Death is the cure

[Comrade Anarchist]

Our lives are very short in terms of the universe but there is much suffering. Many philosophers have proposed that our lives are empty like Socrates said life is a sickness and death is its cure, Nietzsche doesn't make life sound so appetizing and Sartre said that life is nauseating. But in between the sadness there are many happy moments but very few so shouldn't we grab these happy moments. If life is a disease then shouldn't we use these happy moments as our pain killers. In my opinion communism is also a painkiller because it makes life more bearable and adds some meaning in my opinion. Many people don't live in these moments and many can't live in these moments for many reasons so aren't there lives just pointless and it kinda adds insult to injury when us who have these happy moments do not take them. If your 60 and are lonely and one person is 70 and also lonely and they may not perfect for you but your at the end so shouldn't go out on a limb and just take that for as much happiness as possible instead of being alone until the end. So what im saying is that we shouldnt waste the happy moments no matter how pointless because they are suppressors for the pointless shit we see done everyday that makes this disease we all suffer from get worst.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

How can death be a 'cure' if we all struggle to stay alive, and scientists are busy trying to find ways to extend our lives?

[Comrade Anarchist]

How can death be a 'cure' if we all struggle to stay alive, and scientists are busy trying to find ways to extend our lives?

Death is a cure from sickness, wars, hatred so i understand that your coming from an evolutionary point but from a philosophic point life is pointless.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Comrade Marx:



Death is a cure from sickness, wars, hatred so i understand that your coming from an evolutionary point but from a philosophic point life is pointless.


I am not 'coming from an evolutionary' perspective, just stating the obvious (something that was plain to see before evolution was thought of), that we all struggle to stay alive.

Moreover, from a 'philosophical' perspective, you keep claiming death is a 'cure' but you have yet to prove this point -- as it stands it is an unsupported statement, and one that flies in the face of patent truths about human beings.

Even from a linguistic perspective, your claims make little sense. A cure makes things better; a 'cure' that kills is no cure at all -- which is, of course, why doctors look for cures that do not kill their patients.

[Leo]

Death is a cure from sickness, wars, hatred No, it is the outcome of sickness, wars, hatred etc.

[apathy maybe]

You're a loser baby, so why don't you kill yourself?

I don't actually understand the OP, mind, I didn't try too hard.

Death simply is. For some, it is a good thing, for others, a bad.

But once you are dead, there is nothing, you are nothing. I.e. I'm not going to worry when I'm dead.

[benhur]

Very good thread.

What is life, if not cruelty, greed, corruption, pain, disease, loneliness, frustration, and utter misery? Anyone who says life is beautiful is a deluded fool. And anyone who denies that death is a cure is equally silly. And when we say life is a disease and death a cure, we're putting it rather poetically; that's all. There's no need to 'analyze' every statement with a skeptical eye.

As for people who say people would rather live than die, that's because people fear the unknown, so even if the known is excruciatingly painful, they're still afraid to let go. This is why people prefer life to death, NOT because life is inherently superior to death.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BenHur:


Anyone who says life is beautiful is a deluded fool. And anyone who denies that death is a cure is equally silly. And when we say life is a disease and death a cure, we're putting it rather poetically; that's all. There's no need to 'analyze' every statement with a skeptical eye.

And from which stone tablets, handed to you on which mountain top, did you discover these sacred pronouncements?

If you want to deliver 'poerty', stay away from Philosophy.

If the cops kill some strikers, we do not say, "Ah well, that's cured them!" -- only a Nazi 'poet' would write that!

[NecroCommie]

Reminds me of a joke.

You dudes did know that life is the most lethal sexually transmitted disease, right? :laugh: Death rate 100% of the contaminated.

[Lynx]

If life is a disease then death is the cure.
If life is the problem then death is a solution.
If...

[mykittyhasaboner]

--

[Hit The North]

Very good thread.

What is life, if not cruelty, greed, corruption, pain, disease, loneliness, frustration, and utter misery? Anyone who says life is beautiful is a deluded fool.


