I'm honestly scared to read modern philosophy, especially continental, because of what it might do to me...

I'm honestly scared to read modern philosophy, especially continental, because of what it might do to me. I don't want to be lost in an eternal existential crises for the rest of my life. Philosophy has only made my life much more difficult, yet I feel that I need to keep reading. Is it worth it to read the French, the postmodernists, or are they just drivel, or will they fuck me up eternally?

jean derida's gonna beat the shitta outta you kid, stick to diary of a wimpy kid

Have you started with the Greeks

haven't read much derrida but I do know that he's less existential crisis than people make out. delueze & guattari are very fun and life affirming though. don't buy into the popular image of French theory, it's not as bleak as people make out.

>I'm honestly scared to read modern philosophy

Scared of Descartes?

Just read Deleuze and man up.

What kind of brainlet has to read philosophy to have an existential crisis?

Are you... scared of thinking?
Modern and contemporary philosophy does not "turn" you into anything: you read something, you think about it, if you don't agree you argue your stance. That's it, at no point you lose control of your opinions.

What I think is that you suspect that modern and postmodern philosophers are in fact right, and that by looking at their arguments you would disqualify most of the lies you've told yourself so far. If that is the case, just know that you value how society sees (in this case other 4channers, since you could not fit in the general narrative anymore) you more than truth.

>delueze & guattari are very fun and life affirming though
Not at all. You obviously didn't read Deleuze well. After all "Becoming is monstrous", idiot.

>That's it, at no point you lose control of your opinions
He's referring to the tension of what believe reality to be versus what we wish it to be. Some thinkers are too good not to get caught up in confirmation bias for the latter.

And yeah, reading philosophers does make tension between narratives and what is more apparent.

>what believe
what we believe*

lol, yes because heidegger, like all non-rhizomatic meta-structures are a dead end. did you underhand multiplicity dupe?

People DO get overpowered and lost in ideologies, user. It is good to recognise that.

OP, I would recommend reading Robert Anton Wilson Cosmic Trigger first, it gives you a lovely humor filled twist to return to during even the worst existential crises.

The fact Deleuze abandons the project of normative ethics for his idiosyncratic constructivism and individualism does, indeed, have a despairing aspect to it, especially given the addition of post-anarchism. The fact is, all hierarchies are seen as illegitimate to Deleuze, they rest on no foundation or justification, and while there is a kind of amor fati Nietzschian consequence and freedom, there is also the addition that the Marquis de Sade is on equal territory as oneself, morality being fictitious and its imposition seen as dishonestly hierarchizing the hetarchical plane of immanence.

or you know, taking life and it's difference on it's own terms instead of imposing meta-concepts into a dialectical good/bad structure. life is much more enjoyable if you approach things fresh and free from preconceived brackets.

I don't think this will hapoen as long as you'll reqd multiple authors, instead of focusing your attention on only a single philosophical school.
Sure, you can read Derrida, but you can also read Derrida's critics, and those who never knew about Derrida in the first place.
I get what you mean by saying that people get overpowered by ideologies, but in a certain sense I think that's a good thing. To truly understand a thinker you have to get obsessed with it and think from his point of view. Of course the trick is to read other philosophers' works after his, so that you can contextualize the enthusiasm you felt the first time, and treat it as a motivational tool.
To summarize, I think that, for example, to understand Spinoza you have to understand him first, which means following his direction and model your thoughts after them. This may result in certain people getting obsessed with only Spinoza for a lifetime, yet to counterbalance this influence they might as well read another thinker, and discover that this feeling was related to philosophical discovery, rather that Spinoza's specific ideas. Once the reader realizes this, he will be able to apply with rigor skepticism,w ithout hurting the understanding of the work (basically, he will learn that he first has to understand it, and only then he can criticize it.

uh, when does Deleuze jettison Spinoza so completely?

Deleuze and Derrida are very clever in making you think they said something original when most of their implications are in the texts already. It is a very modernist thing to think postmodernism something new. Deleuze is entirely unconvincing compared to Plato.

Clear you didn't read Difference and Reptition. Deleuze doesn't pretend to be some radical break froom the history of philosophy, he gets what he gest by carefully reading Kant, Plato, etc.

>instead of imposing meta-concepts into a dialectical good/bad structure
Look at all of the horrible things that man has done in life, from genocide to enslavement, and you're telling me

>life is much more enjoyable if you approach things fresh and free from preconceived brackets.

No, in order to live life, some degree of social control is necessary in order to prevent people from giving into sadistic impulses. You're basically saying "everything is permissible" and people are free to butcher, fuck, and dance with each other and everything in between. This is why Deleuze called Becoming monstrous, since difference undermines normative structures.

Deleuze abandoned the entire project of normative ethics. Only harmful and beneficial relations to the individual exist, which provides no meta-ethics, so the entire project of normative ethics is abandoned.

Oh I completely agree. That's my learning style too. I get immersed in the system and take it on board as if it were fully valid, then later begin to hit it with critiques and whittle it down to the value that remains.

I like Logic of Sense.

You don't understand Practical Philosophy.

No, I accept moral anti-realism with all its horrific implications. I think Deleuze's philosophy leads more to dark alleyways than it does to the bounteous fields as you're implying.

Deleuze isn't an anti-realist though, the entire thrust of his philosophy is ethical. This is clear if you merely read Nietzsche and Philosophy or Practical Phiosophy.

well yeah, if I only look at the bad things humans have done but that's only half the story and no genocide is the same etc.

no, that's the opposite of what I said. "do the right thing" not "do not do x thing". the right thing to do
changes, it's not tied to a dialectic category. aka take life on it's own terms.

seriously, it's like people never read his take on tarde or bergson. some peterson level memes going on.