-
schopenhauer1
10kI have to get a haircut today.. No I don't "have to". I can let it grow long and never cut it again, but I am used to short hair and get anxiety when it gets to a certain length that it is too long. This is annoying task that I inauthentically put as a priority. I choose today, as there is a deal this day of the week. The parking is hard in that area though. This is something I must contend with though since I chose this day, and this place based on some rough inauthentic priority of where I will go for this haircut. I have to wash my clothes if I do not want to wear already-worn clothes for the next week. This is another task that I inauthentically put as a priority. I get anxiety of the possibility of wearing dirty, possibly smelly clothes in public where this is usually deemed unacceptable (unless in the spheres of homelessness, alternative living? etc.). I choose this particular brand of detergent because it smells good, but I perceive it to be a good brand, and the price is moderate. I go to work and generally get certain tasks done, usually so other tasks can later get done, etc. Much of this is repetitive, some of it may take a bit more "creativity" of varying degrees. If this sounds boring and very procedural, that is because it is. If the decisions seem to be somewhat arbitrary and could be a different way, that is because they could have, but, like everyone, I choose a rough guideline, one that I prioritize based on a need for structure and a heuristic for decisions throughout my life. It could have been any guideline, but I chose the ones I did. In Sartre's philosophy, this would be inauthentic, as I am using a guideline, and using it to limit my options, my behavior, my choices, wittingly, as the limitless options are too much, and it is easiest to follow self-regulated guidelines than constantly change at will.
I have hobbies, musical tastes, exercise, people I can hang out with. I can read about some innovation, area of knowledge, escapist literature, or successful business endeavor done at other work-places (universities, companies, entrepreneurs). This goes on for the next 40+ years or so apparently. I am supposed to find this along with awe-inspiring sunsets, the mysteries of the ancients, the dance of the Bushmen, the works of Renaissance, scientists, innovation, eternal recurrence optimism, and general "progress" as a reason the that the human project is great and should continue. I just don't see it that way. It seems to me to be a lot of repetition, procedural drudgery, and instrumentality. We anchor ourselves to some set of guidelines.. inauthentically choosing whatever modus operandi seems appropriate for that time.. Some might be going through the motions.. doing the same things.. some might be in some new-fangled "self-help" high where they are constantly "improving".. it's all inauthentic guidelines to fence in the "liquid fray" (pace Zapffe) of our angst. We don't know where to go, what to do, we find meaning in what others think makes a meaningful life.. at least that's what we tell ourselves (um, it's these friends, finding a mate, making a family, having a house to put my family, travel, gatherings, and this workout regimen you see!!! That's what I was told at least!!).
We are "condemned to be free" yet we inauthentically choose guidelines that help us with the procedural drudgery and mix it in with enough stimulation to get by. Does this lead to the conclusion that this general pattern of procedure and stimulation must be passed on and maintained? I am not sure. I do not see why this should be. What are we passing this on for? -
Terrapin Station
13.8kIdeally, if you don't enjoy what you're doing, change it. You can change it radically. It's important to realize that you can make radical changes and to not be afraid to do that. Of course, you might not require radical changes, but sometimes that's the answer.
Practically, some things are selected against because of the need for an income so that you have shelter, food, etc. But really, there is a wide variety of ways that you can acquire that stuff.
You do not need to have so much anxiety. You do not need to feel that your life is pointless drudgery.
And what we should be passing on is the encouragement and ability to be able to live in radically different ways. -
Agustino
11.2kOh dear Lord in Heaven. *prays* Wait till @TimeLine pops round and sees the word "inauthentic"... I don't even want to imagine the rationally autonomous walls of text that are about to befall us man :P
Your experience does not match the regular human experience. A person generally shoves their clothes in the washing machine, puts in the cleaning liquid, turns it on and goes through the motion without another thought. They don't agonise about it, they don't even think about it. They do it without any thought.
I go take a haircut. Big deal. I don't even think about it. I'm too busy thinking about some philosophical question that interests me, or some business deal I have to do, or how to plan my day to squeeze in the necessary physical exercise or martial arts workout. I'm glad I get to kick back while some guy or girl messes with my hair.
Listen to Professor Trump. Most people think he's an idiot, but he's not that much of an idiot actually:
You know, just being alive quite often is enough for me. Don't have to do something special, but just feel yourself in your body, everything going well man. No problems.