I'm just glad I've got my life instead of yours, then. :rolleyes:


As for people who say people would rather live than die, that's because people fear the unknown, so even if the known is excruciatingly painful, they're still afraid to let go. This is why people prefer life to death, NOT because life is inherently superior to deathYou're one of the few posters who seems to get more stupid the longer you post here. Please cure yourself :lol:

[Comrade Anarchist]

Most of you are true morons. Philosophy is study of our existence and our existence to many philosophers is empty of meaning. i didnt say that there was a god because i dont believe in one. All i did was propose that we should accept the happy times instead of push them off like so many humans in the western world do. You are obviously blind, deaf, dumb if you dont see that life is nothing but hardships with few happy moments so why are you attacking me for that. If im showing stupidity here i really dont see it.

[benhur]

I'm just glad I've got my life instead of yours, then. :rolleyes:

You're one of the few posters who seems to get more stupid the longer you post here. Please cure yourself :lol:

You seem to have the intelligence of a senile monkey.:laugh: Why don't you join the zoo?

[benhur]

BenHur:



And from which stone tablets, handed to you on which mountain top, did you discover these sacred pronouncements?

If you want to deliver 'poerty', stay away from Philosophy.

If the cops kill some strikers, we do not say, "Ah well, that's cured them!" -- only a Nazi 'poet' would write that!

How about people who're...

suffering from painful, incurable diseases?

trapped in war zones and have lost their limbs?

living under taliban and such oppressive regimes

facing abject poverty, humiliation etc. etc.


Would you have the heart to tell them life is beautiful? Would you blame them, if they wished to embrace death and get it over with? Life is not easy. It's not a bed of roses. So let's be a little sensitive here, okay?

p.s.
It seems as if most of you are still conditioned by Judeo-Christian thought, which explains why you guys shun death and celebrate life.

[Leo]

This thread is really full of teenage angst, melancholia and depression...

...and that was the worst piece of poetry ever.

[ZeroNowhere]

...and that was the worst piece of poetry ever.
Yeah, it pretty much mixes the depth of High School Musical with the poetic skill of Chris Paolini.


How about people who're...

suffering from painful, incurable diseases?

trapped in war zones and have lost their limbs?

living under taliban and such oppressive regimes

facing abject poverty, humiliation etc. etc.
What about them? You said:

What is life, if not cruelty, greed, corruption, pain, disease, loneliness, frustration, and utter misery?
You're attacking a strawman.


It seems as if most of you are still conditioned by Judeo-Christian thought, which explains why you guys shun death and celebrate life.
Conditioned by heavy fucking metal would be more accurate here, but that's cute.


And anyone who denies that death is a cure is equally silly.
Every night at midnight 12,
Masturbate to kill myself!

(Masturbate philosophically, that is)


Philosophy is study of our existence and our existence to many philosophers is empty of meaning.
Which makes as little sense as life 'having meaning', or 'the meaning of life'.


You dudes did know that life is the most lethal sexually transmitted disease, right? Death rate 100% of the contaminated.
:crying:
This is the closest that anybody has come in this thread to proving that life is suffering.

[Hit The North]

This is Trotsky, reflecting on life and, I believe, should be our proper orientation:


For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.
Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
L. Trotsky February 27, 1940 Coiyoacan.

We are revolutionaries because we love life not, unlike idiots such as Benhur, because we despise it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB (quoting Trotsky):


For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.
Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
L. Trotsky February 27, 1940 Coiyoacan.

Thanks for that; I had forgotten about this quotation.

I now plan to use it in Essay Nine Part Two to help show how dialectics works for Dialectical Marxists as theology does for genuine God Botherers.

[Bilan]

What is life, if not cruelty, greed, corruption, pain, disease, loneliness, frustration, and utter misery?

Life is existence, it doesn't necessitate anything you've just mentioned. Those are things which exist but they're not it life itself, at least, not anymore than salt is the ocean.



Anyone who says life is beautiful is a deluded fool.

Life is beautiful.



And anyone who denies that death is a cure is equally silly.

Cure for what exactly? For life? That only makes sense under the presumption that life is an illness, which, I must say, is a rather peculiar definition of illness. This is just nonsense. You are being silly.



And when we say life is a disease and death a cure, we're putting it rather poetically; that's all. There's no need to 'analyze' every statement with a skeptical eye.

