most of our behaviors operate on cruise-control, so we don't have to pay attention to what's going on. — Gnomon
When the "pilot" is weakened by stress (doubts, depression, drugs, etc), it's easier to "veg-out" and offload your responsibilities to a mindless machine ("let go, and let God"). — Gnomon
That's why suicide is often viewed as the easy-way-out. It also takes heroic (or Stoic) Character to take charge of a bad situation. — Gnomon
I don't think that "get over it" is the right thing to say. I mean, that's pretty callous. Of course, you don't really want to talk about it with many people, do you? They won't understand. — uncanni
In his dreadful lassitude and objectless rage, Cobain seemed to have give wearied voice to the despondency of the generation that had come after history, whose every move was anticipated, tracked, bought and sold before it had even happened. Cobain knew he was just another piece of spectacle, that nothing runs better on MTV than a protest against MTV; knew that his every move was a cliché scripted in advance, knew that even realising it is a cliché.
...
Fukuyama’s thesis that history has climaxed with liberal capitalism may have been widely derided, but it is accepted, even assumed, at the level of the cultural unconscious. It should be remembered, though, that even when Fukuyama advanced it, the idea that history had reached a ‘terminal beach’ was not merely triumphalist. Fukuyama warned that his radiant city would be haunted, but he thought its specters would be Nietzschean rather than Marxian. Some of Nietzsche’s most prescient pages are those in which he describes the ‘oversaturation of an age with history’. ‘It leads an age into a dangerous mood of irony in regard to itself’, he wrote in Untimely Meditations, ‘and subsequently into the even more dangerous mood of cynicism’, in which ‘cosmopolitan fingering’, a detached spectatorialism, replaces engagement and involvement. This is the condition of Nietzsche’s Last Man, who has seen everything, but is decadently enfeebled precisely by this excess of (self) awareness.
...
To reclaim a real political agency means first of all accepting our insertion at the level of desire in the remorseless meat-grinder of Capital. What is being disavowed in the abjection of evil and ignorance onto fantasmatic Others is our own complicity in planetary networks of oppression. What needs to be kept in mind is both that capitalism is a hyper-abstract impersonal structure and that it would be nothing without our co-operation. The most Gothic description of Capital is also the most accurate. Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie-maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is ours, and the zombies it makes are us. There is a sense in which it simply is the case that the political elite are our servants; the miserable service they provide from us is to launder our libidos, to obligingly re-present for us our disavowed desires as if they had nothing to do with us.
:clap: :up:to be wretched and miserable about what is outside our control is unwise. — Ciceronianus the White
180 Proof
He knew a great deal, especially of the classics, but it was never enough for so intolerant a man. — Ciceronianus the White
to be wretched and miserable about what is outside our control is unwise. — Ciceronianus the White
Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions. — Epictetus
Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself. — Epictetus
How does one after all determine what is in and ou[t] of our control? — jellyfish
Part of it is interpersonal. — creativesoul
Knowing oneself is the best start. You are the sole character that is on each and every page of your own life. Acknowledge the role you play, seek to understand it, and the realize the life you want. — creativesoul
The recluse does not believe that a philosopher—supposing that a philosopher has always in the first place been a recluse—ever expressed his actual and ultimate opinions in books: are not books written precisely to hide what is in us?—indeed, he will doubt whether a philosopher CAN have "ultimate and actual" opinions at all; whether behind every cave in him there is not, and must necessarily be, a still deeper cave: an ampler, stranger, richer world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every bottom, beneath every "foundation." — Nietzsche
Of course having attainable goals helps too... It is better to have no goals than to have unattainable ones... — creativesoul
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ae/introduction.htm#s7-3But on this principle [that of the The Irony], I live as an artist when all my action and my expression in general, in connection with any content whatever, remains for me a mere show and assumes a shape which is wholly in my power. In that case I am not really in earnest either with this content or, generally, with its expression and actualization. For genuine earnestness enters only by means of a substantial interest, something of intrinsic worth like truth, ethical life, etc., – by means of a content which counts as such for me as essential, so that I only become essential myself in my own eyes in so far as I have immersed myself in such a content and have brought myself into conformity with it in all my knowing and acting. When the ego that sets up and dissolves everything out of its own caprice is the artist, to whom no content of consciousness appears as absolute and independently real but only as a self-made and destructible show, such earnestness can find no place, since validity is ascribed only to the formalism of the ego.
True, in the eyes of others the appearance which I present to them may be regarded seriously, in that they take me to be really concerned with the matter in hand, but in that case they are simply deceived, poor limited creatures, without the faculty and ability to apprehend and reach the loftiness of my standpoint. Therefore this shows me that not everyone is so free (i.e. formally free) as to see in everything which otherwise has value, dignity, and sanctity for mankind just a product of his own power of caprice, whereby he is at liberty either to grant validity to such things, to determine himself and fill his life by means of them, or the reverse. Moreover this virtuosity of an ironical artistic life apprehends itself as a divine creative genius for which anything and everything is only an unsubstantial creature, to which the creator, knowing himself to be disengaged and free from everything, is not bound, because he is just as able to destroy it as to create it. In that case, he who has reached this standpoint of divine genius looks down from his high rank on all other men, for they are pronounced dull and limited, inasmuch as law, morals, etc., still count for them as fixed, essential, and obligatory. So then the individual, who lives in this way as an artist, does give himself relations to others: he lives with friends, mistresses, etc; but, by his being a genius, this relation to his own specific reality, his particular actions, as well as to what is absolute and universal, is at the same time null; his attitude to it all is ironical.
