Eastern/Asian philosophy general

id read the bible twice where i dont even have the nerve to smirk for a photo and it doesn't even use the word victim. there's so much going on his first sentence doesn't even make sense. guy looks very proud

But maybe I haven't answered your question.

I don't mean to valorize any philosophy because it in turn sanctions or approves violence: I am asking if the concept of violence as understood by these systems is not one which is radically different from violence understood in conventional Western/Marxist/w/e sense.

Is violence a universal, independently analyzable, metaphysical process? I'm not sure. I think capital is, but this is the thrust of the Marxist argument: it runs on desire, stuff that Lacan will talk about, and this is what ultimately produces ideology.

But even Lacan himself goes to Japan and says, 'it doesn't work here.' Why not? And what the fuck does that mean?

Sorry. I'm a little excited atm. I'll calm down.

>guy gets boiled alive
>on a low simmer so he doesn't die for a day and keeps screaming
>describes how his meat looks like parboiled chicken meat
>guy masturbates to the sound of the screams
>then hate fucks a young boy

Is the author trying to make me hate Japanese people?

RG has a very particular take on this. It's a douchey photo no doubt. Here's a better one, and maybe a more interesting quote.

But RG is a guy I think worth considering. His whole question is very similar to Zizek's - the mimesis of desire, that desires are dependent on each other - but with a different sensibility. For Girard, violence emerges when desires are thwarted, when they become unsharable. In the long run he will trace this right down to the foundations of civilization, as this quote indicates.

It does make sense, I think. I've read everything on libgen that I can get ahold of. But I don't blame you for thinking he looks like a douche or sounds like a douche. He does.

Violence though. This is the question. Violence, victims, appropriation, slavery, all of that. You can't run a civilization without it. And Zizek's point is that capitalism works, in a sense, the same way: we go chasing after something we need that we can't ever really possess all the way.

I love that book. Read it twice. Might read it again fairly soon.

Anyways, it's not all the Japanese. Just Yabu. Toranaga is awesome. And it's not like the Dutch are so awesome, either. Clavell distributes the shade pretty fairly.

*I think it's Yabu, anyways. Might be Omi. It's been a while.

Must it, though? Assuming we are including the more abstract forms of violence - the spiritual forms, the expressions and enforcement of hierarchy either legislated or imagined, and so on - must civilization include these things? The gut reaction is to say yes, based on, as the Girard quotation sums up rather well, all of history before us right down to its very roots. But is the conception of civilization itself rooted in violence? Would a civilization without violence be possible, and if not, would that be a sound foundation for the argument that civilization was a mistake?

I'm not forming any particularly coherent thoughts here, nor am I really addressing your topics, OP. I'm just sort of rattling off idle, facile thoughts. Still...

I think it is. I'm *concerned* that it is. But I also think there's another way. But it requires thinking through these questions of violence and desire. In general analysis has done a pretty fucking amazing job of asking these questions, about how we work, deep down - and it all started with the Neetch, for whom it must be remembered that the tragic view is the highest and noblest mode of existence. He may be right - but we have to play the game anyways.

>Would a civilization without violence be possible, and if not, would that be a sound foundation for the argument that civilization was a mistake?

This is exactly 114% the question. Remember this: that capitalism, when it begins to emerge in the 17C, is intended to be a *check on the ambitions of princes.* All of Europe is fucked up by the Thirty Years' War, and along comes the Enlightenment: put those wars aside, gentlemen, and concentrate on trade instead. It works. It makes sense.

Today? Not so much. Why? Because *nobody ever has enough.* Nothing in capitalist society is ever based on satiation, but on *excess,* but this is Z's point: you can never fully satisfy the demands of your libido. You repeat, again and again, forever.

We are presently seeing the results of this everywhere: fucking disaster. And much of this, I would say, deals with the failure of a religious or philosophical sense to be able to fill in the void. Continental philosophy is good at explaining the *mechanisms* of capital, but not their solutions...besides, of course, revolution. Which I do not believe in.

I prefer philosophy. And I'm wondering if Chinese philosophy doesn't look at violence in a way that is interesting. And this is already to leave out Girard's solution: in short, read the gospels. I'm not a Christian myself, but he makes a very good case for that.

But if that's not going to happen, then I think the result is going to be violence - simply the constant product of unfulfilled desires which are *by design intended to be unfulfillable.* There is never a final McNugget. There is only an infinite sequence of McNuggets, to be eaten again and again, until you die. Bleak stuff. But maybe what we need is a philosophical perspective that takes this into account, that sees things as not having beginnings or endings, and which doesn't privilege desire so much, and has a more enlightened take on the concept of violence in general...

Anyways, rattle those thoughts to your heart's content user, that's what this thread is here for.

I should have picked a sexier picture of a McNugget to make my case more clear. I was thinking about the sexy green M&M but clearly the gods are taking an interest in this thread, because it would be hard to top this:

Anyways, you get the idea.

Here she is, anyways, for what it's worth. I would love to hear what Z has to say about this.

Anyways. I'm going to get my mind out of the gutter and think about severe Taoist grandfathers teaching kungfu, and resist the call of the flesh - or, in this case, the smooth candy coating.

Continental philosophy is fucking weird, man. It is some weird, wild shit.

I wonder whether it's pertinent to bring up that the ways in which we address the complexities that come from the way things work nowadays - alienation, depression, a wide range of dissociate disorders and so on. In particular my crosshairs lie on cognitive therapy courses, which I partook in for a time during a low point in my life, and have a very strong emphasis on addressing the utility and origin of emotions. There is, I think, some decent value in the minutiae of these programs, and yet as a whole I found them unfulfilling. The discussion in this thread has given me cause to consider why that might be the case.

In the courses there was often a very strong effort to emphasize that our emotions 'weren't us.' While this comes from a sincere position of wanting to help one identify the causes and effects of their emotions, I wonder if perhaps it is the opposite of what we ought to be doing. Is that separation itself a form of repressive violence? Does it, by systematizing and categorizing one's emotional responses and tendencies, by seeking to address these aspects as 'problems' to be solved, in itself continue to perpetuate systemic violence? Does the separation then itself create, for each individual, their own neverending McNugget cycle, a sort of lugubrious stepladder to intoxicate oneself with one's own problems rather than others' as we might be prone?

He is perhaps nowhere near as rigorous as others considered here, but Jiddu Krishnamurti once spoke of emotions, in particular of guilt, being YOU - not a part or an aspect, not even the self, but the entire You that is present. Once you see yourself in that light - you are your guilt, you are your happiness, you are your anger, and so on - it's then akin to holding it in your hand, a precious bud, which can then flower, wither and die, as all things ought to do.