Yes, there is.



As for people who say people would rather live than die, that's because people fear the unknown, so even if the known is excruciatingly painful, they're still afraid to let go. This is why people prefer life to death, NOT because life is inherently superior to death.

Ah, you're so wise. Tell us, what do you know about death that you feel so at liberty to act like a stuck up prick to everyone else about it? Death is not desirable whilst one is alive unless one has lost the desire to live.
Harden up and enjoy life. You've only got one.

[Dr Mindbender]

cut my wrists and stop my heart,

I must be emo.

[Hit The North]

BTB (quoting Trotsky):
I now plan to use it in Essay Nine Part Two to help show how dialectics works for Dialectical Marxists as theology does for genuine God Botherers.

Enjoy making your cheap shots against great revolutionaries.

Rosa Lichtenstein - always a friend of the reactionary bourgeoisie!

[Hit The North]

p.s.
It seems as if most of you are still conditioned by Judeo-Christian thought, which explains why you guys shun death and celebrate life.

On the contrary. It is Judeo-Christian thought which exalts death over life.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Enjoy making your cheap shots against great revolutionaries.

Rosa Lichtenstein - always a friend of the reactionary bourgeoisie!

You only regard it as a 'cheap shot' because you too are in denial.

And, far from me being a "friend of the reactionary bourgeoisie!", it is you DM-fans who have appropriated the mystical jargon of that arch ruling-class theorist, and quintessential bourgeois philosopher, Hegel.

[Sure, you 'claim' to reject Hegel, but the theory you accept is directly based on his work.]

[DM= Dialectical Materialism.]

Still, thanks for the quote; I'll add it to these (which more-or-less show the same sort of thing):


George Novack records the following meeting with Trotsky in Mexico, in 1937:


"[O]ur discussion glided into the subject of philosophy.... We talked about the best ways of studying dialectical materialism, about Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, and about the theoretical backwardness of American radicalism. Trotsky brought forward the name of Max Eastman, who in various works had polemicized against dialectics as a worthless idealist hangover from the Hegelian heritage of Marxism.

"He became tense and agitated. 'Upon going back to the States,' he urged, 'you comrades must at once take up the struggle against Eastman's distortion and repudiation of dialectical materialism. There is nothing more important than this….'

"I was somewhat surprised at the vehemence of his argumentation on this matter at such a moment. As the principal defendant in absentia in the Moscow trials, and because of the dramatic circumstances of his voyage in exile, Trotsky then stood in the centre of international attention. He was fighting for his reputation, liberty, and life against the powerful government of Stalin, bent on his defamation and death. After having been imprisoned and gagged for months by the Norwegian authorities, he had been kept incommunicado for weeks aboard their tanker.

"Yet on the first day after reunion with his cothinkers, he spent more than an hour explaining how important it was for a Marxist movement to have a correct philosophical method and to defend dialectical materialism against its opponents! "[Novack (1978), pp.169-70. Bold emphases added. Spelling changed to conform to UK English.]

Given the mystical nature of this theory, and the emotional attachment to it displayed by DM-fans -- and Marx's own words about religious alienation and the need for consolation (see below) --, Trotsky's semi-religious fervour, his emotional attachment to the dialectic, and his irrationalism become much easier to understand.

The accuracy of Novack's memory is supported by the following comment of Trotsky's:


"...It would not be amiss, therefore, to refer to the fact that my first serious conversation with comrades Shachtman and Warde, in the train immediately after my arrival in Mexico in January 1937, was devoted to the necessity of persistently propagating dialectic materialism. After our American section split from the Socialist Party I insisted most strongly on the earliest possible publication of a theoretical organ, having again in mind the need to educate the party, first and foremost its new members, in the spirit of dialectic materialism. In the United States, I wrote at that time, where the bourgeoisie systematically in stills (sic) vulgar empiricism in the workers, more than anywhere else is it necessary to speed the elevation of the movement to a proper theoretical level. On January 20, 1939, I wrote to comrade Shachtman concerning his joint article with comrade Burnham, 'Intellectuals in Retreat':

'The section on the dialectic is the greatest blow that you, personally, as the editor of the New International could have delivered to Marxist theory.... Good. We will speak about it publicly.'

