'But it's only a radical minority!' is always the first hurdle.

Sure. But think of all the other unsavory causes that would make this same point. For a non-believer, there's something a little disquieting about this kind of rhetoric

But, again, what led you to start frequenting these sites? — csalisbury

I don't really remember. I've always been attracted to reading about radical political views, and learning about the people that hold them. I like learning about weird people generally, and conspiracy theories and fetishes and that sort of thing.

Sure. But think of all the other unsavory causes that would make this same point. For a non-believer, there's something a little disquieting about this kind of rhetoric — csalisbury

Honestly, I think a lot of people are right about a lot of things, even when both sides are in opposition. In civic life you're supposed to pick a side and believe its rhetoric and discard the other, but to an outsider if you dig deep enough they often both start to look right. Often when two groups hate each other, both deserve the hate of the other. Just a heuristic, anyway.

Yeah, but I think most of the attitudes they espouse are implicit in the way 'non-polemical' women behave

Why do you think that?

Jokes made between women, open contempt, body language, displays of entitlement and superiority, behavior during crises like infidelity, divorce, and death, voting patterns, gender stereotypes, that sort of thing.

Yeah, I don't deny all these things exist. I just don't have the general impression, from experience, that woman are basically contemptuous and entitled - at least not any more than men. I honestly don't. Again, it might come down to differences in our respective social milieus, who knows. I get the sense that maybe you think that deep down I agree with you, but won't - or can't - admit it (to you, to others, to myself) for certain reasons. Is that fair to say?

The split between men who confront existential displacement with honesty and authenticity and women who don't, who hate and cheat and feel superior - in some ways, this reminds me a bit of that experience I mentioned when I first went to college (in Boston, FWIW.) How everyone else seemed to be on this other wavelength, excluding, getting one another but rejecting everyone else, not really lonely, and how, as you pointed out and I later realized, this was mostly because I hadn't really gotten to know any of them well enough to know what they were actually like.

Yeah, I don't deny all these things exist. I just don't have the general impression, from experience, that woman are basically contemptuous and entitled - at least not any more than men. I honestly don't. Again, it might come down to differences in our respective social milieus, who knows. I get the sense that maybe you think that deep down I agree with you, but won't - or can't - admit it for certain reasons. Is that fair to say? — csalisbury

No, it's fine, and I don't expect everyone to notice or have the same opinions about everything.

The split between men who confront existential displacement with honesty and authenticity and women who don't, who hate and cheat and feel superior - in some ways, this reminds me a bit of that experience I mentioned when I first went to college (in Boston, FWIW.) How everyone else seemed to be on this other wavelength, excluding, getting one another but rejecting everyone else, not really lonely, and how, as you pointed out and I later realized, this was mostly because I hadn't really gotten to know any of them well enough to know what they were actually like. — csalisbury

I think men hate men too, and women. I've been told women hate women, but I wouldn't know about that. Men are for the most part happy to be women's useful idiots and bullet shields, so why would anyone stop them?

And sure, I think they're all complex, completely miserable individuals. If you want to get to know them you can find out just how complex and miserable they are. That's what the pathos is all about, being pathetic.

@The Great Whatever
Well, I see I'm being ignored.

to go back to where this started - it does seem to me that women tend not to think in terms of homogenous totalities. I think they're more comfortable with qualitatively different regions or registers of life which don't ultimately fit together smoothly. Pessimism and antinatalism strike me largely as absolute rejections of a totality grasped as a totality. I don't think it has to do with men suffering more.

Men kill themselves more -- their suffering is concrete, suicide is concrete. I don't think it comes from philosophical positions like pessimism. Though if inclined to philosophy the concrete suffering will make a man more inclined to pessimism.

As for women not thinking in totalities, I don't know, that' snot something I've ever got the impression of.

(though I do think that part of a certain male virtue signaling and ingratiation toward women involves attributing superior faculties of empathy and reasoning to women in various ways -- e.g thinking men are rigid and hierarchical and platonistic and autistic while women are subtle and complex and empathetic and so on -- obviously there's a shade of that in what you just wrote, men are expected to degrade themselves and show their mature nature by 'admitting' the superiority of women and decrying how much men lack in their humanity and so on).

