- Wonder why it unfortunately tends to be the case that the more benign an individual’s personal situation the typically more conducive it then tends to be towards encouraging a naive and illusory concept of reality within them - as in conversely how it is also sometimes reported that an experience of personal suffering, with all its accompanying disillusionment, nonetheless can have the effect of educating within an individual a set of personal values corresponding more accurately with reality? — Robert Lockhart

In my experience, happy people have a more clear and direct understanding of life and reality than unhappy people do. Unhappy people, with whom this site is overflowing, tend to build convoluted world-views out of words all tangled up like Christmas lights on December 9.

Maybe, but I''d still guess that in principle someone being forced to go through the journey of dealing, say, with the unexpected intrusion into their previously perfect life of a shattering cancer diagnosis might yet, amidst the incomprehension and disillusionment that could possibly be associated with the experience, earn a maturity that could not otherwise be 'bought' in terms of coming ultimately to be able to distinguish between illusory values and those genuinely more important in life. Like everyone else though, if my personal suffering was the price of gaining such less illusory and more stablising values - then I'd much prefer to hold onto my happy complacencies than make so exhorbitant a purchase thank you!

Your post elicited in me that obscure feeling of nebulousness that often accompanies an ensuing epiphany of motive-misunderstanding, albeit in the non-scientific philosophically minded concept. Why is it that the illusory predominates over the concrete and the abstract over the hard reality? People speak in platitudes as if that resonates beyond their simple upbringing, when if fact, they're only referring to their self created idiosyncrasies.

Hmm! - You got me there, Hanover! :) (OK, I do of course get it that you're attemting to knock (a bit clumsily and niavely) what you see as the unnecessarily elaborate language in my OP, but, unlike your kinda dumb attempt at parody - my post aint comic-book gibberish! Either way, guess I should give some of those forum members who find english interpretation overly challenging a rest f'ra while! - And they do say anyway that the greatest moment of your life occurs at the very end! :) )

Rather than resign your membership, why don't you try simplifying the language of your posts? Some things you might try:

Get acquainted with the period (.). Your OP has 140 words in one sentence. That's a good length for a paragraph. It's about 10 times too long for one sentence.

Write short sentences which have one subject and one verb. (Right, that's a bad practice as a habit, but you would benefit from practicing writing short sentences.) "See Spot run. Look Dick, I have two big balls. Jane is a bitch." Of course you don't want to write like that all the time. For God's sake (he has to read that stuff too) improve your writing!

Use short words whenever possible. Prefer Anglo-Saxon words over words borrowed or coined from Greek, Latin, and French. Some examples of longer, less common words: conducive, [leads to] conversely [opposite], corresponding [matching], disillusionment... Use more common words instead of less common words. (Google Ngram can tell you how common a word is.)

Sure, most people here are well educated. But want to know a secret? Even educated people prefer to read easier text than harder text.

Use proper grammatical construction--no sentence fragments, no run on sentences. Limit the number of clauses within a sentence

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Here, look at this sentence (It's yours). How could it be made simpler, easier to read, and easier to understand?

"Wonder why it unfortunately tends to be the case that the more benign an individual’s personal situation the typically more conducive it then tends to be towards encouraging a naive and illusory concept of reality within them - " 37 words

Start with a subject. That would be you.

"I wonder why more benign situations tend to encourage a naive concept of reality in people. 16

Less than half as long. You seem to want to say everything in 1 sentence. It's OK in America to use several sentences to convey a thought. Yes, it's unfortunate; yes, it's both naive and illusory.

I used to write like you. A college teacher was handing tests back and said that I should be writing for the IRS (not a compliment). Another teacher told me to get acquainted with the semicolon. I liked writing that way. But later on, (25 years later) I finally figured out how to write simply. It's not painful to leave all that verbiage behind.

BC. I wasn’t going to bother replying but, on second thoughts, I’ve decided to try clear up a few points:

As far as meeting with the requirements of this site regarding how to write a post, I'd say your advice is practical (I deliberately avoided saying ‘pragmatic’!). However that's why I'm packing in PF – Such advice as this, even when as in your case it's well intended, is a recipe inevitably for a type of English which is both soporifically bland and, as a vehicle for communicating nuances in philosophical debate, hopelessly imprecise. – Like for ex you actually told me that for fear of arousing offence at its’ alien nature I should have avoided using a word as routine as ‘conducive’ - and instead should have substituted something less precise like, ‘leads to’. Oh come on now – We’d have to declare half the words in the dictionary unacceptable at that rate!

