7 ms·

Self-help gets philosophical

98 points by XzetaU8 1y ago

cantor_S_drug 1y ago
> When those expectations include owning a vacation home or winning a Nobel Prize, letting go might be healthy — but doing so is tragic when they include stopping a genocide or ending homelessness. I don't understand such analysis when there are opposing "blob" forces trying to push the world into worse state. Forget about people dying in earthquakes, consider current wars, we are using resources (human, capital, tech) to destroy resources (uprooting human lives, destroying buildings, blowing up infrastructure) while those very resources could be used to create more resources which solve problems and create wealth. World is not a closed system, there are forces operating which for whatever reasons are not aligned for humanity's flourishing.
- iJohnDoe 1y ago
  The Bush/Cheney wars were peak evil of modern times of sending our children off to die just to make Cheney’s cronies at Halliburton rich. Bush and Cheney should be considered mass murders. Not to mention your point about all the funds that could have been spent elsewhere.
  - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
    This is not an unpopular opinion. No one on the right or left defends the second Iraq War anymore and few defend the war in Afghanistan.
  - astrange 1y ago
    Noone made any money or got any oil from the Iraq War. The US is an oil exporter and doesn't have any oil contracts in Iraq. In fact, no one makes money from any wars, and defense contractors profit less during wartime than peacetime. One universal principle about US politics is that many people try to sound savvy by claiming X thing is obviously about the money, or that some secret evil competent person did something and successfully profited from it, and then if you look their explanation is always wrong. In fact there are no competent evil people and bad ideas are simply just bad for everyone. …Also, Bush's PEPFAR program was so good that I think he's clearly saved more lives than any other president even if you count the wars against him.
    - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
      Yes, Erik Prince famously donated his company's time during that era.
      - astrange 1y ago
        No, we didn't do a war so that Blackwater could secretly profit from it. We did it because Cheney felt like doing one for emotional and ideological reasons.
        mnky9800n 1y ago
        like preventing sadam hussein from selling oil in euros.
    - kamranjon 1y ago
      “Noone made any money or got any oil from the Iraq War.” This seems wrong? Halliburton secured a 7billion dollar contract where they were the only allowed bidders, their subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root (KBR) was estimated to receive at least 39.5billion dollars in federal contracts. Halliburton experienced a 80% increase in revenue by the first quarter of 2004… Most of these contracts were “cost-plus” which meant they were guaranteed reimbursement for their costs + a guaranteed profit on top of that. As a result of the war many oil companies including BP were awarded access and development contracts to the oil fields, with BP extracting well over 15billion dollars worth of oil. Over 150billion dollars in oil money apparently just went missing or was “stolen”. Also the US has maintained control over Iraqi oil revenue since the beginning of the war in 2003. It would seem to be almost rewriting history to make such a statement…
- rayiner 1y ago
  That’s backwards. Our fight isn’t against “blob forces, but instead against human nature and regression to the mean. My dad’s village in Bangladesh is the default state of humanity. The life you have in San Francisco or wherever is a bubble of order and flourishing in a hostile world, like the inside of a single cell organism.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    What's the difference? Surely this is worth fighting in both instances. Also I struggle to see San Francisco as "flourishing" so much as "the very hostility choking the world out for no particular reason".
  - walleeee 1y ago
    The life possible in San Francisco is possible in large part because of the entropy it externalizes to "somewhere else", a place many in SF and the US more generally prefer to ignore, and which includes Bangladesh, alongside as much of the "global south" as can be coerced into lopsided agreements, and much more generally the possible futures available to humankind. Cell membranes externalize entropy in the same way, the difference is they are good enough at working together, and working with the world around them, which is perhaps frequently hostile but also nutritious and useful, that higher-order life emerges nonetheless. Much work in e.g. anthropology shows the "default state" of humanity is not nearly as well-defined as "subsistence agriculture". That is recent and it is a prototype of a strange phenomenon at the limit of which is San Francisco, a truly unusual bubble of order and some degree of flourishing, for the moment. If we were wiser we would be trying to extend the cell metaphor to the planet as a whole, which would benefit people in San Francisco and Bangladesh alike. Part of that includes retiring the war against nature mentality, it does very little good imo.
    - api 1y ago
