I'm not a Nietszche fan, notwithstanding the brilliant sparks of insight found in his writings. That last sentence is not quite what I have in mind. It's more that middle-class, technocratic culture has certain norms, what it thinks is acceptable, mediated by science, but devoid of the sense of over-arching purpose that animates traditional cultures. (Mind you, asking any member of said culture what that purpose is, and they won't know what you're talking about. It's more that they embody it, not that they consciously know what it is.)

My general view is that modern liberal culture normalises a kind of aberrant state. Whereas traditional cultures make moral demands on the individual, that has been reversed in the ascent of liberalism, whereby the individual, buttressed by science and economics, is the sole arbiter of value, and individual desire is placed above everything else. Nihil ultra ego, nothing beyond self. But, saying that, I also recognise myself as part of that same order. I'm a supermarket-shopping, wage-and-salary-earning middle-class consumer, so I'm not wanting to paint myself as somehow above all of that, or superior to it. But I see the critique, at least, and am prepared to acknowledge it.

I mention "Cure" but I don't even accept that there's a disease. — hanaH

From one of the theosophical philosophers I've encountered on this forums:

Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure.” — Vladimir Solovyov

It's more that middle-class, technocratic culture has certain norms, what it thinks is acceptable, mediated by science, but devoid of the sense of over-arching purpose that animates traditional cultures. — Wayfarer

Devoid of a share, single sense perhaps, but rife with many different senses of over-arching purposes. We have the leisure and freedom to explore and discuss such things. Frankly I don't trust what I see as a kind of nostalgia. Sure, we have hot water, air conditioning, Novocain and plenty of food, but we are "condemned to be free" when there "ought" to be a kindler, gentler theocratic hand at the helm.

My general view is that modern liberal culture normalises a kind of aberrant state. — Wayfarer

I think you are right, and that that aberrant state is (relative) wealth, health, and freedom. (Of course there are still and always will be things to complain about.)

Whereas traditional cultures make moral demands on the individual, that has been reversed in the ascent of liberalism, whereby the individual, buttressed by science and economics, is the sole arbiter of value, and individual desire is placed above everything else. Nihil ultra ego, nothing beyond self. — Wayfarer

The freed slave misses a simpler world? Or does the master miss his slaves? I think it's both, in all of us perhaps. Sartre, if you can peer through his lingo, is good on this stuff.

Were people in less scientific and more impoverished times less selfish? And are we really such immoralists today ? Because it's acceptable to buy nice things that we don't strictly need? Because, inheriting religious liberty, we use it?

From one of the theosophical philosophers I've encountered on this forums: — Wayfarer

And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure.” — Vladimir Solovyov

Read this in another way and it's just madness.

A otherwise healthy man decides that not only he but everyone around him suffers from an undefinable malady. He tries to spread the news but has trouble getting himself taken seriously, since the "disease" seems to be no more than a vague restlessness, a suspicious nostalgia, and an allergy to freedom (other people's, that is.)

The wisecracks the man should have expected after all did not shake the man's faith in the invisible sickness. Instead he realized that the delusion that one was not sick was in fact its most worrisome symptom.

I think you are right, and that that aberrant state is (relative) wealth, health, and freedom. — hanaH

No, that's not what I mean. We have made astounding technological progress and economic advancement, I'm not questioning that. Generally, I endorse material progress, economic and philosophical liberalism as the least worst option in terms of political philosophy. And Steve Pinker is all about that. But from a review of one of Pinker's earlier writings:

Philosophers and humanists are interested in what has been called, in 20th-century continental philosophy, the human condition, that is, a sense of uneasiness that human beings may feel about their own existence and the reality that confronts them (as in the case of modernity with all its changes in the proximate environment of humans and corresponding changes in their modes of existence). Scientists are more interested in human nature. If they discover that human nature doesn’t exist and human beings are, like cells, merely parts of a bigger aggregate, to whose survival they contribute, and all they feel and think is just a matter of illusion (a sort of Matrix scenario), then, as far as science is concerned, that’s it, and science should go on investigating humans by considering this new fact about their nature. I think that Pinker makes a “slip of the tongue” in his article when he writes: “This is an extraordinary time for the understanding of the human condition”. He clearly means human nature and he moves back and forth between these two expressions in his article when they should be kept distinct.

Do you recognise that sense of 'existential unease' which she refers to as 'the human condition'? That, no matter our material circumstances, there can be a sense of un-ease, which can't be eradicated by simply adjusting to it?

