One of the most troubling things in life is the fact we are all ‘victims of circumstance,’ though perhaps ‘subject to conditions’ is a better phrase because ‘victims’ entails moral quality to which some would object. You didn’t choose to believe in personal agency. It was taught to you. You didn’t choose to be receptive when you were taught. You were in a place, mentally and physically, to absorb or not absorb the concepts based on what happened in your life before. The only escape from this is magical thinking, where some ineffable ‘you’ makes decisions from outside of physical reality yet always seem to comport with it.
You are just talking about determinism. Which is another cop out. Folks would rather comfort themselves they had no choice, than face the horror that they did have choices and made poor ones, and continue to make poor ones. I notice that people who repeatedly make poor choices always articulate it as if they had no other choices, and when you question them about future choices, they flip out at you and tell you off. Nobody is forcing someone on a tight budget to go buy Starbucks everyday, but that person convinces themselves that it’s some sort of necessity rather than acknowledging that they could simply not buy it, and goes on the attack when this possibility is presented to them because it’s scary.
I was presented with a plurality of options in life, and I made choices to embrace certain beliefs and not others, just like I attended one university, and not others. Like tomorrow I will choose what I want for breakfast and maybe I will choose ice cream just to fuck with people who think ice cream can’t be eaten from breakfast.
You have your deeply cherished beliefs so I won’t bother rehashing hundreds of years of existentialism. The only outcomes are the improbable horror of shattering of your worldview via internet comment or the much more likely waste of our time and energies. Have a nice day.
I have advanced degrees in philosophy and I’ve studied every major existentialist philosopher.
But please tell me more how wrong I am and how you’re a articulate genius full of secret knowledge about the universe. Please.
You’re probably about as knowledgeable existentialism as the tankies on here about communism. Nobody is more profound and deep and knowable than someone has read a few passages of something and is completely ignorant of any greater context. And just like them, all you can do is sling insults and posture yourself as being smarter or wiser, because you have no knowledge to actually articulate and you cannot respond to challenges without resorting to angsty teenage insults.
while, sometimes, and only sometimes, one doesn’t have choices, I agree with you broadly.
still swoops back around to one can only control themselves, and their own reactions to things.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Also, you can have ice cream for breakfast and beans for dessert. There are no rules, and who cares what other people think when youre being harmless.
Unless, we then swoop back to that dude attacking you. That wasnt a choice for sure. Anyway, take care
we can only conrol ourselves
according to the nutjobs on here nobody is ever in control of their own actions and is entirely always perpetually a victim of circumstance
One of the most troubling things in life is the fact we are all ‘victims of circumstance,’ though perhaps ‘subject to conditions’ is a better phrase because ‘victims’ entails moral quality to which some would object. You didn’t choose to believe in personal agency. It was taught to you. You didn’t choose to be receptive when you were taught. You were in a place, mentally and physically, to absorb or not absorb the concepts based on what happened in your life before. The only escape from this is magical thinking, where some ineffable ‘you’ makes decisions from outside of physical reality yet always seem to comport with it.
You are just talking about determinism. Which is another cop out. Folks would rather comfort themselves they had no choice, than face the horror that they did have choices and made poor ones, and continue to make poor ones. I notice that people who repeatedly make poor choices always articulate it as if they had no other choices, and when you question them about future choices, they flip out at you and tell you off. Nobody is forcing someone on a tight budget to go buy Starbucks everyday, but that person convinces themselves that it’s some sort of necessity rather than acknowledging that they could simply not buy it, and goes on the attack when this possibility is presented to them because it’s scary.
I was presented with a plurality of options in life, and I made choices to embrace certain beliefs and not others, just like I attended one university, and not others. Like tomorrow I will choose what I want for breakfast and maybe I will choose ice cream just to fuck with people who think ice cream can’t be eaten from breakfast.
You have your deeply cherished beliefs so I won’t bother rehashing hundreds of years of existentialism. The only outcomes are the improbable horror of shattering of your worldview via internet comment or the much more likely waste of our time and energies. Have a nice day.
I have advanced degrees in philosophy and I’ve studied every major existentialist philosopher.
But please tell me more how wrong I am and how you’re a articulate genius full of secret knowledge about the universe. Please.
You’re probably about as knowledgeable existentialism as the tankies on here about communism. Nobody is more profound and deep and knowable than someone has read a few passages of something and is completely ignorant of any greater context. And just like them, all you can do is sling insults and posture yourself as being smarter or wiser, because you have no knowledge to actually articulate and you cannot respond to challenges without resorting to angsty teenage insults.
I am not an articulate genius.
You are the one making claims of knowledge.
I will not argue with you.
Have a nice day.
No, you’re a coward who makes a big claim and then backs right out of it when confronted.
You come to the fight blustering of your prowess and then collapse crying when you take the first hit.
Pathetic.
I will not argue with you. Internet arguments are pointless. Be well.
while, sometimes, and only sometimes, one doesn’t have choices, I agree with you broadly.
still swoops back around to one can only control themselves, and their own reactions to things.
Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Also, you can have ice cream for breakfast and beans for dessert. There are no rules, and who cares what other people think when youre being harmless.
Unless, we then swoop back to that dude attacking you. That wasnt a choice for sure. Anyway, take care