So just do your duty in the world. Why? Well do you want to be a snitch? If you don't, then do your duty. Serve your community, serve God, grow in knowledge, teach others. If you find the right woman maybe you'll have kids. Otherwise you won't. What's the big deal. Stop fretting about it. Maybe I'll never get married. Think I care? Nah - not gonna waste the rest of my days just because of that. -
mcdoodle
1.1kIn Sartre's philosophy, this would be inauthentic — schopenhauer1
I'm 68 and my life hasn't been the way you're talking about I am deeply pessimisitic about all sorts of things but I've lived a fairly adventurous life. I read Sartre as a young man and that influenced me, but that doesn't especially matter. Except that to me, in Sartreian terms, if you recognise what you're doing as inauthentic then to carry on drudgedly doing it, you are anti-Sartreian: you accept inauthenticity. I don't. I refuse it. I'm very different from Agustino for instance but I admire his adventurousness too, I feel that spark which I think I still have. I'm in love with a fine woman, as I have been at several moments in my life, I'm fending off ill-health touch wood (speaking as a non-superstitious atheist, thank God), I have enough money to get by on, I'm studying philosophy, and hey - last night I was a bass in a pop choir of 70 singers, mostly women, we sang six old pop songs in beautiful a capella harmony after several months of tough rehearsals and it was marvellous! Sometimes you take existential leaps and that happens: but you work at it after the leap, because joy and even simple pleasures don't just turn up at the door. Sometimes of course you take existential leaps and you wind up drunk with the equipment for suicide all prepared in a dark place. So I've been to rehab too, in my time, but what the fuck. No-one with a good mind is pre-programmed to a dreary predictable life. Me I need to go to the same supermarket every week and to have old friends to whom I don't have to make complex explanations, safe habits so that I can safely take the occasional leap when an abyss of possibility beckons. -
Thinker
200Try love. You suffer all the time. Go suffer for other people, say for 1 month, and see how you feel. Suffering is a resource and you're spending it on the wrong stuff. You don't have a family to support, so you really are free if you have any balls. — Roke
This is an inspired statement. -
OglopTo
122Woah! Interesting Trump trivia!
Having ruled out suicide for a number of reasons, all that is left for me for now is to get by and endure. It's still difficult for me to accept but nothing really 'needs to get done', aside from the trivial things in everyday life and at work that needs to get done that allows me, and hopefully others too, to live with a little less hassle and suffering in the foreseeable future. And also, to kill some time. It's gets fun sometimes during good and lean times but it also gets really really depressing and hopeless when trying to meet expectations and deadlines. -
protectedplastic
10I don't believe that a constant repetition of events and actions day after day is enough alone to make a life inauthentic it is the perspective and state of mind in which these things are done that either give the quality of authenticity or inauthenticity as you say. May I add that "changing at will" would also be considered inauthentic, the conscious effort of trying to change repeatedly is no different from any other action performed according to a guideline; change for the sake of change is a regimen.
If you are going through the routine of your life day in and day out for the sake of others and doing things solely because of convention and orthodoxy then yes I think this way of living would fall under inauthentic. Heads up a lot of the times we are trapped by our own thinking and particular outlook.
To be authentic is to be true to yourself and it involves a certain degree of egotism because it means to be self-serving to your desires and preferences (or not being if that is what you choose). Where you feel passion there you will find authenticity. -
BC
13.2k
Auntie Mame (in the musical by that name) says "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death."
You, schop, are kind of the "anti-mame". "Life is a starvation diet and why are those poor suckers waiting for a banquet?" But they also served who tended the bucket of dirty gray slush to dump on the party, and you do your job well.
You don't have to believe everything Sartre said. I've noticed that John Paul had the highly inauthentic behavior of always looking his same mousey self--smoking, nicotine-stained fingers, ugly hair, rumpled clothing, palpable stale clothing and body odor, writing consistently depressing books, and hanging around with that woman, Simone.
I'll grant you that our lives contain inauthentic elements, though I would raise the bar for consideration way above getting one's haircut at the same place all the time and having to do laundry regularly. (And, in any case, you do freely choose to get your hair cut and do your laundry, right?) Let's worry about major inauthenticity.