But then there is the other possibility, and I don't like this, but it is there, that perhaps it is the violence itself that motivates us. I don't mean in the tedious, tired way which so many ardent primitivists tend to mean it, but rather, is it possible that while there are varying levels of devotion between the Shaolin monks and the cognitive therapy practitioners, is the ultimate function the same? Does violence, perhaps, originate from an inability or refusal to otherwise structure ourselves?

can I just say something here. Capitalism isn't the problem you know. Civilization isn't predicated on violence you know. The problem is the mofo (((gvnm))) that steals money through taxation and justifies it and then everyone is a moral relativist by proxy.
violence is force inflicted on a body. if it's a human body it is never justified. because humans have this called brain you know and if something doesn't work, it won't work if you cut 1 head or 500 heads. It might seem like it worked but you just cut 500 heads. No argument is won on the other person dying.
So I don't know the whole chinese philosophy but martial arts isn't the same as violence as in a robbery. what changes is consent. if a samurai fights a ninja they both consent to use violence to achieve the result which is winning the battle. (((gvnm))) asks no consent.

now capitalism: you could make the argument that capitalism is violence in the sense that you need money to survive as you can't get money without slaving yourself and that argument could be done. Still it's easier to make the argument against the government and there are no free lunches so I don't think capitalism is the problem. PLUS we don't even have a free market so blaming capitalism at this stage isn't blaming the capitalist philosophy it's just blaming a faulty system which, I agree, is predicated on violence

I have to head out for a bit, but I'll leave a prompt here: whether it's Judge Holden, or Bane, or whoever, we have - on Veeky Forums or elsewhere - a kind of collective preoccupation with violence. In TDKR, there's a happier ending; Batman saves the day. In Blood Meridian, not so much; War is Holy and some very dark shit goes down in the outhouse.

Obviously we don't like this. But violence, yo. Violence and desire. Maybe it's because we worship this stuff.

Now a smart guy like RG will say that in a true masterwork, such as Blood Meridian (or, in my vastly less important opinion, the recent Batman films) you have in *great literature* an understanding of violence that goes beyond the superficial, and really digs down into the meaning of this stuff. Great authors rarely valorize violence, because they see in it it's essentially tragic dimension: even Homer does this, and in Homer the violence is legitimately awesome. And may it ever be.

Blood Meridian disturbs us because are horrified to think that somehow this *makes sense* in ways we don't really want to believe. And McCarthy doesn't make things easy for us.

Bane is all violence, in this way, but he lacks *faith* - and this is why he never climbs out of the pit. He lacks that one extra component that Batman possesses.

What if we looked at this the way the East did? What if violence was just a component of a much larger process, and desire was overrated?

This is awesome stuff, so thanks first of all for contributing. I actually can't get into the details of this now (I have to go and hang some Christmas decorations!) but I will definitely come back with a response to this before long. In the meantime:

These are *exactly* the kinds of questions I want to ask: theory of affect. Are our emotions 'us?' When I am afraid, I feel as though they are; and there is nothing more frightening than violence. Even professional fighters get adrenaline rushes like this. But they're trained to deal with that in a way that regular folks like myself are not.

So:

>Does it, by systematizing and categorizing one's emotional responses and tendencies, by seeking to address these aspects as 'problems' to be solved, in itself continue to perpetuate systemic violence?

I would say that Zizek would agree. Globalized tail-chasing by and with $$$ is the late-postmodern condition.

>But then there is the other possibility, and I don't like this, but it is there, that perhaps it is the violence itself that motivates us. I don't mean in the tedious, tired way which so many ardent primitivists tend to mean it, but rather, is it possible that while there are varying levels of devotion between the Shaolin monks and the cognitive therapy practitioners, is the ultimate function the same?

Brilliant. And I would say it would make a lot of sense, would it not? Because this is what I think defines the tragic mode: restless uncertainty, and a total disruption of self, the affects being in all directions, and a total destabilization of signs and signifiers. It's the tyranny of choice: when you go into a grocery store for a bottle of spaghetti sauce, and there are fifty different kinds, whose fault is it for you not being able to choose one? Yours. Because you don't know yourself well enough, you're not like one of the satisfied people in the ads...

>Does violence, perhaps, originate from an inability or refusal to otherwise structure ourselves?

I would say it is *desire* that does this, and violence is what emerges when we get really, really fucked up about it. Which is the only logical thing that could be expected to happen from living in ultrafucked capitalist disneyland - and by the way, there's no God either. Console yourself with Cheese Whiz - if you can...

It's a nightmare. But you have raised so many good questions in that post that I just have to salute the whole thing. Thank ye sir, please bring another when you please. I certainly have a lot more to say about this myself...

Unfortunately I'm kind of wrung-out for now, but I'll have a bit more coffee and try to come back later if the thread's still around. Cheers, OP.

I guess my point here is that to some degree I'm not too concerned *yet* about context. I want to say with the metaphysical aspects. I *will* say that the government monopoly on force and violence is germane to this conversation, because this is getting to the grain of this question: violence, in the forms we find most objectionable, does not require consent and acts transgressively. If it has the imprimatur of the law, so much the better; but I am entirely open to this question of what it is that The Law really means, if indeed the question is only one of force and application, and justice be damned. Which may indeed be the case.

Whether the system is free-market capitalist, a planned economy, whatever, the issue here is the role of violence in human civilization and interaction, and that's only to talk about it's outward political manifestations. There is at the same time an entirely inward psychological/psychoanalytic meaning to all of this as well, which is more in my wheelhouse. But you're right to bring all of this up.

In the end my basic claim is that capitalism itself is the phenomenon at work, but this is a government-independent idea. Whether it's selling goats in Afghanistan, fruit in the Congo, energy deals in New York or aircraft carriers in Russia, the process is the same: libidinal economy. And this system of transactions - *so long as it is profitable* - underwrites every form of human government imaginable.

The Big Three today - the US, Russia, and China, *all* run forms of state capitalism. All of them. And when you put those together you are now talking about the entirety of the planet earth and probably half of its gross planetary product (around $67 trillion, last I checked).

As Frank Herbert says, The Spice Must Flow. And what I think makes this so is violence - sometimes the act itself, sometimes *fear* of the act. And these are all things I'm hoping get discussed.

Shai-Hulud: it's literally like a gigantic penis rolling through the desert, and don't forget: it produces the universe's most desirable commodity. I don't think Frank Herbert was aware of this, and frankly I think if he had thought about it too much he might not have written the books at all. It's actually kind of gross to think about.

And this is why we need more stern Shaolin monks, I tell ya...

No worries. Like I said, I need to hang some decorations. I'll check in on this thread tomorrow maybe. Take care user and thanks for contributing some 10/10 thoughts.