"Thus a year ago I gave open notice in advance to Shachtman that I intended to wage a public struggle against his eclectic tendencies. At that time there was no talk whatever of the coming opposition; in any case furthest from my mind was the supposition that the philosophic bloc against Marxism prepared the ground for a political bloc against the program of the Fourth International." [Trotsky (1971), p.142. Bold emphases added.]

And further support comes from Max Eastman's testimony:


"Like many great men I have met he [Trotsky] does not seem altogether robust. There is apt to be a frailty associated with great intellect. At any rate, Trotsky, especially in our heated arguments concerning the 'dialectic' in which he becomes excited and wrathful to the point of losing his breath, seems to me at times almost weak. He cannot laugh at my attacks on his philosophy, or be curious about them -- as I imagine Lenin would -- because in that field he is not secure....

"...Yesterday we reached a point of tension in our argument about dialectics that was extreme. Trotsky's throat was throbbing and his face was red; he was in a rage...." [Eastman (1942), p.113.]

Anyone who has discussed dialectics face-to-face with certain leading comrades alive today (whose names I will not divulge, to save their blushes), or on the internet (say at RevLeft) and who has challenged this 'theory', will no doubt recognise in the above something all too familiar: the highly emotive and irrational response one gets from dialecticians when the source of their 'opiate' is attacked. [This follows my own experience, recorded elsewhere at my site (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2001.htm).]

However, Eastman is surely wrong about Lenin; anyone who reads Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, for example, can see how irrational he, too, was in this area. [On this see, Essay Thirteen Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page_13%2001.htm).]

Faith in this theory is not confined to the past; here is part of the Preface to the new edition of RIRE [Reason In Revolt ,published in the summer of 2007]:


"Ted Grant was an incorrigible optimist all his life. Marxists are optimistic by their very nature because of two things: the philosophy of dialectical materialism, and our faith in the working class and the socialist future of humanity. Most people look only at the surface of the events that shape their lives and determine their destiny. Dialectics teaches one to look beyond the immediate, to penetrate beyond the appearance of stability and calm, and to see the seething contradictions and ceaseless movement that lies beneath the surface. The idea of constant change, in which sooner or later everything changes into its opposite enables a Marxist to rise above the immediate situation and to see the broader picture." [Rob Sewell, quoted from here (http://www.marxist.com/preface-engels-nature-wellred.htm). Bold emphases added.]

It looks, therefore, like this rather low grade opiate is continuing to do its job, finding new pushers and yet more junkies by the week.

Nevertheless, for all their differences, Trotsky and Stalin both loved the 'dialectic'.

Ethan Pollock records a revealing incident in the Kremlin just after the end of World War Two:


"In late December 1946 Joseph Stalin called a meeting of high-level Communist Party personnel.... The opening salvos of the Cold War had already been launched. Earlier in the year Winston Churchill had warned of an iron curtain dividing Europe. Disputes about the political future of Germany, the presence of Soviet troops in Iran, and proposals to control atomic weapons had all contributed to growing tensions between the United States and the USSR. Inside the Soviet Union the devastating effects of the Second World War were painfully obvious: cities remained bombed out and unreconstructed; famine laid waste to the countryside, with millions dying of starvation and many millions more malnourished. All this makes one of the agenda items for the Kremlin meeting surprising: Stalin wanted to discuss the recent prizewinning book History of Western European Philosophy [by Georgii Aleksandrov -- RL]. [Pollock (2006), p.15. Bold emphasis added.]

Pollock then outlines the problems Aleksandrov had experienced over his interpretation of the foreign (i.e., German) roots of DM in an earlier work, and how he had been criticised for not emphasising the "reactionary and bourgeois" nature of the work of German Philosophers like Kant, Fichte and Hegel --, in view of the fight against Fascism (when, of course, during the Hitler-Stalin pact a few years earlier, the opposite line had been peddled). Pollock also describes the detailed and lengthy discussions the Central Committee devoted to Aleksandrov's earlier work years earlier at the height of the war against the Nazis!

