• schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    You have gone to your usual position of mangling several distinct issues together.Banno

    And yet you have not justified it, just asserted it. If you had any charitable reading or care then perhaps you would see the distinct issues:

    As I said in previous post:
    But this (production in socioeconomic sphere or die) is exactly the negative condition and moral problem I'm talking about.. No production suicide.. So we must be producers... Bringing in existentialist ideas of bad faith, we must sublimate this fact as if it is just the way things must be, but our "soul" (metaphorically used here) rebels against it.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    This isn't to say that such a personal perspective overrules others. But the reverse is also not true. There is a relationship to the cosmos established when one can actually do stuff that is not there when one cannot.Paine

    How is it we have a relationship with the cosmos?
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    You're committing another self-imposition: You take for granted that you're certain that there is no way out. (And that the materialistic outlook is the one and only right one).

    Arguably, this is the core of your problem (and not the comply or die, or the futility of pursuing sensual pleasures).
    baker

    If you're talking about some sort of asceticism, that is at the extremes that are pretty inaccessible for most people. It's a romanticized version of how humans can live.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    But why should we get things done for others. For a possessing class? Who have their alibi to tyranny by feeding us with artificial corporate food, housing us in sick building, providing us with occasional entertainment, a chance in the lottery to go to the island, a health insurance corporation to provide us with torture as the cure for our artificially induced sickness and misery, while constantly being bombarded with fake smiles and ideality.Hillary

    Ok, kind of on board...

    So, free yourself and make life happen yourself!Hillary

    That's the problem. There is no freeing from the production-system other than romanticized notions of Robinson Crusoe hacking it in wilderness or non-starter communes that themselves need you to produce and still need the greater economy outside it in order to function. Nothing is usually made completely from "scratch" anymore.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    The product provides the fetish or ideal objective for the consumer to want and that is the end - the sublimated objective - not the actual satisfaction of that desire. Desire projects the wanting person into an imagined future state of happiness that is dashed by the actual arrival of the product that leads inevitably to either disappointment or disinterest. Desire is the essence of all distraction.ASmallTalentForWar

    Houses/homes, clothes, water, electricity.. and all the things that come out of it.. all the things used to maintain what you then have.. it's a snowball effect. It's too simplistic to say we should stop consuming.. It is all a part-and-parcel of a "way of life". Rather, any mode of living will have this problem. In order to live, you need the systems and networks that sustain it.. And that includes humans themselves as producers working for each other\'s demands. The problem is intractable once someone is born into the world.
  • Hillary
    1.9k


    Get a grip and take control. When usually misery lies in the heart of control, you can make the opposite happen.
  • Paine
    1.9k

    As a builder, working with materials is learning the best way to perform to make the desired thing. In agriculture, growing is act of nature combined with skilled labor. In both cases understanding and discipline are needed for the successful production of what we need to live. I call it a 'relationship to the cosmos' because part of performing well is a kind of attention.

    In Zhuangzi, the skill of the Butcher is found by responding to resistance in a way that finds the most effortless path.

    That aspect of work does not address all aspects of having to live by the 'sweat of our brows." The dynamic of wanting to have a say in the outcome of those who one supports and loves is preferable to the passivity of eking out existence with minimum effort. Labor feels punitive if not freely chosen as what is pursued. The response of an individual obviously cannot remove the quality of suffering but there can be a conversation.
  • L'éléphant
    1.4k
    I suppose talking in extremes doesn't amount to a productive discussion. There is a point to a discussion, and that is the satisfaction of an inquiry, albeit imperfect. That's productive, even if we don't solve the world problems, we get satisfaction in answering an inquiry. But while you pinpoint an extreme -- no one should be compelled to produce -- the lack of further discussion as to what could happen in the future is missing.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    Labor feels punitive if not freely chosen as what is pursued. The response of an individual obviously cannot remove the quality of suffering but there can be a conversation.Paine

    But one cannot freely choose not to work.. or at least, one cannot expand this maxim universally without collapsing life itself.. So it is life itself that is the problem perhaps. Being born at all is the problem. It is not any particular way but all ways.
  • Paine
    1.9k

    Yes, work is necessary. Finding a way to make it worthwhile beyond answering that necessity is a good thing. Don't you experience satisfaction when you overcome a difficult task? Don't you take notice of the relative freedom that becoming skilled imparts?

