/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12197591]

Are there any books on why power and influence are a coping mechanism meant to mitigate the dread of death's inevitability and the futility of individuality/egoism?

[Anonymous No.12197603]

>>12197591
Well said

[Anonymous No.12197605]

>>12197591
>everything is cope
I pity you.

[Anonymous No.12197609]

>>12197591
Denial of Death

[Anonymous No.12197612]

>animefag
>retarded
every time

[Anonymous No.12197623]

>>12197605
I never said power and influence are everything, I'm saying the exact opposite.

[Anonymous No.12197627]

>>12197609
Came here to post this. Also Nietzsche, albeit with a much more indirect and nuanced set of arguments and interpretations.

[Anonymous No.12197640]

>>12197609
>The premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality through heroism, by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves. This symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "immortality project" (or "causa sui project"), which is essentially a symbolic belief-system that ensures oneself is believed superior to physical reality. By successfully living under the terms of the immortality project, people feel they can become heroic and, henceforth, part of something eternal: something that will never die as compared to their physical body. This, in turn, gives people the feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, and are significant in the grand scheme of things.

Thanks man, this is exactly what I was looking for.

[Anonymous No.12197645]

>>12197623
>attaining broader set of options to exert your will is coping
You're a dumb pseud and should top yourself.

[Anonymous No.12197664]

>>12197645
You are still going to die.

[Anonymous No.12197672]

>>12197664
Woah, spooky and profound. Did you just have your first post-pubescent existential crisis and internalize mortality for the first time, babbster?

[Anonymous No.12197676]

>>12197672
deus vult fellow polster.

[Anonymous No.12197693]

>>12197672
>ad hominem
Must be american

[Anonymous No.12197695]

>>12197676
>random buzzwords
Yes, simulating insanity is a great legal strategy.

[Anonymous No.12197697]

>>12197695
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.12197703]

>>12197697
Doubling down when called out is not, though.

[Anonymous No.12197709]

>>12197703
Both of you are cringy af, no one cares

[Anonymous No.12197708]

>>12197693
>thinks ad hominem is a fancy word for an insult
Must be retarded.

[Anonymous No.12197714]

>>12197709
>samefagging
Now that's just sad.

[Anonymous No.12197715]

>>12197708
>b-but

[Anonymous No.12197723]

>>12197715
>seeks to attain power over this argument
Nice coping mechanism, future corpse.

[Anonymous No.12197724]

>>12197714
>>12197709
>12197715
>>12197708
>>12197703
>>12197697
>>12197695
>>12197693
>>12197676
>12197672
>>12197664
>>12197645
>>12197640
>>12197627
>12197623
>>12197612

All me.

[Anonymous No.12197729]

>>12197723
>pepe
Shadilay deus vult fellow /pol/ster.

[Anonymous No.12197741]

>>12197729
>nazi frog bad
Gilded and updooted, fellow smashthefasher.

[Anonymous No.12197747]

>>12197645
I don't believe the will of one man can achieve anything lasting or at all separable from the immortality project mentioned in this post
>>12197640

[Anonymous No.12197751]

>>12197747
>I don't believe
Sounds like a you-problem.

[Anonymous No.12197752]

>>12197729
>>12197724
Samefag

[Anonymous No.12197755]

>>12197751
You need god to prove anything, see lagan and jordan videos.

[Anonymous No.12197759]

>>12197751
You're naive if you think you're going to be remembered or have anything resembling power in 100 years

[Anonymous No.12197763]

>>12197759
Who says that's my goal? You presuppose your retarded conclusion and willingly keep yourself blind.

[Anonymous No.12197764]

Nice spooks.

[Anonymous No.12197784]

>>12197759
You're naive if you think you'll have anything resembling power in your lifetime.

[Anonymous No.12197812]

>>12197763
You're naive if you think you'll have anything resembling power in your lifetime.

[Anonymous No.12197818]

I like the way you think anon. Power and influence comes after death. Or, rather, death influences power and position.
If you look at a zodiac wheel, Scorpio (death) comes before honor and profession (Capricorn). Death (Scorpio) also influences philosophy (Sagittarius), ideology and rebellion (Aquarius), and the debts of destiny (Pisces).
As for it being a coping mechanism, Scorpio is a water sign - emotional and hidden - so in negative connotation trauma is fixated. Capricorn is a Earth sign, signifying practicality and tangibility. Based on that, it would be fair to say power positions and ambition are the most reliable approach to coping with the realization of death.

[Anonymous No.12197820]

>>12197812
>semantic games
Thanks for conceding, brainlet.

[Anonymous No.12197825]

>>12197818
Sounds good, but my crystals give me negative waves about this.

[Anonymous No.12197826]

>>12197820
If it makes you feel like you have anything resembling power then yes I concede, I hope it's something worth remembering on your deathbed.

[Anonymous No.12197847]

>>12197591
While that might be true in some cases, I don't think it's the only motivation. If you get over the fear of death, societal conventions and irrational ballast, then you are left with a lack of purpose and a lot of freedom. Why not try to gain wealth and power as a means of entertainment and intellectual fulfillment?

[Anonymous No.12197857]

>>12197847
I think I'm confusing power with influence, you're right to assume power is a means of personal fulfillment.

