Besides being a consolation, it may provide perspective on existence itself. — schopenhauer1

I mean, yes, I agree that the pessimistic perspective is helpful in toning down expectations and desires. That's fine.

Believe it or not, there can be a giddyness to pessimism.. To knowing we are all in the same boat, that it is all part of a similar structure. I dare say, there may be a joy and connectedness in pessimism. — schopenhauer1

This is have an issue with. There is no giddyness to torture, horror, or anguish. It's comedic to see how absurd everything seems to be, so long as you aren't being impacted too much by the absurdity of it all. Why should I be giddy that countless animals are currently being ripped to shreds by predators? Why should I be giddy that life is disappointing and painful? This kind of giddyness ends up being not too dissimilar to the crazy guy in the movies who starts out laughing and ends up crying.

You'd have to explain that. It sounds like you have many things to say in regards to arguing for pessimism but no one to hear it.. You always have me, dark solitary biting fish. Just don't bite me too much, as is your nature or I'll tear you up like a hapless salmon that is eaten by the grizzly in the picture — schopenhauer1

Well, I mean to say that pessimism is pretty obvious. It is based in empiricism, specifically phenomenological immediate perceptions of existence. It's not easy to argue against it. Some people might say that this is simply because it's easy to complain and bitch and moan. Or maybe it's because it's an accurate picture of reality, and a tough pill to swallow. What is worse is when pessimists try to act upon their belief, they're seen as the baddies, destroyers. When really if something really is this bad then it ought to be destroyed. Permanently.

This is have an issue with. There is no giddyness to torture, horror, or anguish. It's comedic to see how absurd everything seems to be, so long as you aren't being impacted too much by the absurdity of it all. Why should I be giddy that countless animals are currently being ripped to shreds by predators? Why should I be giddy that life is disappointing and painful? This kind of giddyness ends up being not too dissimilar to the crazy guy in the movies who starts out laughing and ends up crying. — darthbarracuda

No I'm with you about actual suffering. What I meant I guess is that if you read a good pessimist writer's turn of phrase (i.e. Schopenhauer's aphorisms), you can get giddy with how well the author articulated the point.

Well, I mean to say that pessimism is pretty obvious. It is based in empiricism, specifically phenomenological immediate perceptions of existence. It's not easy to argue against it. Some people might say that this is simply because it's easy to complain and bitch and moan. Or maybe it's because it's an accurate picture of reality, and a tough pill to swallow. What is worse is when pessimists try to act upon their belief, they're seen as the baddies, destroyers. When really if something really is this bad then it ought to be destroyed. Permanently. — darthbarracuda

Indeed, I am interested in two ideas that you might want to present...

One is the victim blaming phenomena. Do you think it is a strategy for regulating societal expectations? In other words, is it to prevent people from voicing despair and bringing others into despair mode? Is it like a meme that worked well in maintaining the status quo, so remained as part of the social discourse when someone evaluating the negative voices an opinion?

How much do the psychological ideas of flow and hope play into the counter to pessimism? If you think about it, people simply want to get caught up in something that makes time go faster. At the same time they hope for a situation that might be more positive than the current one and possibly plan accordingly. Does flow and hope justify life affirmation? Flow can prevent the mind from thinking of all these larger angsty existential questions.. Hope can cause someone to take a plan of action to get to a more desired situation.

One is the victim blaming phenomena. Do you think it is a strategy for regulating societal expectations? In other words, is it to prevent people from voicing despair and bringing others into despair mode? Is it like a meme that worked well in maintaining the status quo, so remained as part of the social discourse when someone evaluating the negative voices an opinion? — schopenhauer1

Yes. I mean we still see this with rape victims. "You shouldn't have been out at night!"-like bullshit.

Does flow and hope justify life affirmation? Flow can prevent the mind from thinking of all these larger angsty existential questions.. Hope can cause someone to take a plan of action to get to a more desired situation. — schopenhauer1

Flow and in particular faith can justify the continuation of a life even if they are not founded well.

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Yes. I mean we still see this with rape victims. "You shouldn't have been out at night!"-like bullshit. — darthbarracuda

So what would be equivalent to "You shouldn't have been out at night!" in this situation?

Flow and in particular faith can justify the continuation of a life even if they are not founded well. — darthbarracuda

So is flow and faith a good thing or is it more of a stop-gap from addressing bigger existential questions?

So what would be equivalent to "You shouldn't have been out at night!" in this situation? — schopenhauer1

"Why don't you just kill yourself?!" or "Stop being a lazy fuck!"