It is revealing, therefore, to note that Stalin and his henchmen considered DM to be so important that other more pressing matters could be shelved or delayed in order to make way for discussion about it. In this, of course, Stalin was in total agreement with Trotsky and other leading Dialectical Marxists.

Once more, Marx's comments about religious consolation (see below) make abundantly clear why this is so.

We can see something similar occurring in the case of Nikolai Bukharin. Anyone who reads Philosophical Arabesques will be struck by the semi-religious fervour with which he defends dialectics. In view of Bukharin's serious predicament, this is hardly surprising. But it is nonetheless revealing, since it confirms much of the above: this theory holds the dialectical personality together even in the face of death.

The old saying, "There are no atheists in a foxhole", may be incorrect, but it looks like there might not have been many anti-dialecticians in the Lubyanka waiting on Stalin's mercy. Even hard-headed dialecticians need some form of consolation.

As Helena Sheehan notes in her introduction:


"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about his text is that it was written at all. Condemned not by an enemy but by his own comrades, seeing what had been so magnificently created being so catastrophically destroyed, undergoing shattering interrogations, how was he not totally debilitated by despair? [B]Where did this author get the strength, the composure, the faith in the future that was necessary to write this treatise of Philosophy, this passionate defense of the intellectual tradition of Marxism and the political project of socialist construction?

"Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was a tragic true believer...." [Sheehan (2005), pp.7-8. Bold emphases added.]

Once again, Marx, I think, had the answer:


"Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again.... Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification....

"...Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions...." [Bold emphases added.]

[Substitute "dialectics" for "religion" in the above to see the point.]

The fact that this doomed comrade chose to spend his last weeks and days expounding and defending this Hermetic theory (albeit, one that had been given a bogus materialist flip) -- pleading with Stalin not to destroy this work --, just about says it all.


References and more details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BenHur:


How about people who're...

suffering from painful, incurable diseases?

trapped in war zones and have lost their limbs?

living under taliban and such oppressive regimes

facing abject poverty, humiliation etc. etc.


Death is still not a 'cure', even here. A cure would be to make these poor sods better, and make them well and whole again (or save them from the sort of oppressive regimes you mention -- that is why we are socialists, not religious nuts).


Would you have the heart to tell them life is beautiful? Would you blame them, if they wished to embrace death and get it over with? Life is not easy. It's not a bed of roses. So let's be a little sensitive here, okay?

Whatever language I chose to use, I would not choose the ridiculously inappropriate word 'cure' here.


p.s.
It seems as if most of you are still conditioned by Judeo-Christian thought, which explains why you guys shun death and celebrate life.

As others have pointed out, it is you who have swallowed a religious view of death.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ComradeMarx:


Most of you are true morons. Philosophy is study of our existence and our existence to many philosophers is empty of meaning. i didnt say that there was a god because i dont believe in one. All i did was propose that we should accept the happy times instead of push them off like so many humans in the western world do. You are obviously blind, deaf, dumb if you dont see that life is nothing but hardships with few happy moments so why are you attacking me for that. If im showing stupidity here i really dont see it.

According to your view of 'philosophy', it is not in fact the 'study of existence', but the promulagation of a priori theses which you can only defend by piling on the abuse.

[Sam_b]

You only regard it as a 'cheap shot' because you too are in denial

Cue post #1049747683 where Rosa labels someone as being in 'denial' or a 'mystic' for holding up a tradition of important revolutionary thought.

[Hit The North]

Rosa:
And, far from me being a "friend of the reactionary bourgeoisie!", it is you DM-fans who have appropriated the mystical jargon of that arch ruling-class theorist, and quintessential bourgeois philosopher, Hegel.

Yes and you who has appropriated the stance of infamous lapdog of McCarthyism and CIA stooge, Max Eastman, who you even approvingly quote in your signature.

So I hardly think anyone here would benefit from your lectures on the evils of kow-towing to reactionary, anti-working class forces.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SamB:


Cue post #1049747683 where Rosa labels someone as being in 'denial' or a 'mystic' for holding up a tradition of important revolutionary thought.

