Anti-pessimism/anti-nihilism thread

[Anonymous No.15338055]

It seems most of /lit/ are pessimist or nihilistic (or Christian occasionally), making it a bit of an echo chamber. Let's have a thread about all schools of thought that view life as valuable, enjoyable or simply not the eternal suffering which Schopenhauer calls it.

[Anonymous No.15338080]

Go away Leibniz, you’re drunk

[Anonymous No.15338112]

>>15338080
Begone spook

[Anonymous No.15338171]

To start off, here's a few refutations of Schopenhauer's pessimism (which seems the most popular here):
> He treats the subjective as objective, like some corrupt journalist. When discussing suffering, he falls from metaphysics into psychology. As a result, when he says 'life is suffering', all he is saying is 'MY life is suffering'.

> His entire system of binary suffering/fulfilment is massively reductionist, even wrong. He claims enjoyment is merely negation, like how cold is merely a negation of heat, essentially saying enjoyment is merely the fulfilment of a will. However, it seems to me like the identity of enjoyment is somatic and detached from ambition or desire (shown by how depression can be clinical or how Es & DMT can create seemingly groundless enjoyment).

> If the postulate "life is suffering" is disagreed with (and it can be, as it is subjective), his entire system crumbles. Take this example as a portrayal of my point...
>Imagine a man works all of his life as a miner. After 60 years, he is still poor and now has bad health. That man CAN say that "my life as a miner has been overall detrimental to my life. Therefore, my experience as a miner should be avoided by others who desire a good life". However, he CAN NOT say something like "work is pointless", "mining is pointless" or, further "life is pointless". Since this suffering is only known a posteriori, it is idiotic to try and generalise it to something beyond experience, as it is merely a product of experience.

> Finally, here's more of an issue than a refutation. Schopenhauer clearly had issues in his life which resulted from his personality. It's likely some of this came from his privileged life, never having to work a day in his life and living off his parents inheritance. For example, when he discusses women in his essay On Women, he clearly speaks from an experience different to most peoples'. By growing up in such a strange environment (and possibly having many mental health issues), even his remarks on experience taken subjectively seem to be without value.

[Anonymous No.15338211]

>>15338171
I like this, but i think the last like you said is not so much vs the argument, but vs the person. which may be explanatory, but not necissary to the arguments themselves.

btw, im actually an optimist.

[Anonymous No.15338278]

OP here again. Here's a more general point against nihilism which should hopefully free some minds.

The common question which leads to nihilism is "what is the meaning of life?". In my opinion, this is a redundant question, a metaphysical equivalent of "how long is a piece of string?".

Meaning is a quality which I believe is only applicable to life by reasoning animals (only humans perhaps). It applies only to the ends of our actions and, if we go beyond actions into being itself, we transcend meaning. It's like asking what the colour of a triangle is, expecting geometry to accord with the laws of experience. In other words, meaning ends with life. However, this doesn't mean it ends with YOUR life. You may be working 2 jobs to make money for your children. You might die before you can experience them using the money but the action still has meaning. Therefore, insofar as humans exist, life has meaning, potentially even meaning beyond our imagination (your money from those 2 jobs could lead to your child going to university, becoming a scientist and curing a disease, as an example).

Furthermore, a better question which should be asked is "does life have VALUE?", not meaning. As far as I'm concerned, meaning is almost arbitrary and is purely conceptual. However, the word value is closer to something worth living for. If your actions are moral, I believe this is a form of value. To use the 2 jobs example again: if you are using your life to improve the quality of other lives, your life is valuable. However, similarly, if you are using your life to enjoy others' contributions (e.g. Consuming media), I believe your life is also valuable. You are taking part in someone else's labour, doing what they intended. Homer's life has been so valuable simply because so many people have consumed his labour. Although many look down on 'consumers' as plagues to society, no good can truly exist without a receiver.

Therefore, in my opinion, life is most valuable when you both create value in others' lives and you enjoy your own life in company of others. Write a book, become a nurse, volunteer for a charity, help others. However, also spend time with your family, start a family, socialise with friends, watch movies, spread happiness which receiving it merely by being with people you love.

[Anonymous No.15338323]

>>15338211
I agree, it's more against Schopenhauer than against his ideas. However, if you agree that his thought is subjective, then I believe we should care about the subject as well (I.e. Him). Also, I believe this argument is important and not just "whataboutism" or whatever people call personal attacks. This is mainly because many deranged yet intelligent people have convinced others to agree with them, where simply considering if the subject is a valuable person might discourage idolatry of them and their ideas. You see this issue with Hitler on /pol/ and that Polish Ted guy on here (unabomber?). If a man isn't living a life which you value, you should reconsider following their life advice, just like how you wouldn't take parenting advice from the McCann parents or sex advice from an incel.