The labor of everyday life (the 9-5 job) is loaded with inauthenticity with far more consequence than getting your hair cut short once or twice a month. Politics is infested with inauthenticities, as is religious endeavor, artistic enterprises, and lots of other stuff. We might be capable of authentically and freely choosing each and every options in our lives, but a necessary part of being human is limiting the occasions when deliberation is required. Habits are part of successful and authentic life. Habits enable us to use our limited resources to make important decisions when they arise. -
VagabondSpectre
1.9k
So you make very many inauthentic decisions...
Do you make any authentic ones?
It seems to me that if we spend the necessary time trying to come up with an authentic answer to "when to poop?" then we're going to be incurring an opportunity cost when it comes to the authenticity of other possible decisions. (the time we spend on this decision is time not spent on another).
If you mean to derive value from authenticity, then submitting to the inauthenticity of everyday life is what enables us to arrive at a situation where we are free enough to actually make these authentic decisions (I.E: the choice to work and the decisions involved in work might be inauthentic, but some decisions about what you then spend that money on might not be, decisions which would be unavailable without the drudgery of work).
Personally, I can derive value from even from inauthentic decisions. I absolutely love tacos, and I choose to eat them whenever possible on principle; they make me happy, and that's why I continue in that inauthentic pattern. I can't speak for the human experiment, but the taco train to me is absolutely worth maintaining and passing on! -
Agustino
11.2k
Not only that, but most *big* things are the result of very long hours spent at honing something - whether that's a skill, a trade, a relationship, etc. That requires habit - otherwise you'll never put in the energy, each and every day, to get it done.Habits are part of successful and authentic life. Habits enable us to use our limited resources to make important decisions when they arise. — Bitter Crank -
mcdoodle
1.1kHere we have a dangerous consensus emerging. Writing a novel, for instance, which I've done in a few times in my life: it's like climbing an awesomely high mountain, sometimes for several years, doggedly returning to the task each day, step by step the longest march can be won (a song), being kind to one's own superstitions about how to get started, finding the little habits that will get you through the hard parts, renewing one's efforts even when the damned thing looks unfinishable, the mountain a cloud that you deluded yourself was reachable...
-
schopenhauer1
10kYou do not need to have so much anxiety. You do not need to feel that your life is pointless drudgery.
And what we should be passing on is the encouragement and ability to be able to live in radically different ways. — Terrapin Station
I appreciate the encouragement and positive message. How about passing on the whole project to a new person? Why do they "need" to go through the procedure? -
schopenhauer1
10kThe labor of everyday life (the 9-5 job) is loaded with inauthenticity with far more consequence than getting your hair cut short once or twice a month. Politics is infested with inauthenticities, as is religious endeavor, artistic enterprises, and lots of other stuff. We might be capable of authentically and freely choosing each and every options in our lives, but a necessary part of being human is limiting the occasions when deliberation is required. Habits are part of successful and authentic life. Habits enable us to use our limited resources to make important decisions when they arise. — Bitter Crank
Yes, you bring up a good point about habits. We must circumscribe our daily lives with certain ways of thinking or habits. The options become narrowed, as a bewildering set of possibilities is hard to maintain; familiarity becomes useful to fill in the gaps and make it easier.
But my larger point was that we can't but help but fall into these habits. Following our own choices within the world (even while recognizing the facticity of our surroundings) is not an option. We need guideposts that help us navigate how to get through the day and make us feel that we "did" the right thing to get by. We can mostly all agree that this is needed to survive easily in a social world.
But attached to this truism is the secondary questionof what are we trying to accomplish, really. By procreating more people, we are knowingly admitting that we want them to follow these procedures. I also recognized that within the procedures/patterns we maintain to get by, we seek out some stimulation:
It seems to me to be a lot of repetition, procedural drudgery, and instrumentality. We anchor ourselves to some set of guidelines.. inauthentically choosing whatever modus operandi seems appropriate for that time.. Some might be going through the motions.. doing the same things.. some might be in some new-fangled "self-help" high where they are constantly "improving"..
We don't know where to go, what to do, we find meaning in what others think makes a meaningful life.. at least that's what we tell ourselves (um, it's these friends, finding a mate, making a family, having a house to put my family, travel, gatherings, and this workout regimen you see!!! That's what I was told at least!!).
