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I found this fun and interesting. It's a bit long, but it felt like there was a lot to build out. Doing that reading while not knowing where things are going is

I found this fun and interesting. It's a bit long, but it felt like there was a lot to build out. Doing that reading while not knowing where things are going is tough, but I found the reward, the synthesis of different sides, to be a surprisingly good conclusion to the piece. And just having the pleasure of this paragraph, I think, will impact me forever: > Most people I spend time with — leftists prone to anxiety and depression — are skeptical of "self-improvement." Many of us, following the critic Mark Fisher, think that depression reflects an encounter with the harshness of reality, rather than a merely pathological distortion. We definitely want to feel better, but we don’t want to be hijacked by acronyms or worksheets or positive thinking in the process. We try to attribute suffering to crappy world systems rather than personal deficiencies. We find ways to trust that our negative emotions signify something other than our own inadequacy — that they contain a deeply rational response to the world’s irrational injustice.

BoredPositron 1y ago
Marcuse wants to have a word.
- mitchbob 1y ago
  I'd encourage you to flesh out this comment. I've never read Marcuse, and I'm curious what you had in mind.
  - jauntywundrkind 1y ago
    [flagged]
jdietrich 1y ago
Fisher died by suicide in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher
- astrange 1y ago
  But not before encouraging everyone to blame things on "capitalism" which even Marx would have said would be solved by more capitalism. (Namely cost of living in Anglo countries, which is largely caused by their practically feudalist land usage policies.)
  - harimau777 1y ago
    I mean, late stage capitalism hasn't been working out so great; so he kind of has a point.
    - wakawaka28 1y ago
      There is no such thing as late stage capitalism. Or I should say, it's a misnomer. When people refer to late stage capitalism, they are usually complaining about market failures due to globalism, governmental issues, difficulties adapting to automation, or extreme envy of those who have gotten rich. Free markets generally work well for everyone, except for rare circumstances like monopolies or unfair competition.
      - layla5alive 1y ago
        > Free markets generally work well for everyone, except for rare circumstances like monopolies or unfair competition. "Free markets generally work well for everyone, except for regular circumstances like monopolies or unfair competition." Fixed it for you.
        wakawaka28 1y ago
        Those cases do arise occasionally or even "regularly" but with proper regulation, these problems are quickly and satisfactorily corrected. There is always a possibility of regulatory capture. The ultimate form of regulatory capture is communism, lol.
  - antman 1y ago
    What edition of Marx are you reading?
j45 1y ago
Long reads can be fine, different readers might need to pull in different parts of the context.
astrange 1y ago
> We try to attribute suffering to crappy world systems rather than personal deficiencies. > We find ways to trust that our negative emotions signify something other than our own inadequacy — that they contain a deeply rational response to the world’s irrational injustice. Believes suffering is caused by impermanent and changeable features of the world, and that the only alternative is a personal "deficiency"? Believes negative emotions are rational and arise due to clear causation by external forces? I've heard that one before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence What the article calls "dialectic" is called "non-dualism" in Buddhism; the author has gotten to the point where they recognize them, but maybe not to the important part which is to remember they aren't real. (Note that something being real or not real is also an incorrect dualism.)
- ktimespi 1y ago
  DBT is based on Zen Buddhism, created by a psychologist suffering from borderline personality disorder
  - astrange 1y ago
    That's not very promising. Most versions of Zen are made-up export products designed to flatter Westerners. Kind of like the samurai movie honor bushido stuff. https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy (Japanese people think Buddhism is a thing you do at funerals. If you get into it more seriously, I vaguely understand it's mostly a religion that tells you not to have sex.) In this case the more important question is whether it actually works.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Well, and most Catholics only go to mass once a year. If then. There is a bit more to it, if you’re interested though. Most westerners also do a lot more Yoga than typical Indians.
    - gxonatano 1y ago
      > Most versions of Zen are made-up export products designed to flatter Westerners. Kind of like the samurai movie honor bushido stuff. I don't think so. If you go to a zenkai or a sesshin held by a western zendo, and then go to one at a Japanese temple, you won't notice too many differences, apart from the language. Many American zen teachers trained in Japan at some point, or their teachers did, and they brought these practices back more or less verbatim. In fact, in many American zendos, students chant the same sutras, _in Japanese_, as in Japanese zendos. Plus, there are regulatory bodies, like the Soto Zen school, that certify affiliated western zendos as authoritative. It's not made-up, it's hardly an "export product," and it certainly isn't designed to flatter anyone. > https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy That seems like a rambling, self-published book by a Vajrayana practitioner with an axe to grind against Zen, for some bizarre reason. But there are plenty of real books about the rise of American Zen, or Buddhism in the west, that are well-researched. _Zen in America_ by Helen Tworkov is one. > Japanese people think Buddhism is a thing you do at funerals. Not at all. Buddhism, and Zen especially, permeate Japanese culture very deeply. Japanese aesthetics, architecture, landscape design, visual art, calligraphy, the tea ceremony, and the martial arts, have all been strongly influenced by Zen. And it's all over pop culture, too—just think of how pervasive Daruma dolls are—that's Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen. Sure, Buddhism is at funerals, but it's everywhere, else, too. > If you get into it more seriously, I vaguely understand it's mostly a religion that tells you not to have sex. Maybe you're thinking of Christianity? Unless you're a monk, attitudes towards sex are fairly liberal in Buddhism. There are bodhisattva precepts that caution against misusing sex, but nowhere does anyone tell you not to have it. In fact, it's largely unconcerned with it, let alone "mostly a religion that tells you not to have" it. Western religions are very concerned with telling you what to do and not do, but Buddhism is concerned with liberation.
hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago
It's a fantastic paragraph. It lays one of Fisher's most striking claims at the feet of the reader and simply asks, "And you agree, right?" If you do, sally forth, you've probably walked down this road before. You know it well. If you don't, it gracefully folds in to give you a glimpse into how the other side lives and thinks with just enough detail to feel real. Either way is a good time in a sense.