    The idea of living in a world where nothing is required from me sounds like being a zombie.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    The idea of living in a world where nothing is required from me sounds like being a zombie.Paine

    It's not a hard and fast law, no. That's the point. We have to make it so by motivating ourselves or integrating X, Y, Z ideas about work and accomplishment into our psyche. Then there is the issue if we even should be in the business of integrating this into our psyche..

    If I forced you into a game and you learn to play it better cause you have to deal, the force is still there, the issue at hand is not how well you jump to meet my criteria but whether having a set of criteria was a violation of sorts to issue to someone. The byproduct of me foisting criteria being positive or negative for an individual shouldn't factor into that violation.

    It's tricky because people think they have best intentions but what of the morality of arrogance to give people a game that is played in real time, lest death to begin with?
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    But while you pinpoint an extreme -- no one should be compelled to produce -- the lack of further discussion as to what could happen in the future is missing.L'éléphant

    Is there something about being in a position that one must do X for their survival that is callous or problematic? Is simply "do good at your job" at the lower level of what is going on not getting at the problem in the first place, "you need to produce because..." and of course because you and everyone else will die if this was followed to the logical end. So thus, we work to not die. It is not wrong to not want to die, but it is wrong to be in a position to not want to die and there makes all the difference. So simply restating the outcome like @Banno does (to just get on with it) is simply failing to analyze the problem. So hence I said that just because something is intractable doesn't mean it's not worth examining.
  • L'éléphant
    1.4k
    So with my Pessimist philosophy, I have distilled the idea that Comply or Die is a feature of the human condition. Basically, this means that we either comply with the conditions we are situated in (socioeconomic in particular) or we will die a slow death due to not playing the game correctly or simply outright suicide (outright rejection of the game).schopenhauer1

    Is there something about being in a position that one must do X for their survival that is callous or problematic?schopenhauer1
    No, questioning it is not problematic, or even putting it that way is not problematic. I mistakenly believed that this thread is about an alternative reality where people are not compelled to produce.

    A lot of human conditions are set and no alternatives exist for those who want a different condition.
  • Paine
    1.9k
    It's tricky because people think they have best intentions but what of the morality of arrogance to give people a game that is played in real time, lest death to begin with?schopenhauer1

    It would be reasonable for Job to complain about doing a good job of being a person and yet getting a lot of suffering in return. And if he knew it was all because of some bizarre wager upon his response, that, too, would be a fair cause for objection.

    The game quality is a form of suffering. That Job can confirm for himself that he is not at fault is outside of the game is important. That doesn't answer your question about justification but is an attempt to talk about the problem.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    A lot of human conditions are set and no alternatives exist for those who want a different condition.L'éléphant

    And here is the problem.. No Marxism or Capitalism or Anarchism or any ISM (except antinatalism) gets rid of this initial injustice which all others cannot fix.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    The game quality is a form of suffering. That Job can confirm for himself that he is not at fault is outside of the game is important. That doesn't answer your question about justification but is an attempt to talk about the problem.Paine

    Yes, we do need to talk about it. Perhaps it at least builds empathy in the fact that we all need to run around and produce because, excepting death, there is no other choice and this leaves us with a lot of percentage of forced production in our lives. Just another thing to add to the heap of pessimism. Sugar coat it with, "But you can try to do something you want.." all you want, but that fact remains, whether you're eking out a living in dirt or in a first world country, so the whole category of production makes life itself disqualified from being moral to force into existence.
  • baker
    5.6k
    You're committing another self-imposition: You take for granted that you're certain that there is no way out. (And that the materialistic outlook is the one and only right one).

    Arguably, this is the core of your problem (and not the comply or die, or the futility of pursuing sensual pleasures).
    — baker

    If you're talking about some sort of asceticism, that is at the extremes that are pretty inaccessible for most people. It's a romanticized version of how humans can live.
    schopenhauer1

    No, I'm not talking about asceticism.

    I'm talking about your certainty. I question its foundation.
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