and not only makes numerous threads on the same issue, but also works it into seemimgly every conversation. It's like an obsession.

However, I do think existential dread has severe limitations. One being accusing anyone who is happy of merely being deluded and seeing the world in a one-sided manner... But the thing is that a saying like making lemonade from lemons is about recognizing that sometimes life has sucky parts, hence the lemons. Not everything is great.

I'm not advocating for a simplistic happiness a la Byron Katie (a guru who is a favorite of my mothers', and whose books she sends me every Christmas).

But some moments of unhappiness don't cancel out all the moments of actual happiness and to say that they do is, imo, the simplistic view.

It's also wrong to declare all striving in this world as a struggle, or to claim that all struggle is negative. Not all means to ends are enjoyable in and of themselves, but a lot of them are. Food is good and cooking the food is fun. Being with loved ones is just enjoyable per se (most of the time).

And, no, I can't guarantee happiness for any of my offspring. But I can offer them all the foundations for one, including doing my best to create a sustainable future. Also, the estimates of when global catastrophe should hit seem to ballpark my kid's kids' kids. So that's not realy a reason for me to avoid having my one son.

Even Dylan wasn't all glum all the time:
Can't you feel that sun a-shinin'?
Ground hog runnin' by the country stream
This must be the day that all of my dreams come true
So happy just to be alive
Underneath the sky of blue
On this new morning, new morning
On this new morning with you.

So that's not realy a reason for me to avoid having my one son. — NKBJ

I'm not an anti-natalist, even if the world is going to hell.

Some people I used to hang around with painted themselves into a corner of high dudgeon, though with Marxism instead of Schopenhauer. They became really unpleasant to be around because their view of everything was so uniformly negative, sour. They had lost the sort of joie d'vivre revolutionaries really needs must have.

I'm not hot on existential dread either. I'm happily old enough now that death isn't that far away and life seems, therefore, quite pleasant.

some moments of unhappiness don't cancel out all the moments of actual happiness — NKBJ

Truth is told. What is good is good, what is bad is bad. We don't live in an average of the two.

It's also wrong to declare all striving in this world as a struggle — NKBJ

Most of the strivers I know don't seem to be suffering much from the struggle, 'der Kampf'.

Most of the strivers I know don't seem to be suffering much from the struggle, 'der Kampf'. — Bitter Crank

The problem of absurdity might be too translucent for many people to grasp; perhaps you may have to "feel" it. The absurdity of living every day is enough, for me, to not start life anew. There is no justification for life, yet we live it nonetheless. It isn't just that we live it in "bad faith" in Sartrean fashion- taking on roles without freely doing so, but it is the fact that there are no "good faith" moves to move to. Freely knowing one's entrapment doesn't negate the entrapment and the entailment of one's own being. If you've ever shit in the woods and had to dig your own hole, that might be the closest thing I can think of in regards to life's absurdity par excellence.

I do have to say @schopenhauer1 that your persistence and persuasiveness of your threads guided by Schopenhauers narcissistic philosophy are grounds for turning me into a misanthrope. I mean that honestly, haha. I already live like a hermit but now I want to just be left alone from everyone and everything. I guess my solipsism is buckling or caving in.

"Part of the royal art where the true gold is made" is how Jung described the "coping mechanism" of Sublimation.

If much of life is about "getting it right", then there is something inherently wrong with it. The minute someone has complaints about life not being fulfilling, the immediate response is to suggest a new hobby, club, group, sport, etc. as if just getting into a routine of non-work activities is the answer to the lack at the heart of things. The assumption here is that to live modern life properly and in balance, one has to "get it right". The fact that we are born to hone in on "getting it right" is troubling. It is also not recognizing that there may not be a "getting it right". There is simply enduring and coping. Again, troubling. — schopenhauer1

There needn't be an emphasis on "getting it right."

What's it all for, ultimately, other than itself?

There are things you like. If you convince yourself otherwise, then, you're definitely getting it wrong--about an obvious fact about yourself.

You spend too much time worrying about it, instead of just doing things that you like. Alright, you like bemoaning life, but you're deceiving yourself if you convince yourself that that's all that you like.

And even "simply enduring and coping" isn't without likeable aspects.

You've adopted unmitigated pessimism as an un-questioned doctrine. Doctrinal assumptions need to be questioned.

Can't you let go of doctrine?

Michael Ossipoff

I'm glad I can help! Though, I'm not trying to sour your view on humanity- individual people can do that on their own :). But, if it is consoling to hear something you might suspect, that might be a good thing though.

On another note, I think that there are two main views when it comes to pessimism. The positive psychology view (the common one) is that pessimism is in the software- it is simply bad programming or a bug (in other words, it is simply bad habits/attitudes/lifestyle). The structural pessimists will say that it is in the very programming of life- it is in the the binary code itself.

The structural suffering can be found in:
1) The individual's wants/desires vs. the realities of the social/physical world.
2) The need for more need and wants (deprivation at almost all times)
3) The absurdity of the repetitiveness of survival, maintenance, and entertainment
4) Encountering of contingent harm (though it comes in various quantities and kinds that are probabilistic)

"Part of the royal art where the true gold is made" is how Jung described the "coping mechanism" of Sublimation — matt

Yes, there are also similarities in Zapffe and Schopenhauer's view of art.

You spend too much time worrying about it, instead of just doing things that you like. Alright, you like bemoaning life, but you're deceiving yourself if you convince yourself that that's all that you like.

And even "simply enduring and coping" isn't without likeable aspects. — Michael Ossipoff

This doesn't address the structural suffering. I'm sorry but it doesn't. I do appreciate your sincerity and passion.

that make possible an orientation within which life as recognizably human, as having value, can subsist. — Baden

So are there unstated assumptions here that themselves can be questioned?