Then the ultimate question from this was:
"Does this lead to the conclusion that this general pattern of procedure and stimulation must be passed on and maintained? I am not sure. I do not see why this should be. What are we passing this on for?"
In other words, why pass on the procedures to the next generation? They too, inevitably will be consigned to mainly habits of that they perceive will get them through the day/week/month; guidelines that circumscribe the vague angst. But why is it important for more procedures to be carried out and experienced by more people?
Inevitably someone's going to say "balance" is the answer. It's a word that sounds like a panacea. You see, the "cool" trip you went on was the aberration from the procedure of daily life, and thus worth the procedure, and THUS worth procreating new people (or so is the implication). Of course even that is simply part of the procedure.. procedure/release-valve of travel which itself is a procedure.
Then, there are those who say to live like a sociopath, gallivanting around doing odd jobs, living the rebels life, ya know.. like they think they are in a movie about the typical rebel without a cause.. oh wait, that trope too is a procedure, just a different one! It's also usually not sustainable.
Other knee-jerk answers from the Western world -
Flow moments (getting lost in a hard puzzle, being completely involved in a task, working out that sodoku and crossword puzzle!)
Relationships- That laughter with friends and finding someone else to follow procedures with. That makes the procedures worth it for the next generation!
Turn on, tune in, and drop out- become an ascetic. Following an ascetic procedure is supposed to bring these psychological states at some point or during the process perhaps. Thus we can procreate so someone can achieve these states.
Anyways, the difference between the answers normally provided and what I seem to be trying to get at, is that these answers all entail the idea that embracing the procedures are good in and of itself..
I imagine zombies saying "more procedures.." What is this trying to accomplish? No, every day can't be a utopian-awesome-gestalt of free-flowing-ecstatic-enlightenment. I never said it did.
Generally society will promote having more people, and thus more procedure. The general tendency that procreation is good because we have procedure followed by release-valve, stimulation seems like a milktoast answer at best.
Also, I like your puns! -
schopenhauer1
10kAre you accomplishing anything or being authentic in making this thread? Genuine question. — Thorongil
Just questioning why we want more procedures for more people. As for being authentic.. perhaps as I am not doing it out of some angsty feeling that this is what I should be doing, it is? Or perhaps just another release-valve until more procedure? -
Roke
126The general tendency that procreation is good because we have procedure followed by release-valve, stimulation seems like a milktoast answer at best. — schop
Autistic version of an answer nobody has given.
There's a pretty enormous gap in these positions that you should acknowledge if you want to move past this broken record phase of argumentation:
1) Procreation is always good (basically nobody takes this position)
2) Procreation is not always bad (try to deal with this one) -
Noblosh
152
For example, I have procedures on how I choose and how I prepare my meals because I can't eat the same food everytime but I also can't let any food spoil. Following procedures is dealing with constraints.
If a procedure proved helpful, why not pass it on and maintain it? Seems to be the reasonable thing to do.Does this lead to the conclusion that this general pattern of procedure and stimulation must be passed on and maintained? — schopenhauer1
For the continuity of that which works.What are we passing this on for? — schopenhauer1
You seem to claim that the necessity of following procedures is proof that living is drudgery, and I agree but I don't think living is the point in life but nourishing and cherishing what is of value to the particular individual. For some that's family, for others, love itself, it can even be the impossible dream. -
visit0r
25
I don't think it's a "we" issue at heart. Most of the time I am glad to have been born. My consciousness of my freedom and my value-for-myself emerged with difficultly from the usual confusion of childhood and young adulthood. It sucks that this consciousness is so fragile. Give me 1000 years down here. Give me 100,000 years down here. That's the attitude I have when I am fascinated. At the moment, theoretical computer science is blowing my mind. It's the coolest shit I've ever seen. I wish I had read some of these books as a teenager. But better late than never.We are "condemned to be free" yet we inauthentically choose guidelines that help us with the procedural drudgery and mix it in with enough stimulation to get by. Does this lead to the conclusion that this general pattern of procedure and stimulation must be passed on and maintained? I am not sure. I do not see why this should be. What are we passing this on for? — schopenhauer1
I might also add that pessimism/nihilism also opens up (the possibility of) a radical sense of self-possession. "Ultimate futility" (our certain eventual erasure) urges us toward authenticity. Who wants to waste the entire "ride" faking it? As for procedural drudgery, that's not a given. It's possible (as I know from experience) to work at a passion until (at least maybe) someone will pay you for it. Some work really is creative. Of course lots of us are going to be stuck with drudgery, and maybe (I'll entertain the possibility) only the luckier among us will be able to "self-realize" sufficiently to be able to sincerely affirm life (to really be glad more often than not that they were born). And maybe it's part of being lucky that one doesn't get entangled in a sickly pity that can't be happy because not everyone else knows how to be happy. I see crazies and losers all the time on my commute to work. If I could fix them without sacrificing myself, I would. Why not? But most broken people seem to me to be unfixable. They identify with their disease. They are victim-heroes or hero-victims. Their affliction is simultaneously their inflexible point of honor. You can't fix them without snuffing out what they experience as their divine spark. So they aren't even broken in an absolute way, but only relative to my distaste for evasions of freedom and responsibility --and socioeconomically, but that's relative too.