Figured I might include one more thought here, just to get some feedback on it: it's Paul Atreides meets Slavoj Zizek.

In analysis Z will sometimes talk about 'the subject supposed to know.' For your tortured and fucked up modern subject, being 'the subject supposed to know' is this profoundly uncomfortable place to be. Because you don't know what to do with your libido. Nobody does.

Well, here's Paul: the ruler of Arrakis, the entirety of which is basically crawling with gigantic sand worms. And Paul has *visions* of the Golden Path, he's supposed to be the leader - but, of course, he fails to bring these to fruition, because what does he see in his dreams? Jihad. Only war. A war infinite and galaxy-spanning. And he *does not like this* (and not only because he hasn't played W40K).

Because the worms are a planet-sized unhinged libido with no place to go. And poor Paul is in a position where he's supposed to make sense of this. Herbert isn't entirely sure what to do with this either, I think, so he has him go blind - a sort of shout-out to Oedipus itself - and then re-emerge as a preacher who shouts down everything he used to believe in. But by that point it's too late. Nobody knows what to do with their libido. And Arrakis is where it is because it is a literal Planet Desire - not so much unlike our own.

It's not as if Herbert himself was a stranger to the Greeks either: Paul's own last name, Atreides, is a reference to the 'Sons of Atreus' in Homer: Agamemnon and Menelaus. Herbert had a sense of how all these things worked. Dune, I would say, is a sort of massive space-fantasy version of analysis, although it's as interesting as it is because Herbert was a very interesting man.

I would say Dune has more to say about the world today, for example, than Tolkien - but that's another thing. The point here is that so much of our fiction points out this kind of stuff: the problems of excessive desire. Admittedly my reading there is basically what you learn to do in first-year cinema studies, but I figured I would share it in case anyone wants to talk about that or stuff like it in the thread.

Note also Herbert's fondness for 'Zensunni' philosophy as well, as well as a martial form of knife-fighting, which is what enables the Fremen to *defeat* the imperial forces. That also seems worth mentioning.

tl;dr Eastern formless nondual philosophy has a lot of interesting answers for recursive capitalist fuckery

Can believe nobody has mentioned this: the ENTIRE western ideal of violence comes from Homer where it is glorified leading to our hero paradigmes, battle of agincourt etc.

Eastern tradition has nothing compared to this. Martial arts are simply another form of art akin to poetry, crafting, etc. The goal is perfection of the craft and the human soul as a result of the pursuit. Rather than glory.

Ps recs for any erudite books on east asian martial arts theory appreciated. Ive read most. Everyone on this thread needs BO5R at least.

>tfw you cheat on hanging xmas decorations

Good post user. I would say, however, that Three Kingdoms in many ways compares to the Iliad (people do call it the Iliad of China). For me the decisive moment is the tragedy for Zhuge Liang, where he has Sima Yi trapped in his camp, which is now on fire: and, for reasons that are truly tragic, the rain comes down.

ZGL is the hero of the second part of the story, because he has this perfectly aligned Taoist/Confucian sensibility: he's a good guy, and he *should* win and help Liu Bei unite China. But for reasons which are truly unfathomable, the Mandate of Heaven is against him. Life is just fucking unfair sometime.

But it's not like Homer, that's for sure. Homer is indeed incomparable. The Odyssey doesn't glorify violence in quite the same way as the Iliad, tho...

...I may have to return to this comparison later on, I think. There's definitely a need to think about those two texts and look into this further. Good call user.

>Eastern tradition has nothing compared to this. Martial arts are simply another form of art akin to poetry, crafting, etc. The goal is perfection of the craft and the human soul as a result of the pursuit. Rather than glory.

This is true and really super important. The point here is that it might be possible to ask if Western civilization *over*glorifies violence, and the East is interesting because, if you are correct, violence in those traditions have a different meaning: that is, that it is a *discipline* and not necessarily a...well, whatever we think violence is. And yet, it would also be interesting to ask why it is then that martial arts traditions developed over there that are so interesting, especially in forms of unarmed combat for peasants.

Jared Diamond - not always popular - made another point about this, saying that to some degree it was also because *rice is more difficult to grow than wheat*, and for this reason you have to be very careful when you fuck with the peasantry. Lots of people can learn to grow wheat, but the rice harvest takes practice...

>Ps recs for any erudite books on east asian martial arts theory appreciated. Ive read most.

Pic related was pretty good.

>Everyone on this thread needs BO5R at least.

No diggity. We need to turn this conversation away from Zizek and back to some Asian Warrior shit. (Although all I can really talk about is analysis...sigh...)

>tfw when *such* a fucking weeb, i cannot lie

*jesus murphy that is a big post

I'm not as well read as anybody else ITT but does anybody have thoughts on Han Fei or legalism? All of this confucianism is beyond me.

you sound like a complete fag.

violence is just what people do when their humanity is not given what it needs.

try checking some poetry and painting.

I've got a few. Also going to post some unapologetically cozy weeb (cheeb?) shit, just to clearly signal that I am a gigantic nerd, in case that wasn't already patently obvious.

From what I understand, the Hanfeizi is an attempt to rule by Taoist practices, rather than by Confucian ones. The HFZ was attractive back when, IIRC, because thinkers such as HF (and Xunzi, who I also like) felt that the people were simply too cynical to be governed as Confucius would have wanted. It works for a little while, but then I'm pretty sure the people wind up revolting because HF's philosophy is pretty unforgiving and cruel. China has just seen it all.

He's Xi Jinping's favourite guy though (and Nick Land has also talked about him on his blog). The ghost of Han Fei is alive and well. Read on:

opendemocracy.net/kerry-brown/han-feis-china-shiver-of-authority

thediplomat.com/2015/01/is-chinas-machiavelli-now-its-most-important-political-philosopher/

hongkongfp.com/2016/06/13/chinese-hobbes-xi-jinpings-favorite-philosopher/

>You can't run a civilization without it.
only retards want a civilization/society

what is the difference between taoism and confucianism

>you sound like a complete fag, you should do some un-faggy shit like poetry and painting

>what's the matter, fag? don't like watercolors and the consciousness-shattering verse of Matsuo Basho? what a fucking fag

>what's up fag. still reading descartes - like a fag? haven't you read heidegger? still believe in mind-body dualism? that's for fags, fag - etc etc

I'm so glad there's a Key & Peele skit for this.

dailymotion.com/video/x26jv0c_key-peele-school-bully-sub-esp_fun

Anyways...I *am* a complete fag, user. (Or is it cuck? I forget). But this is exactly what we're talking about here: humanity not being given what it needs, because it *always needs more.*

But honestly, I have to thank you for being the first user ever who has called me a fag and then in the same breath recommended that I look into poetry and painting. I feel like this is worthy of a shout-out.

