Daytripper
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Should I abandon my ideals because they are not part of the cynical cultural milieu?
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Should I abandon my ideals?
- Thread starter Daytripper
- Start date
LEGENDARYNOT
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Daytripper
Connoisseur.
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John_Oakman
Uncertified truck kun driver
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Give it a trial run. Either to get it out of your system or it works and you're better off.
LEGENDARYNOT
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Because 1. If you're abandoning you're ideals for some idea of fitting in you should probably take a moment to think over your decision.
and 2. Being cynical isn't healthy mentally and people have enough mental stress existing in modern society as is
Andy333
Experienced.
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Because if you're willing to abandon your beliefs because of what other people think of you, then their not actually your beliefs. You don't believe in anything. You just let other people think for you because your insecure, and you don't have enough confidence in yourself to make your own decisions.
Now I don't know if that's who you are in real life, but as someone who used to live that way, it's not a happy life.
Amazon Climber
Wholesomely Depraved
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If you have a good reason, then sure.
I said a good reason.
TheMidnightRook
Well worn.
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Guardian Box
Theocratic Capitalist
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Tell me what those ideals are, and I'll tell you which ones to keep
BackslashEcho
Renaissance Bear
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Yeah, doesn't feel like I can offer advice without a bit more context.
Without that, I think you're just going to get a lot of platitudes, Shirou
Daytripper
Connoisseur.
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. Universal brotherhood
. Liberal democracy
. Universal truth
. Justice
. Human rights
. Enviromentalism
. Egalitarianism
. Individualism
. Pluralism
Guardian Box
Theocratic Capitalist
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These need to go.
The rest is either ok to keep or debatable at worst, depending on what exactly you feel these concepts represent.
Andy333
Experienced.
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Why do you need our opinions in order for you to decided what you believe in? If you believe in something, if you think your doing the right thing, who are we to tell you that you are wrong. Most people who are living their lives want and try to do the right thing. Then they inevitably screw up, because failure happens to everyone. Maybe because they didn't have the information they thought they did, but no matter the reason why the failed, they pick themselves up, learn from the experience, and try to do better next time.
That's what a healthy believe system looks like, its not this static thing. It adepts and changes as you learn more and grow. Usually the ideologies that force you to believe in a very narrow definition or a very strict rules set are not healthy or good. The word fascism comes from the Italian word fascio, which means a bundle of sticks. In ancient roman they had this believe that one stick can be broken, but a bundle can't. If an army stands together they are strong, but if it's divided it will break. For fascists what this means to them, is if you have one group of people, one culture, one religion, one identity, and one skin color all working together for a common goal or state then they would be invincible. Which in case you didn't notice, doesn't leave a lot of room for other groups of people or believe systems.
The important part is learning from mistakes, it's understanding that it happens and its normal. It's normal to have doubts or be afraid, the problem is when you let those things consume you and you decide to let other people do all the thinking for you. Or you go the opposite route and decide that no you are not wrong everyone else is, everyone is my enemy. You need something to believe in. You need something in life to give yourself a purpose, because the universe is certainly not going to give you one. The universe is uncaring. We have to decide our own purpose. But what ever your purpose is, its not the only one in world.
Other people have purposes and believes that they follow, and more often than not your beliefs and there beliefs will challenge each other. In a perfect world you would learn from each other. You might not agree a hundred percent, but you each take some new knowledge and insight from each other and walk away happier. We do not live in a perfect world obviously, but I think the only way were ever going to reach there is if people try.
Vladicus
Sage of reason and incomplete information
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My suggestion for you would be to take a long break from the internet, let's say a week and contemplate on those ideals and see if they aren't contradictory to one another. Afterwards I suggest you slap yourself really hard for asking stupid questions. Your ideals are not something you ask random degenerates on the internet whether you should keep or not, they're the pathways you take to building yourself up, to becoming what you wish to be or what you see yourself as.
To abandon your ideals is to abandon who you are trying to become and erase who you are.
Darknessthere
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If you think asking a bunch of Randos on the internet if you should, you probably don't hold them that close in the first place. Thus you should abandon them, and seek out ideals you actually value, not just the ones you think you should value.
Puffycheese
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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No. Persistent, applied, precise will can change culture
humon
The humon abides
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~Ideals, ideals, ideals... which are good, which are bad?~
~Ideals, ideals, ideals... the internet will make you sad~
My advice, use a combination of the scientific method and reductio ad absurdum. Try to imagine each ideal taken to its most extreme conclusion, and see if that terrifies you or is something you can live with. Then try to find examples in history and around the world of those ideals in practice and see if they worked out well or they encountered problems. And if there were problems (there are always problems), what could be done to refine those ideals to account for those problems?