Yeah, I'm aware of those statistics. There are a lot of ways to look at suicide. I think it would be interesting to see what the correlation between philosophical pessimism/antinatalism and suicide is. "It is not worth killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late." "I Can't go on, I'll go on." "suicide is a will thing too, you know" Philosophical pessimists tend to be very proud ppl, and suicide is giving in.

(though I do think that part of a certain male virtue signaling and ingratiation toward women involves attributing superior faculties of empathy and reasoning to women in various ways -- e.g thinking men are rigid and hierarchical and platonistic and autistic while women are subtle and complex and empathetic and so on -- obviously there's a shade of that in what you just wrote).

I can see how it could come across that way. Thing is, though, I'm quite sure I'd never say something like that in public, or at a party, and I'm not too worried about ingratiating myself to women on here. I think women think in hierarchical terms as much as men do. As far as autism and gender goes - Well, I mean look at the stats. They're not dissimilar to the ones you cited regarding suicide.

I mean, quite simply, that women don't usually seem to devise theories of everything, while a lot of men seem to be drawn to them. Would you agree with that at least?

Welcome to the club my friend.

Yeah, I'm aware of those statistics. There are a lot of ways to look at suicide. I think it would be interesting to see what the correlation between philosophical pessimism/antinatalism and suicide is. "It is not worth killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late." "I Can't go on, I'll go on." "suicide is a will thing too, you know" Philosophical pessimists tend to be very proud ppl, and suicide is giving in. — csalisbury

I don't share that attitude, and I don't think Im an aesthete either. Most days I feel like I want to die, but I know I really shouldn't do it.

I mean, quite simply, that women don't usually seem to devise theories of everything, while a lot of men seem to be drawn to them. Would you agree with that at least? — csalisbury

In my experience, women are under the impression that they already understand everything -- and to that extent they feel they don't need to theorize. Men feel empty and try to make sense of the world by imposing something on it. Women don't need to because their place in the cosmos is transparent to them so all problems are already solved just by virtue of their existing, and whatever place & privilege they take themselves to have is the answer. It's really hard to explain. They're always 'on the right side of history' so to speak.

Two hands apiece are insufficient for wider mutual masturbation circles >:)

Nah, just kidding :)

I'm not trying to make this a suicidal tendency pissing contest, but I spent a solid month getting drunk every afternoon and spending all night, every night, standing at the top of a parking garage, lacerating myself for not having the guts to jump (I couldn't turn off my imagination and stop visualizing the fall and impact. The only reason I'm not dead is I'm good at imagining pain & what dreams could theoretically come. Put differently: I'm a coward)

Wanting to die every day isn't it. (Especially if you can check it by knowing you shouldn't.)

It's not knowing how not to kill yourself.

I think that's an important distinction.

I think you're wrong about the void and theorizing. Women have the void too (unless they're all lying for attention). They have different ways of coping with it.

You say what you're describing is hard to explain. I don't know, I think I get it. Have you read Edith Wharton's House of Mirth? The word "dingy" comes up a lot, is explicitly treated in a way that makes sure the reader knows they're encountering a bona fide Theme. Dinginess is the creep of that which destroys status. House of Mirth is a fall from grace story. The libidinal hook is what a nice and pure woman and now this is happening. In this sense it's a lot like e.g. Henry James's Daisy Miller, the tragedy of the lady fallen (which uses the same psychic investments, literarily, that, say, kink.com's public disgrace series uses to somewhat different ends.) The thing about HofM, tho, is that it uses this trope as a way to explore desperate placelessness. The language used is rather existential or w/e. Not that different from a sailor lost in heroic dreams who realizes, at a crucial moment, he's failed his ideal and his treasured self-image no longer protects him against the world (Conrad's great theme. It's impossible to really get Heart of Darkness unless you've read Lord Jim. (Seriously, though, if you haven't read Lord Jim, it's fantastic.) )

heh the very name 'philosophy forums' suggests a vast meadow of mutual masturbation. That's why most people steer clear. What are we all doing here if not reinforcing one another's sense of being v smart, insightful ppl?

heh the very name 'philosophy forums' suggests a vast meadow of mutual masturbation. That's why most people steer clear. What are we all doing here if not reinforcing one another's sense of being v smart, insightful ppl? — csalisbury

Csalisbury, I would have thought that it is at least as much to do with testing one's ideas against those of others who share a fascination with the fairly unfashionable practice of thinking.