So here's to you, user. I honestly have to just salute that post.

i like civilization-society
it gives me nice internets
fight me

What a question. In brief, I would say that Taoism is the internal and esoteric form of nondual thought that the Chinese practice, and Confucianism is a more materialistic kind of epistemology which can basically be described as the interpretation of ritual. They go, I think, hand in hand (the Tao/the Way is a term which figures in both). Check out the Great Learning - link below. It starts on page 11. It's one of my absolute favourite passages.

indiana.edu/~p374/Daxue-Zhongyong.pdf

You might find this link interesting also, it's the famous - but probably apocryphal - conversation between Confucius and Laozi.

wwmr.org/tao.htm

>always needs more

wrong. you will always need more if you are getting palliatives for your real needs. if the whole being gets what it actually needs it will be satisfied just being one with its surroundings.

and yeah, i fagged you cause you sound too politically and intellectually oriented. those aspects are not something negative, but are just parts of a larger whole. the arts will correct that one-sidedness.

could you elaborate on the second line? i'm not understanding it well

I am mos def too politically and intellectually oriented. It's actually why I'm attracted to Eastern thought in general: it's the only cure I know for Zizekian tail-chasing. Even if I think that this is the default condition of postmodernity.

>you will always need more if you are getting palliatives for your real needs. if the whole being gets what it actually needs it will be satisfied just being one with its surroundings

I agree, of course. And in fact you've used a brilliant word - *palliatives* - which is exactly the thing. For myself I think my issue with libidinal economy is that it collapses these distinctions between wants and needs. Something like YouTube, for example, which now monetizes subscriptions, all points to how this works: it's in many ways an *attention-based economy* and this is absolutely going to compound this kind of ongoing self-obsession, which in turn feeds back into this notion of palliation.

Hegel, Lacan, Girard (and Plato, v/thymos) are all going to make this argument: desire is the desire of the other. And so we wind up with a world in which it becomes hard to know what are real needs and what aren't. One's 'whole being' - and I agree, this is indeed what has to be looked at - never gets seen, and it becomes difficult to be satisfied with one's surroundings.

Now I should make it clear that it's important to distinguish, as Z says, between one's own personal issues and those of the world, precisely b/c this is exactly what ideology means: you think there's something wrong with the world, but in reality there's only something wrong with yourself. And of course I agree.

I think for me the feeling that I have is that I imagine a *completed* psychoanalytic process to lead one, in the end, to a kind of semi-Taoist place: you are able to join in with the cosmic dance without feeling weird about it. To *relax*, in other words, without being sleepy. Or, as the Chinese say, wu-wei: actionless action, sage-being.

Veeky Forums has its own way of saying this: don't get trigged. Way back when I used to be a Stoic, but this was before I discovered Nietzsche. Now, I'm basically trying to find a way past Nietzsche that I feel good about - but this has involved going through, more or less, everyone that has followed from him in the 20C.

And now I think the Great Learning is the tits. Maybe it's because I think the West is in love with sex, death, wealth, and power, and I'm tired of living in the underworld. When I imagine what it would look like to come out the other side, I have a hard time envisioning something other than China and cool mists on the hills.

Be a little more specific? I'm not sure which one you mean. The part about Freud?

man... ease up, knowing how to give a description of the chemical and molecular composition of water wont quench your thirst. and you actually dont need anything like it to drink and be satisfied.

lemme share a nice quote of a chinese painter describing painting and its whole process, including all its aspects in interrelation:

>Let one who wishes to portray these masterpieces of creation first be captivated by their charm ; then let him study them with great diligence ; let him wander among them ; let him satiate his eyes with them ; let him arrange these impressions clearly in his mind. Then with eyes unconscious of silk and hands unconscious of brush and ink, he will paint this marvelous scene with utter freedom and courage and make it his own.

our minds paint reality into our being. its ink and brush are intellect and imagination, its canvas experience.

Try Maps of Meaning by JordanPeterson.

He basically said that after the fall of Christianity (because it could not update iself due to the power structures of governments/etc), western people gravitated moe towards nihilistic attitudes.

Nietzsche talked aboutthis in Beyond God and Evil, where one must find their own meaning. However, you do not disregard entirely of the previous structures.

Christianity is like literature, where it is a simulation of stories that one can enter into for clearer solutions on how to handle problems. The problem with most religious people in the west that are prtrayed inthe media are eitr to leftor too right about their views

Another long post...

I'm pretty sure the one about Freud is the one you're asking about. What HF points out is that in Confucian thought there is a concern with people carrying out their *duties,* but the whole concept of existential stuff is not intended to conflict *tragically,* as in Freud (or for the Neetch). I'll let HF explain.

>The notion of choice as a central feature of man's existence is only one element in a closely related complex of notions, and the absence of such a concept of choice reflects the absence of the rest of this complex. Among the chief notions closely linked to choice are moral responsibility, guilt, deserved (retributive) punishment and repentance.

>The intense concern of Confucius that a person should carry out his duties and act according to what is right reflects one aspect of our notion of responsibility. But if this were all that was characteristic of our notion of responsibility, it would be a redundancy - another way of saying that one should carry out one's duties and act rightly. What gives distinct content to the idea of responsibility is derived from the root 'response.' Herein lies the peculiarly personal commitment - I answer for this deed; it is mine - and this in turn links the notion of (moral) responsibility to those of guilt, deserve punishment and repentance. It is the one who must respond whose response may involve guilt, acceptance of punishment, repentance, restitution or merit, pride, reward.

>The view that never appears in Confucius, the view that is peculiar to the Graeco-Hebraic-Christian tradition and for the most part profoundly contrasting with utilitarianism, is that punishment is justified not simply by its consequences but because it is *deserved* by virtue of what went before. Punishment is an appropriate moral response to prior guilty wrongdoing by a morally responsible agent. Repentance, in turn, is not simply a device which is appropriate or not depending on its psychological consequences; it is repentance for the past deed...

>Were punishment, guilt, and repentance to be unrelated to prior moral wrong for which the person was responsible, we would have social engineering rather than morality - and this was precisely why Confucius took the use of 'punishments' as a main target and saw his own positive teaching as in direct contrast.

Anyways, this is the kind of stuff I'm into. You hear talk of West/East blame/shame culture, and I think it's born out in interesting ways. Social engineering rather than morality will make you think, for sure...

I have to say, I really like Confucius. Falling in love with large-scale social engineering for a country of 1.4 billion is going to be a tricky proposition, but Confucius really comes at things from a different perspective than the Neetch - and virtually everyone else since him - does.