The only point you make that I do concede is that I am a bit undisciplined regarding the length of my sentences (owing maybe to my habit of typing posts on a phone during work commutes, which makes editing a little difficult). Anyway, it would certainly be a bit more considerate of me to shorten them – though in practice I still think the difficulty this kind of thing purportedly presents to people is more to do with fashionable preconceptions in favour of a simplistic type of expression together with a cultural resistance towards making a slight effort at interpretation, rather than that a sentence containing a couple of extra clauses genuinely creates some insuperable barrier to understanding. (-Oops! Sorry!)

Personally, I find the funniest aspect of the numerous attempts made to date at ridiculing my posts by the likes of Hannover, etc - in that ironically I'm of course streets ahead of these critics in the articulacy department - to be ultimately their innocence. There's genuine comedy in seeing, as in the example of Hanover's remarks by which presumably he expected to publicly ridicule me, derision being confidently dispensed by an individual in the context of a gloriously unconscious naivety! In fact I've often wondered why it is that guys like Hanover are even interested in sites like this one at all? - Seriously, wouldn't they get all they want from, say, checking baseball scores? Anyway, without intending to implicate your good self, there's a common type of inverted snobbery among people such that if they happen to encounter a term which is even slightly different from what they're used to hearing at the level, say, of a typical bar-room conversation, then, for some unfathomable reason (prejudice is a strange thing but that's a post I’ll never submit) that’s sufficient to set their teeth a-gnashing.

So in conclusion, though I haven’t really learned much about philosophy during my time in PF (Did anyone?) nonetheless it’s not been a complete waste, in that I have gained an awareness of how in practice human mentality is typically a greater barrier to understanding in people than any intellectual limitation! - All the best!

(In retrospect though, maybe in reality many of us subliminally view PF more as a means of indulging in an ego trip with philosophy being the almost incidental vehicle - this perhaps giving an ironic twist to the title of the op!)

I think the OP is fine. It's raising the question whether pessimism is more realistic than optimism. It makes sense. And if you take care of the sense, the sounds will take care of themselves.

We like positive emotions, and hopeful things. We're easily swayed by positivity, and things that feel good. That's why addiction is far more prevalent than skillful mastery. Like Spinoza said, everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare. The road to excellence is uphill.

I think that lack of motivation, like a depressed person experiences may make them more honest generally, and more accurate in some respects, but surely has blindspots and preferred illusions. I just think that positivity, and feeling good tends to be highly motivating, and thus highly conducive to self-deception, and compromise.

I think the OP is fine. It's raising the question whether pessimism is more realistic than optimism. — Cuthbert

It's not fine. It was very nearly deleted. If that's the question, then that should be the title, instead of something obscure like 'Beautiful Illusions', which sounds more like the title of a poem or a pop song. (See the Site Guidelines, section 3.c.). The opening post should then be a succinct elaboration on this issue, rather than a verbose peacock display which has to be translated.

Bit rotten if it turns out that the process of our ultimate education inescapably requires that first we must endure malign experience! — Robert Lockhart

The level of harshness required to create change is in direct proportion to the sensitivity of the mind/body. A skilled sailor can feel the ocean conditions better than an unskilled one, this able to avoid harsh conditions better than an unskilled one.

Development of skill relates to the willingness to learn something new and developing sensitivity to what is new.

Posters get a ribbing all the time here including @Hanover. Just take it on the chin. And, yes, your posts are needlessly verbose and obscure, which is fine in the Shoutbox or the lounge (where I enjoy and appreciate the poetic element of your language) but not in the philosophical categories where precision and clarity are more important than verbal gymnastics. Anyway, your last post is pretty clear. Why not stick to that level of expression in the philosophical discussions and go more poetic elsewhere? You do add a bit of colour to the site, so I'd be sorry to see you go (despite all those terrible things you said about us ;) ).

Bit rotten if it turns out that the process of our ultimate education inescapably requires that first we must endure malign experience! — Robert Lockhart

To endure suffering requires a will. That will endures through belief in something better beyond that suffering. The experience of suffering seems to actually be the catalyst that propulses us forward through that experience, and the willful avoidance of suffering often leads to deeper suffering.

