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Nonsense. One's life meaning is traditionally simply their social role. The reason people lack meaning now is that we started determining our social roles by wa
by whitemary 3y ago
Nonsense. One's life meaning is traditionally simply their social role. The reason people lack meaning now is that we started determining our social roles by way of market whims, which means our roles are temporary at best and imaginary at worst. It also creates a market for braindead individualist philosophizing to explain why everyone feels so lonely and lost. Sterile precarity is the problem, not the solution.
- aaronblohowiak 3y agoThe context in which frankl wrote this was as a concentration camp survivor, quite different than the postmodern capitalist lends you seem to be evaluating it through Notably, man’s search for meaning was 1946 iirc and postmodernism didn’t really ascend until some time later
- whitemary 3y ago[flagged]
- msla 3y ago[flagged]
- locusofself 3y agowhich concentration camp survivors wrote communist books?
- whitemary 3y agoSee: they weren't made famous, History is written by the victors, which says nothing of its accuracy.
- epicureanideal 3y agoWhen reading this question I just happened to recall a Soviet writer, who was Jewish, who I think did see the concentration camps and write about them but wasn't a victim of them. But, this person didn't write in favor of communism despite being a writer in the Soviet Union. Their books were censored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Grossman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Grossman I found his book "Everything Flows" to be extremely interesting. It is a fictional account of a Soviet gulag survivor returning to his home, and reflecting on the people he meets and his life. https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Flows-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590173287/ https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Flows-Review-Books-Classic... I think it's much better than "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".
- maxbond 3y agoWhat is that meant to establish?
- fogzen 3y agoWe can choose our social role. We can choose the market we want to serve.
- worthless-trash 3y agoWe always choose the god we serve, even if its not a god.
- throw0101b 3y agoWhat is your highest good (summum bonum)? This is what you worship. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summum_bonum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summum_bonum * https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06640a.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06640a.htm
- worthless-trash 3y agoI like how you put that.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoI don't agree with this approach at all, but even accepting what I think are its foundations, this seems to be conflating "social role" with "employment". Unless I misunderstand.
- whitemary 3y agoBefore employment, there was only social roles. In other words, they should absolutely be conflated. It is absurd and foolhardy to attempt separating them.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago> we started determining our social roles by way of market whims Plenty of social roles are still not determined by market whims. Such as friendship and family relations.
- andrewjl 3y ago> One's life meaning is traditionally simply their social role. The reason people lack meaning now is that we started determining our social roles by way of market whims John Stuart Mill noted that liberalism leaves the determination of social roles to individuals because the end result drives more progress than the alternatives. > Sterile precarity is the problem, not the solution. What to do instead? Non-sterile precarity as in feudalism?
- Juliate 3y agoHaving your social role defined by tradition (that is, really, what other people thought it should be) is not much good either.