Yes, I can just imagine, say, a Roman Catholic arguing this way with Galileo; 'tradition' is so important to you mystics, how silly of me not to see this!

Genuine science, on the other hand, favours innovation --, whereas, innovation is a dirty word to you 'traditionalists'.

And yet, Marx himself abandoned this 'theory' of yours in Das Kapital.

What an idiot he was, abandoning 'tradition'...

[Lynx]

What is the purpose of death, according to science?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Yes and you who has appropriated the stance of infamous lapdog of McCarthyism and CIA stooge, Max Eastman, who you even approvingly quote in your signature.

And the Stalinists were also dialecticians. Nice to see you accept the same 'theory'.


So I hardly think anyone here would benefit from your lectures on the evils of kow-towing to reactionary, anti-working class forces.

'Neither Washington nor Moscow', as far as I am concerned. You mystics agree with Moscow; whereas I oppose both.

[Hit The North]

R:
'Neither Washington nor Moscow', as far as I am concerned. You mystics agree with Moscow; whereas I oppose both.

Given that slogan was coined by Tony Cliff, who was one of our great dialectical thinkers, you appear to have lapsed into gibberish.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Given that slogan was coined by Tony Cliff, who was one of our great dialectical thinkers, you appear to have lapsed into gibberish.

I quoted it for that reason, since Cliff, if he had have been fully true to that slogan, would not have sided with Moscow over the 'dialectic'.

And, for all that you claim that Cliff was a 'great dialectical thinker', I challenge you to find anywhere in his writings where he uses this 'theory' (over and above a brief mention of it here and there).

Ted Grant, for example, used the 'dialectic' to prove that the former USSR was not State Capitalist, and he used it extensively. Cliff, on the other hand merely gestured in this direction. So, Ted Grant was more of a 'great dialectician' than Cliff ever was. Same goes for Gerry Healy, only more so.

[You can, in fact, find these 'Cliff references' at my site -- but, since your tender eyes are not allowed to look upon my heretical work, you will have to find them for yourself...]

[Bilan]

What is the purpose of death, according to science?

What?

[Lynx]

What?
It has been observed that living organisms grow old and die. Their health declines regardless if they reproduce, receive proper nutrition and exercise, or live in optimal, sheltered environments. Perhaps there is a reason or a purpose for the death of living organisms.

[Leo]

There is a very important point here which has got to do with the difference between the scientific approach and the mystical one. For someone looking at things scientifically, things do not have "purposes", they have reasons. Death thus does not have a "purpose" but a reason, which is a biological and chemical one.

[Decolonize The Left]

Before this thread gets derailed I wish to address the OP:


Our lives are very short in terms of the universe but there is much suffering.

Generally, this is true.


Many philosophers have proposed that our lives are empty like Socrates said life is a sickness and death is its cure,

Socrates said many things; as others have already noted, that sentence is fully of nonsense.

Like cannot be a "sickness" for one cannot be "sick" without being alive! Death cannot "cure" anything for a "cure" implies that it helps the being live!


Nietzsche doesn't make life sound so appetizing and Sartre said that life is nauseating.

Wrong.

Nietzsche made life sound amazing, you must read deeper and with more attention. And Sartre said that "existence" is nauseating - something which anyone would agree with when contemplating one's existence in the manner he did.


But in between the sadness there are many happy moments but very few so shouldn't we grab these happy moments. If life is a disease then shouldn't we use these happy moments as our pain killers. In my opinion communism is also a painkiller because it makes life more bearable and adds some meaning in my opinion. Many people don't live in these moments and many can't live in these moments for many reasons so aren't there lives just pointless and it kinda adds insult to injury when us who have these happy moments do not take them. If your 60 and are lonely and one person is 70 and also lonely and they may not perfect for you but your at the end so shouldn't go out on a limb and just take that for as much happiness as possible instead of being alone until the end. So what im saying is that we shouldnt waste the happy moments no matter how pointless because they are suppressors for the pointless shit we see done everyday that makes this disease we all suffer from get worst.

What a pathetic bunch of nihilist dribble... you cite some really intelligent philosophers to spout this? They would laugh at you.