Many questions that people have about ideals have also already been considered by philosophers centuries ago, so it may help to research what they said on the topic. People on the internet keep having the same arguments that were had in ancient times, so if you can go back to the conclusions that were drawn then, you can cut out a whole lot of noise.
Finally, going back to the reductio ad absurdum, it helps to remember Aristotle's idea of the golden mean. Anything can be terrible if it's done too much or too little. Finding the optimal balance is the real challenge, and should be the focus of most of your attention.
Now, let's see...
. Universal brotherhood -- the primary question here is what do you do with people who don't want to be your brother? Some people would rather just kill you and take your stuff. Others may tell you they are your brother, while you are strong and they are weak, but then if the roles ever reverse, they... alter the deal, as Darth Vader would say. No picture of universal brotherhood can be complete without taking into account the problem of evil.
. Liberal democracy -- this has been getting a lot of material results since the industrial revolution, so it's hard to argue against it, but we are starting to see late stage problems now, due to the abandonment of a shared religion that used to bind people together. In the absence of a shared purpose/morality/belief, people go off and do different things and no longer understand each other, which is the situation described with the Tower of Babel.
. Universal truth -- propositional statements are either true or false, and no amount of threats or language games from other people can change that. But you also have to consider the question of meaning, and where you direct your attention. A lot of things are simultaneously true, but not everything is relevant to the moment and to your needs. People can lie, when they tell you things that are false, but they can also bullshit you, where they tell you things that are technically true but are designed to misdirect your attention away from where it should be. Advertisers do this all the time. So this should also be taken into account when you think of truth. Truth without meaning is dry. Meaning without truth is fuzzy.
. Justice -- everyone should get what they are due, but people often disagree on what that is. The problems come when trying to create a system that administers justice, because any system built by humans can also be gamed by humans. Ultimately, the only justice you have any real control over is the justice of your own actions, and how you treat other people, so you can start there, and hope that your example is then followed by other people you interact with. If everyone in a community is committed to justice, then justice will be served. If only some people want justice and the remaining majority only want to serve themselves, then justice will not be done.
. Human rights -- also known as the rights of Englishmen, extended to all the rest of humanity. I like to allude to the line from Terminator, that there's no fate but what we make for ourselves. Only in my version, there's no justice and no human rights but what we make for ourselves. There are natural rights that every intelligent being would want to have in order to live a good life (which mainly revolve around being left alone by others), but these rights can only exist if there is a mechanism to protect them. Usually that takes the form of law enforcement, and then additionally some constitutional checks against the abuse of power by those doing the enforcing, and against the creation of tyrannical laws designed to abuse people on a systemic level. And then those protections are only as good as the willingness and ability of people to enforce them. So you see the problem... human rights are a wonderful thing, if the majority of people are virtuous enough to respect them and enforce them. Otherwise, they are just words on paper.
. Enviromentalism -- this is a good place to search for the golden mean. Stewarding the environment in a sustainable manner is the responsible thing to do--we want the planet and the human species to flourish indefinitely into the future, not just to turn our home into a trash pit--but also one must be aware of grifters who try to use that cause to fleece people and pursue personal power over others. They will tell you the world is ending unless you give them power and do what they say. This can happen in any movement, but has been happening a lot lately with the environmental cause. The term watermelon comes to mind: green on the outside but red on the inside.
. Egalitarianism -- it depends on what things you want to be equal. I read this as a desire that everybody should play by the same rules, which I agree with. But others may try to say that it means the rules should be different for some people because they're losing the game, which would be a perversion of the ideal that would only lead to ruin.
. Individualism -- individual freedom is half of the story, and simultaneously the critical flaw of liberal democracy. Individuals acting freely can create wonderful things, but they have trouble when it comes to collective defence (or really any collective action, including stewardship of the commons). A well organized minority will steamroll a disorganized majority any day of the week. So individualism I would say is an incomplete ideal unless it is also paired with a binding force (the original meaning of the word religion is, "that which binds together")
. Pluralism -- it's nice when times are good, but the problems appear when times are bad, when there aren't enough resources to go around, and critical decisions have to be made about who gets what. When there must be winners and losers, who gets to decide who wins and who loses? A house divided against itself cannot stand, and a man cannot serve two masters. So there may be a plurality of interests, if they are all subordinate to a single higher principle, but if they try to each become the highest principle in and of themselves, then conflict will be inevitable.