In any case I didn't mean to cartoonize or otherwise trivialize your or TGW's pain; to do that would indeed be small-minded and arrogant. I haven't read your posts as embodying much of the kind of narcissistic will to universalize own pain as 'life is like this' dogma, that I have found in reading some nihilistic thinkers, notably Cioran and Schopenhauer and even Brassier (Beckett not so much, I have loved reading his novels and the dark comedy there!).

I have a soft spot for Beckett too. Of the the three, he's the best prose stylist, but also, more importantly, the most genuinely empathetic. Empathy is praised by Schopenhauer, but Beckett's works actually embody it. Plus, as you mention,he's got an immaculate sense of humor. He's lol-level. His Three Novels has (have?) been in my top ten since I first read it (them?)

But, yeah, I didn't think you were trivializing anything. If anything, I'm guilty of trivializing in my last response to tgw, which I don't feel great about.

I guess what I wanted to say, but went about it the wrong way, is that in the depth of a suicidal crisis, all the philosophical stuff appears actually comical. The same way, for a dying officer, memories of parlor conversations re: "war is hell" would seem like a bad joke. I believe, firmly, that most pessimists/antinatlists have experienced agonizing pain, but the theoretical stuff is pure sublimation. It's a way of trying to exert power over the bad stuff by judging it. Often there's some peacockish frills involved. True Detective was cartoonish, but there's nevertheless a lesson to be learned from Rust Cohle who evades painful memories and experiences through monologues about Cosmic Threshers etc.

(& yeah there's legit, non-posturing reasons to chill on the forums. I went a bit overboard there.)

Yes, the philosophical stuff very much loses its taste, and begins to appear like sheer wankery, if you are facing terrible loss or death; and that goes for the traditionally anal(ytic) logic chopping stuff, the (in)continental concept-spinning stuff, the bright-eyed stoic-like self-help stuff, as much as the dark despairing self-torture stuff. Well, at least that seems to have been my experience.

I would probably say that the only thing that can help in such cases is an experience genuinely epiphanic, and self-transcending/transformational. Does it matter whether the vision is pagan, theistic or in-between? I don't know why but the first image that springs to mind for me in this context as I am writing this is Meursault in his cell after his abusive rejection and verbal ejection of the pastor who had come to hear his final confession, an utterly calm Meursault looking at the stars and deeply feeling the sublime indifference of the universe. This total lack of feeling remotely nurtured is what brings him to the most complete peace, according to Camus' account. There is nothing of angst (in the sense of dark torment at least) in Meursault's unbounded nihilism.

I wonder if this is a convincing picture of human possibility though, or a case of borrowing the theistic vision while concealing the theistic spirit. Can we find universal indifference genuinely healing? There seem to have been cases: I think of Spinoza, Nietzsche or Hume (although poor old Nietzsche, despite his avid yea-saying, did not end well by all accounts).

Rust Cohle was an interesting case of repressed hurt held under an iron lid, a dark vision of humanity, purposeful self-destruction kept (not always) in check by the most ruthless, yet brittle, self-discipline. But in martial defeat at the hands of a more powerful foe who was possessed by a truly dark and chaotic narrative, and nearly dying, he discovered right at the end (in True American fashion) the all-importance of Love.

lol True Detective was kinda the catalyst that drove me to look into pessimistic literature. Although I think sooner or later I would have stumbled upon these philosophies. Sometimes corny but overall a great show.

I'm just going to add that the truth of it, and the reason why all of it seems comical when the pain hits, is that nothing helps, nothing at all. Pain can't be endured, but only eliminated. There isn't any aesthetic or poetic or metaphysical or religious transcendence of it, no meaning that shapes it into something productive, nothing. Pain is utterly superfluous and unbearable and absolutely nothing is any good in the face of it. And life's just a bunch of pain, and that's it. There's nothing else, no depth to it or anything that makes it worthwhile.

I don't think it's insight into the female soul, more like a rant against being connected and responsible to anyone.

TGW is right about the social expectation that women will be protected, whether we are talking women as the property of a man, man as the family provider or feminism's demands on society to give women rights and a place, the work of men is expected to serve women in a certain way not expected of men.