[Anonymous No.15338767]

>>15338171
can you point out any life that is not essentially suffering to counterpoint? Schope was a rich NEET, if his life was suffering then everybody's is

[Anonymous No.15338850]

>>15338055
If nothing matters, then what you believe doesn't matter, so just learn to "deceive" yourself.

[Anonymous No.15338915]

>>15338767
First, it might be useful to clarify what "life = suffering" actually means. To Schopenhauer, this is a literal equation and anything but suffering is merely negation. Therefore, I not only disagree with the fact that life is suffering but also with his entire concept of suffering.

Instead, since we probably don't have any common concept of suffering, I'll just call it 'unhappiness'.

Now, since I'm only a single person (as are you), I can't give an example of that which means anything to you. Here's the best I can do:
> A) the only life I can really discuss, my own, is pretty good. I'm rarely bored because I play music, read a lot, have hobbies, exercise, etc. I'm only really unhappy when something negative happens, like a death in my family. This unhappiness isn't the natural state of life but, to me, is merely a period of reflection or longing which usually dissolves quickly into nostalgia or mere respect when treat with correctly. Finally, Schopenhauer seems to treat happiness like daily 5 second bursts surrounded by 24 hour suffering. However, to me, my homeostasis or 'normal' is what I would call happiness. I might not be in constant eudaimonia or bliss but I'm happy nonetheless

> B) my 2nd point is the only one that can't apply only to me, a hypothetical. Do you genuinely believe, even hypothetically, it is impossible to live a life which is anything but suffering unless you become a monk and undergo quasisuicide or ego death? Even if you're not happy yourself, I believe you should still be able to see how happiness is possible.

[Anonymous No.15338933]

>>15338850
Exactly. Similarly, if nothing truly mattered, you would gladly stop eating and drinking, even breathing, killing yourself. However, you wouldn't kill yourself conventionally (as this suggests that pain or mess or judgement matters). The reality of 'nothing matters' is farce.

[Anonymous No.15338949]

>>15338850
Also, I'll just add, money genuinely doesn't date happiness. As Miltons says (roughly, I can't remember the quote)...
> The mind is a place itself and only it can make a heaven out of hell, a hell out of heaven.

[Anonymous No.15338959]

>>15338949
*make, not date

[Anonymous No.15339154]

AHHHHHHH I NEEED MORE PRINGLES

[Anonymous No.15339692]

>>15338171
>However, he CAN NOT say something like "work is pointless", "mining is pointless" or, further "life is pointless"
Why not? Can you only take conclusions on things a posteriori? Do you have to experience every job in the world to state that work is worthless? Just sounds like Empiricism.
>my life as a miner has been overall detrimental to my life. Therefore, my experience as a miner should be avoided by others who desire a good life
That's the point, there is no real alternative, you might live a life subjectively better but the overall rule that whatever you do you can't escape the constant unfulfillment remains. And anyway, enjoyement itself is pointless.

[Anonymous No.15339721]

The Tao Te Ching is incredibly life affirming:

People are born gentle and fragile,
They die stiff and tough.
The myriad things, plants and trees, are born tender and crisp,
They die dried and withered.
Therefore those who are stiff and tough are followers of death,
Those who are gentle and fragile are followers of life.
Hence when the armed forces are strong the nation is not successful,
When the resources are strong the arms are naturally forceful.
It is with great strength when one stays low,
It is with gentleness and fragility when one can assume superiority.

It also gives a mayor fuck you to Western thought:

Truthful words are not pleasant,
Pleasant words are not trustworthy;
Those who are good do not dispute,
Those who are disputatious are not good;
Those who know are not learned,
Those who are learned do not know.
The Sage does not store up things,
The more he does for people, the more he has;
The more he gives, the more he gains.
The Way of Heaven,
Is benefitting, not harming.
The Way of the Sage,
Is acting, not contending.

[Anonymous No.15339742]

Sueña el rey que es rey, y vive
con este engaño mandando,
disponiendo y gobernando;
y este aplauso, que recibe
prestado, en el viento escribe,
y en cenizas le convierte
la muerte, ¡desdicha fuerte!
¿Que hay quien intente reinar,
viendo que ha de despertar
en el sueño de la muerte?
Sueña el rico en su riqueza,
que más cuidados le ofrece;
sueña el pobre que padece
su miseria y su pobreza;
sueña el que a medrar empieza,
sueña el que afana y pretende,
sueña el que agravia y ofende,
y en el mundo, en conclusión,
todos sueñan lo que son,
aunque ninguno lo entiende.