      > The life possible in San Francisco is possible in large part because of the entropy it externalizes to "somewhere else" This may be true to some extent, but what I dislike about this idea is that to many it implies that human flourishing is impossible without suffering exported elsewhere. The world in this view is a finite pie that can only be sliced up differently. Nothing is ever created. Wealth can only be redistributed. This ignores the fact that the past 200 years have seen insane wealth creation that has enabled more people than have ever lived to live better than most people have ever lived. Look at how many have risen out of poverty globally in just the last 25 years. Someone will inevitably bring up climate change, etc., and argue that it’s all bound to come crashing down. Maybe it will, but asserting that it must as some law of nature is a fatalistic ideology. It’s a fatalistic ideology that some people seem to like and be emotionally attached to for reasons that aren’t clear to me. I tend to think it’s a big cop out. If everything is doomed, doomed, doomed, then there is no point in even trying. Eat, drink, and be merry while the ship sinks.
blfr 1y ago
While I get the surprising modernness of Aurelius' writing, I don't get the fascination with him since he ultimately failed at his most important task: choosing a reliable heir. Maybe he should have cared more and be more attached. Maybe the lesson here is that leaders should actually be engaged. Caesar may have committed a genocide and caused a civil war but he hit his KPIs with the state of Rome and Octavian. Meanwhile Trump's "You do shows, you do this, you do that, and then you have earthquakes in India where 400,000 people get killed. Honestly, it doesn’t matter" is a tremendous insight for someone in a relatable position. A production system is down, some deal is falling apart, company going bankrupt, someone clowned on you live on tv? These matter but we're not in the ER here, no one's dying, and certainly not 400k people, keep perspective.
uvaursi 1y ago
> Apparently catching a brief glimpse of the abyss during the 2020 campaign cycle, Trump expressed his wish to “hop into” one of his supporters’ trucks “and drive it away.” As he mused, “I’d love to do it. Just drive the hell outta here. Just get the hell out of this.” Damn. Trump dropping some serious truth pills here frfr
maCDzP 1y ago
I used to think stoicism was great. But now I think that it’s not so great. In retrospect I should have focused on changing my situation in stead of learning to live with it. Compared to Aurelius - I am not living around 0 bc - in today’s world I can change a lot of things.
- uvaursi 1y ago
  Yes but the psyop was a stalwart success and continues to be. This is just the latest revision. Imagine how you’ll feel about things tomorrow.
- embedding-shape 1y ago
  What about "no single mindset works all the time" instead? Sometimes you need to bite the bullet and just learn to live with something, sometimes you need not to, and instead fight until you can't, to get out of the situation. Different moments call for different ways of seeing situations, and maybe learning to identify what moment calls for what mindset is something we need to focus on more, rather than digging into one position that should always work.
  - portaouflop 1y ago
    Ideology belongs in the trash. But yea you can pick and choose parts of some ideologies as they are useful in the moment.
    - api 1y ago
      “All models are wrong but some models are useful.”
    - jahsome 1y ago
      Not to split hairs but isn't the phrase "ideology belongs in the trash" itself somewhat ideological?
      - portaouflop 1y ago
robot-wrangler 1y ago
> the idea that nothing matters has gained significant purchase An example of an increasingly popular trend that conflates what I'd call "value nihilism" with "action/effort nihilism". There's a huge difference. Value-nihilism is kind of soul-sickness that's probably super rare in the general population and usually comorbid with stuff like dark triad or clinical depression. Action/effort nihilism, or the POV that nothing can be done to improve things, is just realism or pragmatism in a party mask. Value-nihilism cannot be disproved or even argued with, because there's no place to stand. On the bright side(?), action/effort nihilism is a pretty simple thing to cure if you're in a leadership position. Reward effort, intentions, results, and keep the promises you make so that people can plan for their future and have agency. Stop playing corrupt and counterproductive games with politics, optics, nepotism
- sifar 1y ago
  I think people stop at nothing matters or there is no meaning. So either one can be depressed about it or if one takes a step further, if nothing matters/things don't have a meaning, great, then I can focus on stuff that matters to me, gives meaning to me and people around me at large.
- djoldman 1y ago
  Great comment. I think the trump quote is more value-nihilist: > "You win, you win, and in the end, it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot.”
renewiltord 1y ago
Life’s pretty good, guys. It’s been good when I was a little child playing in the mud. It was good when I was on my one hour ride to school. It was good when I first cut my flesh to the bone and watched my dad sew it up. It was good when a girl I had a crush on didn’t feel that way about me. It was good when I nearly failed Algebraic Geometry because I didn’t have what it took. It was good when I almost didn’t get an internship out of uni because I procrastinated till Jan of the year. It was good when I moved to SF with $25 in my bank account. It was good when I lived on a couch off Air Bed And Breakfast. It was good when a car hit me on my motorcycle. It was good when I was robbed. Life is just good. Because the alternative is oblivion.
- the_cat_kittles 1y ago
  [flagged]
- Noumenon72 1y ago
  It's nice of evolution to imbue some people with these false views. I hope your kids inherit the earth so people with more realistic outlooks don't have to be born and suffer through it.
  - mnky9800n 1y ago