Men are envisioned as isolated agents who command and form the world around them. Women are seen as belonging to a social context, who are served by others or the world around them (and frequently, they are seen to serve it). In some ways this is a myth: men frequently serve other men in a social context, it's just tends to be characterised as an expression of their agency and power (e.g. work of the "free man" ). Likewise, many women aren't given social protection, assuming they lack particular value (e.g. old women, women raped in the serve of male sexual dominance, distain for sex workers, etc., etc.).

Here TGW is really talking about our discourses about men and women. It's more about the suffering, isolation and pain we justify through our valuing of men and women. In this respect, he isn't exactly wrong about, for example, feminism. It is outright protective of women at the expense of (certain) men. The divorced man has no recourse to keeping his former wife. If she wants to leave, he has to suck it up. The male desire for relationship, sex, loyalty and (in some cases) punishment is denied for the protection of the woman's agency. In some cases, the man even loses much of his economic means and freedom (to sure she is not left starving on the street or incapable of providing for children).

Feminism's entire premise is the limit of male action and desire to some degree, to build a society in which women have particular freedoms. In this sense, it does "hate" men: men who break these limits are immoral, are acting in ways which shouldn't exist. Pretty much criminals or monsters, in metaphorical (and sometimes actual) terms. Some of us just think this is more or less good because the notion of isolated people free to do whatever they might want is an illusion with terrible consequences.

Not that different from a sailor lost in heroic dreams who realizes, at a crucial moment, he's failed his ideal and his treasured self-image no longer protects him against the world — csalisbury

I think the crucial difference is still there. The sailor's virtue his own. He failed at his ideal. It lacks a social dimension. The "fallen woman" may have failed her own ideals, but she has also lost her virtue in the eyes of society and is now there to by exploited or punished as anyone sees fit.

Put it this way: the sailor who failed his ideals isn't presented, of his own guilt ridden volition, to be publicy and violently fucked by groups of passing strangers.

I think there is a close example with sailors: the responsibility of duty and sacrifice to their fellow sailors, which is considered cause for public shame and retribution. Or even just the wider notion of sacrificing yourself for the community. We've sort of lost that in our individualistic culture though. We tend to consider those failures of individual action rather than of a person's "manhood" and failure to sacrifice. And even these ideas of sacrifice tend to be about men protecting or working for other men, not about men or women in relation to each other. The discourse that women are meant to protect men is still missing.

You're right, all theorizing loses its luster during the Bad Times. It's just that pessimism, unlike the other approaches you mention, has an irksome tendency to train it sights precisely on the Bad Times, as a means to speak, magisterially (or with magisterial bluntness), a general truth. It does disservice both to the actual suffering of others and to one's own actually suffering self.

(I read some poetic or theological something somewhere, a long time ago, which argued that what's hardest for the denizens of Hell are not the tortures endured, but the knowledge that God's love will exist eternally, always out of reach. I think there's something of that too. The happiness of others is hard to bear when you can't join in yourself. But there's some solace to be found in being the least-duped.

Better to reign in hell.

Doesn't he look like a philosopher?

I haven't read The Stranger since high school and it's mostly faded, tbh, so I hunted down a pdf and re-read the ending. I think it probably is a case of 'borrowing the theistic vision while concealing the theistic spirit.' I think it's important that Merseault qualifies the Universe's indifference as 'benign' and 'brotherly.' Plus there's that goofy ultra-french final sentence "For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration. " It seems like Merseault wants to feel like the equal of the indifferent universe. To be cursed, as the universe is cursed, would be evidence of his success. But he can't help familiarizing the universe, just a bit.

But, that said, I think you're right, it comes down to the epiphanic and self-transformational. It's only during moments of crises that you gain authentic insight into how you've been hurting yourself and others. The real mystery, to me, is how you get the strength to go about actually changing. ( I think it probably has to do with trusting others)

And life's just a bunch of pain, and that's it. There's nothing else, no depth to it or anything that makes it worthwhile.

And then he pounded a beer, gave himself a tattoo, punched his girlfriend, and landed the sickest kickflip any of us had ever seen.

c'mon man. This is is obviously false, even if you think pain far outweighs joy.

tgw's quote inspired me to make a different thread.