I don't have kids, but that's largely because I've missed the window. If I had established myself economically earlier, I would have. If I somehow come into enough money sooner rather than later, I might do so even now. It's a question of $ for me. My "nihilism" doesn't dissuade me. Only my readiness to protect and nurture potential children in this strange society is the issue. I think others have kids (if they make the conscious more or less informed decision and don't just find themselves knocked up) because (1) they find life worth living and (2) they expect to be able to guide the development of their children so that these children will also find life worth living (to be a net good.) -
schopenhauer1
10k2) Procreation is not always bad (try to deal with this one) — Roke
So, much of the antinatalism besides being against creating more harm (even in the self-evaluation of "net good" of life), is that it is way to evaluate the goals of life itself. Themes that keep popping up are that we do not know why more life is actually good or necessary.
What's funny is I'm just asking us to question what we are trying to do as a species who can self-reflect on why we want to continue life it all. The issues of why we think life is worth it and is supposed to be lived out by future people is the real goal. The philosophy of procreation just happens to be the best way to put the issues square and center. Why is it good to have more people is really asking "What are we trying to accomplish by having more people?".
Well, it is probably not getting haircuts and filling out forms, though the procedural stuff is much of life (sometimes a very large percentage). What is it about life that needs to be carried out so much by the next generation? What are we trying to do as a species? We know there's all this running around to get some sort of satisfaction, but why is that preferable?
I can hear anecdotes all day about how someone had this great experience, but just like the evening news that provides a heart-warming last segment, it's only a segment, and the news has to make decisions on what to edit, what to present, how to construct the narrative a certain way. How am I to know people do not just do that on a philosophy forum? Anecdotes can be like these segments, edited to make a whole life seem a certain way. -
Wayfarer
20.7kIt seems to me to be a lot of repetition, procedural drudgery, and instrumentality. — schopenhauer1
It seems to me like your rationalising. 'Most folks', said Abe Lincoln, 'are about as happy as they want to be'. I have always found that a very hard saying. -
schopenhauer1
10kIt seems to me like your rationalising your state of mind. 'Most folks', said Abe Lincoln, 'are about as happy as they want to be'. I have always found that a very hard saying. — Wayfarer
So what are we trying to accomplish and is it worth creating more people to accomplish it? -
schopenhauer1
10kDoes getting caught up in a certain field last forever? Will this not too get bogged down in procedure? Perhaps we can all just be theoretical mathematicians/logicians/computer scientists/regular scientists and that will solve all our problems as we grapple with the esoteric nature of this or that logical statement or the next experiment?
-
Roke
126What's funny is there is so much hostility when it comes to questioning life itself, in a philosophy forum out of all places. It is assumed it must be good, and someone questioning should be castigated. The notion itself is not even taken seriously, yet people are willing to entertain all sorts of philosophical stances even for the sake of devil's advocate, except this one. Too close to home perhaps. Too real. Easier to deal with symbolic logic and unicorns. — schop
I think most people are sympathetic to the notion that life sucks. But, sure, it's a topic that can attract defensiveness. It's a visceral topic. However, try to also recognize your own defensiveness in these discussions. Being a broken record and refusing to engage what your opponents are actually saying can draw hostility too.