    suffering is part of life. if you do not accept suffering, you just suffer more.
- IvanLudvig 1y ago
  life is good. without it, you'd be dead
digianarchist 1y ago
I have a particular disdain for the profanity-laden slop that is works penned by Mark Manson. He's not alone as most "self-help" books are trash reads that only serve as some form of cathartic release to their readers. That's not to say all books in the genre are useless. I have recommended Cal Newport's works before but they very much suffer from "this 300 page book could have been a blog post" levels of verbosity.
- api 1y ago
  A huge amount of nonfiction work is overlong. Many nonfiction works could be condensed to an essay or even just a blurb.
  - digianarchist 1y ago
    A wasted opportunity to explore related ideas.
- zkmon 1y ago
  The need to sell, forces one to be as weird and vulgar as possible. Most books are selling focused. Selling has spoiled many art forms. The extreme antics you see on stage for a music show has nothing to do with music either.
pluto_modadic 1y ago
IIRC stoicism was written by rich people (and advisors to rich people) who didn't focus at all on improving the system. It's on-brand for the self-help influencer phenomena where you disregard disadvantages to others and systemic problems.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  Bro one of the most prominent Stoic writers was a literal slave. This idea that it's a philosophy only for the rich and powerful couldn't be further from the truth.
uvaursi 1y ago
As the wise man said: you will own nothing, and you will be happy.
- goopypoop 1y ago
  or else
zkmon 1y ago
Books are same as TV shows - more about sounding weird to catch the fish (audience). I don't read any of those self-help books or seemingly philosophical notes. The Western world has invented too much of self-awareness and social reflection. People smile too much, smile at strangers, worry about social acceptance, worry about self, go crazy about all thing cosmetic in life and at work. You don't need to think too much about anything or have too much of self-awareness. Just be real, with neutral expression, relaxed, not emotional etc. The worst thing is having happiness as a goal. It should be a side-effect, not a goal. Infact, you shouldn't have any goals. Any incremental achievement is nice to have, and down-side is business as usual. Just deal with it. You get angry or emotional because reality is too different from your expectations. That's the fault of your expectations, not of reality.
- HEmanZ 1y ago
  “ People smile too much, smile at strangers…” How dare they.
  - unpopularopp 1y ago
    If you are american you'll probably never notice how off-putting is the american niceness. And it's not natural if you ever traveled and seen the world a little bit.
    - AaronAPU 1y ago
      Cool, stay in your other country and I’ll keep smiling with my fellow Americans.
    - HEmanZ 1y ago
      I’ve travelled and lived abroad extensively and I’d say American niceness goes over well in 90% of the world. And where it doesn’t, boo hoo, they can handle a smile.
    - toomanyrichies 1y ago
      Genuine question as an American- why would niceness be off-putting? What would you prefer? I'm guessing neutrality or formality, as opposed to outright rudeness... is it because it feels too familiar, and a bit of arms-length distance is more your custom? Again, genuinely curious as an outsider.
monkmartinez 1y ago
Why so political? I don't understand why so many people focus on Trump and Left and Right and all the theater of politics in general. Subtract the politics from TFA and it is really, really good. The author and I agree on some "pop-stoicism" critiques and disagree on others. Well reasoned and articulate arguments to support or dismiss "teachings" from the neo-pop-stoic culture. The we get to passages like this; "It is, I suppose, strictly speaking accurate that if the approximately 8.6 million people who die each year due to a lack of access to quality healthcare were to wish their fate, their desires would not be frustrated, but tautological truth does not make for philosophical profundity." Yes it does. How does this person know the 8.6 million people that died did not live meaningful lives while they were able bodied and healthy? How does the author know what is "right" for them? Whether I agree/disagree with the aspects of the authors POV; any sober and/or objective reading of this just reeks of ego and "holier than thou" attitude. I suspect this type of attitude is a large reason why people that devote large amounts of time to thinking about politics end up categorizing "justice" into politically ideological boxes. Edit to add; I am reading the comments and not many are talking about this point either which I think is profound. I hit ctrl-f inside TFA and did not find a word used in Stoic literature that I have read; Virtue. You would think a critique on Stoicism would at least cover the basics, no? Here is a reminder for everyone that cares; Stoic virtue is the highest good and the only true path to a flourishing life, encompassing four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance (or self-control), and justice.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > Subtract the politics from TFA and it is really, really good. I thought it was far too many words to express the core ideas, although perhaps there is value in taking that time to meditate on them. I suspect that an introduction like this is second nature to the author, though. The expressed views presumably play well to the author's intended audience, and among those who spend lots of time bashing the POTUS (whichever group, and whichever POTUS, at the time of bashing), it seems to be largely a form of socialization. In this specific case, the author clearly knows a lot of uncommon trivia about Trump, and was furthermore able to segue from that trivia into the main point, demonstrating linguistic skill. Which creates at least two layers of irony: 1. (probably intentional, I think) Despite the distraction and effort, this shows a way in which the fact of Trump's political career has benefited the author. 2. (probably unintentional, I think) In a piece nominally about the virtue of apathy and the author's experience with that, the author comes across as compulsively seeking approval and commiseration. (Once I'd gotten through the intro and understood the general topic, I ended up glossing over the rest, so on an initial read I completely missed the bit about healthcare. Another irony, perhaps, if the communication of that idea was actually a sincere and primary goal?)