Read this in another way and it's just madness. — hanaH

It's a saying very characteristic of gnosticism. Gnostics believe that the world that the ordinary person inhabits is illusory - that provides illusory comforts, one that ultimately will bring no real happiness. Sure, this can often mean that gnosticism is, from our comfortable vantage point, an alien and even repellent philosophy, but to understand what they are driving at requires an understanding of what is at stake. And it is to those who think 'nothing is at stake' that Solovyov's aphorism is directed.

Do you recognise that sense of 'existential unease'? That, no matter our material circumstances, there can be a sense of un-ease, which can't be eradicated by simply adjusting to it. — Wayfarer

Sure, though I wouldn't say there's just one. Angst, ennui, melancholy. Each name a general flavor of the inability to enjoy physical health and security. I'm guessing most people are hit with one these occasionally, but in general I think the average person is caught up in life, worrying about rent, potential boyfriends, taxes, a growth on the skin, fear of violent crime, luminous and bouncy hair, the pesticides on whole wheat bread, and so on and so on. Life is care. Life is a hustle, a hassle. We complain about it, but then we cling to it when somebody tries to take it away.

Gnostics believe that the world that the ordinary person inhabits is illusory - that provides illusory comforts, one that ultimately will bring no real happiness. — Wayfarer

I like Pinker but I love his favorite philosopher Hobbes. First, back to the madness.

If some man in Bedlam should entertaine you with sober discourse; and you desire in taking leave, to know what he were, that you might another time requite his civility; and he should tell you, he were God the Father; I think you need expect no extravagant action for argument of his Madnesse.

This opinion of Inspiration, called commonly, Private Spirit, begins very often, from some lucky finding of an Errour generally held by others; and not knowing, or not remembring, by what conduct of reason, they came to so singular a truth, (as they think it, though it be many times an untruth they light on,) they presently admire themselves; as being in the speciall grace of God Almighty, who hath revealed the same to them supernaturally, by his Spirit.

Again, that Madnesse is nothing else, but too much appearing Passion, may be gathered out of the effects of Wine, which are the same with those of the evill disposition of the organs. For the variety of behaviour in men that have drunk too much, is the same with that of Mad-men: some of them Raging, others Loving, others laughing, all extravagantly, but according to their severall domineering Passions: For the effect of the wine, does but remove Dissimulation; and take from them the sight of the deformity of their Passions. For, (I believe) the most sober men, when they walk alone without care and employment of the mind, would be unwilling the vanity and Extravagance of their thoughts at that time should be publiquely seen: which is a confession, that Passions unguided, are for the most part meere Madnesse.

Now for "real happiness."

Continual Successe in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering, is that men call FELICITY; I mean the Felicity of this life. For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense. What kind of Felicity God hath ordained to them that devoutly honour him, a man shall no sooner know, than enjoy; being joys, that now are as incomprehensible, as the word of School-men, Beatifical Vision, is unintelligible.

The point being that "real happiness" strikes me as a pot of gold at the hypothesized end of the rainbow. For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquillity of mind, while we live here. Just think of ordinary, healthy people eating good food, making love, sleeping in and taking strong coffee in bed, morning sun streaming through the windows. I pity anyone who doesn't regularly find themselves in a state of pleasure. I also distrust anyone who claims that they never suffer or think so little of ordinary pleasures that they would call them unreal. (Do they suffer from anhedonia? Can they not taste apple pie?)

Never been a Hobbes fan. From that period, I'm more with the Cambridge Platonists, not that I'm overly familiar with them.

Personally I don't evangelize, nor do I expect religion or conspiracy theory to go away — hanaH

Same holds for me. I don't expect science to go away. I don't take it very seriously though (but many seem so) If it helps my mum with her backpack, Allright (though the urge to cut up and divide frightens me somehow). Is the Earth flat. Seems so from a plane. Is the Earth a ball? Seems so from outer space. When I walk in the forrest it's neither. Unluckily, thanks to science, and it's immersion in economy, most forrests in the world have been mowed down, or replaced, and science walks behind it to find out how bad the consequences will be. I don't have to be a scientist to know that! But I live in this world. And have to make the best of it. I think it's a pity though that so much culture and nature is gone. Though material culture has never been richer.