Yo sueño que estoy aquí
destas prisiones cargado,
y soñé que en otro estado
más lisonjero me vi.
¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí.
¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción,
y el mayor bien es pequeño:
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son.

[Anonymous No.15339751]

>>15338055
>What is the purpose of life?
To seek pleasure and avoid pain.

>What is the purpose of intelligence?
To optimize this over longer spans of time.

>Why not just do drugs?
Because you will develop a tolerance and they impair your judgment.

>What is the aim of humanity?
To achieve constant perfect pleasure.

[Anonymous No.15339777]

>>15338915
> I'm rarely bored because I play music, read a lot, have hobbies, exercise, etc.
Yes you busy yourself and fullfill desires constantly, especially activities that rely mostly on yourself and not others, which is just what Schopenhauer recommends.
Try sitting in your room doing nothing all day only fulfilling your survival needs. You will see that just living, without filling your life with desires, will be intolerable. You will suffer even though your are simply experiencing raw existence.
You should probably read Schopenhauer if you want to criticize his system instead of, as it appears, compiling what others say of him and picking things apart to fit your own worldview.

[Anonymous No.15339779]

>>15339751
This viewpoint is fucking retarded. Not all pleasures help someone, with many of them fleeting - and there are many pains which illuminate one and make them wiser.

[Anonymous No.15339785]

>>15339751
>What is the purpose of life?
>To seek pleasure and avoid pain.
Citation needed
What's the point

[Anonymous No.15339794]

>>15339785
Feels good

>>15339779
In a state of constant perfect pleasure, such concerns would be irrelevant

[Anonymous No.15339803]

>>15339794
>Feels good
And?

[Anonymous No.15339809]

>>15339803
I guess you were the one who bit the apple on the no no tree

[Anonymous No.15339823]

>>15339809
It's just a simple question, what is the meaning/the point of feeling good?

[Anonymous No.15339902]

>>15338915

Firstly, to label Schopenhauer a pessimist is like describing the Sun as nothing more than "that yellow circle in the sky". You are missing 99% of the picture. This makes me question whether you've actually read Schopenhauer or just his wikipedia.

Secondly, ignorance is bliss; ergo, you have been filtered.

[Anonymous No.15339904]

I'm an optimist, I can't help it.
I love humanity and want to have children so I can educate them to be intelligent beings capable of contributing and loving it too
I don't care about this mathematical 'hurr sorry life has 10+ suffering points and only 4+ pleasure points' bs. Just have children responsibly, Christ.

[Anonymous No.15339915]

>>15338915
oh man you really need to read Schopenhauer. the will to being isn't refuted because you listen to lo-fi videos after a workout lol. faggot.

[Anonymous No.15339925]

>>15339904
more fresh meat for Death, om nom nom nom

[Anonymous No.15339945]

>>15339915

You can tell someone hasn't read Schopenhauer when they talk about Schopenhauer in light of 'pessimism'. I have no clue who came up with that descriptive label of him but somehow it has been propagated and has been the greatest filter to the greatest philosopher to roam the earth.

[Anonymous No.15339957]

>>15339904
>I love humanity
How is this possible? I feel cheated being born as a human.

[Anonymous No.15340143]

>>15339945
Schopenhauer is pessimistic, the greatest filter though is the assumption that pessimism means "mental/psychological/sexual defect". Isn't it convenient that the world is never flawed, it's the Schopenhauers of the world who are? Awfully, awfully convenient.

[Anonymous No.15340192]

>in particular the issue was the value of the unegoistic, of the instincts of compassion, self-denial, self-sacrifice, precisely the instincts that Schopenhaur had gilded, deified and made otherworldly until finally they alone were left for him as the "values in themselves" on the basis of which he said "no" to life and to himself.

[Anonymous No.15340264]

>>15339823
its an end in itself
the only living compass we have

[Anonymous No.15341072]

>>15339902
Based

[Anonymous No.15341078]

>>15338915
t. hasn't read Schopenhauer

[Anonymous No.15341139]

>>15340143

Have you read how redemption fits in to his system? Have you failed to grasp that he shows the way to salvation?

Explain to me right now how someone can show the gates to heaven, so to speak, after acknowledging all the evil in the world, and still be labeled a pessimist?

The pessimist would show you all the evil in the world and then say redemption is impossible.

I mean seriously dude.

[Anonymous No.15341197]

>>15338112
>Stirner dickriding