Barrin92 1y ago
The problem with self-help "philosophy" in particular in the case of Stoicism — but also when it borrows piecemeal from Eastern traditions — is that it's completely divorced from its metaphysics. Stoic ethics of 'living according to nature' was underpinned by an idea of a natural, rational cosmos (the "Logos") to which living up to is worth it. Nietzsche fairly devastatingly (expressed well in this comic[1]) pointed out that in an irrational and chaotic cosmos it's not the stoics living with nature, it's that the Stoics desperately attempt to project their own philosophy on the cosmos. A kind of psychological self-delusion and neutering. And while most people who are fed up with self-help Stoics likely haven't read Nietzsche directly, I think they can intuitively smell that. The hollowness of self help gurus comes from trying to practice the ethics of a philosophy of antiquity without the metaphysics of antiquity that underpinned it. If you find yourself in a Lovecraftian universe living in accordance with nature does not sound so good any more and the Stoic self help guy seems more like a shoddy salesman. [1]https://existentialcomics.com/comic/69 https://existentialcomics.com/comic/69
twodave 1y ago
I believe an answer to this is just temperance. Finding balance can be difficult if you have lost it for a long time, but in general not letting things outside your ability to influence impact your overall psyche is a healthy choice. How do I know if something is out of balance in my life? Usually I know this because it’s negatively affecting how I treat others or dominating all of my conversations. Hysteria doesn’t actually solve anything, and in fact it will usually cause problems of its own.
breve 1y ago
> The anesthetizing pleasures of disengagement seem especially seductive these days Authoritarians always want you to embrace a nihilistic apathy. It makes you easier to rule and guarantees their continued power without challenge. It's what happened to Russia. And now we see the Russification of America.
silexia 1y ago
Every biology textbook I've ever read tells us the purpose of life in plain black and white: to reproduce. If you have children, especially a lot of children, you will see the purpose of life.
- bagful 1y ago
  This assertion relies a bit much on overloading the definition of “life”, and I for one care more about spreading my ideas than my genes.
  - silexia 1y ago
    Why?
    - bagful 1y ago
      Can’t say; this set of genes didn’t produce a consciousness that cares to pass them along, I suppose
ArcHound 1y ago
This article is a soup of concepts. And the worst part: most of them are not contradictory at all. Nothing matters as in there is no purpose given to us from above is true (at least according to Nietzsche). That means we have the option of inventing our own purpose. Or not - it's still good to enjoy life as is. I've read hope is fucked some long time ago. It touches the stoicism with: don't get too invested in things outside of your control, it's not good for you. Yes, but Mark forgets that living like this is not pleasant at all. But having the skill of acceptance is good as we're not omnipotent, so there are things we can't do anything about. That brings me to manifesting (ugh). We all know we won't get everything by wishing hard. It's still good to try and by thinking about positive result we have better probability of figuring out a plan and sustaining motivation to see the plan through. Next we move on to terrible people listening to philosophy. Yes, they can do that and it doesn't take away from the teachings. And no, e.g. stoicism has a strong moral component which they are purposefully ignoring. Also, to respond to title directly: accepting your life is shitty and understanding it doesn't take away from your character doesn't mean not trying to improve your situation. Yes, it means feeling good if your attempts fail. You still have the option of trying again. I give the article author massive props for being honest with themselves. But no, books cannot save you. Only you perhaps can, but you might fail. And that's ok. To end positively, I agree with the call to action. And the article is a nice historical overview.
monarchwadia 1y ago
Western philosophy is so depressing. Unnecessarily.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jebarker 1y ago
I was attracted to Stoicism for a long time and still believe it has some good ideas, e.g. recognizing what you cannot control and not letting those things destabilize you easily. But overall I find it a pretty depressing philosophy. I’m sure that is a reflection of me, but what I’ve found much more compelling (as it leaves me actually feeling positive about life rather than indifferent) is absurdism. In particular, the idea that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” profoundly changed how I approach and enjoy life.