Never been a Hobbes fan. From that period, I'm more with the Cambridge Platonists, not that I'm overly familiar with them. — Wayfarer

Sure. But the issue is what kind of experience spirituality is understood to offer. I'm asking about intensity and duration. And I'm also interested in the intensity and duration of angst, ennui, the sense of meaningless. We are bags of water and fire on stilts. Of course mood will fluctuate, so I'm interested in something like the average, as well as the highs and lows. A good life involves frequent satisfactions (very much including the pleasures of romantic love and/or friendship) without too much misery. If a well-fed, relatively secure person is still troubled by dissatisfaction, anxiety, or anhedonia, ... then religion might help, but so might other therapies. Religious freedom means we get to experiment and hopefully find something that works. Personally I'm no longer interested in that kind of therapy, though sacred texts do have value as manifestations and comment upon human nature.

But I live in this world. And have to make the best of it. I think it's a pity though that so much culture and nature is gone. Though material culture has never been richer. — GraveItty

So it goes, the pretty and the ugly. We have the leisure to worry about forests we will mostly never see (I also care about these forests and the biosphere.) A richer material culture is theoretically more capable of benevolent intervention.

Digression? An asteroid may one day be nuked that would otherwise cause a great extinction event, so that wicked humanity, rapist of the environs, ends up a hero after all, thanks to its promethean-technological arrogance and eagerness.

I was merely noting that TPF is usually not very "accepting of personal confidence as evidence of truth".
— Gnomon

Why not? Distrust?
— GraveItty

Nah, assumption of equality of people. — baker

What evidence for what truth are you talking about? — GraveItty

You're asking why is it that TPF is usually not very "accepting of personal confidence as evidence of truth". You suggested the reason for this was distrust.

I'm suggesting that it is the assumption of equality of people that leads those who assume such equality to not accepting personal confidence as evidence of truth.

If we're all equal in some relevant way, then why should I accept your personal confidence as evidence of truth, notably when you differ from me?

Equality implies intolerance/rejection.

Imagine a person who tried various spiritual fads and classics in their 20s and found them all wanting.
— hanaH

When I was young I spent 15 years respectfully trying to understand revealed wisdom and higher consciousness, spending my time in the company of theosophists, self-described Gnostics, Buddhists, devotees of Ouspensky/Gurdjieff, Steiner, etc. What I tended to find was insecure people obsessed with status and hierarchy who had simply channeled their materialism into spirituality. There were the same fractured inter-personal relationships, jealousies, substance abuse and chasing after real estate and status symbols that characterise any secular person. — Tom Storm

I used to be a "seeker" (god, I hate the word). I looked into several major and minor religions. I was always told, in more or less (usually less) polite ways that I "don't have what it takes".

And while even some religious/spiritual people themselves told me that what looks like materialism, insecurity etc. among the religious/spiritual (and that I should thus dismiss it as faults, imperfections), I've never been convinced by that. Instead, I took a different route: What if the way religious/spiritual people usually are, actually is precisely the way a religious/spiritual person is supposed to be? Why ignore the obvious? So, yes, by these criteria, Donald Trump is a deeply religious/spiritual person. Yes, I know this isn't going to earn me any brownie points. That's what they get for telling me that I don't have what it takes.

Peer-review and exposure to criticism lets inferior ideas die by exposure. — hanaH

Or not. Consider virtue epistemology: It was popular with the ancients. Then it pretty much died out. And then it resurfaced again in the early 2000's, picking up pace.

What, by the way, do the self-anointed compete for? — hanaH

That's their circus, their monkeys. Not mine.

I think there's a kind of performative contradiction at the intersection of critical philosophy and elitist spirituality. The trans-rational elitists often can't help offering reasons that they deserve more recognition by plebeian rational humanists. "Can't you see that my spiritual genius is invisible?"

What did they expect when they told people "You don't have what it takes"?

Look around and see the profusion of healers and gurus and visionaries now available without leaving your home. I doubt that the world has ever offered such a spiritual buffet to the average person, along with the lifespan and leisure to enjoy such things. — hanaH

No, those are just the torments of Tantalus. All those "goodies" might indeed seem like they are at your fingertips -- but when you reach for them, you can never reach them, or they disappear altogether.

The "tyranny" that troubles some may be the absence of tyranny, namely the freedom of others to be unimpressed by their claims of spiritual status or insight.

They reap what they sowed.

But that doesn't obviate the critique, although I don't know if I want to try and spell it out in detail right at the moment.
— Wayfarer

You and baker both seem to be echoing Nietzsche's disgust with the last man. — hanaH

Not Nietzsche's. While I'm no fan of consumerism, I don't agree with Nietzsche either.

