Being a Stoic is bland, being a pessimist is cool, hip, attention-grabbing and contrarian. — darthbarracuda

The latter are unintended but welcome side effects of our position. ;)

In all seriousness, the day pessimists are considered anything but unwanted cranks interrupting The Glorious Progress of the Human Race™ is the day I buy a hat in order to eat it.

The latter are unintended but welcome side effects of our position. — Thorongil

I'm picking up on the sarcasm here, but this is actually very important to the discussion, I think. The average depressive attitude of the pessimist does not logically follow from the conclusions of pessimism.

In all seriousness, the day pessimists are considered anything but unwanted cranks interrupting The Glorious Progress of the Human Race™ is the day I buy a hat in order to eat it. — Thorongil

Can't argue with this. Pessimism will never garner strength as a major philosophy because most people are unfortunately brainwashed into the progress mentality. It runs against all they have been taught.

We are not content, nor can we ever be, when life demands that we desire and want- sources of suffering. There is no way to escape it, even in principle. Thus, no practice of indifference will truly get rid of the Will/flux/becoming. — schopenhauer1

But is everyone bothered by that? Sometimes I like having desires, even when they aren't met. Sometimes I like the struggle. And sometimes not. It really depends.

I'm not sure about contentment. I've certainly felt respite, but it feels more like getting a break to breathe from drowning. Not only is it not a positive enjoyment, but rather one that's only defined relative to just how bad what was previously happening was, but it's also backhanded in that that respite is precisely what allows you to live and continue to suffer more. — The Great Whatever

But whether this bothers me or not depends very much on my mood. If I'm depressed, I will tend to agree with you, as I did in my PM. But now I feel differently and am not really disturbed by the matter. And I do experience positive enjoyment, some contentment, and even joy at times. Those moments are certainly worth it to me. Whether all the bad ones overshadow the good is a judgement that very much depends on how I feel at the moment. So it becomes a very subjective thing.

Can't argue with this. Pessimism will never garner strength as a major philosophy because most people are unfortunately brainwashed into the progress mentality. It runs against all they have been taught. — darthbarracuda

But there is progress, and that's undeniable. It's not evenly distributed, but the trend has been toward better nutrition, sanitation, shelter, educational opportunities, more avenues for entertainment, more opportunities to travel, and improved communication. There is also a growing knowledge base in various subjects which can lead to future improvements.

Now as to whether any of that deals with the fundamental condition of being born is a different matter. But I personally would much rather live with today's advantages than what was available in the Middle Ages.

Also a note on suffering. I don't dislike all forms of suffering. Some suffering is actually worth it to me. Last night I played tennis for several hours, and my joints started to hurt and I tired, but I liked the feeling and I liked how I was sore and limping afterwards. It felt good. Similarly, I spent three days intensely working on something with little sleep and it was difficult. But it was totally worth it. I'm sitting there at 3am in the morning, very sleepy, thinking to myself how much I enjoy doing this.

I know several people who have run the Grand Canyon or up a 14,000 foot mountain without altitude training, both of which are dangerous and very exhausting. But they tell me how much they liked doing it.

Anyway, I'm led back to the point that whether life is worth living is a subjective matter determined by how the individual feels about life. The problem with the pessimistic position is that it's trying to argue that how people feel is somehow wrong when it disagrees with the pessimistic position.

I experience both on a regular basis. In one state, the pessimistic position seems very convincing. In another, it seems highly debatable. After all, who are pessimists to tell the rest of us whether our own lives are worth living or not? Is not that up to us?

I couldn't get a chance to be on here for a while, but I get the gist of most of your comments. Mainly that I can't tell anyone how to feel and why give up on trying to become "better" at dealing with life as the stoic is trying to do with their indifference practice. Also, apparently, by characterizing the Stoic as smug, I opened myself up to being called Rustin-Cohle-like and hip. I think Thorongil had a nice answer to that. I in no way feel my position has put me in a position where people thought I was hip. On the contrary, "bitter" and "unwanted" are appropriate words for most responses to the pessimist's position. Anyways, I will try to get back to some general responses later.

I have moderated my position. Yes, I remember that post I made a year ago...when I was very angsty and depressed. I am getting better now. And I can assure you I am not trolling.

