Autonomic Thesis that Continuation is the Goal
In systems of human organization that are considered in separateness from the individuals who are its parts, do you think separateness contains an unconscious idea that continuation is the primary goal of individuals in itself? After all, self-organizing or individual-separated systems have included within themselves a self-defined clause that those systems must find their own means of subsistence without being directed, thus the more we consider ourselves as separate entities from society the more we embed within ourselves an alienated subsistence is the goal that self-perpetuates them.
I am interested in a self-destructive individual, and how self-destructive tendencies can possibly be a source of spiritual pleasure that overcomes the pleasure of survival and subsistence. Do you think a human falling apart in mind, spirit, and/or body can itself be a valid social goal, in the sense that it is a force of thought directed against the overwhelming wave of subsistence as a goal? Or more generally, is mere existence enough from an objective point of view?
I am interested in a self-destructive individual, and how self-destructive tendencies can possibly be a source of spiritual pleasure that overcomes the pleasure of survival and subsistence. Do you think a human falling apart in mind, spirit, and/or body can itself be a valid social goal, in the sense that it is a force of thought directed against the overwhelming wave of subsistence as a goal? Or more generally, is mere existence enough from an objective point of view?
Comments (36)
Survival and subsistence are not necessarily pleasurable - indeed, for many individuals, they are distinctly unpleasant. Also difficult, disappointing and often painful. This accounts for a good deal of self-destructive behaviour, ranging from substance abuse to suicide. I don't see anything particularly spiritual about most forms of self-harm. We might set aside religious or ideological martyrdom as a special form of self-destructiveness that does have a spiritual component. But the more common forms arise from unhappiness, frustration and discontent.
Quoting kudos
No.
Quoting kudos
What would cause such a thought?
Quoting kudos
Mere existence is never "enough". It is the beginning of purposes and goals; the base-line necessity for conscious thought and volition.
Is there an "objective point of view"?
It seems like fear is the ultimate currency that keeps people apart and separate. Fear of losing, losing control, or being sectioned away from normal existence. Fear also sections away, wins and dominates others, in such a way as to pass itself on through itself. You could say that it is a kind of fear that has being for itself, but not exactly rational being in itself.
Regarding number three, I have been thinking a lot lately about democracy. Don't you think that the ideal society would be undemocratic? Democracy is in a way a correction of a flaw in ourselves and our ability to cooperate and compromise with each other.
In essence, the fundamental tendency of ourselves to look for true freedom. In this case, maybe a type of freedom from the boredom of choosing, boredom of self, and from the asymptotic value that outer life and its inner manifestations tend to lead to; the condition some of us call unhappiness.
There is a conflict of personal energy and control that it implies a person taken in their separateness from such a proposition. It sounds like a narrative that people come together and produce an aggregate change. Is that going to achieve the intended goal, or is it just another illusion of external machinery?
You mean the whole history of democratic-style decision-making all the way back to the ancient Athens and beyond, or do you just mean to draw a kind of plurality of the concept during its evolution?
I may have mentioned that. Yes;
Why make such a song-and-dance about it?
Sorry, what?
It cannot possibly. You are conflating the symptoms with the cause. Self-destructive tendencies are a symptom of a deeper problem within a person, which is better relegated to the field of psychiatry and psychology. Instead of glorifying it within the philosophical discussion, we should understand that it is a problem.
Even the Cynics would not recommend for us to be self-destructive. The Stoics recommend a view of life in self-restraint. None of them specifically talked about "continuation of life", rather, the fact that you are alive still and has some work to do while alive. In other words, take care of the life you have by using wisdom. If living is tiresome for you, try to understand yourself.
Antinatalism largely answers this dilemma of putting people into a world where they must subsist, often against what would be the conditions and range of choices they otherwise would have chosen.
I agree with your point here, but only with qualification. Did psychoanalysis ever characterize any 'illnesses,' or was it the individual themselves, psychiatry, and psychology that characterized it that way? It is unfortunate that our language has taken to calling personalities 'illnesses,' and 'problems' because they are obsessive (could also be viewed as fore-thinking), depressed (could also be viewed as introverted and inventive), or anxious (could also be viewed as meticulous or full of creative energy). True, taken to extremes these become obviously problematic for society and the individual in question, but even then thinking of things as illnesses or problems is only moderately helpful as a metaphor to overcome, but this is not to be taken in the literal sense in my view; that would only serve to externalize things with no real hope of ever gaining any real closure.