Life is not to be measured by 'happiness moments' or by 'suffering.' These are weak and unmotivated attempts at measuring the worth of existence. You complain about loneliness as though it is problematic? It is, in many cases - but there is also much to be learned from loneliness. You learn a lot about yourself when others aren't around to tell you how you are...

Basically, I suggest you either
a) Read deeper into these philosophers to understand what they are actually trying to say rather than picking at simple phrases,
or
b) Stop reading philosophy entirely and go do something.

Either way, you should find that life is entirely meaningful and worthwhile, full of beauty, wonder, joy, sorrow, pain, and kittens, and that death is not a solution but rather the destination towards which all of us are headed. Enjoy the ride (did I mention you're driving?).

- August

[Lynx]

It is crucial then to first establish a scientific reason, before pontificating on an imagined (or deduced) purpose.

[punisa]

Our lives are very short in terms of the universe but there is much suffering. Many philosophers have proposed that our lives are empty like Socrates said life is a sickness and death is its cure, Nietzsche doesn't make life sound so appetizing and Sartre said that life is nauseating. But in between the sadness there are many happy moments but very few so shouldn't we grab these happy moments. If life is a disease then shouldn't we use these happy moments as our pain killers. In my opinion communism is also a painkiller because it makes life more bearable and adds some meaning in my opinion. Many people don't live in these moments and many can't live in these moments for many reasons so aren't there lives just pointless and it kinda adds insult to injury when us who have these happy moments do not take them. If your 60 and are lonely and one person is 70 and also lonely and they may not perfect for you but your at the end so shouldn't go out on a limb and just take that for as much happiness as possible instead of being alone until the end. So what im saying is that we shouldnt waste the happy moments no matter how pointless because they are suppressors for the pointless shit we see done everyday that makes this disease we all suffer from get worst.

I like your post and do get what you're pointing out.

Life is hard to describe from our mortal perspective and more you try to learn the less you really know.
If any knowledge out there can make you so stiff not to have your knees shake when you quietly concentrate on your thoughts, 6 billion others doing the same and a infinitive universe around you, then show me the way :)

As for joy, happiness and sadness. This is nothing - just electrons and chemistry in our brains producing various emotions, nothing more.
They seem deep to us, indeed. Feelings of love, hate, despair... but at the end it's just plain chemistry.
When I finally came to realize that every time I felt down it was just because my good ol' brain was bouncing electrons in a certain way, I felt better already :)

Regard all of these as good food for your thoughts.
As comrade AugustWest said:

there is also much to be learned from loneliness
Couldn't agree more.

The topic that you are presenting seems to me to be more regarding the "meaning" of our lives.
"To live and die as a socialist" sounds great to me, I'd love to dedicate my existence to that purpose.
I don't see this motto as a "need" to become a professional revolutionary as soon as tomorrow, but for now just a fact that makes me really content.

I sincerely believe that I'm not draw into the socialist ideology just because I'm yet another exploited worker.
I try to grasp on it beyond all the tyranny and all the bad things that were/are related to it.
I "believe" that socialism ..or for that reason, communism, is the final goal of our kind.
We must shift our "paradigm" from having to being.

Just as these joyful memories you mention, I bet they all involve certain people, correct? Not things, not possession, but people.
Good moments, good friends, that's what we remember and cherish, at least I do :lol:

The downside of this fact is that good people are hard to find.. makes many give up on the way and become bad themselves.


Just my bit of thoughts there :)

[JimmyJazz]

How can death be a 'cure' if we all struggle to stay alive, and scientists are busy trying to find ways to extend our lives?

See? Life sounds like a total drag.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JJ:


Life sounds like a total drag.

Perhaps to you, but not to me (and many others).

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Good thread Comrade Marx. It is true that life doesn't have a meaning. To me this is not neccesarily bad however. Sure your existence on this earth includes some horrible for sure. That's true of everyone. For some their existence is too much to bare and death is their solution, their cure as you say. However death has less meaning than life. Because life is existence and however emtpy this existence feels it is still that: existence. You are here and you can see, speak, touch, hear, taste. To me that is beautiful enough. Death is the complete opposite: nonexistence. I can see why to some people this may be appealing. But to me I love life, not for it's endless beauty and joy, as this is not life. These moments are irregular. I love life for existence.