Furthermore, I don't quite see the importance of understanding my position. Isn't it enough to read what I have posted in this thread without trying to piece together what my entire philosophy is? That's going beyond the scope of the thread. I have supplemented you with my thoughts on the topic (of pessimism vs stoicism), and whether or not this contradicts something I said over a year ago shouldn't really have any basis in the discussion. — darthbarracuda

Fair enough, but I just thought it was odd that you put up so many threads on pessimism, even recently. Being that I usually back up Philosophical Pessimism, these threads clearly draw my attention, but I don't know why you post them unless you don't feel the matter is settled on its efficacy or truthfulness and want to be convinced? Or, do you like seeing people like me take on the majority of posters who clearly will not agree? I agree with you though, that your motivations for posts have absolutely nothing to do with the actual content and for all intents and purposes, does not matter to this thread or forum. I think it was just an oddity I saw and I mentioned it.

Mainly that I can't tell anyone how to feel — schopenhauer1

I just see that as a potential flaw in the pessimist position. It's one thing to note everything that sucks about life, it's another to convince people of this if they don't feel that way. Because some people feel that life is worth living despite the sucky parts.

As a metaphor for this, I used to run middle distance and cross country competitively. It hurt. There was a certain amount of suffering in the training and racing, and one didn't always feel like putting forth the required effort. But whether it was worth it or not completely depended on one's attitude. If you wanted to race and improve, then the suffering was worth it. If not, then it wasn't and people either quit or muddled through until the end of the season. And I know this firsthand, because I experienced both wanting to compete, and not wanting to. It made all the difference.

Progress is ultimately doomed though, whether it be from our own self destruction or the eventual heat death of the universe. It is inevitable.

Progress is ultimately doomed though, whether it be from our own self destruction or the eventual heat death of the universe. It is inevitable. — darthbarracuda

Well, yeah. If it's the heat death of the universe, I'm not getting too depressed about that. Of course I'm not going to be around for those billions of years, so there's that.

That's the whole pessimistic position on progress. It's constantly fighting the force of entropy, and will eventually lose. Eroding away everything.

Sure, life is fundamentally impermanent, and no amount of progress will change that. While that can be unsettling and depressing, if somehow I was provided with a means to live for a billion years, my eventual death would become a very remote thing, and not something likely to cause me existential angst. At least not for the first 500 million years or so. For all we know, there are such long lasting civilizations out there in the cosmos (no idea on the lifespan of their constituents though, although I would guess it would be considerable).

I'm going to guess that our impending deaths are unsettling because our lives are so short, relative to deep time, and it seems like just yesterday when we were 20 years younger. But if they weren't, we might view that matter a bit differently. A billion year life span could provide you with all the existence and experiences you ever want. And when reflecting upon how several decades seemed to fly by, one would shrug and say, well I still have 890,000 more decades to go.

I do realize that such lifespans sound completely hellish to pessimists, but I'm going to assume that extremely long lifespans are accompanied by many other improvements.

One small improvement would be mood alteration. There are some individuals who have a mildly manic temperament. They tend to be overachievers. It should be possible to figure out their brain chemistry and induce that state in others.

There is an element of machismo in the writings of some prominent pessimists. Read Schopenhauer's Councils and Maxims and the Wisdom of Life. Can he go for more than a page without ranting about how dense everyone else is, with the obvious implication that he's smarter than everyone else?

I can't prove a link here. But there does seem to be a definite correlation between curmudgeonly thinking and bitter superiority.

You are not alone with this sentiment. Although I personally do agree with many of the things Schopenhauer wrote (alongside other "machismo" pessimists), I also get turned off a bit by just how much of a dick he was, whether it be his general apathy towards humankind or his pontificating rants about himself. Here are some good examples:

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Which leads me to believe he felt people who derived pleasure from socializing with other people were stupid and petty.

Rascals are always sociable, more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company.

Even more so. It's just masturbatory self-inflation. For a man who thought the ego was an incarnation of the Will and therefore a source of suffering, he sure does have a knack for blowing it up.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

Repeat ad nauseam.

The problem I see with the picture of the cynical, smartass intellectual caricature is that it is too easy for any person to become a cynical smartass and think this is a direct correlation to their intellectual prowess.

Richard Feynman (although mocked in the philosophical community for his attacks on philosophy) was indisputably one of the most influential theoretical physicists of our time. He was also a major party-goer and womanizer.

