I felt like we were having a friendly discussion, but this was kind of a low blow. Why're you taking potshots at vegans? I myself happen to be vegan, and I wouldn't even make this argument. Yes, animals commit suicide, but the idea that an animal might commit anomic suicide doesn't really flow logically. I agree that only humans can be demonstrated to commit suicide for personal reasons, as you stated in your response to me.
And I try to keep it friendly, if sometimes I look rude just please forgive me, I wasn't supposed to be sharp or provocative.
Anyway I will answer with some examples: in a religious context you have religious people, who simply follow their way of life, and fundamentalist religious people, who take it to the extreme wanting to impose their beliefs on others. In a feministic context you have feminists, who simply spread their ideologies about female genre's rights, and femi nazi's, who more or less strive for an upset-down machismo. But in the case of Vegans it's sorta different. As they're presented by media, there's no distinguish between those who simply decide not to eat animal origin foods (that's not harmful for others) and those fanatics who claim things like there's no difference between Holocaust and animal foods' consumption and distort science to give a mask of objectivity to their beliefs.
I won't quote everything you said, although I'll be responding to almost all of it. Just assume that if I quote the first line of a paragraph, I mean to respond to the whole paragraph. I'm trying to save space and condense this discussion.
Forgive me if I won't do the same, since I don't wanna risk to forget some points you make in each paragraph
This isn't what I meant. I specified "feeling" like part of a group. By this, I meant identifying with some culture, ethnicity, nationality, gender, or whatever. Also, potentially, actually being part of some kind of political entity or organization, or whatever. In the scenario specified by OP, you probably wouldn't be able to rely on the modern conveniences of economic interdependence anyway. So the fact that we are reliant on others to survive, apocalypse or no, doesn't invalidate my claim.
Well, I don't play to the Last of Us so I have to base my assumption only on what's written in OP. But there's nothing specified about it. Also, if every people were regardless starving, what would it be the point of making such a thread? Until now we spoke like that disease was the only problem mankind had to deal with, and unless sacrifice didn't happen, was the disease which is not enough powerful yet to block every human being from the most important things he was doing (read: the elementary things for his survival)
My claim, originally, was that upholding the fundamental value of human life leads people to perform actions that they might not otherwise perform if they didn’t prioritize the continuation of life so strongly. Therefore, the fundamental value in life should be questioned, because upholding it can lead people to do bad things. I only brought up groups to show this.
But, if you wanna get that deep into morality, you will agree with me that every morality must have a solid base. Now, if you're denying the continuation of life such a role, what that root of morality would be?
Actually, the most of the things we consider right or wrong depend on the continuation of life. Why we do consider wrong to kill? Because we see it as a danger to the contiuation of life of our specie, isn't it?
To claim that fighting for the continuation of life is morally incorrect is to deny almost every single piece of the morality we do follow. To the morality on which, even though "stylized", we both cling to give sustain to our argumentations.
To deny that so, requires necessarily to start point blank another morality. Just, are you sure you wanna keep such a weight on your shoulders?
I don't understand why you're telling me this. What I said was that the trend to form and adhere to identities like the nation is because it's necessary to do so to survive in a world where the big countries you mention have established the idea of nationhood as granting legitimacy in international relations. Those bigger countries also use the structure of the nation-state to advantage themselves in those same relations. If not for things like trade deals and international law, those groups might not have seen it as necessary to form nations, and definitely not in the forms that they exist today (with tribal conflicts and such being glossed over).
Well, I'm glad you're telling exactly the same thing I tried to say on my previous reply. Anyway I repent to have gone that far off topic, I propose to just let this countries topic fall, and focus all our energy to the main point.
My point (and this was all actually unrelated to my original claims, I just felt that the way you characterized the formation of Eastern countries was misrepresentative xD) was that a lot of identity groups that exist today formed because people created a world where those identity groups were necessary, or at least very useful. Not because people were randomly assigning themselves to groups for no reason. Again, this was more an aside than anything that was really related to my original points.
Once again, this doesn't find me disagreeing with anything. I'm just glad you consider those Eastern territories as "countries" lol. But I don't wanna continue to talk about it, you see, I know a day will come in which I'll have to face paratise in a Wrestlemania-thread about the formation of those Eastern countries. So just excuse me if I don't uncover my cards before playing (Seto Kaiba would approve huh)
I said it wasn't a perfect solution though, verbatim xD. I was explaining why they did it. Again, it wasn't just some random decision to start cleaving and dividing society.
Neither I was saying it was random. I just argued that it maybe couldn't be a sufficient reason to build a big entity like a nation.
I could have made better examples, like Honduras militarily attacking El Salvador for having beat them in a soccer championship, but never mind.
Once again, we are going pretty off topic here.
Think you're missing the point of my argument, which was to say that people don't just decide to consign themselves to groups for no reason. I was arguing against the idea that it's some "natural" and "given" phenomenon that humans are social creatures, at least in the way society exists today (there is no “natural” drive to form, say, a nation). It's just that organizing socially in these forms bestows advantages that you wouldn’t otherwise attain. But in the modern world, it's less necessary to identify with groups as an individual, even if you still rely on them for basic necessities.
