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Prurient Squid posted:This is what I want. To become an orb, "it's own rotundity enjoying". 
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Dec 3, 2022 11:38
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I've decided that positions like "I'm an agnostic" and "I'm an atheist" are not my vibe and I'm no longer interested in identifying myself with any of them.
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Dec 3, 2022 12:36
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Prurient Squid posted:I've decided that positions like "I'm an agnostic" and "I'm an atheist" are not my vibe and I'm no longer interested in identifying myself with any of them. That's fair. Do you know what does? It's fine not to have a label as well.
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Dec 3, 2022 12:41
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Josef bugman posted:One can enjoy what we are, but consider that Marcus Aurelius may not be the best teacher to learn from. The lessons may be good. But the teacher doesn't truly believe what he is telling you. Are you saying that because he was a Roman Emperor? Maybe you'd prefer Epictetus, he was a slave. Regardless, as tempting as the Stoic doctrine is, it's radically un-human. Humans only gain any satisfaction from life by attaching themselves to things. That also causes all our suffering but we cannot live without food, love, beliefs, purpose. Our entire existence is contingent upon "externals" so Stoic ethics are kinda totally false.
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Dec 3, 2022 13:16
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Prurient Squid posted:This is what I want. To become an orb, "it's own rotundity enjoying".
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Dec 3, 2022 13:44
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I'm saying it because he was not living the ideals of his cause. He speaks of all the things he can/should do to live a better life and then spends most of his time doing the exact opposite. Unattachment is not supposed to be complete unconnectedness from this world, but merely to not be so attached to things that it causes difficulty. However it is much more common to enjoy what we are attached to. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 13:49
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Talking about justice and then seeing no problem with gladiatorial arenas and feeding people to animals did cause me to raise an eyebrow at one point. Also I can understand wanting to teach yourself to endure rudeness without getting angry but why stop yourself from feeling pleasure? In conclusion, Marcus Aurelius is a land of contrasts.
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Dec 3, 2022 13:59
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I just had an insight. The scene in The Wizard of Oz where they pull aside the curtain and reveal the great and terrible wizard is just a cowardly little man is almost a metaphor for evil as lack or moral absense or "the banality of evil". edit: The Bourbon Monarchy was said to have "learned nothing and forgotten nothing". The modern day Bourbons are big oil companies that anticipate that climate change will accelerate so they draw up plans on how to most effectively fight AGAINST the inevitable protests that will take place to defend their bottom line. Capitalism has reached a point of decadence, the man of the hour is a person so venal they are incapable of learning from even the greatst tragedy who "dances till the music stops". Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 14:08
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NikkolasKing posted:You know, when I read a philosopher or theologian talking about how human beings are lovely, I can kinda see their point. At the same time. I wonder how sincere they aer, or if they just didn't have friends and loved ones. Pascal apparently told his sister that she shouldn't hug her children because this was sinful so maybe there are true believers but I can't be one of them. The trick is a lot of philosophers aren't saying people are inherently bad. Just that they're also not inherently good either. They're inherently people, with all the moral hazard that free will and self interest bring. As Pascal is often quoted: "All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room." Prurient Squid posted:I have a kind of goofy idea and this is not something I necessarily believe but sort of a thought experiment. You're right, that is fairly goofy. An atheist might not ever define themselves as such without theism as a comparison, but it would not change their beliefs. Atheism is not in itself a rejection of God in the sense of knowing God and turning from that knowledge, but a rejection that God as a concept has any meaning or relevance beyond any other thought experiment. Prurient Squid posted:Talking about justice and then seeing no problem with gladiatorial arenas and feeding people to animals did cause me to raise an eyebrow at one point. Also I can understand wanting to teach yourself to endure rudeness without getting angry but why stop yourself from feeling pleasure? In conclusion, Marcus Aurelius is a land of contrasts. Easy enough to understand, it's a question of the definition of 'people'. Pratchett hit it in a way that has always stuck with me: "Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things." Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 16:56
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Prurient Squid posted:I just had an insight. The scene in The Wizard of Oz where they pull aside the curtain and reveal the great and terrible wizard is just a cowardly little man is almost a metaphor for evil as lack or moral absense or "the banality of evil". Yeah! I remember being really, really unsettled by that as a kid and not quite understanding why it was bothering me so much. I have been attempting to become orb my whole life. One day.
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Dec 3, 2022 17:19
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Becoming an orb is unfortunately a heresy in the Orthodox Church. But it's controversial whether Origen ever actually espoused such a belief.