Aren't we both on the same page that the individual experiencing self-destruction should be treated as a real individual and not as a problem waiting to be solved by the man, or an ill person who could infect others with their disease?
It is not unfortunate, as you would like to see it. Observational approach to understanding the behavior or humans and animals -- in their natural order! -- points towards nurture and tenderness. We would not naturally seek chaos and suffering. So, establishing what's normal is really establishing the human psychology.
A baby monkey would cling to the terry cloth mother, than to a wooden mother. See Harry Harlow - The Nature of Affection.
"Problems" are meant to be solved, or analyzed. The human tendency to try to solve problems is part of continuation of life, as you say. If the word bothers you, then there are "cases" .
What about who youd call the grandfather of Western philosophy, Socrates? Someone who, as the story goes, chose execution over fear and groundless obedience to the natural order of his day.
I don't think you got the whole story of why he chose to drink the hemlock. It was a calculated decision on his part -- aging had a lot to do with it. His relationships with family and peers was very important. His identity was tied to his beliefs and how he lived. So, he was trying to avoid self-destruction by choosing, instead, to die.
I'm not sure. It's a matter of debate as this is Socrates.
It would be appropriate at this point to ask you for clarifcation on what you mean by 'nurture and tenderness' and 'chaos and suffering.' This assessment would be opposite of someone who has achieved control over the 'will to power' as regards their attributed circumstances. Don't you find such individuals tend to come from backgrounds of adversity and pain? Would you represent this kind of character as common of someone who has been catered to every whim and pleasure their entire life?
As the Buddha is said to have been, this before his quest for enlightenment wherein he sat under a tree and nearly starved to death in his ponderings? Certainly the Buddha can be said to have "achieved control over the 'will to power' as regards his attributed circumstances" (this when power is understood as ability to accomplish).
From the OP:
Quoting kudos
Self-destruction can signify many things and come in many forms. The want for ego-death, wherein the empirical ego is obliteratedand in some traditions said to then be rebirthed anewcomes to mind as one form of want for the destruction of the self. Even Nietzsches aphorism of the beast of burden whose back breaks from the load bared, turned into a carnivore combating the monster of thou shalt and shalt not, that after fully vanquishing the monster is then turned into a newly birthed babe to the world can easily be interpreted to address just such an ego death. In parallel, all forms of sincere love, such as compassion, will in due measure destroy an otherwise seemingly isolated selfhoodare the destruction of the self in this sensethis in part by opening up floodgates regarding the intrinsic worth of others such that one opens up to whats commonly termed selfless acts, with altruism as an example.
But something tells me these trains of thought are not what youre after as regards destruction of the self and spirituality?
To be honest, though, Im mainly posting because the OPs enquiry into self-destruction heavily reminds me of this song, which I generally like :smile: :
As artistic expressions go, there might be found some deeper truths in the lyrics dependent on their interpretation; e.g., assent to falsehoods is detrimental to ones long-term well-being, even if somehow comforting in the short-term. More concretely exemplified, alcoholism is detrimental in just such a manner, yet some will prefer it to dealing with the hardships of life all the same.
But, unlike notions of ego-death for example, I so far dont understand how such behaviors detrimental to ones well-being can be said to be spiritual aiming or yearning.
How nice to know that I'm successfully tapping into the debased individuals who make up the NIN fanbase. Looks like we're getting somewhere good now. Didn't Trent and Manson both satirize the illusion of choice and agency? Through their spectacular debauchery they exposed the asymptotic strivings of the autonomic continuation paradigm.
Not that this reply in any way addresses my post, but your biased interpretations re NIN are showing. Check this out, for example; and if you want, let me know how non-spiritual, anti-choice, or anti-agency it seems to you:
At any rate, is this going to turn into a rock music is debauchery thing? Or do you have some meaningful content to impart in relation to the content I previously posted?
I have no words at the moment.
Hey, as to being debased by others, javra does translate into cur. @kudoss less than civil reply is nothing shocking.
But Im glad someone is getting a good kick out of things so far.
What I'm talking about is a kind of nihilism that is about the reality of choice and agency. But the reality we want means overcoming the little pods that our own mass media has embedded us into. In general, the commodity system creates needs for themselves that simultaneously present a lack in the individual in their negation. This is more like Head Like a Hole, but you could pick any NIN out of a hat and get more or less the same message. The thesis is that to really accept lack in general, and to rebelliously draw distinctions within it; to create a kind of empire of lack with the intention of attaining some kind of choice. Isn't that the only way to rebel against a self-generating need-machine: to become the machine yourself?
no. You might want to address my first post to you.