So basically you reject the idea of human as a "social animal". Interesting anyway how your conclusion about nations ultimately coincides with mine.
You stated that humans aren't so affected in consigning themselves in a group for no reason. But I'm missing the point of what your "alternative reason" was. Can you disprove that ancestral instinct exists? I gave my version of birth of society, and I know it's the most shared among anthropologists.
Are you being "agnostic" in here so we don't know how society formed so we don't have to take conclusions?
Was more saying this in case Shelke reads this discussion and thinks that I didn't think he could argue for himself. xD
I don't think Shelke said he would laugh at someone for this. He just said doing it himself doesn't correspond to his own beliefs.
It's pretty obvious he wouldn't have laughed. I don't think someone with no mental illness could laugh at a thing like this. But still, he found it utterly ridiculous and stated he laughs in the face of this concept, so I wanted to give a little trier to him. But he didn't accept to answer me.
As for myself, I stated that I found meaning in self-sacrifice, even if I don't necessarily think human life is intrinsically meaningful. I emphasized the importance of human agency in giving meaning. Again, I'm not sure if you understood my position. xD This question doesn't really confound or contradict what I said.
Now then, when I said that even if life wasn't intrinsically meaningful,
we are there to give meaning to life with our actions, and in this case sacrifice was obviously at the epicentre of everything I said, was so different? But then, if human agency are everything to give a meaning to life, are you subtracting a meaning to the life of those who, for example, have a total paralysis?
Okay, I can concede that I downplayed the differences between sacrifice and anomic/fatalistic suicide. Obviously, there are differences. My larger point, though, was that the OP does raise the issue of under what circumstances we think suicide is justified. And ultimately, the scenario OP describes does require one to make the decision of whether or not they would commit suicide. Just because there are motivations other than losing faith in life doesn’t mean it’s not suicide. OP just happens to describe altruistic suicide. My point is to connect how we view altruistic suicide with how we view and respond to anomic or fatalistic suicide.
I said I was giving suicide the sense in which we normally consider it, so the fatalistic-desperate suicide you mentioned. Now, if you consider suicide everything that would lead someone to lose his life then I have no problem, but the reasons of that must be clear for every single case. You consider it a detail, but I do not. I consider it the main point around which everything I'm saying rotates.
We have to be very careful with the terms we use. How would you react if the word "puritan" in origin was just a synonymous of "finicky"? The sense the word "suicide" took recently is just the fatalistic suicide, the one you do with your own hands (not literally) and not for altruistic reason. You say "it's still suicide", ok well, but it's not suicide as we do intend it now.
It is true that there is such a thing as egoistic suicide, but it doesn’t mean “egotistical” in the sense of caring only about oneself. It’s just a state where one commits suicide because they are so individuated from society that they become apathetic to it and their existence within it.
And becoming apathetic is not egoistical? It's actually the ultimate for of egoism. To think you don't owe anything to society, that society doesn't deserve you, is forcing themselves to get out of society. To distinguish if you want, but in an extreme manner that took you so away you don't feel anything for the world you live in.
I said that we generally consider this kind of suicide, motivated by a desire to save or protect others, more noble and acceptable than suicide solely because one sees no point in continuing to live. I didn't say this sense of nobility is what the only thing that actually would motivate someone to sacrifice themselves. Evidently I don't believe this, because I myself said I would make the sacrifice in this position, just for different reasons.
Neither I did say such a thing. But look around you, let's make an example: whatever military you pick, is extremely proud of its fallen in battle. Why this? Logically, it could even be demoralizing to know so many people died and a soldier is far from being invincible even with all his platoon.
But then, why soldiers get so mad (in good sense) and motivated by people like them who died before them? Isn't so freaking uplifting such a show of pure guts and courage?
However, I do believe that because society makes one form of suicide more acceptable and considerable than the other. My point was to say that this is a potentially unhealthy practice, because it denies the reasoning of people who commit suicide for other reasons.
Well, about society I believe I exhaustively discussed with Shelke. To use the card of society means tricking themselves, since you probably cannot judge any society..
without the eyes of your own society
Keep in mind that the main goal of my original post was to encourage understanding others, and not to simply waive off suicidal tendencies as fundamentally illegitimate.
You are right. I gave an awful account of myself in the first reply about suicide. I'm for understanding too, I just didn't emphasize it enough.
I don't disagree. However, love and being loved are not intrinsic to human life. My argument was that the things that make existence meaningful occur external to life itself, and that these things can be denied or lost to people. Love is one of these things.
I strongly disagree here. Love is the ultimate point, meaning and goal of life in my opinion.
Nihilism doesn't say everything is pointless. People interpret the tenet that everything is constructed and nothing is intrinsically meaningful to mean that nihilists believe life is pointless. This is not the case. So you can agree with that tenet and not be obligated to kill yourself immediately. xD
Uhm, Nihilists who actually killed themselves are very few, you know. Maybe because being Nihilists isn't compatible with being human? I advice you to read my replies to Shelke about Nihilism, as we would waste lots of time to repeat points we've already made
Didn't even claim to be "a bit Nihilist." Agreeing with one concept within Nihilism doesn't make one a Nihilist.