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Dec 3, 2022 17:24
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Josef bugman posted:I'm saying it because he was not living the ideals of his cause. He speaks of all the things he can/should do to live a better life and then spends most of his time doing the exact opposite. Duty. He’s doing his duty in his social role above everything else. Prurient Squid posted:Talking about justice and then seeing no problem with gladiatorial arenas and feeding people to animals did cause me to raise an eyebrow at one point. Also I can understand wanting to teach yourself to endure rudeness without getting angry but why stop yourself from feeling pleasure? In conclusion, Marcus Aurelius is a land of contrasts. A lot of the things he’s writing change contextual when, when in his life they are written is looked at. An example when he’s writing writing telling the reader to say the “I have given it back” when they suffer a loss. He’s a mess. He just had another child die. He is falling apart and it drips with his sadness. His audience is himself. It’s is same with a lot of it. He’s doing his duty his role in the play and trying to cope with it. There is a deep loneliness and sorrow in being away for duty, even for periods much shorter than he is. The pleasures some people turn to escape from that are often problematic. They’re often exaggerated and distorted to excess. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 17:27
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Duty. He’s doing his duty in his social role above everything else. Then he's decided the the higher good, which happens to give him more power and control over the world, is the one that allows him to keep doing what he was going to do anyway. In short, the idea of a philosopher king is an incoherence.
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Dec 3, 2022 17:47
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HopperUK posted:Yeah! I remember being really, really unsettled by that as a kid and not quite understanding why it was bothering me so much. Because you were staring into the unfiltered truth of every human institution at once
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Dec 3, 2022 17:57
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I wouldn't say that. It's more just that the Roman Stoics were in fact Roman. Seneca and Macus both loved them some wealth and massive amounts of property because those were things Romans loved, too. There's an interesting book I've read on how much more egalitarian Greeks were. https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Tradition-Republican-Thought-Context/dp/0521835453 We ignored them and took all our laws from Rome.
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Dec 3, 2022 17:57
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Josef bugman posted:Then he's decided the the higher good, which happens to give him more power and control over the world, is the one that allows him to keep doing what he was going to do anyway. That is not it at all. He is out on campaign. Many people he cares about (his children) die while he is away. Like the text itself is very much evidence that your take is a pretty bad one. Have you ever been in the military or gone to sea?
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Dec 3, 2022 18:17
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Yeah, the Meditations really did give the impression of a person whose desperately trying to convince himself of something. So the idea that he wrote recovering from a personal tragedy definitely fits.
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Dec 3, 2022 18:19
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Liquid Communism posted:Pratchett hit it in a way that has always stuck with me: "Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things." Immanuel Kant posted:Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.
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Dec 3, 2022 18:21
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This whole is discussion is kind of making me want to reread Kautsky's "Foundations of Christianity". If that sounds dull, it goes deep into the character of a society dominated by slavery in production and direct consumption of products. He stresses the importance of differentiating ancient society from modern capitalist society in which accumulation is very different. edit: For your convenience. https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/index.htm Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 18:25
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Bar Ran Dun posted:That is not it at all. He is out on campaign. Many people he cares about (his children) die while he is away. Like the text itself is very much evidence that your take is a pretty bad one. He is out killing people, making widows and killing other peoples children. He is losing so much and does not look out or consider that he is doing the same to thousands more. He gets the luxury of suffering whilst able to command that the same be done to others. He is a hypocrite of the highest order. I can feel sorry for him, but the suffering of every burned village along the Rhine must also be tallied, and all too many focus on the suffering of one dude who could write down his pain, vs the suffering he in turn inflicted on so many who could not. I have gone to sea, but more in the "ferry crossing" way, not a "going to work on a boat" way. There has never been a time I could serve in a military in my lifetime without it being against a lot of what I believe. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 18:25
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He basically spends his whole life miserable away from the people he loves. When one is away like that one comes back and everything has changed. All the people and relationships have progressed grown, without you. Everyone is different and you are not. Little things, like physical items what’s for sale in the grocery store, or the music playing, the places, or the general culture around you all feels alien. One also becomes a different persons from what oneself was. Some people implode. One 2A/E I know would blow tens of thousands dollars on prostitutes and booze and just get back on a ship when the money ran out.
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Dec 3, 2022 18:35
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Josef bugman posted:He is out killing people, making widows and killing other peoples children. He is losing so much and does not look out or consider that he is doing the same to thousands more. He gets the luxury of suffering whilst able to command that the same be done to others. He is a hypocrite of the highest order. I can feel sorry for him, but the suffering of every burned village along the Rhine must also be tallied, and all too many focus on the suffering of one dude who could write down his pain, vs the suffering he in turn inflicted on so many who could not. What is his duty as a Roman and as the Emperor?