Albert Einstein, on the other hand, was much more reclusive and quiet; your stereotypical "genius".

I think Schopenhauer had a bad case of of a bad attitude and was pissy that his colleagues were getting dates and lectures while he wasn't. So he became caustic and bitter and transformed it into a kind of miserable pride.

I think Schopenhauer was a genius - and he had all the right in the world to mock mere mortals. The fact that the masses of people could not understand him, and could not perceive his superiority isn't to say that it didn't exist. Schopenhauer was not ashamed to be who he was; neither should a man of great capability ever be. As for getting dates, lectures, etc; if Schopenhauer really wanted those, he could easily have got them: his insights in sex, relationships and love are in many regards unparalleled even by today's standards. Check out, for example, his essay "On Women" and his chapter "On The Metaphysics of Sexual Love". You think a genius of his stature couldn't manipulate a woman to sleep with him? Someone with such insight into what moves others would easily be able to do this. It's more like Schopenhauer was unable to find company which matched his; and therefore he preferred none.

think Schopenhauer had a bad case of of a bad attitude and was pissy that his colleagues were getting dates and lectures while he wasn't. So he became caustic and bitter and transformed it into a kind of miserable pride. — darthbarracuda

Certainly doesn't help one's attitude toward life.

It's more like Schopenhauer was unable to find company which matched his; and therefore he preferred none. — Agustino

Or maybe he was bitter, caustic and anti-social which drove people away, and thus he masked that with his own inflated sense of self-worth.

I think Schopenhauer was a genius - and he had all the right in the world to mock mere mortals. — Agustino

Geniuses are mere mortals too. Without the unwashed masses Schopenhauer mocked, he would be spending all his time trying to feed and cloth himself, instead of writing great works of philosophy. Society afforded him the opportunity to do otherwise.

The real genius comes from collective humanity, building up on itself and providing the opportunities, not accomplished individuals, who are fortunate to be born when and where they are, and get to stand on the shoulders of millions who came before them.

You think a genius of his stature couldn't manipulate a woman to sleep with him?

In my experience, really smart guys can have a lot of trouble with women. This is not always the case, but very often is.

And it's not mere disdain in Schopenhauer's writing. If he really was that superior to the masses, why did he devote so much time to excoriating them? There is a definite slant to his writing that speaks of bitterness and disappointment. I'm not saying that he wasn't a genius. I'm saying that, if his isolation was truly a result of his genius, then why didn't he just ignore the stupid masses? He was rich, after all. It's not as if he couldn't isolate himself if he wanted to.

Incidentally, Einstein chased quite a few ladies - and frequently, they allowed him to catch them.

Incidentally, Einstein chased quite a few ladies - and frequently, they allowed him to catch them. — Pneumenon

My mistake.

Women are directly adapted to act as the nurses and educators of our early childhood, for the simple reason that they themselves are childish, foolish, and short-sighted—in a word, are big children all their lives, something intermediate between the child and the man, who is a man in the strict sense of the word. Consider how a young girl will toy day after day with a child, dance with it and sing to it; and then consider what a man, with the very best intentions in the world, could do in her place. — Schopenhauer

That's surely seductive talk to any woman. Or how about...?

The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and slower is it in reaching maturity. Man reaches the maturity of his reasoning and mental faculties scarcely before he is eight-and-twenty; woman when she is eighteen; but hers is reason of very narrow limitations. This is why women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important. — Schopenhauer

In my experience, really smart guys can have a lot of trouble with women. This is not always the case, but very often is. — Pneumenon

Often those people aren't simply smart, they are also shy or timid. This wasn't the case for Schopenhauer. Many of the others who are smart and are "bad" with women are simply unwilling to humiliate themselves or lose their dignity in their pursuit of women. Hence, they are unwilling to do many of the things others are.

@mcdoodle... This is pathetic. You should be aware that Schopenhauer is doing metaphysics, and as such he's talking about the position that Nature has allotted to women. His talk is not meant to be seductive at all; an entirely different form of discourse.