Well, agreeing some expects of life are pointless doesn't.
There are a lot of definitions and philosophical interpretations or subsections of nihilism. You're conflating them all together. The type of nihilism that denies all possibility of truth and/or reality is only one type of nihilism.
Esistentialist Nihilism, the super.main version of Nihilism, says everything in world, life, and whatever iyou can imagine is pointless and is not worth fighting for.
Ivan Turgenev describes the Nihilist as "a man who doesn't kneel down on any authority, who doesn't give faith to any principle, whatever respect that principle was surrounded". Now, the definition can be a bit "heroic", but it sadly reflects exactly the things I said about Nihilism.
If you have another expect of Nihilsm, well, specify. Gnostics described themselves Christians, but believed that there were two Gods and Jesus sent a lookalike to being crucified at his plac. But if someone, hearing they were Christians, wanted to talk about Resurrection, imagine his reaction when they happened to explain what they really thought of the crucifixion. But weren't they Christians?
You don't need to have a solid philosophy of life. I believe I was never advocating for one. I was in fact advocating responding to and comprehending the philosophies of others; specifically, the philosophies of those who have suicidal thoughts. I felt that understanding that all things, including the fundamental value of human life, are constructed, helps us to accomplish this.
I just found this strange how such a philosophy of life can be so easily shattered. But if you say that the fundamental value of human life are constructed you are required to explain
why they've been constructed, if before that there weren't any value. Unless you wanna throw yourself into complottisms.
I can concede that there are negative consequences for having a belief in the meaning of life being constructed and relative. However, in my original post, I have also argued that there are similarly negative consequences for believing in a fundamental and intrinsic value in human life. It doesn't really matter. Just because there are disadvantages doesn't mean you can't, or even shouldn't do something.
To me, you look like clinging to the idea of "right struggling" here. another point that is intrinsecally linked with more "known" vales that we named before.
In any case, the argument is that the meaning of life can be harmful to everyone in the same way that it can be useful. It can also be denied to some. So objectivity falls apart, in my opinion.
And if objectivity falls apart, aren't you a Nihilist? Why then are you here trying to prove your thoughts if they're subjective?
@Bold: This is a contentious claim. Things like chemical imbalances and anhedonia exist. Your later claims (comparing human enjoyment to animal enjoyment) also are sort of contested people and animals alike who are born with physical disabilities and limitations.
Uhm, No, I'm pretty sure humans are prone to be happy more than unhappy, as long as they like the enjoyment of something. You get angry at some thing because 1)you want revenge, that you think it would grant you sort of a happiness. 2)you want unconsciously enjoy the reaction of other people at your state of mind. It's a sorta "morbid" happiness, but it's still the preference of a enjoyment rather than a loss-in-something.
You're right, I should have said "ways," and not "capacity." I can agree that some things are intrinsically enjoyed, if we consider human experience to be inseparable from the experience of the human body, just as you might contend that the experience of other animals is inseparable from the experience of their bodies. In this case, it's the body teaching you how to enjoy things, though. Which is fine if you say the self/life and the body are inseparable.
However, whether that type of enjoyment is intrinsically meaningful, or simply a sensation that we can choose to or not to prioritize or value, is less clear-cut. The conventions of modern life don't really jive with the idea that the basic things you're born to enjoy, like having food and procreating, are enough to make life meaningful. If these things can lose meaning for the individual, were they ever truly meaningful by themselves?
Definitely not, since we both believe that an inanimated thing lacks a meaning when a human is not there to give it that.
Not 100% sure what you're trying to express here, sorry.
In your previous post you seemed to identify happiness with a thing that only can flow through societal concepts of our time like the ones we talked above. I was just remarking that those weren't the only ways to be happy with life and now we seem to be in agreement on this.
I'm not sure why you stated this in the first place, since I never made a claim about nature and suicide, beyond to say that the enjoyment of life itself is learned. I don't know if you can say that animals aren't really living to try and enjoy life, anyway. They might enjoy the things that contribute to living, but that's not why they do things like...eat.
No, it wasn't the point I wanted to make. My parallelism with animals stopped in the right moment I said animals are happy and nobody taught them to be. We are 100% sure that animals can be happy, and can even laugh. I'm obviously talking about the most evoluted animals like dogs, not others
Feel like all of this is kind of drifting away from the point of my posts, though. I was originally arguing against the idea that survival should be a fundamental human norm (because of what upholding it leads people to do in various situations). I was also arguing that we shouldn't condemn those who commit suicide for reasons other than prioritizing the survival of others. I argued that because we can accept and understand sacrifice, we should also be able to understand and sympathize with anomic suicide. My goal wasn’t to devalue sacrifice; it was to readdress how we value the experiences of suicidal people. Ultimately, telling someone that human life is valuable and that it shouldn’t be thrown away doesn’t really help everyone.
Well, I believe I already answered this in my others speeches above XD
It's good M8.