...
This irony was invented by Friedrich von Schlegel, and many others have babbled about it or are now babbling about it again. — Hegel
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schlegel/If a literary form like the fragment opens up the question of the relation between finite and infinite, so do the literary modes of allegory, wit and irony—allegory as a finite opening toward the infinite (“every allegory means God”), wit as the “fragmentary geniality” or “selective flashing” in which a unity can momentarily be seen, and irony as their synthesis (see Frank 2004, 216). Although impressed with the Socratic notion of irony (playful and serious, frank and deeply hidden, it is the freest of all licenses, since through it one rises above one's own self, Schlegel says in Lyceumfragment 108), Schlegel nonetheless employs it in a way perhaps more reminiscent of the oscillations of Fichtean selfhood. Irony is at once, as he says in Lyceumfragment 37, self-creation, self-limitation, and self-destruction.
“Philosophy is the true home of irony, which might be defined as logical beauty,” Schlegel writes in Lyceumfragment 42: “for wherever men are philosophizing in spoken or written dialogues, and provided they are not entirely systematic, irony ought to be produced and postulated.” The task of a literary work with respect to irony is, while presenting an inherently limited perspective, nonetheless to open up the possibility of the infinity of other perspectives: “Irony is, as it were, the demonstration [epideixis] of infinity, of universality, of the feeling for the universe” (KA 18.128); irony is the “clear consciousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely teeming chaos” (Ideas 69).
— SEP
Thanks for jumping in.
Part of it is interpersonal.
— creativesoul
To put it mildly. — jellyfish
Acknowledge the role you play. Acknowledge that the cool stoic is one more role, one more project. That 'my' position is one more role shouldn't have to be mentioned. — jellyfish
Isn't having no unobtainable goals itself an unobtainable goal? — jellyfish
Well, some of it's not interpersonal. — creativesoul
All of us know quite a bit about what sorts of things we can affect/effect and what sorts of things we cannot. — creativesoul
I wasn't saying that your position was one more role. — creativesoul
Rather, when I mentioned the role one plays, it had neither negative nor disingenuous connotations. I meant, quite matter of factly... we all play a role in our own lives... the primary one! — creativesoul
That said, there's much to be gleaned by looking at all 'the different hats' one sometimes wears as a means to successfully interact with others, to act appropriately according to the situation one finds themselves in, attain some goal or another, and/or just follow the rules of conduct. We all must do this(to some degree or other) in order to navigate the world we find ourselves in.
The degree to which one does(or must) can be an interesting conversation... — creativesoul
I do not share your enthusiasm about those excerpts. I'm much less enthusiastic about philosophers who employ rhetoric as argumentation in what is nothing other than their own anecdotal stories about others... reminds me of some of the dialogues that are more like monologues in Plato...
Meh. — creativesoul
I wasn't equating "heroic" with "stoic" -- merely rhyming. The intended point was that it takes a strong personal character (virtue) to exercise self-discipline. And that was the message of Stoicism. A heroic character might be ideal, but not necessary, to practice stoicism. We don't have to be super-heroes in order to overcome depression or nihilism or temptation. But moral wimps will give-in to gravity dragging them down, whereas those with a minimum of moral fiber will resist. And even the drowning weakling can reach-out in desperation for help from a stronger swimmer. Stoicism can be communal, so we don't have to go it alone. But ultimately, my psychological survival is my responsibility. :cool:I'm not against your identification of the heroic and the stoic, but I don't take it for granted. — jellyfish
I think you read that line out of context. If you read more of my posts in this thread, I think you'll see that I am defending angst. — jellyfish
... if anyone said to me right now, "get over it", I'd go medieval on their ass:
Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
Pablo Neruda, "Walking Around" — uncanni
What alternatives are available that we've been deprived of? — Ciceronianus the White
But moral wimps will give-in to gravity dragging them down, whereas those with a minimum of moral fiber will resist. And even the drowning weakling can reach-out in desperation for help from a stronger swimmer. — Gnomon
Since I have no formal training in Philosophy, I tend to speak plainly, and to avoid beating around the bush. I'm aware that we live in "politically correct" times, but a philosophical forum should be more concerned with "factual correctness".Ah, but look at how you can't resist words like 'weakling' and 'wimps.' — jellyfish
Nor was I.I'm not trying to be rude. — jellyfish
Apparently, my pathetic attempt to rhyme "heroic" and "stoic" struck a nerve. The modern meaning of "hero" has been skewed by all the comic-book Übermensch. See my reply to --jellyfish.I'd say there's nothing heroic about Stoicism, or at least my version of it. — Ciceronianus the White
Since many posters on this forum admit to some degree of depression, anxiety, or existential dread, they seem to find things to "contend/despair over". A Stoic doesn't have to be a super-hero, but merely someone who perseveres in the face of challenges and uncertainties.What is extraordinary or unbelievable about this, what is there to contend/despair over? — Ciceronianus the White
One of the "four cardinal virtues" of Stoicism is "andreia", which is translated as "courage" or "manly virtue". So I think "heroic" was not too far off-base. And "weakling" is just a way to illustrate the difference between those who sink and those who swim. I didn't label any person with those general terms, so I hope no one here was offended by the kinds of distinctions made by ancient macho Greeks. — Gnomon
Since many posters on this forum admit to some degree of depression, anxiety, or existential dread, they seem to find things to "contend/despair over". — Gnomon
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.