98 points by XzetaU8 1y ago

> When those expectations include owning a vacation home or winning a Nobel Prize, letting go might be healthy — but doing so is tragic when they include stopping a genocide or ending homelessness. I don't understand such analysis when there are opposing "blob" forces trying to push the world into worse state. Forget about people dying in earthquakes, consider current wars, we are using resources (human, capital, tech) to destroy resources (uprooting human lives, destroying buildings, blowing up infrastructure) while those very resources could be used to create more resources which solve problems and create wealth. World is not a closed system, there are forces operating which for whatever reasons are not aligned for humanity's flourishing.

iJohnDoe 1y ago
The Bush/Cheney wars were peak evil of modern times of sending our children off to die just to make Cheney’s cronies at Halliburton rich. Bush and Cheney should be considered mass murders. Not to mention your point about all the funds that could have been spent elsewhere.
- raw_anon_1111 1y ago
  This is not an unpopular opinion. No one on the right or left defends the second Iraq War anymore and few defend the war in Afghanistan.
- astrange 1y ago
  Noone made any money or got any oil from the Iraq War. The US is an oil exporter and doesn't have any oil contracts in Iraq. In fact, no one makes money from any wars, and defense contractors profit less during wartime than peacetime. One universal principle about US politics is that many people try to sound savvy by claiming X thing is obviously about the money, or that some secret evil competent person did something and successfully profited from it, and then if you look their explanation is always wrong. In fact there are no competent evil people and bad ideas are simply just bad for everyone. …Also, Bush's PEPFAR program was so good that I think he's clearly saved more lives than any other president even if you count the wars against him.
  - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
    Yes, Erik Prince famously donated his company's time during that era.
    - astrange 1y ago
      No, we didn't do a war so that Blackwater could secretly profit from it. We did it because Cheney felt like doing one for emotional and ideological reasons.
      - mnky9800n 1y ago
        like preventing sadam hussein from selling oil in euros.
  - kamranjon 1y ago
    “Noone made any money or got any oil from the Iraq War.” This seems wrong? Halliburton secured a 7billion dollar contract where they were the only allowed bidders, their subsidiary Kellog Brown & Root (KBR) was estimated to receive at least 39.5billion dollars in federal contracts. Halliburton experienced a 80% increase in revenue by the first quarter of 2004… Most of these contracts were “cost-plus” which meant they were guaranteed reimbursement for their costs + a guaranteed profit on top of that. As a result of the war many oil companies including BP were awarded access and development contracts to the oil fields, with BP extracting well over 15billion dollars worth of oil. Over 150billion dollars in oil money apparently just went missing or was “stolen”. Also the US has maintained control over Iraqi oil revenue since the beginning of the war in 2003. It would seem to be almost rewriting history to make such a statement…
rayiner 1y ago
That’s backwards. Our fight isn’t against “blob forces, but instead against human nature and regression to the mean. My dad’s village in Bangladesh is the default state of humanity. The life you have in San Francisco or wherever is a bubble of order and flourishing in a hostile world, like the inside of a single cell organism.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  What's the difference? Surely this is worth fighting in both instances. Also I struggle to see San Francisco as "flourishing" so much as "the very hostility choking the world out for no particular reason".
- walleeee 1y ago
  The life possible in San Francisco is possible in large part because of the entropy it externalizes to "somewhere else", a place many in SF and the US more generally prefer to ignore, and which includes Bangladesh, alongside as much of the "global south" as can be coerced into lopsided agreements, and much more generally the possible futures available to humankind. Cell membranes externalize entropy in the same way, the difference is they are good enough at working together, and working with the world around them, which is perhaps frequently hostile but also nutritious and useful, that higher-order life emerges nonetheless. Much work in e.g. anthropology shows the "default state" of humanity is not nearly as well-defined as "subsistence agriculture". That is recent and it is a prototype of a strange phenomenon at the limit of which is San Francisco, a truly unusual bubble of order and some degree of flourishing, for the moment. If we were wiser we would be trying to extend the cell metaphor to the planet as a whole, which would benefit people in San Francisco and Bangladesh alike. Part of that includes retiring the war against nature mentality, it does very little good imo.
  - api 1y ago
    > The life possible in San Francisco is possible in large part because of the entropy it externalizes to "somewhere else" This may be true to some extent, but what I dislike about this idea is that to many it implies that human flourishing is impossible without suffering exported elsewhere. The world in this view is a finite pie that can only be sliced up differently. Nothing is ever created. Wealth can only be redistributed. This ignores the fact that the past 200 years have seen insane wealth creation that has enabled more people than have ever lived to live better than most people have ever lived. Look at how many have risen out of poverty globally in just the last 25 years. Someone will inevitably bring up climate change, etc., and argue that it’s all bound to come crashing down. Maybe it will, but asserting that it must as some law of nature is a fatalistic ideology. It’s a fatalistic ideology that some people seem to like and be emotionally attached to for reasons that aren’t clear to me. I tend to think it’s a big cop out. If everything is doomed, doomed, doomed, then there is no point in even trying. Eat, drink, and be merry while the ship sinks.