Book here (pp. 24-27):

faculty.smcm.edu/jwschroeder/Asian_Religions_2015/textdownloads_files/Confucius chp1&2.pdf

>man... ease up, knowing how to give a description of the chemical and molecular composition of water wont quench your thirst
he did it the mad man

delete this board

>problem

no way, that's the reasoning of people who hate doctors because they're the ones who identify that someone they love is sick.

>man... ease up, knowing how to give a description of the chemical and molecular composition of water wont quench your thirst. and you actually dont need anything like it to drink and be satisfied.

I know. All true. I don't mean to sound hysterical. Honestly this is just the way I talk and think and write. I don't mean to bludgeon anyone, and I hope that's not the effect.

That's a beautiful quote, also. My thanks for sharing. I fucking love Chinese culture, I really do. I love the...humanism, I guess. I can't quite explain it, but it seems they don't fucking hate themselves as much as we do. Or maybe it's just me. And I know that if I go there it will be as fucked up as any other place. I get all that.

Anyways, that's a really wonderful passage, user.

Peterson is a hero. Huge fan. Haven't read MoM yet but I've got right here next to me. Have literally just paused the Rogan interview to write this. No lie.

Nihilism is indeed the thing to be overcome. And I know it when I *see* it - for instance, in that quote that user above suggested. Or when I read Sheng-Ji Yang quotes in Alpha Centauri. But I shouldn't be frivolous.

I really am starting to like religion, too. Was never a Christian before. Still not. I think Confucius is easier for me to follow than Christianity, if only because I'm still too shallow to understand that Christianity isn't *all* about guilt and suffering...

Morality is a *motherfucker,* yo. It really is. Maybe just I think Confucius has a better solution for it than Kafka. Something about the Tao really makes sense for me. I dig it muchly.

Yeah, being religious is toally fine. It's just sad that so many people take it so literally.

I am not to familiar, but the hypothesis is that because we lost or moral foudations after the rejection of Christianity, did the same happen in the east? For example, what allowed for Maoist China, Japanese imperialism, and Pol Pot, to you?

>I think the Chinese and the Japanese get it. I really do. Could be because I'm psychoanalysis/continental man and I think everything is about capitalism and desire and violence and ideology.
could be because you're psychoanalysis/continental man and you fetishize obscurity

Long post...

Semi-serious question: what's better? Existential torment, or social engineering/the greater good? Shame or blame?

We've already seen the Neetch tee off on Plato and Kant. Okay. We all buy his argument, mostly. But Nietzsche also talks about *good Europeans.* Surely he doesn't mean postmodern anarchy. Personally I find that line of thinking more interesting than ubermensch stuff because the ubermensch is going to be more interesting when they're the product of a rich and thriving civilization, no? And isn't that the point?

Just a random thought, w/evs.

Awesome question. I mean, one of the things that has to be born in mind here at least in recent years is that for the CCP the revolution has already *happened.* It succeeded. They did it and they think it's great (and if they don't, they might wind up in jail). And now just compare that to Western Marxism, where the revolution is always going to happen, later on, when it does, etc., etc. I don't mean Stalinism or Cuba, I mean the idealized Real One that Badiou, Zizek et al want.

>the hypothesis is that because we lost or moral foudations after the rejection of Christianity, did the same happen in the east?

I mean this is a brilliant question to ask: *is* there anything like an analogy for the death of God in China? I would say there isn't, and this is what makes their worldview so different from our own. But bear in mind also that Confucianism is kind of mysterious precisely because it is so hard to say whether or not it *is* or *is not* a religion in the Western sense of things.

I think you can assess the general perspective on Confucius himself, which - I am not an expert - I think is generally trending upwards again now. There are times when he is probably not popular. And of course generalizing doesn't get us too far.

But in the main I would say that this question of a loss of moral foundations is indeed a question to ask. Remember that a large part of the Chinese philosophical canon is composed of Confucius and his interpreters: Mencius, Xunzi, Mozi, and Hanfei. They're all sort of carrying on his work and thought, but they don't all agree. Mo Zi thinks Confucianism is inherently unstable, and he takes a utilitarian view; Han Fei thinks Confucianism is simply unworkable, and the people need something stronger; Xunzi kind of agrees with Confucius, but takes the perspective that people are essentially crappy and evil rather than good.

There is really nothing like a decisive break with Confucian tradition, afaik; but even in the West nothing like this happened either. Even today, when Christianity is perhaps as unpopular as it ever has been (except, interestingly, on Veeky Forums), we still feel guilt. In another thread I was actually saying that this is what I think SJW-itis is: repressed existential rage that is essentially theological in nature but expressed politically.

posting randomly from my asia folder

>could be because you're psychoanalysis/continental man and you fetishize obscurity

It's true. I *do* fetishize obscurity. It's obscure! I want to know what's happening there!

But after many a long year of fetishizing it it doesn't seem all that obscure to me anymore. It makes a lot of sense.

Don't get me wrong. I need more STEM in my diet like I need broccoli and exercise. The fact is continental stuff isn't really as obscure as it looks. It just looks that way on the surface.

Or I'm completely stupid and I've got it all totally ass-backwards. Could be that too. But I don't think the guys I fetishize do. Warrants mentioning.

And it's not like *all* guilt we feel is theological in nature. But in terms of guilt, God, suffering and so on, there is no extant body of literature in the West that even comes close to approaching the significance of the Gospels. And even Nietzsche's work is, I think, a continuation of a very long exegesis of this, however much he tried to buck the system (and may yet succeed in doing so).

the dichotomy isn't stem or deliberately obscure esoterica; if it doesn't seem obscure to you anymore, you should be able to explain it
if explanation doesn't seem to suffice, it's because you don't understand it -- you've just come to be okay with sitting in the dark

this is fine, just make sure to take it for what it is, and more importantly, what it isn't: "getting it"

The idea of life being about happiness goes back to Aristotle, bub. Just the definition of happiness changed

You ask a question in general form, see Be more specific. I can't follow your retarded Asian logic.

I am kind of okay with sitting in the dark, if only because any concept of what I think it used to mean to be happy now is completely shot to hell because I am now so utterly suspicious of my own moods all the time (and a sexy and patrician look this is not). But it comes with the territory. And what I would like to do is get over this. I think perhaps the body is the thing...

This is why I find the brain-off/Just Do The Right Thing Fucker aspects of Eastern philosophy attractive. Thought is overrated, action is much better, and actionless action best of all. In short, Avoid Paralysis is what it comes down to.

