Political Crossfire Forums

[Hegelian_Center]

People mistake themselves in believing that happiness can be achieved in this world. The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do. The citizens are not educated to think about the community, but about their own economic interests. The illusion of the American dream which has duped every person who is sufficiently naive to believe in it. Like when we buy a CD or another product and think that this is what we need to feel complete. After one or two weeks of our acquisition we lose interest because we thought an object could offer us happiness. An object is not alive, it only will project our desires, it will be a copy of our state of mind but every state of mind is transient so the impression we had of it will disappear.

People think money is going to make them happy. What a fallacy! Rich people, having incorporated the superabundancy of money into their lifes, are also miserable; though their problems may not be economic, they're still miserable. Existence is a pendulum oscillating between pain and boredom.

The best refuge in a world of madness and pain is intellectual growth. Notice that Schopenhauer believes pain is positive and happiness negative in the sense that we feel painful moments more profoundly than happy ones. In other words, we sense pain and are conscious of it but we seldom stop to think how happy we are when we have everything we want. For example as I walk the only thing I'm aware of is the pebble in my shoe.

[JDHURF]

I completely agree with the contention that chasing happiness through materialistic accumulation is a hollow path to nowhere. However the idea that happiness is not attainable is outright contradictory to modern psychological research, google Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi for starters. Schopenhauer was a brilliant and insightful philosopher but his views on this particular subject are outdated.

[Hegelian_Center]

I don't think Schopenhauer's views are pessimistic though. But since he lived in the age of Romanticism his aim was to denounce what man was really like instead of idealizing him.

I think Schopenhauer's discourse is an attempt to remain true to reality when others went looking for concepts and sensations that were inventions and abstractions. After all Romantics did not do anything that the age of Reason hadn't already tried. Reason tried to find truths in the external world and it failed. Romanticism tried to find truths in consciousness and it failed. Schopenhauer was one of the first to realize that it would fail. It is important to understand Schopenhauer within his context.

With no intention to devalue modern psychological research I think the scope of science is quite narrow. It cannot account for all reality. Philosophy is unique in that it is an attempt to synthesize reality without setting any field boundary.

[thefranzkafkafront]

Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

[Fido]

thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

[JDHURF]

thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

I just noticed that you are asking this of the OP. I agree, I would like to know how the belief that one is free to do whatever one wants is erroneous, in fact, I'd really like to hear an explanation for that claim.

[cap'n queasy]

Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

That's a pretty out there opinion if you ask me.

[JDHURF]

cap'n queasy wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

That's a pretty out there opinion if you ask me. I agree, it is quite extreme. To claim, without any substantiation, that individualism is itself parallel to parricide, suicide and nihilism is wholly absurd.

[elephas]

Hegelian_Center wrote: People mistake themselves in believing that happiness can be achieved in this world.

Hey, you want to see happy people? From Ulm, take the autobahn A8 Ost, it's about, 2 hours drive to München. Find the place named Hofbräuhaus and you'll find plenty of incredibly happy people there. :lol:

[Anarko-Kapitalizt]

cap'n queasy wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

That's a pretty out there opinion if you ask me.

I think "pretty out there" is an understatement.

[Deus]

Anarko-Kapitalizt wrote: cap'n queasy wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

That's a pretty out there opinion if you ask me.

I think "pretty out there" is an understatement.

Is it?

How do you think your life would be if you sacrified you relations to friends and family for the sake of ambition?

[Anarko-Kapitalizt]

Deus wrote: Anarko-Kapitalizt wrote: cap'n queasy wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

That's a pretty out there opinion if you ask me.

I think "pretty out there" is an understatement.

Is it?

How do you think your life would be if you sacrified you relations to friends and family for the sake of ambition?

I would be better off. The family oppress the individual by making him put their welfare above his. The family is an enemy of egoism.

[Atlas Bergeron]

Hegelian_Center wrote: People mistake themselves in believing that happiness can be achieved in this world. The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do. The citizens are not educated to think about the community, but about their own economic interests. The illusion of the American dream which has duped every person who is sufficiently naive to believe in it. Like when we buy a CD or another product and think that this is what we need to feel complete. After one or two weeks of our acquisition we lose interest because we thought an object could offer us happiness. An object is not alive, it only will project our desires, it will be a copy of our state of mind but every state of mind is transient so the impression we had of it will disappear.

People think money is going to make them happy. What a fallacy! Rich people, having incorporated the superabundancy of money into their lifes, are also miserable; though their problems may not be economic, they're still miserable. Existence is a pendulum oscillating between pain and boredom.

The best refuge in a world of madness and pain is intellectual growth. Notice that Schopenhauer believes pain is positive and happiness negative in the sense that we feel painful moments more profoundly than happy ones. In other words, we sense pain and are conscious of it but we seldom stop to think how happy we are when we have everything we want. For example as I walk the only thing I'm aware of is the pebble in my shoe.
This is all unbacked claims with no logical backing. It is staring at a film of air hovering over a solid argument and wondering why you can't see anything.

If you made your premises clear, the "falacy" would be yours. This argument, as it stands, isn't even worth consideration. Who is Schopenauer, why do you believe he was right? -- blank out.

[Atlas Bergeron]

Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life congradulations, you just gave me a contradiction. How can you both deny your existence and focus on it?

[Atlas Bergeron]

Deus wrote: Anarko-Kapitalizt wrote: cap'n queasy wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

That's a pretty out there opinion if you ask me.

I think "pretty out there" is an understatement.

Is it?

How do you think your life would be if you sacrified you relations to friends and family for the sake of ambition? Is it?