blfr 1y ago

While I get the surprising modernness of Aurelius' writing, I don't get the fascination with him since he ultimately failed at his most important task: choosing a reliable heir. Maybe he should have cared more and be more attached. Maybe the lesson here is that leaders should actually be engaged. Caesar may have committed a genocide and caused a civil war but he hit his KPIs with the state of Rome and Octavian. Meanwhile Trump's "You do shows, you do this, you do that, and then you have earthquakes in India where 400,000 people get killed. Honestly, it doesn’t matter" is a tremendous insight for someone in a relatable position. A production system is down, some deal is falling apart, company going bankrupt, someone clowned on you live on tv? These matter but we're not in the ER here, no one's dying, and certainly not 400k people, keep perspective.

uvaursi 1y ago

> Apparently catching a brief glimpse of the abyss during the 2020 campaign cycle, Trump expressed his wish to “hop into” one of his supporters’ trucks “and drive it away.” As he mused, “I’d love to do it. Just drive the hell outta here. Just get the hell out of this.” Damn. Trump dropping some serious truth pills here frfr

maCDzP 1y ago

I used to think stoicism was great. But now I think that it’s not so great. In retrospect I should have focused on changing my situation in stead of learning to live with it. Compared to Aurelius - I am not living around 0 bc - in today’s world I can change a lot of things.

uvaursi 1y ago
Yes but the psyop was a stalwart success and continues to be. This is just the latest revision. Imagine how you’ll feel about things tomorrow.
embedding-shape 1y ago
What about "no single mindset works all the time" instead? Sometimes you need to bite the bullet and just learn to live with something, sometimes you need not to, and instead fight until you can't, to get out of the situation. Different moments call for different ways of seeing situations, and maybe learning to identify what moment calls for what mindset is something we need to focus on more, rather than digging into one position that should always work.
- portaouflop 1y ago
  Ideology belongs in the trash. But yea you can pick and choose parts of some ideologies as they are useful in the moment.
  - api 1y ago
    “All models are wrong but some models are useful.”
  - jahsome 1y ago
    Not to split hairs but isn't the phrase "ideology belongs in the trash" itself somewhat ideological?
    - portaouflop 1y ago

robot-wrangler 1y ago

> the idea that nothing matters has gained significant purchase An example of an increasingly popular trend that conflates what I'd call "value nihilism" with "action/effort nihilism". There's a huge difference. Value-nihilism is kind of soul-sickness that's probably super rare in the general population and usually comorbid with stuff like dark triad or clinical depression. Action/effort nihilism, or the POV that nothing can be done to improve things, is just realism or pragmatism in a party mask. Value-nihilism cannot be disproved or even argued with, because there's no place to stand. On the bright side(?), action/effort nihilism is a pretty simple thing to cure if you're in a leadership position. Reward effort, intentions, results, and keep the promises you make so that people can plan for their future and have agency. Stop playing corrupt and counterproductive games with politics, optics, nepotism

sifar 1y ago
I think people stop at nothing matters or there is no meaning. So either one can be depressed about it or if one takes a step further, if nothing matters/things don't have a meaning, great, then I can focus on stuff that matters to me, gives meaning to me and people around me at large.
djoldman 1y ago
Great comment. I think the trump quote is more value-nihilist: > "You win, you win, and in the end, it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot.”

renewiltord 1y ago

Life’s pretty good, guys. It’s been good when I was a little child playing in the mud. It was good when I was on my one hour ride to school. It was good when I first cut my flesh to the bone and watched my dad sew it up. It was good when a girl I had a crush on didn’t feel that way about me. It was good when I nearly failed Algebraic Geometry because I didn’t have what it took. It was good when I almost didn’t get an internship out of uni because I procrastinated till Jan of the year. It was good when I moved to SF with $25 in my bank account. It was good when I lived on a couch off Air Bed And Breakfast. It was good when a car hit me on my motorcycle. It was good when I was robbed. Life is just good. Because the alternative is oblivion.

