Why must we imagine Sisyphus happy?

Why must we imagine Sisyphus happy?

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To uphold the ideology of capitalism, of course.

if he was unhappy he would just stop pushing the boulder duh

Because life is, according to the absurdist world view "Sisyphean" - a great unrewarding effort to be repeated endlessly, both in the sense of our every day lives, and the generational cycle, as our children repeat our mistakes ad infinitum.

So you either find a way to be happy with, or in spite of that, or you don't.

Sissypussy is a bitch.

He has a purpose that I (we) don't

wrong.

Interesting...Go on...

ur wrong

The idea of endless useless 'productivity' somehow being a noble endeavour is very useful in workers. Especially when it's presented enticingly by le black and white picture cigarette smoking deep French man.

It's a pretentious way of coming to terms with being a slave and remaining a slave.

Do you agree that this even extends to alternative political groups?

Zizek was talking about this. He said something very fascinating about capitalists loving revolts and anarchism as those anarchists can be momentarily sustained in their desire in a small Coppola only to return to work with fuller productivity on Monday.

Nvm me, just leaving this here
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You conveniently leave out that the purpose is supposed to be self-determined and happiness-inducing. It's much closer to hedonism.

It only fits your narrative if you ignore that.

>Do you agree that this even extends to alternative political groups?
I view civilisation as a sort of superorganism that is not under direction of any particular subgroup, like how all ants are ultimately the servants of the colony itself, including the so called queen.

In this same way the capitalists are not the puppeteers of capital but its servants, just like the workers, and the system of capitalism acts in ways that perpetuate itself regardless of its subjects, like how a body uses its cells without concern for the well-being of individual cells.

>Zizek was talking about this. He said something very fascinating about capitalists loving revolts and anarchism as those anarchists can be momentarily sustained in their desire in a small Coppola only to return to work with fuller productivity on Monday.
I think Zizek is right in these forms of release ultimately serving and even strengthening the system. Smashing a Starbucks on election day sort of reminds me of the medieval carnival where the structure of society is temporarily suspended in a way that is part of the structure itself, like a pressure valve.

I think the only thing capable of toppling capitalism as the dominant operating system of civilisation is a structural change in its material conditions by technological innovation. Automation might be a game changer, for example.

Both perspectives can co-exist. The therapeutic value of the resignation to the resignator doesn't exclude it from being valuable to the perpetuation of the greater structure.

No unhappy person would willingly be such a cuck.

I've only ever seen him depicted as unhappy, he was being tortured in Hades after all.

But you purposefully misrepresent it.
The therapeutic value isn't in the resignation.

It's not telling anyone "Keep being a sleep, any purpose is better than no purpose". Of course it's useful to capitalism if people read it that way, but then if someone asks about the message of the New Testament you'd also have to say "it's a capitalist sleeping pill so you don't rise up while being a slave and wait until the next life".

You can just as well say that the Sisyphus is anti-capitalist because it tells people "there's no point, if you don't enjoy your life, just end it".

>But you purposefully misrepresent it.
>The therapeutic value isn't in the resignation.
>It's not telling anyone "Keep being a sleep, any purpose is better than no purpose".
In my reading it's merely the rebranding of resignation to the status quo as a heroic act so that one can conform with some salvaged self-worth. What did I miss?

>Of course it's useful to capitalism if people read it that way, but then if someone asks about the message of the New Testament you'd also have to say "it's a capitalist sleeping pill so you don't rise up while being a slave and wait until the next life".
The NT has been interpreted in that way often enough though. The whole 'the meek shall inherit the earth' thing is quite useful to keep people in check. Just keep your head down and work hard, you'll be paid in the afterlife. Render unto Ceasar and keep the machine going.

>You can just as well say that the Sisyphus is anti-capitalist because it tells people "there's no point, if you don't enjoy your life, just end it".
The difference being that people will readily accept some excuse to keep doing what they are already doing, while it is nearly of not completely impossible to reason a non-suicidal person into suicide, so in its functioning the work is not subversive.