How do you think your life would be if you sacrificed you relations to friends and family for the sake of s**t on the road?

Becuase that is what true selflessness means

[Fido]

cap'n queasy wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

That's a pretty out there opinion if you ask me.

Then let me ask you; by way of clarification: What evidence do you have other than metaphysical pap for a separate existence.?

I see we are part of an immense organism as alike as a colony of germs on a dish, sharing the same life while new parts are born and old parts die. Surely the individual lives. But do we live by the grace and hand of God? We are a product of social gene sharing. Without our parents we have no life. Without some form of technology and society passed from generation to generation we would have no life. We have a life, but our existence as humans is finished without cooperation, to have children, and to support children, to teach, and socialize children so they can be adults capable of breeding and raising their own children.
I would urge you to look at some societies that have known some individual freedom. The Athenians and the Romans knew freedom and wealth, but could not figure out the social sacrifice of children. It seemed too much for so little, and so they did not breed, but did party hardy until others, -the children of their slaves looking foreign in every sense- did exactly as they did in their stead.
Individual consciousness is something each possesses. A focus on individual consciousness, and life -blinds one to the social life, existence as it actually is. We all know life, but it is wrong to assume as Medieval philosophers did on the basis of metaphysics that only the individual exists. We all live. Society and humanity exists.

[Fido]

Atlas Bergeron wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life congradulations, you just gave me a contradiction. How can you both deny your existence and focus on it?

Existence and life are not the same qualities. Dead people exist as matter, and all matter exists, but not as living human beings.

Society exists, and people live. Society is the lives of all the individuals, but life has been continuous like the life that is passed to the individual, and also like the life to be passed to future generations. This social existence also contains a bank of accomplishments which no living individual should have a right to access without the understanding that his or her life is meant to add, rather than subtract from this wealth. We do nothing by the act of being born and living that by itself adds anything to society- except when we pass that life to another, or add more to society in the form of created wealth or knowledge. That is how life is justified: by adding to existence.

[LDA]

Hegelian_Center wrote: People mistake themselves in believing that happiness can be achieved in this world. The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do. The citizens are not educated to think about the community, but about their own economic interests. The illusion of the American dream which has duped every person who is sufficiently naive to believe in it. Like when we buy a CD or another product and think that this is what we need to feel complete. After one or two weeks of our acquisition we lose interest because we thought an object could offer us happiness. An object is not alive, it only will project our desires, it will be a copy of our state of mind but every state of mind is transient so the impression we had of it will disappear.

People think money is going to make them happy. What a fallacy! Rich people, having incorporated the superabundancy of money into their lifes, are also miserable; though their problems may not be economic, they're still miserable. Existence is a pendulum oscillating between pain and boredom.

The best refuge in a world of madness and pain is intellectual growth. Notice that Schopenhauer believes pain is positive and happiness negative in the sense that we feel painful moments more profoundly than happy ones. In other words, we sense pain and are conscious of it but we seldom stop to think how happy we are when we have everything we want. For example as I walk the only thing I'm aware of is the pebble in my shoe.

Obviously, money will not make you happy. Being happy will not make you happy, in fact; as he said, the moments of pain are more profound.

Why is that? Well, Schopenhauer believes in "the will." The will to live; regardless of what we choose to make the world out to be, everything we do is driven by our struggle to survive. You can attempt to turn your back on "the will," but it isn't something that a human can do. The obvious statement is that killing yourself would be permanently turning your back on "the will," but realistically, that is "the will" at its utmost.

Schopenhauer is right on this subject, I think. It's like the horse in the pond, struggling to get above the water, veins bulging out of its neck, using everything it has to not drown and die. You only begin to appreciate life when you are forced to stare death in the face.

[Hegelian_Center]

thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.


Because nobody is free to do what he/she wants to do. Excessive individualism is dangerous for the preservation of society. This is NOT TO SAY that people cannot think about their personal interests first, but rather that they cannot think about their personal interests only, which is what is happening in our modern age.

The only element that is acting –or should act- as a deterrent of this destructive individualism is government. That’s the reason why everybody hates government, because men have become too selfish. Government should be a natural and rational thing. But since people cannot act rationally (and by acting rationally I mean see and do what is best for society’s interests in the long run) anymore, government must be imposed to avoid the disintegration of society. But everything that is imposed is hateful, especially to selfish persons. Government is not bad per se. It is bad because we have become too individualistic. And without some force of unity we will fall into a pit of atomic nihilism. I think the greatest enemies of capitalism are unchecked capitalists (anybody can become a tyrant if he is left too much room). However, if we tend to one extreme we will become totalitarians (excessive government) and if we tend to the other extreme we will become anarchists (excessive individualism) and, in this last case, nobody will take the Law seriously anymore and it won’t be enforced. We must find equilibrium between both. We must learn to yield in sometimes.

Anybody knows that when too much leeway was given (free market), monopolies were created to eliminate competition and this in turn was bad for society in general. In fact, unckecked capitalists (the greatest individualists) were one of the causes of the 1929 economic crisis, which made possible later the rising of Adolf Hitler to power.

I think the government is giving too much carte blanche to big corporations and multinationals, and this is going to worsen life quality especially in the United States. In fact, it has already begun to worsen.

[Atlas Bergeron]

Fido wrote: Atlas Bergeron wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life congradulations, you just gave me a contradiction. How can you both deny your existence and focus on it?

Existence and life are not the same qualities. Dead people exist as matter, and all matter exists, but not as living human beings. not if your talking about the existence of conciusness--which is what is important.