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Dec 3, 2022 18:54
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Bar Ran Dun posted:He basically spends his whole life miserable away from the people he loves. He made a choice, and the choice was "do the thing I believe neccesary that will harm myself and others, but that will allow me to continue to use and have power" and the moans about being away from home? The man is suffering, yes, and he then doles it out to others. He could just not have gone, or decided on a peace treaty, or even just defended the Roman frontier. He would still not be a great individual, but I get it. Instead he chose war and then got real sad about his own choices? Tough. He could have stopped. At any point he could have chosen another way. But he didn't and never would have done because the way he was used to had burned a hole in him and he'd decided to justify it. His "duty" could have been to defend Rome. He would have done a better job of this by trying to negotiate and defend. Retaliation does not serve this purpose. That is more sad to me than anything suffered by a Roman emperor, and I'm sad that this happened to them. Assuming they did not enjoy the hedonic lifestyle ofc. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 19:02
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In addition to reading Böhme's mysticism and Jacobi's critique of Spinoza, I'm also going to be reading Kautsky. So diverse matters then. I have my own strange interests. I look forward to seeing what emerges. edit: I flipped back in this thread and early last month I was reading Plotinus, so I'll put that back on the list. Prurient Squid fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 19:54
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Josef bugman posted:He made a choice, and the choice was "do the thing I believe neccesary that will harm myself and others, but that will allow me to continue to use and have power" and the moans about being away from home? The man is suffering, yes, and he then doles it out to others. You are presuming a lot modern values, in a context where they don’t exist. While also ignoring entirely the expectations of his society about what a Roman was and should do.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:00
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Bar Ran Dun posted:You are presuming a lot modern values, in a context where they don’t exist. While also ignoring entirely the expectations of his society about what a Roman was and should do. Peace is not a modern value. Nor is compassion. Nor is retirement. He is the emperor. He could have handed the job off to someone else and gone into retirement. He was not required to do any of the stuff he did, was he? But he thought he was. If we can look at anything it is that you must always consider the world you come from, and what it means that you are part of it.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:10
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Yes and that analysis you’re doing there when do people start thinking like that?
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Dec 3, 2022 20:48
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Yes and that analysis you’re doing there when do people start thinking like that? I think that some people most likely always did. It's just that records don't survive forever and haven't always been written.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:50
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Josef bugman posted:Peace is not a modern value. Nor is compassion. Nor is retirement. He is the emperor. He could have handed the job off to someone else and gone into retirement. He was not required to do any of the stuff he did, was he? But he thought he was. If we can look at anything it is that you must always consider the world you come from, and what it means that you are part of it. I suspect the answer to why that didn't seem to be an option might lie in the question of how long his political enemies would have let him survive doing it.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:52
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Liquid Communism posted:I suspect the answer to why that didn't seem to be an option might lie in the question of how long his political enemies would have let him survive doing it. Depends on the emperor. It's not as if people didn't retire from it.
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Dec 3, 2022 20:58
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NikkolasKing posted:Are you saying that because he was a Roman Emperor? Maybe you'd prefer Epictetus, he was a slave. I have thought once in a while while meditating that there is a certain sort of attachment to the identity of "human" which feels almost like a class identity rather than a fundamental thing. It comes up sometimes when I consider elephants.
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Dec 3, 2022 22:12
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Nessus posted:If this is the strict definition of human - the sine qua none of "being a human" - then you have, in a sense, composed a profound argument for some form of transhumanism. I'm actually very anti-transhuman, although for different reasons than I used to. I used to be against it because the great religions of the world teach us to flee this world with all possible haste. Our bodies are prisons and our real home - the only place we can truly know happiness - is decidedly not here. Transhumanists essentially wanna trap us in these meatbags instead of letting us know something infinitely better. Now, I'm less about that. It's more that our contingent being is a good thing. We are so imperfect that it makes us depend on others. Death, sickness, fear and pain - these are catalysts for growth and love and everything else positive in the human world. Why would somebody value something that never leaves them? Why would they value themselves if all they know is "i can do whatever I want"? Nah, being ephemeral and dependent on other things is perfectly fine, sorry Plato and Pascal.
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Dec 4, 2022 02:16
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I hate to describe things as 'pagan' but there is typically an extreme difference in moral foundations before and after the hegemony of Christian thought in a given society. This has been the primary lens for interpreting Marcus Aurelius for 1500+ years longer than it was not. That's a huge part of why it's an interesting text in the first place.
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Dec 4, 2022 03:23
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Josef bugman posted:I think that some people most likely always did. It's just that records don't survive forever and haven't always been written. Oh so you think it’s common sense. What you’re saying here is part of the discourse between rationalism and empiricism in the 18th century. The ideas you think with come from specific times and places. There are times and places before they exist. Ideas are tools. You are assuming tools you have, have always existed. It’s as nonsensical as thinking that because you have a computer that anyone in the past had a computer.