OK, point taken. You can't tolerate any old rubbish. But I wonder if there are passages of Kant or Heidegger that might not make that particular stylistic grade. Obscurity, circumlocution and verbosity are certainly faults. But it's the thought that counts.

' - Goodby cruel world ('specially PF) - For here do I now end it all! - - - Ahem! 'tis yourself, good Baden! - The timely intervention of your post has stayed my hand!
So now - laying aside my razor as it were - I'm instead retrospectively contemplating how, in reality, many of us perhaps subliminally view PF more as a means of indulging in an ego trip, with all of the philosophy stuff ultimately being merely a vehicle for that process (myself excluded of course!) - and thus how this somewhat deprecating idea now perhaps lends an ironic twist to my op's title!

Btw - We're both agreed on the idea that things should be 'Stated as simply as possible' - though perhaps not quite so well agreed regarding the subsequent caveat, '- but no simpler'. Although lots of posts submitted to PF are indeed, 'Dolly-Dimple', they are also, I find, characterised by routine grammatical error and ambiguity. Coherent sentence structure - when you're trying to incorporate a number of separate ideas into a sentence that is - unavoidably requires slightly more complex grammatical construction. However some people simply despise this and prefer instead the unconscious ambiguity of more basic sentence construction - even though ironically such ambiguity can sometimes lead to what is in effect an underlying complexity masquerading as simplicity. - Routinely you see what are in effect quite simpleton and unimformative posts being accepted in PF on the basis that the format of expression is basic and therefore that they're easily accessible.

So then the point of all this wind is that, er, well it's that... do I really need to have a point? - oh yes well, so my point is definitely then that I think, I think compared to the average standard that is - well, that my efforts attract a disproportionate amount of detraction, and that, - and that really they're all truly, truly, splendid! - Yes, that's definitely what I think (along with legions of my secret admirers no doubt!) - So there! Done! :)

Glad you decided to stick around and, yes, that is possible...Feel free to explore the idea. :)

Having at present too much time on my hands, I edited my post further - adding on some more nuggets - prior to your reply, Baden! So much for trying to seem spontaneous! - Aufwiedersehen! :)

Well that was pretty clear to me so... (Y)

nonetheless can have the effect of educating within an individual a set of personal values corresponding more accurately with reality? — Robert Lockhart

Not sure there's a 'mind-independent' mood or view of reality that these personal values would correspond with.

A happy person sees life as generally worth living, and good.
A suicidal one sees life is a literal hell, and bad.

I don't think either are wrong, because it's the quality of one's life/experience that determines the value of the world to that particular person.

Both those values would be fickle, and based in mood, which is never consistent, and unchanging, so their values would be inconsistently in flux. Not denying that people can be inconsistent and fickle, but I don't think that it's ideal, or always true.

Sarpentia - Before you get any more of your own finely preened feathers ruffled, my op was titled the way it was so as to be a reference to the central idea contained within it – i.e. that the more idyllic an individual’s chance personal situation, then the more likely it might be to inform them with a concept of reality which was naive and illusory in terms of their awareness of what potentially life could be like otherwise, and also in terms of the values they construed.

Of course you could dispute that premise, but maybe if you had paid even cursory attention to the post’s subject matter instead of sounding off so pedantically about ‘Site Guidelines’ and practically baying for it to be deleted then I wouldn’t now be requiring to accentuate the bloody obvious to you regarding why the post title! - Also, if as you say, you do genuinely require English of the level of my op to be translated for you then I can only assume either that, a) you’re a student of ‘English as a foreign language’, or, b) your dyslexic. - I.E. In future when you wish to vent your prejudices you would do better to select a target less dependent on such blatant hyperbolae for the rhetorical effect you seek!

Finally - what is it with guys like you that a sentence containing a couple of extra clauses or a post perhaps exhibiting a mildly imaginative variation on conventional phrasing, such as my own innocuous effort, is enough to get you so up tight? Such a reaction is ott and naive. - If every post on this site not up to your own scrupulous standards regarding the observance of Site Guidelines - Section 3. paragraph c) I think you quoted in my case, and I sure wouldn't want to get that one wrong! - were to have been deleted, then my guess is we'd now be looking at blank screens! (Maybe an improvement though.) :)

NB: Am finally rapping this place in btw. Been thinking of getting back into the healthier distraction of combat sport instead for a while now. - More beneficial than spending your time hanging over computers! Also the punches directed to you tend to be less mean spirited! Plus the fact - when you get to land a punch yourself that is - it's a lot more satisfying fun! :)

Thanks for responding and don't go away, unless you really want to.