I see. :grin: I've never used this word before.
Quoting kudos
Sorry, I still don't see how the "will to power" amounts to self-destruction and that the natural tendency to not choose chaos and suffering automatically betrays their background as the reason for being so. I was trying to tell you that even in the wild, they wouldn't choose self-destruction. Socrates was doomed and he knew it. Exile was not an option because he was old and didn't want to be separated from his loved ones. In essence, he was already destroyed by the powers that be. His choices -- exile, renounce his beliefs, or death -- all points towards the destruction of his identity.
Are we making up stuff as we go along in this thread? Because as I see it, statements like yours are generalizations with no basis.
So the choice was between renouncing beliefs -meaning teaching truth, wisdom, and philosophy to Athenian youths - and death. So how was it not self destructive to choose death?
:smile: eh, "javra" is the Romanian word for cur/mongrel, not that many people make a habit of using the latter.
Quoting L'éléphant
Yes. Moreover, were he to choose exile and a renunciation of his beliefs rather than concede to his sentence of death, this would have served to obliterate the cause which he strove for. So, especially given that all choices pointed toward the destruction of his own identity, conceding to die was that one option what best served his cause. Doubtful that his ideas would have been held in the same regard historically without Plato having written The Apology of Socrates [edit] or if Socrates would have evidenced himself a hypocrite by choosing to not honor the results of this trial by jury. The Platonic Academy might have never emerged otherwise, for instance.
No, you misunderstood. To him, any of the choices of punishment is like death. I mentioned those already -- exile, renounce his beliefs, and death are all similar in effect.
See below, for javra's take on it:
Quoting javra
:100:
Aren't you sort of generalizing that all self-destructive people are irrational? Most people who choose a path, destructive or not, have some grounds for doing so. That part can be more or less assumed. Carrying over to the mainstream of the conversation, in a climate where your freedom of choice were under arrest, wouldn't a rebellious path with aim of liberating the freedom of the individual be worth taking? Otherwise, it would be likewise a kind of death of the individual.
Yes.
Quoting kudos
Now you're intentionally blurring the lines. I no longer know what you really mean here.
Quoting kudos
Meaning to self-destruct? If one dies for a cause, that's one thing. But if one just waste away because of discontentment, then that's a problem.
It sounds like you are alluding to the utilitarian theory in your valuation of valid versus invalid self-destruction. If the destruction is considered to be doing the greatest good for the greatest number by the most widely held social sentiment, then it is acceptable. However, there are inherent problems with utilitarianism, which is why it is not used as a mechanistic model of moral good. The idea of social value determining the value scale of what is self-destructive is problematic because the act of self-destruction itself will always appear irrational to society, unless it is represented in an external place or time.
Take crime for an example. Any functioning society would say it is wrong to break the law in all cases except the moral one, where the function of breaking the law is to be in opposition to the former homogenizing mindset. No society would consider it favourable to break the law over a moral disagreement because moral disagreements are not supposed to exist, yet it is still paradoxically considered a good thing. We are getting into discussion of grounds that have predominantly actual basis. I would argue that the grounds of self-destructive behaviour are a kind of act of revival of the unity of the actual and rational where contingent rationality has become dogma.
This is pretty much a description of a Buddhist monk (albeit an incomplete description).
In a traditional Buddhist society, yes, actually.
From a worldly perspective, a monk is "falling apart in mind, spirit, and/or body," and yet in a traditional Buddhist society, being a monk is a valid social goal.
Quoting kudos
The historical Buddha was "catered to every whim and pleasure their entire life" up until a certain point, as the story goes, and yet he gave up on the pursuit of worldly gains. The story is a lot more complex, though.
Amen
I dont know that much about Buddhism except it is kind of like a stoicism that hinges on consciousness. What Im referring to also contrasts with stoicism in the sense that the self-destructive individual acts out inferiority, whereas the stoics envisioned a state of higher thinking that their acts represented.
(Leaving aside the very specific case of Buddhist monasticism.)
It's hard to make generalizations by now, because on the one hand, we have societies where self-destruction is basically encouraged at a certain point (ie. in countries where assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal), and on the other hand, societies where it is not.
In countries where assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal, the people are basically told, "If you can't live up to a certain psychological, physiological, social, and economical standard, then it's better that you die, and society will help you to die". In those countries, it is actually a viable social goal that the inferior self-destruct (with the help of the state).
In culture, we sometimes play G-d to some extent. And in that sense, our creation comes to feel more real than ourselves.