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Dec 4, 2022 07:12
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NikkolasKing posted:Now, I'm less about that. It's more that our contingent being is a good thing. We are so imperfect that it makes us depend on others. Death, sickness, fear and pain - these are catalysts for growth and love and everything else positive in the human world. Why would somebody value something that never leaves them? Why would they value themselves if all they know is "i can do whatever I want"? Nah, being ephemeral and dependent on other things is perfectly fine, sorry Plato and Pascal. However your initial point here made a direct connection between the experience of suffering and "being human." I think it is natural to want to try to escape suffering; to reduce it or to end it. Thus, you would create a situation where this natural and positive behavior also involves "stopping being human."
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Dec 4, 2022 07:20
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Ohtori Akio posted:I hate to describe things as 'pagan' but there is typically an extreme difference in moral foundations before and after the hegemony of Christian thought in a given society. This has been the primary lens for interpreting Marcus Aurelius for 1500+ years longer than it was not. That's a huge part of why it's an interesting text in the first place. You say this, but I would disagree. The ideas probably still existed in a pagan milieu, peace and compassion do not come solely from Christianity after all, it is simply that Marcus either did not conceive them, or made political and moral choices against his own professed moral values, then got sad when it turns out they were lovely choices. Bar Ran Dun posted:Oh so you think it’s common sense. What you’re saying here is part of the discourse between rationalism and empiricism in the 18th century. The ideas you think with come from specific times and places. There are times and places before they exist. They may not have been common ideas, they may not have existed outside of the mind of a farm labourer in Gaul who just spent a lot of time thinking and talking with their friends, but the ideas we have are not solely based upon time period. The levellers were not socialists, but some of their ideas still carry through. Ideas are not tool, in the sense that they do not require direct knowledge and use of prior ones to create them. The idea of sharing things in common, or of peaceful coexistence, or of compassion towards all is not time and context dependent. Specific forms could be, but the idea that, somehow, these things only become possible like they are things in a tech tree is not something I believe is accurate. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 09:57
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Nessus posted:Sure, this is why human lives are precious - you're smart enough to practice but you're not so powerful and long-lived that you just kick back and relax. I think substantial improvements in human conditions, including greatly extended lifespans, wouldn't meaningfully alter this... I think it is said that lifespans in the 'human realm' oscillate between ten years and eighty thousand. I would say the transhumanist's goal is to end suffering. It's in the title - transhuman or posthuman. Our "limitations" like death and whatnot are not just facts of life, but something they think we can conquer and leave behind us. I think people should be more wary of thinking "being human is bad, so bad we must stop doing it and become...uh, this other thing that only ever existed in my own head." Even if this is the only life we got, it's worked out for us for tens of thousands of years. Why be so hasty to throw it away?
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Dec 4, 2022 11:05
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Josef bugman posted:You say this, but I would disagree. The ideas probably still existed in a pagan milieu, peace and compassion do not come solely from Christianity after all, it is simply that Marcus either did not conceive them, or made political and moral choices against his own professed moral values, then got sad when it turns out they were lovely choices. You’re applying a modern framework to a completely different culture. No one argues that the idea of a time without war was alien or anything but you’re making a lot of assumptions and about things like the morality of killing, when it is justified, etc. The classic example of this is human sacrifice. When the Mexica killed someone on altar they had a profoundly different understanding of the act than the Spanish friars who came along later. There is an entire literature about how it’s impossible to understand things - events, ideas, etc - outside their cultural framework. It’s got problems and is a bit dated but The Great Cat Massacre is probably the most accessible place to start with it. Edit: this is something I had to constantly deal with back when I was teaching. “People are all the same” is one of those truisms that university freshmen want to be true and, yeah, it’s hard not to see common ground when you read about Roman graffiti describing the local centurion as an rear end in a top hat, but that all falls apart really quickly. “The past is another country” is the short, quotable version. You can no more use a 21st century American / European cultural framework to explain the motivations of an ancient Roman than you can use that framework to explain the behavior and priorities of an Afghan farmer. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 12:57
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Gaius Marius posted:Nothing crazy about it. The logic is solid. For as many quibbles I have with the Catholic church, I'm glad they're so forward thinking on issues like this. Taking possession of something you can't even travel to is forward thinking how?
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Dec 4, 2022 12:59
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Quakers was good. I got talking to Ester. She was there the first time I came. In her ministry she quoted the Bible "The letter killeth but the spirit giveth new life". Afterwards I maged to find a Digimon booster pack in GAME (wonders will never cease). Also I went into Waterstones and bought The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and The Master and Margarita. Today was good.
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Dec 4, 2022 14:28
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