So is flow and faith a good thing or is it more of a stop-gap from addressing bigger existential questions? — schopenhauer1

I guess it depends on what ones' priorities are. If you're going for authenticity then no, the probably aren't. If you're just trying to survive, then yeah they're probably going to be helpful.

So what would be equivalent to "You shouldn't have been out at night!" in this situation? — schopenhauer1

"My poor dear deflowered little daisy! Pickled lambs like you are likely to be eaten alive if you hang around bars until the wolves are all drunk. So sorry."

"Why don't you just kill yourself?!" or "Stop being a lazy fuck!" — darthbarracuda

Indeed along with this is the need to compare our situation with Africa. It's as if Africa exists solely so Westernized countries can have something to compare their pain to. See, until all the aide, Peace Corp., microloans, World Bank loans, missionaries, charities, and any other non-profit/government/private forms of help works out over there, we really cannot have any suffering over here. Didn't you know? I use Africa as a stand-in for any underdeveloped region, but you get the picture.

Of course if I had my way and can use a magic wand, Africa would be on par with Europe, America, Japan, or at least China and thus double their efforts in questioning the existential conditions. That's not to say, your average "impoverished" villager in sub-Saharan Africa cannot bring up these issues on his own, but if carrying buckets of water from location a to location b and hundreds of other tasks of daily living take up most of your time, it's probably hard to contemplate much more than getting through the day I would suspect. Of course, even during mundane or strenuous tasks, one's mind can wander and perhaps have these thoughts. Maybe they are not voiced but they are roughly the same kind of existential questioning that occurs in Westernized and "developed" regions. Impoverishment does not negate existential thinking, and perhaps it can amplify it. That would of course be a matter of empirical data gathering to those in that part of the world and as far as I know, most social scientists do not ask people about existential questions in underdeveloped parts of the world, and make it more about broad social categories like economics, religion, politics, etc. I would like some anecdotal evidence of an impoverished tribe discussing the point of their life and the ennui they felt at the end of the day.

Of course, the command to us to go kill ourselves may be becoming more and more realistic, considering assisted suicide has been legalized in many states, as well as in other countries like Switzerland. Or perhaps we all just get together and intentionally get stoned as to attempt to remove the instinctual barriers keeping us alive.

This is about where I realize that, despite the shittiness of life in general, I have a distinct urge to continue to live, for whatever reason that is. I don't want to miss out on the happenings of the world, at least not right now. Game of Thrones hasn't ended yet.

So the real twist in the stomach is when you simultaneously see very little in life as a justification for the beginning of a life, but somehow see these things as a justification for continuing a life. And you realize that yeah, all these things are pretty much just distractions, and that if you're gonna hold that it's not enough to make a life worth starting then it really ought to not be enough to continue a life. Suddenly it becomes more difficult to truly enjoy things; instead one has to take a mindfulness approach to experience, and/or submerge oneself in the absurdity of it all and find a sort of aesthetic to the rogue, absurd, wandering survivor, an internal contradiction that can only be expressed in catharsis.

Tolstoy hit the nail on the head: there are four different ways out of our position: ignorance (in which you don't even know our position), epicureanism (hedonism, most people do this), the rejection of the former two but the continuation out of weakness (i.e. existentialism) and the rejection of all three and the embracing of suicide (i.e. the strong). It is the strong who kill themselves, and the weak who persist for no apparent reason whatsoever.

This is certainly an aside, but just fyi, Africa is actually as complexly varied as the rest of the world. We're talking about 54 different countries, and most of those countries are complexly varied, too, with the complete range of economic, technological, ideological, etc. options.

This is certainly an aside, but just fyi, Africa is actually as complexly varied as the rest of the world. We're talking about 54 different countries, and most of those countries are complexly varied, too, with the complete range of economic, technological, ideological, — Terrapin Station

This is obvious Terrapin, but that was not the point. It's not about Africa's complex varied range of economic, political, socisl phenomena, but the idea of poverty in Africa as a way to try to diminish the relative suffering of "complainer" in the first world. It's a strategy to keep the malcontent at bay and regulated. It's simply a meme that is used against those with negative experiences..similar to other memes of this variety that tries to stop the malcontent in their tracks by comparing to "worse off" situations.

I hadn't been following the conversation for a number of posts. I just saw the comment about Africa. Yeah, the "these folks are worse off than you" thing is kind of silly, and it's also not something I even agree with on any hypothetical level, as I've expressed before. Happiness isn't dependent on one's socio-economic etc. statuses.