Also note that some measure of hostility may be appropriate when someone doggedly demonstrates these 2 things simultaneously:
1) a fundamental misunderstanding of how others experience life and make important decisions
and
2) that they nevertheless feel somehow suited to direct an overarching strategic existential agenda for our species. -
Wayfarer
20.7kSo what are we trying to accomplish and is it worth creating more people to accomplish it? — schopenhauer1
They're separate questions. The urge to procreate is a biological drive, actually the fundamental biological drive.
I subscribe to a Buddhist philosophy, which identifies the cause of suffering (dukkha) and the way to the end of suffering. I suppose it sounds glib when you say it in a few words, but there animating principle is that every individual does indeed have the capacity and potential for the liberation from suffering. But that idea of 'moksha' or liberation is barely present in Western culture at all. So to adapt to that requires adopting a different attitude - a different philosophy, in fact. -
visit0r
25I can hear anecdotes all day about how someone had this great experience, but just like the evening news that provides a heart-warming last segment, it's only a segment, and the news has to make decisions on what to edit, what to present, how to construct the narrative a certain way. How am I to know people do not just do that on a philosophy forum? Anecdotes can be like these segments, edited to make a whole life seem a certain way. — schopenhauer1
Some people are strong and others weak. Some of the weak talk as if they are strong and some of the strong conceal their strength strategically among those who would resent it or be humiliated by it. As I see it, we tend to act purposefully. So I read even the rhetoric of purposelessness as the scratching of an itch, a variation of the usual heroic role-play. The pessimist faces the terrible truth. The non-pessimist is a coward and a sentimentalist. This is the basic structure of conspiracy theory. It's a product that tends to appeal to those who are already relatively passive in worldly terms (working a dead end job if they have a job at all) that justifies/encourages passivity. "Why bother, dude? It's all just ripples in the nothingness." I agree that it is in one particular sense just ripples in the nothingness. My real problem with the position is that it's just not impressive or challenging enough.
I don't think we are assigned a duty to realize ourselves (make something impressive of ourselves) but I do think we are born with an itch to do so. Maybe self-realization is just a fancy version of a horse scratching its ass on a tree. So what? But those fascinated by this game of self-creation (by a science or art or sport, etc.) are also fascinated by others equally passionate and at least on the way to being impressive. I don't feel the need to justify a preference for those are always working to improve themselves. It's a blind "stupid" impulse to be stronger, swifter, cleverer, more beautiful, etc. That's one of the things I like about Schopenhauer, his notion of the blindness of the life force. Nietzsche applied this idea to his critique of Socrates and the obsession with demanding and presenting rationalizations for what is largely instinctive. The "sickly" man whose instincts are out of harmony reaches for a fully explicit "system" and counts himself wiser than those who either never felt the need or (more likely) learn to transcend the need for full explicitness and "universal" reason-mongering. -
visit0r
25Does getting caught up in a certain field last forever? Will this not too get bogged down in procedure? Perhaps we can all just be theoretical mathematicians/logicians/computer scientists/regular scientists and that will solve all our problems as we grapple with the esoteric nature of this or that logical statement or the next experiment? — schopenhauer1
Call me evil, but I just stopped bothering to pretend that I was looking for a solution for other people's problems. Maybe I'd feel guiltier (and maybe not) if I tend think these solvers of other people's problems weren't also working on their own. "Brother's keeper" is a purpose. We actually have a lot in common. I just think I've further "subjectivized" my reading of pessimism/nihilism. In my view this purifies and transforms it. To claim universal validity for this kind of "-ism" is still too "needy." It's not proud enough, this X-ism-as-universal-truth. It's still a salesman, an evangelist, however grim its message. We can drop the "scientific" pose and accept that we are voicing a fundamentally "irrational" position. To recognize a duty toward truth is already to "betray" "nihilism" and play at universal religion that won't confess itself as such. To me that's the truly interesting leap...the abandonment of the universal pretense. Not every human is my brother. Not every human is "worthy" or "capable," etc. I'd be silly to be expect my stronger thoughts to even register or make sense to those without a certain "irrational" sense of their own value and dignity. These are some things that aren't worth telling to those that have to be told in the first place. Instead we have one member of a type making the gut-level type-specific intuitions more and more explicit. We write for younger versions of ourselves, perhaps, since we can't travel back in time to apply the 20-20 hindsight in person, etc.
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