Secondly, do you have any objections to what Schopenhauer is stating there? Or are you just mocking him? In philosophy one ought to think, instead of merely vomiting out the commonly accepted opinions of a particular age. In fact, I see nothing insulting in what Schopenhauer is stating. It's no more insulting than saying that men don't have to carry a child and be weakened for 9 months of their lives. It's a historical fact that, in general, women were not gifted by Nature with the capacities for reason that man has. Check out the number of geniuses who were men. Compare this with the number of geniuses who were female. Now you'll tell me it's because females were oppressed through history... okay then, compare the number of geniuses who are female vs geniuses who are male today. Richard Feynmann, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, etc. It's no competition. There never was. But this is not to say that women are sub-human or anything like that. It's merely to recognise a biological fact, which is what Schopenhauer is doing. Schopenhauer also recognises advantages of women over men: such that women have a much more developed faculty of dissimulation and deception than men. Such that women are better educators and teachers. Such that women often display greater affection and compassion than men. But you, in a trance with temporarily accepted values of women being entirely equal to men, fail to see this.

Now the fact that your average woman in Western society today would feel insulted by those sentences says nothing of their truth, but merely proves Schopenhauer's point. Schopenhauer does not mean to say that no woman can have a more developed faculty of reason than most men. He merely means to say that such would be an abnormality in Nature, not the general trend. He has justified his points, if you actually spent your time reading the two texts, by explaining how they fit in with our biological evolution. Women evolved to fulfill different roles than men: therefore they are better at some things, and inferior at others.

This is pathetic. You should be aware that Schopenhauer is doing metaphysics, and as such he's talking about the position that Nature has allotted to women. His talk is not meant to be seductive at all; an entirely different form of discourse. — Agustino

Metaphysics? LOL. What he was doing is degrading half the human race due to his cultural prejudices as the privileged gender. There is nothing metaphysical about that.

Now the fact that your average woman in Western society today would feel insulted by those sentences says nothing of their truth, but merely proves Schopenhauer's point. — Agustino

The average male would be insulted too.

It's a historical fact that, in general, women were not gifted by Nature with the capacities for reason that man has. — Agustino

No it's not. And it's scientifically false. You want to know what the truth is? We all begin life as females. You might have noticed that you have nipples. Prenatal hormones differentiate males from females in the womb.

You want to know something else? Women live longer than men on average, despite those difficult nine months of labor.

No it's not. And it's scientifically false. — Marchesk

Sorry my friend. Historical evidence strongly disagrees with you. Your "scientific proof" must agree and be capable to explain other empirical facts as well.

You want to know something else? Women live longer than men on average, despite those difficult nine months of labor. — Marchesk

Ok, I never disagreed, this may be true :)

Historical evidence strongly disagrees with you. — Agustino

Historical evidence that is written by man simply because man has bigger, stronger muscles. You may also recall that practically every single war was waged by a man who wanted to show the world how big his penis was.

You're bordering the naturalistic fallacy here. Just because women are suitable for giving birth and raising children doesn't mean that's all they can or ought to do.

Historical evidence that is written by man simply because man has bigger, stronger muscles. You may also recall that practically every single war was waged by a man who wanted to show the world how big his penis was. — darthbarracuda

No, historical evidence written by the facts. The scientific/philosophical developments have, historically, been driven mostly by men. This is undisputable. It's not only historical accounts which justify this, but also the utter lack of evidence of a similar number of scientific inventions/discoveries or philosophical systems developed by women.

You're bordering the naturalistic fallacy here. Just because women are suitable for giving birth and raising children doesn't mean that's all they can or ought to do. — darthbarracuda

I never said that that's all they ought to do, and neither did Schopenhauer as a matter of fact...

No, historical evidence written by the facts. The scientific/philosophical developments have, historically, been driven mostly by men. This is undisputable. It's not only historical accounts which justify this, but also the utter lack of evidence of a similar number of scientific inventions/discoveries or philosophical systems developed by women. — Agustino

You and I do not disagree that male humans have been the dominant force in "progress" and development. What we disagree on is why this is. I believe females have the potential to be just as good as males at many things, and even surpass in some areas that are even dominated by males today. But they have been systematically oppressed in the past simply because they did not have the physical strength and brutish testosterone that males do. The male/female role has become an unfortunate crevice in the social fabric, one that will be difficult to mend, and so many females are content (or feel obligated) to "stay in the kitchen" while the males do all the development.

and neither did Schopenhauer as a matter of fact... — Agustino

What he was saying is that because this is the way he thought women were, he felt women could not do anything outside of that. He was criticizing females without understanding why they are that way to begin with.