The Last Man is the individual who specializes not in creation, but in consumption. In the midst of satiating base pleasures, he claims to have “discovered happiness” by virtue of the fact that he lives in the most technologically advanced and materially luxurious era in human history.

But this self-infatuation of the Last Man conceals an underlying resentment, and desire for revenge. On some level, the Last Man knows that despite his pleasures and comforts, he is empty and miserable. With no aspiration and no meaningful goals to pursue, he has nothing he can use to justify the pain and struggle needed to overcome himself and transform himself into something better. He is stagnant in his nest of comfort, and miserable because of it. This misery does not render him inactive, but on the contrary, it compels him to seek victims in the world. He cannot bear to see those who are flourishing and embodying higher values, and so he innocuously supports the complete de-individualization of every person in the name of equality.

Awww, typical right-winger lamentation, "Oh, poor übermenschen us, that we have to endure being accosted by the untermenschen!"

Devoid of a share, single sense perhaps, but rife with many different senses of over-arching purposes. We have the leisure and freedom to explore and discuss such things. Frankly I don't trust what I see as a kind of nostalgia. Sure, we have hot water, air conditioning, Novocain and plenty of food, but we are "condemned to be free" when there "ought" to be a kindler, gentler theocratic hand at the helm. — hanaH

Are you sure? Right-wing political options are on the rise, and so is poverty.

My general view is that modern liberal culture normalises a kind of aberrant state. Whereas traditional cultures make moral demands on the individual, that has been reversed in the ascent of liberalism, whereby the individual, buttressed by science and economics, is the sole arbiter of value, and individual desire is placed above everything else. Nihil ultra ego, nothing beyond self. — Wayfarer

There are two trends within individualism: expansive/entitled individualism, and defensive individualism. The former is in roundabout what you describe above. Defensive individualism is what being left to oneself and being solely blamed for oneself looks like. Defensive individualism is a reaction to the decay of society.

No, those are just the torments of Tantalus. All those "goodies" might indeed seem like they are at your fingertips -- but when you reach for them, you can never reach them, or they disappear altogether. — baker

Spiritual types tend to say that they have the real thing while others are fakes. To secular outsiders this is one of the turn-offs of the spiritual hustle. In the end many of us just don't think there's any secret worth bothering too much about.

So, yes, by these criteria, Donald Trump is a deeply religious/spiritual person. Yes, I know this isn't going to earn me any brownie points. That's what they get for telling me that I don't have what it takes. — baker

No brownie points, but it did make me laugh. If you did have what it takes - what is it you are meant to have?

Spiritual types tend to say that they have the real thing while others are fakes. To secular outsiders this is one of the turn-offs of the spiritual hustle. In the end many of us just don't think there's any secret worth bothering too much about. — hanaH

Oh, I still think there's a secret. I've just mostly given up on it.

No brownie points, but it did make me laugh. If you did have what it takes - what is it you are meant to have? — Tom Storm

How could I possibly tell you if I don't have it?

:gasp: I just thought they might have provided a clue or two - discipline, attitude, hair colour...

Several have told me that I lacked faith.

I actually used to hope that they would teach me how to have faith -- but no, they didn't.

hair colour... — Tom Storm

I used to be a "seeker" (god, I hate the word). I looked into several major and minor religions. I was always told, in more or less (usually less) polite ways that I "don't have what it takes". — baker

I never had that experience. My experience was, I believed that through meditation, a state of insight would spontaneously arise which would melt away all my negative tendencies and weaknesses. I persisted with trying to maintain a daily meditation practice for a lot of years, although this has fallen into abeyance the last couple of years. Early on, I did have a real conversion experience, which I interpreted in a Buddhist framework (mainly through this book.) I formally took refuge in 2007. But in the long run I found are some hindrances that are very hard to overcome. This sense culminated in late 2017 when I gave some talks at a couple of Buddhist centres. I'm quite well-versed in the subject and can talk intelligibly about it. But I felt like a phony, speaking from the position of being dharma teacher. When I was describing the paramitas (Mahāyāna virtues) I realised how conspicuously lacking I was in them. And I went to a Buddhist youth organisation conference around that time, and sadly realised that I thought a lot of well-intentioned Buddhists were also phony. Seemed like a costume drama. For a couple of years after that, I started attending a Pure Land service. The whole idea of Pure Land is that you acknowledge that your own efforts to attain enlightenment are futile and rely solely on the saving power of Amitabha. In a sense, it's rather like Christianity, although the belief system is completely different (although I've since learned that the Pure Land sanghas were massively influenced by Christian outreach in the 20th Century so they modelled some of their liturgical practices on them, particularly their hymns.) But COVID-19 put an end to those, and the local minister was also issued with a notice by the Council that his residence could not be used for public religious services.