Hanover likes sarcasm which is good, because a fair amount is aimed at him.

NOBODY on earth likes having their writing style critiqued. EVERYBODY thinks they are doing just fine. This is the cross the National Association of English Majors has volunteered to bear. Reducing the superfluous complexity of one's writing is hard work, and it doesn't mean avoiding any terms longer than 5 letters. Better to use long words only when a shorter word won't do. The truth is, I like long words. I collect unfamiliar, obscure, and long words. I treasure them. You do too -- that's good. Keep treasuring them. Just don't give away your treasure too quickly. Or, as Jesus put it, don't scatter pearls before swine. See, now there's a very pithy, meaningful concept expressed in nice short words. We could say, A promiscuous distribution of prodigious erudition will have the consequential result of exhausting one's interlocutors.

Don't scatter pearls before swine.

Adorn your pigs with pearls and lipstick and take them to the fair.

Trade your pigs for pearls.

Throw a Luau.

Bugger the neighbors pigs while wearing your pearls.

Hunt feral boar in the hills.

Reducing the superfluous complexity of — Bitter Crank

Did you mean "simplifying"? I have always hated the physicalites of writing and typing, and so have developed a somewhat telegraphic style intended to minimise the length to content ratio. Yet a certain amount of redundancy is essential - illustrative examples - repetitions 'in other words', recapitulations and summaries. Style is fascinating and develops, one hopes at least, from the manifold priorities that the individual has for precision, flow, emotional tone, exuberance of language, erudition, and all kinds of everything, ( sorry, I mean 'etc') some but not all of which involve consideration for the 'poor reader'. Sometimes, I actually want most of my readers to be unable to make sense of what I say, because then I don't have to get involved in dealing with too many tedious and trivial responses. And in such cases superfluous complexity is just the jolly old ticket.

The op is what I might call 'Dickensian' in his style and Dickens was not a bad writer, as they go, and not addicted to the avoidance of superfluous complexity, even though he wrote with the intention of being widely read.

Peter gave himself up for lost, and shed big tears; but his sobs were
overheard by some friendly sparrows, who flew to him in great
excitement, and implored him to exert himself. — Beatrix Potter

Now when was the last time you implored anyone to exert themselves? It's hardly appropriate for children these days is it? "Run Spot, run!" is more where it's at.

Mr Lockhart reminds me of the good old days, when cliches were avoided like the plague, and sentences of less than half a page were considered hardly worth reading. I seem to remember finding a sentence of Hobbs at over 600 words; now that must surely be a train worth catching the gist of.

But to the topic. There is perfect comfort and peace in the tomb, but this side of it easy is boring, and free is easy. We all hate health and safety because they take the pain out of living. The illusion is that we even want to be endlessly happy and never suffer.

Hanover likes sarcasm which is good, because a fair amount is aimed at him. — Bitter Crank

It's rarely so potent. Usually I just get an eye roll, so imagine my joy at an almost philosophical suicide. It is good to know I have such a poisonous arrow in my quiver though.

Staying on point with this thread, I note this is simple metaphor. There are no actual arrows and quivers. Should we be speaking in more complex double entendre metaphor, I would insist upon having my poisonous arrow in someone else's quiver of course. Poetry is all around us.

Cuthbert. Re your previous response; As another example of the idea suggested in my op: ‘Youth’ is sometimes described as being effectively the archetypal beautiful illusion – An idyllic situation accompanied by a feeling of immortality which thus tends to inform the young with a naive and illusory concept of how benign life is. Subsequently, through what, it is said, can sometimes be the painful and disillusioning process of aging, this situation gradually of course changes into one altogether less benign but which, by virtue of its’ being less cosseting, also into one which it is said can perhaps then act to promote within an individual a set of more robust values, less susceptible to being qualified by environmental variation and more accurately reflecting reality. - The process commonly called, 'growing up', I suppose! :) ('The Stoics' of old of course loved banging on uprightously about this idea!)

BC. Yeah, methinks I have overdone the 'Curtain Call' routine a bit lately on this site. Of course it's all harmless really, so I s'pose I'll likely just hang around for a while yet - if more discreetly!