the_cat_kittles 1y ago
[flagged]
Noumenon72 1y ago
It's nice of evolution to imbue some people with these false views. I hope your kids inherit the earth so people with more realistic outlooks don't have to be born and suffer through it.
- mnky9800n 1y ago
  suffering is part of life. if you do not accept suffering, you just suffer more.
IvanLudvig 1y ago
life is good. without it, you'd be dead

digianarchist 1y ago

I have a particular disdain for the profanity-laden slop that is works penned by Mark Manson. He's not alone as most "self-help" books are trash reads that only serve as some form of cathartic release to their readers. That's not to say all books in the genre are useless. I have recommended Cal Newport's works before but they very much suffer from "this 300 page book could have been a blog post" levels of verbosity.

api 1y ago
A huge amount of nonfiction work is overlong. Many nonfiction works could be condensed to an essay or even just a blurb.
- digianarchist 1y ago
  A wasted opportunity to explore related ideas.
zkmon 1y ago
The need to sell, forces one to be as weird and vulgar as possible. Most books are selling focused. Selling has spoiled many art forms. The extreme antics you see on stage for a music show has nothing to do with music either.

pluto_modadic 1y ago

IIRC stoicism was written by rich people (and advisors to rich people) who didn't focus at all on improving the system. It's on-brand for the self-help influencer phenomena where you disregard disadvantages to others and systemic problems.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
Bro one of the most prominent Stoic writers was a literal slave. This idea that it's a philosophy only for the rich and powerful couldn't be further from the truth.

uvaursi 1y ago

As the wise man said: you will own nothing, and you will be happy.

goopypoop 1y ago
or else

zkmon 1y ago

Books are same as TV shows - more about sounding weird to catch the fish (audience). I don't read any of those self-help books or seemingly philosophical notes. The Western world has invented too much of self-awareness and social reflection. People smile too much, smile at strangers, worry about social acceptance, worry about self, go crazy about all thing cosmetic in life and at work. You don't need to think too much about anything or have too much of self-awareness. Just be real, with neutral expression, relaxed, not emotional etc. The worst thing is having happiness as a goal. It should be a side-effect, not a goal. Infact, you shouldn't have any goals. Any incremental achievement is nice to have, and down-side is business as usual. Just deal with it. You get angry or emotional because reality is too different from your expectations. That's the fault of your expectations, not of reality.

HEmanZ 1y ago
“ People smile too much, smile at strangers…” How dare they.
- unpopularopp 1y ago
  If you are american you'll probably never notice how off-putting is the american niceness. And it's not natural if you ever traveled and seen the world a little bit.
  - AaronAPU 1y ago
    Cool, stay in your other country and I’ll keep smiling with my fellow Americans.
  - HEmanZ 1y ago
    I’ve travelled and lived abroad extensively and I’d say American niceness goes over well in 90% of the world. And where it doesn’t, boo hoo, they can handle a smile.
  - toomanyrichies 1y ago
    Genuine question as an American- why would niceness be off-putting? What would you prefer? I'm guessing neutrality or formality, as opposed to outright rudeness... is it because it feels too familiar, and a bit of arms-length distance is more your custom? Again, genuinely curious as an outsider.

monkmartinez 1y ago

Why so political? I don't understand why so many people focus on Trump and Left and Right and all the theater of politics in general. Subtract the politics from TFA and it is really, really good. The author and I agree on some "pop-stoicism" critiques and disagree on others. Well reasoned and articulate arguments to support or dismiss "teachings" from the neo-pop-stoic culture. The we get to passages like this; "It is, I suppose, strictly speaking accurate that if the approximately 8.6 million people who die each year due to a lack of access to quality healthcare were to wish their fate, their desires would not be frustrated, but tautological truth does not make for philosophical profundity." Yes it does. How does this person know the 8.6 million people that died did not live meaningful lives while they were able bodied and healthy? How does the author know what is "right" for them? Whether I agree/disagree with the aspects of the authors POV; any sober and/or objective reading of this just reeks of ego and "holier than thou" attitude. I suspect this type of attitude is a large reason why people that devote large amounts of time to thinking about politics end up categorizing "justice" into politically ideological boxes. Edit to add; I am reading the comments and not many are talking about this point either which I think is profound. I hit ctrl-f inside TFA and did not find a word used in Stoic literature that I have read; Virtue. You would think a critique on Stoicism would at least cover the basics, no? Here is a reminder for everyone that cares; Stoic virtue is the highest good and the only true path to a flourishing life, encompassing four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance (or self-control), and justice.