But nobody ever told me I didn't have what it takes, I figured that out all by myself. Although through all this, something inside has definitely shifted, even despite my many typical middle-class and middle-aged failings. I guess at the end of the day, I have to acknowledge that I really do have faith in the Buddha, even though the western intellectual side of me doesn't want anything to do with 'faith'. :vomit:

Thank you for sharing this level of detail with us. Very interesting.

I'm suggesting that it is the assumption of equality of people that leads those who assume such equality to not accepting personal confidence as evidence of truth.

If we're all equal in some relevant way, then why should I accept your personal confidence as evidence of truth, notably when you differ from me? — baker

This suggests an absolute truth, equal for all. Equal in some relevant way? What on Earth are you talking about?

Sounds very similar to my experience; predominately with the Gurdjieff Foundation.

. But the issue is what kind of experience spirituality is understood to offer. I'm asking about intensity and duration. And I'm also interested in the intensity and duration of angst, ennui, the sense of meaningless. We are bags of water and fire on stilts. — hanaH

Platonism believed that we're a fusion of soul and body. A lot of people will say it's 'bronze age mythology'. But my view is that all of those ancient texts are symnbolically or allegorically conveying truths about the human condition, as you go on to acknowledge.

Platonism (which is to all intents traditional Western philosophy) believed that reason was the faculty through we could gain insight into the imperishable, that which was not subject to change and decay. The problem is the modern, post-enlightenment mind has thrown out the baby of that traditional wisdom with the bathwater of religious dogmatics. Even though Greek philosophy belongs to an earlier age, I think what it is saying still conveys a profound truth, and one largely forgotten - so much so that we've don't even know what it is that has been forgotten, we can't conceive of it any more because our thinking is structured differently.

Religious freedom means we get to experiment and hopefully find something that works. — hanaH

Of course! Couldn't agree more.

So it goes — hanaH

How many times my mum said that! "So it goes". That's just the way it is. And we can do nothing about it. Everyone can do something about it. The grip of science is just too strong, as I have noted here too, reading various comments. But that's just the way it is. From where comes this eager to know, to cut up, to analyze, to solve problems, to invent formal schemes, to categorize, standardize, normalize, reduce, integrate, differentiate, function, rationalize, epistemize, be logical, etc? These things can be fun, but why do these things have the upper hand these days? Of course I'm abstracting here myself now, but it's a philosophy forum, so...

But did you meet anyone whom did not seem phony to you?

Because if not, then how can a "actual" enlightened subject ever recognize another one? If there is no way to tell, then everyone is only pretending to have something they in fact do not.

If you want personally revealed wisdom, you might want to put some distance between yourself and other people. — James Riley

:up: As Gary Snyder calls it: "the power vision in solitude". I tried some of that in my twenties; living in a beaten down old fisherman's shack in the bush, and hiking in the mountains on my own various times for up to ten days. I have to say there is much to be said for solitude as opposed to "group" spirituality. In relation to the latter, I worked with a Gurdjieff organization for about 15 years, and later short stints with Zen and Tibetan Buddhist organizations; I found the same old human shit, fascination with hierarchy and "climbing the slippery ladder" everywhere.

All of that said Snyder also advocated for the "common work of the tribe".

I believed that through meditation, a state of insight would spontaneously arise which would melt away all my negative tendencies and weaknesses. — Wayfarer

For me it wasn't metaphysics, but spiritual pursuits I also hoped for a great transformation of that kind. Now I just accept that I should settle for piecemeal improvement.

Early on, I did have a real conversion experience, which I interpreted in a Buddhist framework (mainly through this book.) I formally took refuge in 2007. But in the long run I found are some hindrances that are very hard to overcome. This sense culminated in late 2017 when I gave some talks at a couple of Buddhist centres. I'm quite well-versed in the subject and can talk intelligibly about it. But I felt like a phony, speaking from the position of being dharma teacher. When I was describing the paramitas (Mahāyāna virtues) I realised how conspicuously lacking I was in them. And I went to a Buddhist youth organisation conference around that time, and sadly realised that I thought a lot of well-intentioned Buddhists were also phony. — Wayfarer

I respect the honesty, and I can relate to the sense of being a phony when talking about virtue from a position of mastery. Anything that has to be said in this regard is already suspect perhaps. The life should say it.