Nietzsche actually makes a similar case about Socrates somewhere: that Socrates would stand still and just stare up at things and think. Nietzsche thought this was a totally un-Greek thing to do.

but

what does it mean,
"getting it"
how do i into this

In the long run I think I can feel myself just slowly becoming a kind of a monk, tbqh. 9 times out of 10 doing nothing is usually the right answer, and I usually regret the things I did do/say more than the things that I didn't. In the main silence and just calm purposeful activity, even if it's not heroic or remarkable (or, god help you, 'creative'). So basically Heidegger without the hang-up on authenticity. Just trying to find that busted end of your hammer and screw it back on again. And, you know, without being a Nazi.

>tfw this triggers the Heideggerian
>tfw there are no Heideggerians here to trigger
>tfw

There are several conversations in this book about the main character's big white cock. Definitely a self-insert character.

Fair enough. I'm not known for my specificity. And seek ye in vain for logic here. I'm a psychoanalysis/contintental guy, so talking about being sexually aroused by the green M&M or a Chicken McNugget is basically what I do.

Anyways...

My original aim was to talk about violence. Desire is a thing in psychoanalysis, and violence is usually what you get when something goes wrong. Now I think that violence in Eastern societies is maybe understood differently, and that the Tao in particular maybe has something interesting to do with this. I don't really have a specific question in mind, just a lot of scattered ideas. Hence the text-walls. Once the thread devolves into total shitposting I'll stop.

Got some pretty awesome Engrlsh fashion tho.

resorting to inscrutable aphorisms that don't say anything doesn't seem like the best way to advance the thesis that there are many things we can't say

getting it would be something like being careful, minding the limits of philosophy, working within them, because they're ample, and trying to delineate them a la Bernard Williams, if you have the stuff

if you don't have the stuff, that's okay, read things because you like them, do things because you think they're good things to do, but don't entertain the thought that have some knowledge or widsom because you know that ultimate knowledge or wisdom is unattainable and maybe not useful -- there's plenty of space between you and Isaiah Berlin or whatever (ie, getting it), and reading things that are inscrutable isn't gong to help you traverse it

*the thought that you have

Is this a debate? I feel like this is becoming a debate. Oh god please not debate. Just take my money. Take everything.

anyways

Wu-Wei isn't an aphorism, tho, if that's what you're getting at. It's more like the Holy Grail of Taoist thought, the sagely mode. It's really not inscrutable, or deliberately opaque (at least, I've never found it that way). What it involves is perhaps a kind of a priori suspicion about language and representation that I've always found very much in accord with my own feelings. Like pic related. I find this stuff completely agreeable to me.

Bernard Williams is indeed a boss, but I can't say I enjoy his books. I like listening to him speak, but the books...not so much. Not a knock on him, of course. He's fucking brilliant. Big Nietzsche fan too, which I also like.

So minding the limits has also never been my strong suit. But even my beloved Great Learning says that one ought to come to rest at the limit of the good. And it is why I do like metaphysics, to some degree; because really super-duper metaphysicians actually describe things that I was largely convinced could only be intuited with one's stomach.

>because i'm a filthy casual

Still tho this is very thoughtful and considerate advice, so thank you, user, for sharing.

Could there be a phenomenology of violence already embedded within the theoretical landscape of the mind? A kind of imperialism of ontology as was charged against Heidegger? Or a Deleuzian thoughscape as tresspass and violence? Yeah, violence is perhaps pervasive across every aspect of philosophy. And even more so along the continental tradition. Identity or the social attribution of this camp necessarily provokes violence in the problems it attempts to fix. To capture violence we must differentiate the models it displays across the conceptual framework of philosophical thought without lapsing into ideology.

...

How do we define violence?

Let's go to the more obvious: damage. First, damage of the body. It's not hard to give examples of "damage" as we usually think of it that aren't violent. Medicine is the most obvious. Things like hair and nail cutting, piercing or tattooing also aren't necessarily violent. Now these things can be less or more painful, but even if we were to measure violence based on pain there are also conflicting examples: birth and growth are also typically painful. Pain can also be used sexually.

If we go on to damage of the mind or psyche it becomes even more complicated. Emotional abuse can be considered violence, but then what is and isn't abuse? Is an insult violent to someone that isn't bothered by it?

Let me give another example. Is castration violent? The normal answer is to say yes. However, does castration affect the individual in the present moment? Mostly it doesn't; regardless of the hormonal changes he may suffer, the main object of castration is to render a man incapable of bearing children. Is that violent to the man as an individual? No. Is it violent to the man as a social person? Perhaps. Is it violent to the man that aims to have children? Very. Is it violent to the man that, to give an example from Chinese history, aims to further himself in society from a bad standing and might even acquiere a family name from it? On the contrary. Is it violent to a man who finds his possible responsibility as a father burdersome? No.

So violence as we have it isn't a matter of damage. If that were the case then natural catastrophes of themselves would be considered violent, but they are only so when they affect living beings and cull them before time. Appropriation might be violent even if the object isn't important to someone's wellbeing. Violence is to begin with a matter of prospect, interest, planning, hope and the future. Killing a baby for no reason is the ultimate act of violence because it's a being of pure potentiality*--an ironic position for a newborn, it actually carries all the expectations in the world. It's not that violence impedes what's desired--it is the impeding itself.

So the "violence" of a monk, a sportsman or a martial artist isn't really violence because they are artistic endeavours: they aim to shape their physical body in a certain way and so it can do certain tasks. It is a creative endeavour in the sense that it put a thing together, despite being often destructive--this sense of fitting and joining is the primigenal meaning of Latin "ars" (art, craft, power) as related to "arma" (weapon, equipment). So they aren't violent because they aim to use destruction in a way which doesn't contradict a desire.

* Vulnerability might also be factored-in in this example; however vulnerability exists only as a derivate of violence, as a likelihood of violence.

You do know that the vast majority of Chinese never read a single philosophy book?

They are raised on counter strike, math homework, porn, korean dramas, etc

Their success is due to their large population willing to work for very little. They are a human beehive.

source: lived there for years, and my wife is Chinese

Why do you want to get to the last treat? I think the whole problem is based on not pondering that. Why get rid of desire?

The whole revolution narrative is predicated on this. We're going to kill all the "parasites" and then we're going to do all those things we supposedly want or need. It just puts another level on the philosophy of "making it". We all wanna make "it" for some reason. We presuppose that there must be this great orgasm in our lives or otherwise they are wasted, that we can measure our lives correctly to do this and if we don't then there's trouble.

But isn't precisely the Great Deed the same as dying? After it's done, and let us suppose there won't be more problems after that, what's there to do? Brag about it? You've gotten rid of your hunger, now what? Sickness, ignorance, confìct, and so on? Then what? And then? See all you can think of is getting rid of things. You get more things to get rid of things and then you get rid of things to make space for more things. This isn't something bad necessarily, but it's simply what you're doing.