[JimFar]

Basically there is no such thing as an ulterior meaning of life. Even if there is a God who created us, it would still be the case that His purposes would not necessarily be our own (a fact that religious believers concede when they complain about man's rebelliousness towards God). The only meanings that our lives can have are the ones that we are able to endow it with.

[Bilan]

Nietzsche made life sound amazing, you must read deeper and with more attention. And Sartre said that "existence" is nauseating - something which anyone would agree with when contemplating one's existence in the manner he did.

To add to that, Sartre certainly didn't make 'life' sound negative - though, surely existence in its totality, considering the absence of meaning - but positive and wonderful.
The way Sartre wrote of existence - from my interpretation - was that he was for the destruction of previously conceived notions of life having a universal meaning, and that meaning was derived from self-discovery.

"Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose."

[benhur]

To the great thinkers and philosophers on revleft who say life is beautiful...can they tell us why they have such views?

[Stranger Than Paradise]

To the great thinkers and philosophers on revleft who say life is beautiful...can they tell us why they have such views?

Beacause you exist. You can feel emotion. Even if these emotions are bad sometimes surely that is better than not feeling anything at all?

[Hyacinth]

I find it curious that those who think life so wretched are here posting about it rather than mixing bathroom cleaners in an unventilated room and ending it all. I perfectly support your right to end your life if you so choose, but the rest of us are enjoying ours just fine. And rather than seeking to effect mass genocide and eradicate the entire human species, and all others while we're at it, as a "cure" or solution for suffering, we'll concentrate on actually finding solutions to the problems facing the world, death included (we'll eventually figure out how to get around that as well).

[Palmares]

In the real world, what substance does this thread have?

First of all, seeing as everyone who has been posting in this thread would in theory be alive (good luck posting while dead!), the cure mustn't be that appealing.

And all this suicide talk (and that's what the glorification of death amounts to) is just the same old white/middle class/first world privileged shit. Suicide is largely a first world phenomena. People in Sudan who have lived through civil wars, colonialism, resulting in the deaths of most of their family, don't kill themselves because they were dumped by their girlfriend.

Rosa Lichenstein is on the ball. Humans overwhelmingly have a desire to live. Even given that, like Bilan well pointed out, life has no meaning, but people like Sartre meant that it reaffirmed life as something we can freely shape and create.

Reminds me of some cool stuff Richard Dawkins says in relation to Atheism and religion:


But atheism is not a recipefor despair. I think the opposite. By disclaiming the idea of a nex tlife, we can take more excitement in this one. The here and now is not something to be endured before eternal bliss or damnation. The here and now is all we have; an inspiration to make the most of it. So atheism is life-affirming, in a way religion can never be. Look around you. Nature demands our attention; begs us to explore; to question. Religion can provide only facile, ultimately unsatisfying answers. Science, inconstantly seeking real explanations, reveals the true majesty of our world in all its complexity.

But anyway, if you really wanna off yourself, check out this:

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/

[Stranger Than Paradise]

In the real world, what substance does this thread have?

First of all, seeing as everyone who has been posting in this thread would in theory be alive (good luck posting while dead!), the cure mustn't be that appealing.

And all this suicide talk (and that's what the glorification of death amounts to) is just the same old white/middle class/first world privileged shit. Suicide is largely a first world phenomena. People in Sudan who have lived through civil wars, colonialism, resulting in the deaths of most of their family, don't kill themselves because they were dumped by their girlfriend.

Rosa Lichenstein is on the ball. Humans overwhelmingly have a desire to live. Even given that, like Bilan well pointed out, life has no meaning, but people like Sartre meant that it reaffirmed life as something we can freely shape and create.

Reminds me of some cool stuff Richard Dawkins says in relation to Atheism and religion:



But anyway, if you really wanna off yourself, check out this:

http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/

Exactly. We have a desire to live not for any meaning but because we know that after life there is nothing. I used to have no fear of death but when I just thought about it right now I became really scared. I can understand why people follow ideas of heaven as it is such a comfort. I think fear of death is quite common, which shows how much we REALLY do value life.