BoredPositron 1y ago

Marcuse wants to have a word.

mitchbob 1y ago
I'd encourage you to flesh out this comment. I've never read Marcuse, and I'm curious what you had in mind.
- jauntywundrkind 1y ago
  [flagged]

jdietrich 1y ago

Fisher died by suicide in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher

astrange 1y ago
But not before encouraging everyone to blame things on "capitalism" which even Marx would have said would be solved by more capitalism. (Namely cost of living in Anglo countries, which is largely caused by their practically feudalist land usage policies.)
- harimau777 1y ago
  I mean, late stage capitalism hasn't been working out so great; so he kind of has a point.
  - wakawaka28 1y ago
    There is no such thing as late stage capitalism. Or I should say, it's a misnomer. When people refer to late stage capitalism, they are usually complaining about market failures due to globalism, governmental issues, difficulties adapting to automation, or extreme envy of those who have gotten rich. Free markets generally work well for everyone, except for rare circumstances like monopolies or unfair competition.
    - layla5alive 1y ago
      > Free markets generally work well for everyone, except for rare circumstances like monopolies or unfair competition. "Free markets generally work well for everyone, except for regular circumstances like monopolies or unfair competition." Fixed it for you.
      - wakawaka28 1y ago
        Those cases do arise occasionally or even "regularly" but with proper regulation, these problems are quickly and satisfactorily corrected. There is always a possibility of regulatory capture. The ultimate form of regulatory capture is communism, lol.
- antman 1y ago
  What edition of Marx are you reading?

j45 1y ago

Long reads can be fine, different readers might need to pull in different parts of the context.

astrange 1y ago

> We try to attribute suffering to crappy world systems rather than personal deficiencies. > We find ways to trust that our negative emotions signify something other than our own inadequacy — that they contain a deeply rational response to the world’s irrational injustice. Believes suffering is caused by impermanent and changeable features of the world, and that the only alternative is a personal "deficiency"? Believes negative emotions are rational and arise due to clear causation by external forces? I've heard that one before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence What the article calls "dialectic" is called "non-dualism" in Buddhism; the author has gotten to the point where they recognize them, but maybe not to the important part which is to remember they aren't real. (Note that something being real or not real is also an incorrect dualism.)

ktimespi 1y ago
DBT is based on Zen Buddhism, created by a psychologist suffering from borderline personality disorder
- astrange 1y ago
  That's not very promising. Most versions of Zen are made-up export products designed to flatter Westerners. Kind of like the samurai movie honor bushido stuff. https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy (Japanese people think Buddhism is a thing you do at funerals. If you get into it more seriously, I vaguely understand it's mostly a religion that tells you not to have sex.) In this case the more important question is whether it actually works.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Well, and most Catholics only go to mass once a year. If then. There is a bit more to it, if you’re interested though. Most westerners also do a lot more Yoga than typical Indians.
  - gxonatano 1y ago
    > Most versions of Zen are made-up export products designed to flatter Westerners. Kind of like the samurai movie honor bushido stuff. I don't think so. If you go to a zenkai or a sesshin held by a western zendo, and then go to one at a Japanese temple, you won't notice too many differences, apart from the language. Many American zen teachers trained in Japan at some point, or their teachers did, and they brought these practices back more or less verbatim. In fact, in many American zendos, students chant the same sutras, _in Japanese_, as in Japanese zendos. Plus, there are regulatory bodies, like the Soto Zen school, that certify affiliated western zendos as authoritative. It's not made-up, it's hardly an "export product," and it certainly isn't designed to flatter anyone. > https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy https://vividness.live/zen-vs-the-u-s-navy That seems like a rambling, self-published book by a Vajrayana practitioner with an axe to grind against Zen, for some bizarre reason. But there are plenty of real books about the rise of American Zen, or Buddhism in the west, that are well-researched. _Zen in America_ by Helen Tworkov is one. > Japanese people think Buddhism is a thing you do at funerals. Not at all. Buddhism, and Zen especially, permeate Japanese culture very deeply. Japanese aesthetics, architecture, landscape design, visual art, calligraphy, the tea ceremony, and the martial arts, have all been strongly influenced by Zen. And it's all over pop culture, too—just think of how pervasive Daruma dolls are—that's Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen. Sure, Buddhism is at funerals, but it's everywhere, else, too. > If you get into it more seriously, I vaguely understand it's mostly a religion that tells you not to have sex. Maybe you're thinking of Christianity? Unless you're a monk, attitudes towards sex are fairly liberal in Buddhism. There are bodhisattva precepts that caution against misusing sex, but nowhere does anyone tell you not to have it. In fact, it's largely unconcerned with it, let alone "mostly a religion that tells you not to have" it. Western religions are very concerned with telling you what to do and not do, but Buddhism is concerned with liberation.

hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago

It's a fantastic paragraph. It lays one of Fisher's most striking claims at the feet of the reader and simply asks, "And you agree, right?" If you do, sally forth, you've probably walked down this road before. You know it well. If you don't, it gracefully folds in to give you a glimpse into how the other side lives and thinks with just enough detail to feel real. Either way is a good time in a sense.