Camus was a commie until the Soviets started putting people in work camps you dingus

>The NT has been interpreted in that way often enough though
Of course, and yet every original "prophet" would cry over how their message gets abused.
The equivalent would be that capitalists hand out free copies of Camus, distort the message a bit and add a chapter about how you're not allowed to kill yourself until you retire.

>In my reading it's merely the rebranding of resignation to the status quo as a heroic act so that one can conform with some salvaged self-worth. What did I miss?
I didn't get that at all when I read it. To me, all it says is: We will never determine why we are on earth and why we are subject to suffering. All we can do is give our own meaning to something ostensibly meaningless.
If I remember correctly, Camus doesn't really explain the Sisyphus allegory much and I found it ill-fitting back then. If he is punished, hates it, and cannot stop, then your interpretation makes sense, but doesn't fit the rest of the book. To me, it seemed more like "It wasn't really a punishment or if it was, he accepted it and agrees that he should do this and thus found meaning".

But in as much as the book tells you "Nothing matters, just find your own purpose", you'd have to be an idiot to say "Oh okay, then I want my purpose to be slaving away for someone else".

Who cares, he's dead.

"Christ, what an asshole"

>The equivalent would be that capitalists hand out free copies of Camus, distort the message a bit and add a chapter about how you're not allowed to kill yourself until you retire.
This reminds me of how Penguin omitted the section on Max Stirner when they published Camus' The Rebel.

Ironically Stirner only got saved from oblivion by marxists whining about him all day long.

That and Nietzscheans desperately denying plagiarism.

IT WORKS FOR ALL OF THEM

So he stopped being a commie at the tender age of 4? Truly, he was a genius.

Why did they do that?

Would Sisyphus be bored after a while? Does he get to take breaks?

How is it slavery when you can simply not work?
If you say "but you need to work otherwise you'll die" I 100% agree with you, and that still doesn't make it slavery. In communism people need to work too, in all cenarious things need to be done. There has to be one guy planting carrots, other guy piling bricks and so on.

How is working in capitalism "slavery" (when you have total freedom not to) and working in communism is "fun" or "noble"?

Any "right" you think you have, that is dependent on the labour and iniciative of other people isn't actually a right. People have 100% rights to their property and labour.

Money is but a measure for you to take out of the market the same amount of value you put in. "Slaving" is simply not true, for value also has the weight of time (which is the thing Marx and every communist seems to forget, read the works of Böhm Bawerk), basically the mechanism that enables every bank in the world work. There is no inherent value on labour and Marx is full of bullshit. It's all about how scarce something is and how much people want it (AND HOW SOON).

discussion on Trump level

>The equivalent would be that capitalists hand out free copies of Camus, distort the message a bit and add a chapter about how you're not allowed to kill yourself until you retire

It's so funny how every single thing communists acuses capitalist of doing being the exact thing they do, and we never do or did.

If someone actually did that in capitalism (some crazy guy, willing to go bankrupt), someone else would come in and do it right, just to be the right choice and get rich. Every single thing communists say communism would bring is exactly what capitalism brings, emanating from the egoism of people, because solely for personal gains someone will do what others won't and end up helping everyone.

Have any of you faggots actually read it? The Sisyphus portion is literally at the end and is only a fraction of the whole book.

At least 1/3 of the essay is literary analysis.

quality

No one reads essays cunt

>>>/youtube/

If you read the book you would know.

>The idea of endless useless 'productivity' somehow being a noble endeavour is very useful in workers.
It has nothing at all to do with productivity. Sisyphus is obviously a metaphor for meaninglessness of out actions, not that we are all active in productivity in capitalistic sense.

>It's a pretentious way of coming to terms with being a slave and remaining a slave.
This can only be true if we extend the word slave to mean absolutely everybody who has and will live regardless of any circumstances. Camus is making a point he grounds in his metaphysics. It applies to everyone equally. So if I am generous and say that your use of the word slave isn't wrong another way of putting it would be something like coming to terms with being an unfulfilled being in a world where this is necessarily the case. The use of the word slave in reference to something like its common meaning are at best wrong, and at worst facetious.

No they haven't. I don't like Camus as a philosopher at all but it still annoys me when 4/5ths of people in the thread have clearly not read the text.