Our Society is Sick

[wil]

Schopenhauerian Pessimism

Couple hundred years since.eh? Do you relate to him? Or do you think it worse today and he was beyond the pale then?

 

[Ella S.]

Couple hundred years since.eh? Do you relate to him? Or do you think it worse today and he was beyond the pale then?

Schopenhauerian Pessimism should be seen as distinct from the colloquial understanding of "pessimism." He wasn't complaining about how awful society was.

Rather, Schopenhauer pointed out that the default state of humanity is suffering. When we're happy or content, Schopenhauer argues, this is really just a relief from the suffering of life and these aren't positive states in and of themselves. They are only an absence of suffering.

Schopenhauer wasn't saying that it's impossible to have a happy life, or even that one's life is necessarily bad, but Schopenhauerian arguments are sometimes brought up in Negative Utilitarian circles to this day. Negative Utilitarians focus on reducing harm and suffering, rather than promoting happiness or preference.

I do lean a bit towards Negative Utilitarianism, just because I think it's easier to go feed the starving and house the homeless than try to figure out how to be a better people-pleaser, and because health is often seen as the absence of disease (although this definition has quite a bit of modern push-back).

Negative Utilitarianism also has ties to concepts of spiritual purity, too, where one is good due to abstaining from sins that pollute them.

There's quite a lot more to Schopenhauerian Pessimism than the stereotype of fatalistic whining, although Schopenhauer did believe that happiness was often a temporary reward that came after some sort of suffering-laden struggle, thus meaning that most people's lives would be filled with more suffering than happiness.

 

[Cino]

Do you see any overlap between dukkha and Schopenhauerian Pessimism?

Schopenhauer thought that Buddhism reflected his philosophy. I think the German translations of the Sutras were not available to him yet.

The overlap would be in the importance assigned to dukkha. I see a difference where in Buddhism, dukkha can be used as an object for investigation leading to Nirvana, whereas Schopenhauer is content in his pessimism. I may be wrong, I haven't studied his work.

 

[Ella S.]

Schopenhauer thought that Buddhism reflected his philosophy. I think the German translations of the Sutras were not available to him yet.

The overlap would be in the importance assigned to dukkha. I see a difference where in Buddhism, dukkha can be used as an object for investigation leading to Nirvana, whereas Schopenhauer is content in his pessimism. I may be wrong, I haven't studied his work.

I think that would be an accurate comparison. Schopenhauer wasn't advocating for detachment or meditation.

 

[Nicholas Weeks]

Truth does not pay any homage to any society, ancient and modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die. That society is the greatest, where the highest truths become practical. That is my opinion; and if society is not fit for the highest truths, make it so; and the sooner, the better.

Swami Vivekananda

 

[Ahanu]

The universe-condition, of capitalism is a permanence-logistic in disguise. What do I mean, by permanence-logistic?

By permanence-logistic, I mean that capitalism is a scientific method of unification, wherein the science of awareness is that socialism creates the trivial physics annoyance.

However: where does the origin of this dynamic lie?

Assuming that capitalism is a secret ally, of socialism, who is the creator of this dynamic?

Moreover, what are the precise details of the universe, given this dynamic?

So that technology and trivial physics can be united, in the end, the creator of this dynamic will have honoured the capitalism process by being a secret evil of technology


I am bound by Linda Hamilton, and by my brother, Michael T Cullen.

You lost me.

 

[Nicholas Weeks]

The ideological Left could use a radical retooling:

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-left-needs-to-find-itself/

"It is tiring to be accused of being ‘far-right’ by people doing the bidding of the corporations and investors who recently made a killing on Covid. It is particularly irritating that such people, whilst deriding low-income workers and the ‘uneducated,’ have convinced themselves that they are somehow being virtuous. They call themselves ‘left,’ but so do I. We either need to rethink or ditch these outdated epithets, or be more honest about our positions."

 

[wil]

Far left and far right have always brought out the wackjobs. When you get close to the edge folks tend to fall off.

I find it interesting that in any society there are those that thrive without taking advantage of others, those that exist and get the job done and find satisfaction in their lot.

Like the kid at Christmas...if you ain't satisfied with what you've got, you won't be happy (for long) with what you get.