- Joined
- May 19, 2014
- Messages
- 7,416
- Reaction score
- 1,080
I find Meditations by Marcus Aurelius or anything by Seneca much,much better.
How come? Not disagreeing btw.
I find Meditations by Marcus Aurelius or anything by Seneca much,much better.
Sounds like it will be a worth a look anyway, I will get around to it in mid-september when my MA dissertation is submitted Right now I am too burned out to read/research anything other what is immediately relevant for my diss.
lol yeah I didn't think he was literally plagiarising Suzuki. Try explaining that to TurnItIn though
How come? Not disagreeing btw.
That said, there is an essay in that collection that he wrote while he was in college where he steals a story told by Alan Watts and passes it off as one of his own experiences training. I guess he partied a little too hard when he was supposed to be doing his homework and got Watts to pinch hit for him. Turnitin would've had his ass for that one
GUYS I JUST STARTED WATCHING THE WIRE (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)
I think the philosophy behind those books are much more actually repeatable and actionable. I think they create a balanced and realistic, non edgybruh outlook and at the end of the day put the issues that effect you back on you. As Marcus says, you are only in control of yourself and you have to let go of what is outside yourself and instead focus on being the best you. That, to me, speaks much more then "we all die so fuck it" which to me is nietzche, I just don't gravitate to his everyone is a monster outlook. While I get his without god where do we get morals from and we will all naturally fall to nihilism outlook, I dont agree with it. Him putting the uberman as the only people able to create their own meaning rings false to me. Him saying pain is the only way to meaning, and that we exist just to suffer which in turn makes us profound just seems...emo as fuck. I understand why people like him, and certainly if I am in the mood relate, but as a life philosophy stoicism and its champions speaks to me, but whatever works for the person is ultimately all that matters so if he strikes a cord by all means.
What is the Watts story he used?
Watts has a bad rep these days, but I like him still...obviously not the same standard as what you'd get nowadays, but as an introduction to various eastern ideas I think he does a good job. Some people seem to dismiss him as if he's Deepak Chopra or something lol.
Nietzsche ain't a nihilist you kooks.
Yea, I think Nietzsche's relationship to nihilism (actual and perceived) is a product of the tension between his desire to conduct a "revaluation" of Western values while also remaining thoroughly skeptical and outside the realm of "system-building" that he constantly criticized. I mean, you can't blame him for dying when he did, but it's notable that the 4-part series he had mapped out before he died (of which only The Antichrist was ever published) was 3 parts criticism and one part positive assertion. It's hard to tear down with one hand - especially the way he did it - and build with the other.Yeah, but his model of value creation was so far fetched he may as well have been... Nietzsche's anti-nihilist project goes a bit like "The cornerstone of values we have hitherto relied upon is no longer functional, and we are lost in a void with no objective source of value creation. Nihilist? No, I'm not a one of those. Why? You can create your own values! How? Well, let me explain that in deta..." *goes crazy* *dies* He was a emphatically not a nihilist in proclamation but in practice? His philosophy made a very comfortable space for nihilism while offering no clear, systematic, or arguably even functional way out. I suspect a lot of people went nihilist after reading Nietzsche's work
I liked the Genealogy of Morality.
Currently reading Beyond Good and Evil. Feels insignificant. He just blathers on about how much he doesn't like other philosophers because they seemingly set out to pursue knowledge but rather used knowledge in the service of their latent moral assumptions.
That's decent, I guess. But everything he says just folds in on itself because there's no discipline to his writing. He's just gushing over with annoyances that are petty.
Seems to me that he's overrated by fan boys.