>Life is suffering. Absolutely. No question about it.
Why do so many modern thinkers see life as inherently sufferable?
It seems to me that anyone can claim something grandiose as that, without expanding on it, and see no resistance whatsoever from other thinkers, as if it's the philosophical status quo of today. Why is that?
It has been mostly established from Kierkegaard to Sartre. See absurdism.
Life is suffering. We seek happiness/reduction of suffering all the time, yet we still continue to suffer.
This is a modern fundamental fact of life.
You could argue we don't suffer and suffering only lasts for few moments, but at the end of the day, everyone suffers daily.
its a reaction against the people so hellbent on eliminating all suffering and having this attitude that it's something recent or hunter gatherers lived really peaceful lives.
Because it is. Most people spend the majority of their lives engage in actively unpleasant tasks (work) or sleeping. Tons of people find no lasting happiness or fulfillment before they die. You will witness over your lifetime the people you care about drop dead one by one. It's a meaningless and all consuming abyss. The only enduring light (in the past anyways) was religion/the afterlife but oh wait, we don't even have that anymore. God is dead
>It seems to me that anyone can claim something grandiose as that, without expanding on it, and see no resistance whatsoever from other thinkers, as if it's the philosophical status quo of today. Why is that?
>without expanding on it
why do people make such insincere arguments
>beOP
>take a single line without any surrounding context from a man who has written books explaining his thoughts and claims and produced literally hundreds of hours of videos viewable for free on Youtube also explaining his thought and ideas, then claim that he doesn't explain his reasoning at all.
>its a reaction against the people so hellbent on eliminating all suffering and having this attitude that it's something recent or hunter gatherers lived really peaceful lives.
This is half of them, tabula rasa and the peaceful noble savage have both been debunked.
The only counter arguments I've heard to the reality of suffering are from the Stoics and the Buddhists.
Both more or less say that you only suffer because you have expectations for life or attachments temporary realities, and therefore, it is actually you causing your own suffering.
I don't think these are very convincing, because:
1. They both expect you to just live without any goals or desires and humans don't really work that way and I don't know how you could be motivated to do anything with that attitude because you can't hope for any outcome; And
2. They both have no answer to physical suffering you encounter by random chance in life. You can talk all day about how you don't care about pain, but I don't believe you, and you don't either because you will avoid it when you can.
This. The reason why people find Peterson profound is because we currently live in the most prosperous time in the richest and most luxurious countries in all of human history, yet the average person still feels dejected, uninspired, and suffers.
The average person is probably more depressed now than ever, because they feel like they don't have a purpose in the modern world.
Everyone suffers, but the only thing that is antidote to that is feeling like your own suffering is worth it somehow. This means believing in some worthwhile goal or a higher reality.
Only he does explain it you dumb fuck.
It seems to me that anyone ccan just take some phrase out of context and ask why it says what it says. Why is that?
>Life is suffering
>Therefore it's insufferable
Imagine thinking that's what memerson is saying
If there is no worthwhile goal to be taken and no higher reality, then should we suffer or suffer or should we delude ourselves?
That second "suffer" clearly isn't meant to be there, but you get my question.
>modern thinkers
You're both dumbfucks. What happens in the lecture OP is talking about is that his energy devoted to explaining this concept (which was a main premise of his argument) was basically zero. You can say "hur he explained on another YouTube video" but that doesn't justify it at all. By this logic, Peterson shouldnt explain anything, because he already did in the past!
It's clear that this point is A LOT more taken for granted by his audience (not only his, btw) than any other point.
How is the idea that "Life is suffering" important?
What are some arguments that prove it and make it an absolute necessity of life? Isn't suffering subjective?
>t. contrarian faggot
Tell us more about your favorite obscure ukranian intellectual and how he's superior, user
4channers mom when he was 14: clean your room and come to church honey
4channer: fuck you mom im an athiest i do what i want
jordan petersen 6 years later: clean your room and go to church
obese 4channer in his basement: okay
XD
Accurate.
LOL.
I don't think life is suffering desu. I have good friends, a tolerable job, I do exercises, I study things that I enjoy and I think I've come to terms with my mortality. I kinda enjoy life and look forward to living almost everyday I wake up.
Anyone else?
Samefag
Same. Life is mostly not suffering in my eyes. Then again I've been through a lot of suffering in the past that makes me not take life for granted.
>Why do so many modern thinkers
Nigger what? Life or the material being a state of suffering has been a thing for a long fucking time.
>Both expect you to just live without any goals.
Either you don't understand either or you're purposefully changing their beliefs.
Both of them argue for a goal that's both very similar. An end of suffering, passion, etc. Whether its ataraxia/nirvana, etc both of them are lifelong goals.
>What about short term goals
Both of them have short term structured goals, in Buddhism, its to advance their meditation and insights. In Stoics, its to advance their logic and emotional controls.
>2
Buddha supposed experienced 4 great sufferings in life. Birth, aging, sickness and death. All of them have both physical and mental aspects.
Stoics were aware of ascetics practiced by the indian gymnosophists/ascetics as well as sramanas. We have records of Alexander the Great and Pyrrho the founder of pyrrhonism were both being influenced by it. Diogenes is probably even influenced by it too given that some of his stories with Alexander sounds eerily similar to how some of the gymnosophists's interaction with Alexander went.
Life isn't suffering if you're born attractive.
You do not worry about your life, neat. What of your friends or family? You don't grieve at all? Or worry about anything? Being late? Being fired? Injuring yourself? Others?
Or rich. Or talented.
People who aren't mentally ill don't worry senselessly. You didn't think your neuroticism was normal, or even sensible, did you?
It's essentially propaganda meant to pacify the masses. If you're constantly told the life is suffering, you won't question why you're life is so shitty when the elite are living so well.
>senselessly
Nice weasel word there.
Seek help.
You do these things enough that it makes your life suffering? Sounds like a you problem
As these things are just the tip of the iceberg that permeates a person's mind throughout their life, there should be no reason to dismiss them as if they are not relevant.
On the matter of life, people seeks happiness because there's never enough to dampen the suffering which dominates the subsurface of the mind.
>On the matter of life, people seeks happiness because there's never enough to dampen the suffering which dominates the subsurface of the mind.
Again, a you problem.
Because it fucking is most of the time for the vast majority of the human population.
Life is total unadulterated bullshit and flippantly waving this off as cynicism and edgy loser talk will not fucking change that you delusional assholes.
because the sheeple want a father figure. doesn't matter what father says we will listen and love..
>Because it fucking is most of the time for the vast majority of the human population.
[citation needed]
Pain and suffering are useful. They keep animals alive, by pushing them out of harms' way. It is why we have so many more emotions relating to different kinds of problems (angry, scared, sad) and so little that are simply good (happiness) - we just need these more because we need drives to push us to solve our problems. Responding to the information "you are fine, you don't have to do anything much" doesn't require quite as input from the organism's CPU. You suffer because suffering kept your ancestors alive long enough for them to carry forward their ability to suffer onto you.
In addition to being prone to suffering, your mammalian brain is also prone to boredom. So, just being fine, won't be good enough for long.
We come into this world naked, covered in blood/mucus, and screaming at the the top of our lungs
AND THEN it gets worse
Life sucks ass, but we grit our teeth and carry on anyway because fear of death
How can you deny it when everything living literally eats each other to keep living