zahlman 1y ago
> Subtract the politics from TFA and it is really, really good. I thought it was far too many words to express the core ideas, although perhaps there is value in taking that time to meditate on them. I suspect that an introduction like this is second nature to the author, though. The expressed views presumably play well to the author's intended audience, and among those who spend lots of time bashing the POTUS (whichever group, and whichever POTUS, at the time of bashing), it seems to be largely a form of socialization. In this specific case, the author clearly knows a lot of uncommon trivia about Trump, and was furthermore able to segue from that trivia into the main point, demonstrating linguistic skill. Which creates at least two layers of irony: 1. (probably intentional, I think) Despite the distraction and effort, this shows a way in which the fact of Trump's political career has benefited the author. 2. (probably unintentional, I think) In a piece nominally about the virtue of apathy and the author's experience with that, the author comes across as compulsively seeking approval and commiseration. (Once I'd gotten through the intro and understood the general topic, I ended up glossing over the rest, so on an initial read I completely missed the bit about healthcare. Another irony, perhaps, if the communication of that idea was actually a sincere and primary goal?)

Barrin92 1y ago

The problem with self-help "philosophy" in particular in the case of Stoicism — but also when it borrows piecemeal from Eastern traditions — is that it's completely divorced from its metaphysics. Stoic ethics of 'living according to nature' was underpinned by an idea of a natural, rational cosmos (the "Logos") to which living up to is worth it. Nietzsche fairly devastatingly (expressed well in this comic[1]) pointed out that in an irrational and chaotic cosmos it's not the stoics living with nature, it's that the Stoics desperately attempt to project their own philosophy on the cosmos. A kind of psychological self-delusion and neutering. And while most people who are fed up with self-help Stoics likely haven't read Nietzsche directly, I think they can intuitively smell that. The hollowness of self help gurus comes from trying to practice the ethics of a philosophy of antiquity without the metaphysics of antiquity that underpinned it. If you find yourself in a Lovecraftian universe living in accordance with nature does not sound so good any more and the Stoic self help guy seems more like a shoddy salesman. [1]https://existentialcomics.com/comic/69 https://existentialcomics.com/comic/69

twodave 1y ago

I believe an answer to this is just temperance. Finding balance can be difficult if you have lost it for a long time, but in general not letting things outside your ability to influence impact your overall psyche is a healthy choice. How do I know if something is out of balance in my life? Usually I know this because it’s negatively affecting how I treat others or dominating all of my conversations. Hysteria doesn’t actually solve anything, and in fact it will usually cause problems of its own.

breve 1y ago

> The anesthetizing pleasures of disengagement seem especially seductive these days Authoritarians always want you to embrace a nihilistic apathy. It makes you easier to rule and guarantees their continued power without challenge. It's what happened to Russia. And now we see the Russification of America.

silexia 1y ago

Every biology textbook I've ever read tells us the purpose of life in plain black and white: to reproduce. If you have children, especially a lot of children, you will see the purpose of life.

bagful 1y ago
This assertion relies a bit much on overloading the definition of “life”, and I for one care more about spreading my ideas than my genes.
- silexia 1y ago
  Why?
  - bagful 1y ago
    Can’t say; this set of genes didn’t produce a consciousness that cares to pass them along, I suppose

ArcHound 1y ago

This article is a soup of concepts. And the worst part: most of them are not contradictory at all. Nothing matters as in there is no purpose given to us from above is true (at least according to Nietzsche). That means we have the option of inventing our own purpose. Or not - it's still good to enjoy life as is. I've read hope is fucked some long time ago. It touches the stoicism with: don't get too invested in things outside of your control, it's not good for you. Yes, but Mark forgets that living like this is not pleasant at all. But having the skill of acceptance is good as we're not omnipotent, so there are things we can't do anything about. That brings me to manifesting (ugh). We all know we won't get everything by wishing hard. It's still good to try and by thinking about positive result we have better probability of figuring out a plan and sustaining motivation to see the plan through. Next we move on to terrible people listening to philosophy. Yes, they can do that and it doesn't take away from the teachings. And no, e.g. stoicism has a strong moral component which they are purposefully ignoring. Also, to respond to title directly: accepting your life is shitty and understanding it doesn't take away from your character doesn't mean not trying to improve your situation. Yes, it means feeling good if your attempts fail. You still have the option of trying again. I give the article author massive props for being honest with themselves. But no, books cannot save you. Only you perhaps can, but you might fail. And that's ok. To end positively, I agree with the call to action. And the article is a nice historical overview.

monarchwadia 1y ago

Western philosophy is so depressing. Unnecessarily.

deleted 1y ago
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jebarker 1y ago

I was attracted to Stoicism for a long time and still believe it has some good ideas, e.g. recognizing what you cannot control and not letting those things destabilize you easily. But overall I find it a pretty depressing philosophy. I’m sure that is a reflection of me, but what I’ve found much more compelling (as it leaves me actually feeling positive about life rather than indifferent) is absurdism. In particular, the idea that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” profoundly changed how I approach and enjoy life.