You like being troubled. We all do.

youtu.be/mAsso6R2YbE

I find "inaction" to be kind of a mistranslation of wúwéi. I find it to be closer in meaning to deedlessness. It isn't talking about action in the physical sense (although it overlaps), but about the need for mental and discursive reiteration.

By saying action is better than thought you're setting up a dichotomy between them. This isn't really the point. The point is that when your job is done correctly it doesn't create more problems. This is why austerity is in some sense venerated--it isn't that being poor is cool and you're a badass because you can ignore you're hungry, it's that if fame exists at all it means there's a lack of something, mental or not. Whenever you say "this man is great" you follow with "the world would be a better place with more like him"--then he's not all that great, is he? Your praise carries an admitance of his insufficiency. Of course the same applies to yourself, and the same thing applies to saying you or others are lacking. That's why there's a reiteration. Whether this is a bad habit or there's an actual need is another thing.

sacred-texts.com/tao/ycgp/ycgp02.htm

As for the unspeakable: it's not meant in the sense of eternally being unspeakable. To think like that would imply some sort of Unchangeable Way or Name. It would bring something to relie on which isn't the point.

The first thing to note is that something always escapes analysis. We're partial creatures by design and as the Book goes "we prophesy in part ".

The second thing is that the solutions of those great metaphysicians come with their problems. The problem implies the solution. Don't beat yourself over it if you don't know something because that's just letting the problems seize your life. If you get tired of the philosophical McNuggets then do something else. Otherwise carry on.

Are you the weirdo Land user I was trying to get some sense out of last night?

>get it

get what? anyone saying that doesnt get shit.

agreed

live in aus, infested with diaspora, go into city center pub to watch ufc, heaps of chinese shops selling aus souvenirs on same street, pub is super loud cause of fight, go outside and see chinese shop owners all on street wondering wtf is going on

point of story = chinese live for commerce and have no interest in anything else

Girard is overrated.

Who gives a damn about the modern plebs, the thread is about old philosophy.

Guess what, you weebs?
Western philsophy is superior.
That's right. You heard it. Western philosophy reaches conclusions based on logic, not new age tier intuition.
Meditation makes me laugh. I'm laughing right now. Sitting still? How about using the intellectual faculties nature bestowed upon you. Oh wait, you don't have any.

>superior

sure you can have that. but what matters is its usefulness as part of a larger whole, its integration as part of a larger system that grounds a way of life in harmony with the universe.

western philosophy is like having a bike with state of the art technology but with no wheels.
eastern philosophy is a normal bike.
who manages to ride?

>Western philosophy reaches conclusions

tfw this user thinks he made a strong argument

>argument

>implying and argument was attempted

On a personal level I've always struggled with East vs West. I've spent years studying the West much more than the East, but when I read the Eastern philosophies, it comforts and interests me more at times on a personal level. It's probably because I'm an anxious person, and I like the focus on simplicity and enjoying the small things.

Pasta?

>Why get rid of desire?
because it is not controllable and trying to fulfill a desire does not even make you happy, since the satisfaction you get never last and the desire itself comes back. Relying on desire to live is the most retarded decision you can take.

>remove desire because it is undesirable

eastern philosophy has way more practical value than western philosophy. but that's mainly because all of western philosophy is not really philosophy, it's more like religious text in light of materialism.

sutrabump

I'm OP and I just wanted to express my gratitude to the following user(s)

and

for some absolutely weapons-grade stuff. I will return later tonight and respond to this in greater detail. But this is absolutely fucking terrific so cheers guys until then.

How dare you. Nobody talks shit about my boy RG. Nobody!

>tfw jk when i actually haven't read clastres yet, plz teach me senpai this could be important & thanks for bringing it up. explain further

Come on. Be charitable. I know there's nothing to "get", it's a figure of speech. More specifically: they understand full well a potentially interesting response to a recursive pattern of trying to bust out of postmodern deadlocks that only serve to raise the invisible walls ever-higher. There's obv no "it" to "get" but it's tempting to think there is.

That's a spicy meata-ball. Served with pasta. Yum yum.

Yessir. And unconscious desires go first. But we assume - God is Dead! We should enjoy ourselves/we should reform the state/we should kill ourselves/we should change our genders/we should X/etc - that all is lost. But you know all this already. Just saying I agree.

I agree, and this is exactly Girard's point. Everything is done in the shadow of literary criticism, but for RG the Gospels are the text that have to be looked at that nobody wants to look at because they're hard to "deconstruct."

Okay lads that's all for now. Back later-ish with more textwall. Cheers & thanks again to all.

>so much agreeing. why so much agreeing, user? why u no remove dick from mouth?

A very interesting person once said that discoveries in philosophy are not made by proving anyone wrong, they're made by proving everyone *right.*

It's why I don't go for debate or ad hominem or crispy meme-kungfu. I hate debate because you get two+ people trying to overhear themselves being right rather than a collective investigation of a massively larger and more interesting process.

I loathe deconstruction and postmodernity for this reason, and I am becoming a relentless monist also, which is why I like the Chinese so much. I think in a certain sense that there is only One Big Thing going on and that humans are often not as original as they think they are. Only *some* humans are, but we can't all be the Neetch - or the philosopher of your choice.

Felt that warranted mentioning. Anyways carry on lads.

Also maybe. In the Moldbug thread? Could have been me.

is musashi a good book? Not really interested in eastern philosophy

Yes. It's totally great.

Who /Lao Yang/ here?

Thoughts on Lin Yutang? Worth Checking?

Oh my fuck yes. This guy? I'd say he's germane to the conversation. I have a copy of this that I've been meaning to get around to, thanks for reminding me, user.

'Leaving things undone' - if that isn't the endgame of psychoanalysis in a nutshell I'll eat my straw hat.

Musashi wasn't even prominent in the era he lived in. He rose to prominence after the Imperial Government used him for propaganda. Here is a really interesting article that mentions him, mainly talking about Bushido though :

tofugu.com/japan/bushido/

This stuff is really fascinating. I can totally see how Li developped as a response to the Laozi and some of the problems in it, namely its pretty asocial nature. So basically Confucius developped a type of "social Taoism" based around a formalism of manners. Wherein Laozi first concentrates on nature and then in human society as contained in it, Confucius lessens the scope and focuses on what would make relations between people harmonious. So when one acts in accordance to Li one doesn't act as an individual nor as an avatar of society (which are the two options present in Western thought) but rather as an indistinct and organic whole, not unlike how the Taoist sage acts frictionlessly in accordance to nature; the monarch's simple act of being positioned correctly is like this because it isn't a matter of cause-and-effect but instead a single movement with the rest of society--it's a "magical" action because it isn't affective, it's based on one thing and the other being part of the same thing beyond the surface, so changing X is changing Y because X=Y.

