/lit/ - Literature

>>19274726

Pessimists aren't really pessimists, it's just a persona they adopt so that they can sell books to edgy retards who fall for their scam

pessimism is just western Buddhism, they both come to the conclusion that all life is suffering

>>19274726
To get this thread started, let's all first agree that Ted is a mentally-ill terrorist and murderer. If we can't agree on that, you are a radical and should consult Cioran on your mental problem.

Specifically - A Short History - in which he explored the need for meaning and how it results is ideological fixations and actions. Read "The Renegade" for instance. Most of the first half is dissecting this impulse.

>>19274921
Pessimism is disappointing only when the author holds on to the possibility of life-affirming bullshit. Almost all of them do it but Cioran particularly was immune. He said everyone holds on to some but of hope for meaning, though there obviously is none.

Let's connect that to our animal selves. Does a dog have meaning? Does a tree? Obviously not. Meaning is just a strange mental development in the human animal, a motivating factor that leads to genetic success.

Therefore we can reconcile Ted with Cioran. Cioran loved diogenes, wrote about him in "The Celestial Dog" and says other things about becoming an animal. The reconcilation is this: Ted's ideal man lives without any meaning beyond his own biological survival impulses, and Cioran would probably approve of that in some way.

The problem that remains is that our drive for meaning is itself a biological impulse that leads to survival success. So here Cioran is in direct opposition, success he is against us having meaning.

Then Ted also falls apart, because the best surrogate activities he complains about have a biological origin, and are complimentary to human survival, even if they are stupid activities like building furniture, worshipping God, or making art that will gain you status and sex.

Both guys are supremely flawed and mentally ill.

Now for the synthesis: The way to live is simply attempting to satisfy your biological drives for success and simple pleasures. Sobering like the hedonism of Epicurus. A simple, satisfying life in accordance with your animal nature. That is all the meaning that is possible.

Butterfly was right all along

>>19275400
Wait, are you saying that Cioran is flawed and mentally ill?

>>19275400
Hedonism sucks ass though and would get humanity as a whole nowhere in the future

>>19275400
>mentally ill
t. mentally ill extremist who forces children into schools
t. mentally ill reformist who thinks human will is a historical determinant
t. mentally ill ideologue who justifies the material conditions he lives in a posteriori
etc.. the list is long

The mentally ills run civilisation. We've been promised utopia for 12000 years by mentally ill freaks who cannot apprehend objective reality. If you are not a materialist you are mentally ill. Kaczynski still retains his sanity:
>The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
Marx

>The problem that remains is that our drive for meaning is itself a biological impulse that leads to survival success.
? what. read some anthro lol.

Weird thread tbqh, don't know what OP is getting at.

>>19275432
Why does humanity need to 'go somewhere'? You haven't bought into the foolish myth that 'progress' is an innate good, have you?

>>19275435
>If you are not a materialist you are mentally ill

What?

>>19275400
> Now for the synthesis: The way to live is simply attempting to satisfy your biological drives for success and simple pleasures.
Doesn’t this kind of ignore the presence of meaning that is engrained in Humans though? SHould we also strive to have simple meanings since it seems that we are incapable of getting rid of them? Like a simple animism or dualism? Where “good” is understood as just a general positive to you and “bad” as the opisite. Not going in depth, but making surrogate activities supplemental rather than primary.

>>19275400
>mentally-ill
How?

>>19274726
surrogateactivity seem like such a basic and easily accepted concept if you accept evolution. It is in fact so simple I don't really see what value it has

>>19275400
>The way to live is simply attempting to satisfy your biological drives for success and simple pleasures
that way of life would be easier to obtain in pre industrial material conditions

>>19275513
It is absolutely pivotal to dismantle the idealist notion that man's capacity for creation is transcendental - and more importantly the implications that has on political philosophy.

Kaczynski is NOTHING beyond strategy. That's it. We must advance towards revolution, here's how. Most of his critiques miserably fail to grasp it because they interpret the world without the prospect of changing it. Critiques discussing the necessity of revolution are punching air. Anti-tech thought is decisive and axiomatic. I will advise these people not to seethe eternally because their complaints will not be heard. They should rather organize to crush dissent, aka becoming agents for the system.

This is why Kaczynski is weak on a theoretical level, compared to Debord, but also why it is infinitely more likely to bring about change. Kaczynski is to revolutionnary thought what Napoleon was to tactics and strategy.

>>19275419
Yes Cioran is mentally ill

>>19275432
Hedonism is not about degenerate thoughtless pleasure. Epicurus emphasized that we should reduce our wants and needs to achieve happiness. It was not an idea to promote indulgence and excess

>>19275458
That's a good point. If you'll accept religion add a simple pleasure then I think it fits. I forget that because I am not religious. I wish I could be religious because it seems beneficial to people, but I don't have it in me.

>>19275610
You can't just call him mentally ill because you don't like his truth, anon.

>>19275522
>that way of life would be easier to obtain in pre industrial material conditions
That's a good point.
What if we had a society explicitly creating those conditions that make modest hedonism possible? Could be even easier to achieve it than in pre-industrial conditions. I wonder if Ted would consider that option.

>>19275632
Insomnia both causes and is caused by mental illness. There was something psychologically wrong with him. Extended periods of severe insomnia lead to dementia, which Cioran developed. Therefore, I argue, he was verifiably mentally-ill

>>19275653
You could easily make the case that his mental illness allowed him to see beyond the scope of the average person.

>>19275671
I agree with that. Same with Ted. I want to warn against making these guys out to be infallible truth-tellers like people do with Marx. Cioran would against this. And if you try to live a life based on either of their work, you are going to suffer

>It has no links to human survival
refuted by pic related

>>19275967
Explain

>>19275618
Thanks, but I don’t necessarily mean religion, though that can be a part of it. SImply I am referring to meaning creation (which religion is downstream of). We seem to be incapable of stoping “ideas” in the Humean sense (Hume has a good discourse on this, In the Human mind things are separated into “sensations” and “Ideas”, sensations are the stimuli outside of us, and the ideas are the relationships mentally we form between sensations, abstractions and the like, like the idea of good, or hell, even language itself, things that are not real but we create through the relationship of stimuli). It is a necessary part of the Human being. Anything that is meaningful to us. Basic ontological shit. But keeping them simple and not trying to craft some formula. Being aware of their abstractness. “Killing this animal is good and I will eat it”, not wondering if the abstract idea of “killing” is good. “Good” being predominantly contextual and closer related to those particular contextual stimuli. rather than creating systems of universalized meaning creation.

>>19275967
>>19276061

Jünger-posting in a Cioran-Kaczynski thread
Claiming to have refuted op (without explaining anything)
Peak /lit/

If everything not linked to survival is superfluous and bad, then amoeba are the perfect form of existence. How is this not pessimism?

>>19275967
>>19276061
>>19276106
He blqckpilled Jünger

>>19276061
>the state probes interrogate me under the influence of lsd and sodium pentothal
>"we found nothing" they told the condor
>"of course you didn't" I interjected
>"explain" the condor asked
>"no, I don't think I will" I replied
>leaps from bridge

> The pessimist has to invent new reasons to exist every day: he is a victim of the “meaning” of life.
..
> Within the pessimist an ineffectual kindness connives with an unsatiated malice.

Wait so how do these faggots interpret beauty or things in themselves? It seems like me like you'd have to be mentally ill to not experience objects/moments without reducing it material reality. Im guessing these retards take it a step further and claim consciousness as some sort of biological arbitrariness and not a priori. Ive only seen quips of Cioran through some posts here so correct me if im wrong.