[Anonymous No.12197898]

>>12197826
>can't properly defend his position
>just repeats his autism like a mantra
Yup, the choice of OPpic was entirely correct.

[Anonymous No.12197941]

>>12197818
That's a negative ion from me, dawg

[Anonymous No.12197962]

>>12197591
>One night in long bygone times, man awoke and saw himself. He saw that he was naked under cosmos, homeless in his own body. All things dissolved before his testing thought, wonder above wonder, horror above horror unfolded in his mind. Then woman too awoke and said it was time to go and slay. And he fetched his bow and arrow, a fruit of the marriage of spirit and hand, and went outside beneath the stars. But as the beasts arrived at their waterholes where he expected them of habit, he felt no more the tiger’s bound in his blood, but a great psalm about the brotherhood of suffering between everything alive. That day he did not return with prey, and when they found him by the next new moon, he was sitting dead by the waterhole.
Peter Wessel Zapffe
Ask a publisher today to have his entire works translated to English.

[Anonymous No.12197975]

>>12197962
Whatever happened? A breach in the very unity of life, a biological paradox, an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature. Life had overshot its target, blowing itself apart. A species had been armed too heavily – by spirit made almighty without, but equally a menace to its own well-being. Its weapon was like a sword without hilt or plate, a two-edged blade cleaving everything; but he who is to wield it must grasp the blade and turn the one edge toward himself. Despite his new eyes, man was still rooted in matter, his soul spun into it and subordinated to its blind laws. And yet he could see matter as a stranger, compare himself to all phenomena, see through and locate his vital processes. He comes to nature as an unbidden guest, in vain extending his arms to beg conciliation with his maker: Nature answers no more, it performed a miracle with man, but later did not know him. He has lost his right of residence in the universe, has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and been expelled from Paradise. He is mighty in the near world, but curses his might as purchased with his harmony of soul, his innocence, his inner peace in life’s embrace. So there he stands with his visions, betrayed by the universe, in wonder and fear. The beast knew fear as well, in thunderstorms and on the lion’s claw. But man became fearful of life itself – indeed, of his very being. Life – that was for the beast to feel the play of power, it was heat and games and strife and hunger, and then at last to bow before the law of
course. In the beast, suffering is self-confined, in man, it knocks holes into a fear of the world and a despair of life. Even as the child sets out on the river of life, the roars from the waterfall of death rise highly above the vale, ever closer, and tearing, tearing at its joy. Man beholds the earth, and it is breathing like a great lung; whenever it exhales, delightful life swarms from all its pores and reaches out toward the sun, but when it inhales, a moan of rupture passes through the multitude, and corpses whip the ground like bouts of hail. Not merely his own day could he see, the graveyards wrung themselves before his gaze, the laments of sunken millennia wailed against him from the ghastly decaying shapes, the earth-turned dreams of mothers. Future’s curtain unravelled itself to reveal a nightmare of endless repetition, a senseless squander of organic material. The suffering of human billions makes its entrance into him through the gateway of compassion, from all that happen arises a laughter to mock the demand for justice, his profoundest ordering principle. He sees himself emerge in his mother’s womb, he holds up his hand in the air and it has five branches; whence this devilish number five, and what has it to do with my soul? He is no longer obvious to himself – he touches his body in utter horror; this is you and so far do you extend and no farther.

[Anonymous No.12197983]

>>12197975
He carries a meal within him, yesterday it was a beast that could itself dash around, now I suck it up and make it part of me, and where do I begin and end? All things chain together in causes and effects, and everything he wants to grasp dissolves before the testing thought. Soon he sees mechanics even in the so-far whole and dear, in the smile of his beloved – there are other smiles as well, a torn boot with toes. Eventually, the features of things are features only of himself. Nothing exists without himself, every line points back at him, the world is but a ghostly echo of his voice – he leaps up loudly screaming and wants to disgorge himself onto the earth along with his impure meal, he feels the looming of madness and wants to find death before losing even such ability. But as he stands before imminent death, he grasps its nature also, and the cosmic import of the step to come. His creative imagination constructs new, fearful prospects behind the curtain of death, and he sees that even there is no sanctuary found. And now he can discern the outline of his biologicocosmic terms: He is the universe’s helpless captive, kept to fall into nameless possibilities.

[Anonymous No.12197991]

>>12197962
Damn bro

[Anonymous No.12197993]

>>12197983
From this moment on, he is in a state of relentless panic. Such a ‘feeling of cosmic panic’ is pivotal to every human mind. Indeed, the race appears destined to perish in so far as

[Anonymous No.12198018]

Yes, and it goes like this:

Fame coacta vulpes alta in vinea
uvam adpetebat, summis saliens viribus.
Quam tangere ut non potuit, discedens ait:
"Nondum matura es; nolo acerbam sumere."
Qui, facere quae non possunt, verbis elevant,
adscribere hoc debebunt exemplum sibi.

[Anonymous No.12198019]

>>12197993
any effective preservation and continuation of life is ruled out when all of the individual’s attention and energy goes to endure, or relay, the catastrophic high tension within. The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by overevolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.

[Anonymous No.12198148]

>>12197591
Don't ever post my daughterwife Hotaru again.