I can also see how this would bring about its own problems which are adressed by Zhuangzi and Yangzi. The focus on propriety ends up being used as yet another way in which people want to put themselves above others.

But to compare it to Western ideas: this conception of morality completely brings down Nietzsche's ressentiment narrative. Punishment isn't used as a way of "evening out" the play field anymore, it's not based on debt but instead on ignorance--this might be why Lacan says psychoanalysis doesn't work in Japan: without the concept an "original sin" that separates man from God/Nature/Mother then a libidinal desire to return to this "uncoscious" state has no ground.

This raises the question of where did we get our conception that men are born or should be equal? Christianity, the Platonic Form, an extrapolation of Athenian citizenship or man as political animal? Why do we concider that men *should* be completely equal to the law aside from their crimes?

It's also interesting to note that both original great poles of social theory in the West, Hobbes and Rousseau, as well as others like Marx and in more recent times Jordan Peterson, *all* consider that society in humans derives out of fallability or limitation. Human are lacking in some way therefore they bad together. But is this really the case? If we ponder on the first division of labor in humans, the fact that pregnancy is a great spenditure for women, even more so than in other species, one could take this as proof; but really this is the opposite: this kind of deficiency could *not* have arised without a society to support it. It seems to me that for Confucius social relation wasn't a patch but was instead a purely positive aspect of existence--that, like in Xunzi, it was a type of illusion or hypocrisy, a maya or magic.

>Eastern/Asian philosophy general
>90% of posts are discussing religion
Every time.

that's the point my man. god is fucking us up and we're packing up ship for the south china seas

asking whether or not confucianism is a religion is part of the fun, but the real thing to ask is if this doesn't give us an interesting new perspective on the old DoG that is making us lose our minds for capitalism

join the fun

What's your point? What do you propose?

At least for myself, *religion* - how it is understood, how it is not understood - is absolutely the central fucking question.

And *this* glorious motherfucker gets exactly what is going on here. The problem is how it is that we understand guilt, morality, religion, all of this stuff.

For myself I would say that most of civilization is now running around like headless fucking chickens trying to interpret Nietzsche, or the legion of philosophers who came after him. Personally I think the answer lies in the East - not because they're just natural born sages, but because, as that user has pointed out (and I plan also to post more of Fingarette's essay in this thread in a bit) there are at least *two* different ways of thinking about guilt, ressentiment, and all the rest. And desire.

It warrants mentioning: the Chinese love capitalism too. No doubt. But there are things that Fingarette will say about Confucian epistemology that at least for me flip everything on its head, and it comes down to these notions of knowledge, choice, and decision-making.

You can read about this in books like The Geography of Thought: Westerners and Easterners think differently. They're all about the family; I think we are peculiarly hung up on stuff that Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche, and others identified: the father, the individual, the transgression, the law, guilt, morality, punishment, and Old Testament stuff.

But none of that *happened* in China. Not in the same way. For them, as HF will explain, decision-making has much more to do with the *discrimination of possibilities*, rather than the singular, fateful, representative *Choice* - and this to me changes everything.

Difference, relativity, all of this - it's tragic and fateful in the West, but from a Taoist perspective negativity comes *first.* If there never was a God, then there's no need to agonize over a God being dead.

I think China has a lot of answers to the West's existential problems, just as much as I think Western values - innovation, the rage for differentiation, and so on - are probably unimaginable within a strictly Confucian system. And that is why I think both sides need each other in order to get each out of the conceptual logjams their cultures subsequently produce.

Violence is what happens, I would claim, when things go wrong, when individuals are set at cross-purposes by society (or by the gods, as so often happens in Greek tragedy). But the Chinese don't *do* tragedy, and if Nietzsche concludes - as I think he is correct to do (and bearing in mind that I think Rene Girard is the guy to read on this subject) - that the tragic mode of existence is what we are about, then barring a return to the Gospels Confucian/Taoist sensibility is twelve million times more attractive to me than ever-increasingly opaque postmodern tail-chasing.

I have more to say about this stuff, but happily there are one or two stone-cold brilliant anons in this thread who have said most.

I often find myself believing that no serious discussion or study of Asian philosophy can take place unless academia and authors stamp out the belief that Buddhism, Daoism or Confucianism aren't religions, and in particular with the last two that they can be separated from Chinese folk religion.

Consider this: we discriminate, for lots of reasons, between philosophy and religion. Maybe we need to do this. Maybe we need to go back and start looking at where they overlap.

We have secular religions. We have religion religions. Everything can be a religion. From a certain perspective *nothing* can be called a religion. And so on.

This is what Rene Girard taught me: we are fucking *horrified* of religion now. Does that mean it's because we are too aware of it? Not aware enough? Afraid to admit that we still haven't found a reasonable alternative? Or that we should all commit ourselves to the next STEM program and just drop everything?

Well, I don't fucking know, and it's ruining my life, because I want to know. And I think Eastern philosophy is super-de-duper interesting because it resists being *separated* into two components: a philosophical aspect and a theological aspect. In the Tao, and in Confucius, the whole point is *not* to take things apart, but to *keep them together* - and that is everything. To be coherent. And to be flexible.

Now I am all on board with that. My own life sucks and I hate living on this fucking planet most of the time, because *all* I see, everywhere, anywhere, is goddamn capitalism. Ask Zizek: everywhere you go, it's the compulsion to Enjoy.

Well what the fuck? What if you can't enjoy? What if you want some *space* from your neverending desires?

I'm not so self-disciplined that I can just *will* this to happen. I'm not interested anymore in creating new values, Nietzsche style. The world already has too many fucking values and I can't discriminate between them anymore. I'm mediocre anyways, a complete and total cuck. And I really don't care.

What I would like is not to contribute to a total shitshow that already has too many desires. It's like an Elvis Impersonator festival out there with people doing impressions of Nietzsche. I think it's ridiculous. And it's making religion look very attractive. Especially gentle nondual stuff like the Tao, which doesn't need to go on crusade or put hijabs on the women or protest abortion clinics or whatever the fuck. I think it's a good look.

Not one of my better rants, but w/evs.

>Maybe we need to go back and start looking at where they overlap.
I legitimately can't tell if this is sarcasm or just plain old ignorance.

Yes. Agreed. And I would probably say that Confucianism *is* a religion, but that this comes with the qualifier, that we understand that our definition of what constitutes a religion is going to be Western.

I am anti-postmodern, by and large, and I am anti-deconstructionist also. But in this case I think it makes sense only so that we actually are able to look at the phenomenon of what makes Eastern religion/philosophy unique and distinctive so that we are able to get the message that I think it is sending.