~Ideals, ideals, ideals... the internet will make you sad~
My advice, use a combination of the scientific method and reductio ad absurdum. Try to imagine each ideal taken to its most extreme conclusion, and see if that terrifies you or is something you can live with. Then try to find examples in history and around the world of those ideals in practice and see if they worked out well or they encountered problems. And if there were problems (there are always problems), what could be done to refine those ideals to account for those problems?
Many questions that people have about ideals have also already been considered by philosophers centuries ago, so it may help to research what they said on the topic. People on the internet keep having the same arguments that were had in ancient times, so if you can go back to the conclusions that were drawn then, you can cut out a whole lot of noise.
Finally, going back to the reductio ad absurdum, it helps to remember Aristotle's idea of the golden mean. Anything can be terrible if it's done too much or too little. Finding the optimal balance is the real challenge, and should be the focus of most of your attention.
Now, let's see...
. Universal brotherhood -- the primary question here is what do you do with people who don't want to be your brother? Some people would rather just kill you and take your stuff. Others may tell you they are your brother, while you are strong and they are weak, but then if the roles ever reverse, they... alter the deal, as Darth Vader would say. No picture of universal brotherhood can be complete without taking into account the problem of evil.
. Liberal democracy -- this has been getting a lot of material results since the industrial revolution, so it's hard to argue against it, but we are starting to see late stage problems now, due to the abandonment of a shared religion that used to bind people together. In the absence of a shared purpose/morality/belief, people go off and do different things and no longer understand each other, which is the situation described with the Tower of Babel.
. Universal truth -- propositional statements are either true or false, and no amount of threats or language games from other people can change that. But you also have to consider the question of meaning, and where you direct your attention. A lot of things are simultaneously true, but not everything is relevant to the moment and to your needs. People can lie, when they tell you things that are false, but they can also bullshit you, where they tell you things that are technically true but are designed to misdirect your attention away from where it should be. Advertisers do this all the time. So this should also be taken into account when you think of truth. Truth without meaning is dry. Meaning without truth is fuzzy.
. Justice -- everyone should get what they are due, but people often disagree on what that is. The problems come when trying to create a system that administers justice, because any system built by humans can also be gamed by humans. Ultimately, the only justice you have any real control over is the justice of your own actions, and how you treat other people, so you can start there, and hope that your example is then followed by other people you interact with. If everyone in a community is committed to justice, then justice will be served. If only some people want justice and the remaining majority only want to serve themselves, then justice will not be done.
. Human rights -- also known as the rights of Englishmen, extended to all the rest of humanity. I like to allude to the line from Terminator, that there's no fate but what we make for ourselves. Only in my version, there's no justice and no human rights but what we make for ourselves. There are natural rights that every intelligent being would want to have in order to live a good life (which mainly revolve around being left alone by others), but these rights can only exist if there is a mechanism to protect them. Usually that takes the form of law enforcement, and then additionally some constitutional checks against the abuse of power by those doing the enforcing, and against the creation of tyrannical laws designed to abuse people on a systemic level. And then those protections are only as good as the willingness and ability of people to enforce them. So you see the problem... human rights are a wonderful thing, if the majority of people are virtuous enough to respect them and enforce them. Otherwise, they are just words on paper.
. Enviromentalism -- this is a good place to search for the golden mean. Stewarding the environment in a sustainable manner is the responsible thing to do--we want the planet and the human species to flourish indefinitely into the future, not just to turn our home into a trash pit--but also one must be aware of grifters who try to use that cause to fleece people and pursue personal power over others. They will tell you the world is ending unless you give them power and do what they say. This can happen in any movement, but has been happening a lot lately with the environmental cause. The term watermelon comes to mind: green on the outside but red on the inside.
. Egalitarianism -- it depends on what things you want to be equal. I read this as a desire that everybody should play by the same rules, which I agree with. But others may try to say that it means the rules should be different for some people because they're losing the game, which would be a perversion of the ideal that would only lead to ruin.
. Individualism -- individual freedom is half of the story, and simultaneously the critical flaw of liberal democracy. Individuals acting freely can create wonderful things, but they have trouble when it comes to collective defence (or really any collective action, including stewardship of the commons). A well organized minority will steamroll a disorganized majority any day of the week. So individualism I would say is an incomplete ideal unless it is also paired with a binding force (the original meaning of the word religion is, "that which binds together")
. Pluralism -- it's nice when times are good, but the problems appear when times are bad, when there aren't enough resources to go around, and critical decisions have to be made about who gets what. When there must be winners and losers, who gets to decide who wins and who loses? A house divided against itself cannot stand, and a man cannot serve two masters. So there may be a plurality of interests, if they are all subordinate to a single higher principle, but if they try to each become the highest principle in and of themselves, then conflict will be inevitable.
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