You're right, all theorizing loses its luster during the Bad Times. It's just that pessimism, unlike the other approaches you mention, has an irksome tendency to train it sights precisely on the Bad Times, as a means to speak, magisterially (or with magisterial bluntness), a general truth. It does disservice both to the actual suffering of others and to one's own actually suffering self. — csalisbury

I think you are boiling pessimism down to a trope, which is unfair. Not everything has to be done in a clever little package ala Beckett or otherwise be relegated to taking itself too seriously. Some pessimists are just blunt in their irksome tendency. Now, it doesn't mean it has to go as far as "Life's just a bunch of pain" because as you pointed out, not all moments are agony. However, almost no philosophical pessimist actually asserts this (TGW aside).

Rather, it is a sort of aesthetic outlook. Pessimism is the recognition of the instrumentality of existence. Our world imposes on us our survival needs and unwanted pain in certain environmental and cultural constraints. Our individual wills impose upon ourselves the need to transform boredom into goals and pleasures. Being that we can never have true satiation, we are always in flux and never quite getting at anything in particular.

Most other aesthetics try to do two things: find a meaning in the large or find meaning in small. For the "find meaning in the large" folks, some sort of spiritual or scientific unity somehow acts a solace if asked as an official position. But then they have to live everyday life, which is not unity but the world I described: survival, unwanted pains, transforming boredom into goals flux. For the "find meaning in the small" folks, it is looking at each event as if it was a meditative practice. As long as one focuses only on what is in front of your face, one can distract from the bigger picture. Of course, they too are still going through the same survival, unwanted pains, transforming boredom into goals flux, but as long as they go from small to small, they won't have deal with larger picture.

Rather, it is a sort of aesthetic outlook. Pessimism is the recognition of the instrumentality of existence. Our world imposes on us our survival needs and unwanted pain in certain environmental and cultural constraints. Our individual wills impose upon ourselves the need to transform boredom into goals and pleasures. Being that we can never have true satiation, we are always in flux and never quite getting at anything in particular. — schopenhauer1

Interesting, I hadn't really considered this perspective. It seems to lead to the view that something can be worthwhile while simultaneously dependent upon something nasty, leading to a disillusionment. Kind of like eating cake: it's really good, but it's also really bad for you.

Definitely rings true to me, and could be an answer to the thread I recently created.

I think it's wrong though. Pessimism as described there is just another example of "finding meaning in the large." A case of saying "there is no perfect world" as a means of distracting us from our boredom or pain. It's Will coming to understand itself and then stewing in it's own juices.

The strength of pessimism is the seriousness with which it takes suffering and lack of perfection, but it is still only a moment of thought. It doesn't somehow render our moments of joy trivial and pretend. Will can be abandoned, such that someone is content, even as they desire something. The trick is stop thinking one must get anything particular. Just be what you are at any given time.

So the response seems to be, 'that can't be right because it's aesthetically displeasing.' Apparently we need to 'do services' to suffering? What does that mean, exactly?

OK, so the truth doesn't make a good painting or philosophy book. But our suffering is apparently now some sort of art object that needs to be cultivated and wept about in the right tactful way.

I think it's wrong though. Pessimism as described there is just another example of "finding meaning in the large." A case of saying "there is no perfect world" as a means of distracting us from our boredom or pain. It's Will coming to understand itself and then stewing in it's own juices. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Your first statement "I think it's wrong though" makes no logical sense based on the subsequent statements.
You said:

Pessimism as described there is just another example of "finding meaning in the large." — TheWillowOfDarkness

It is the larger picture, correct. But it is not "finding meaning" in the large.

A case of saying "there is no perfect world" as a means of distracting us from our boredom or pain. It's Will coming to understand itself and then stewing in it's own juices. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How is stewing in it's own juices distracting us? The very definition of stewing in your own juices is being right in the mix of the thing at hand.

The strength of pessimism is the seriousness with which it takes suffering and lack of perfection, but it is still only a moment of thought. It doesn't somehow render our moments of joy trivial and pretend. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is either a non-sequitor or a strawman. No one said that pessimism renders moments of joy trivial and pretend. In fact, I started off saying that life is not all agony and that happiness exists.

The trick is stop thinking one must get anything particular. Just be what you are at any given time. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This sounds like vapid responses "be what you are" "stop thinking one must get anything particular". From what you are saying, you are simply taking the "find meaning in the small" approach. Concentrate on each moment. I already addressed that.