Was Schopenhauer right?

[Milk Sheikh]

Was he right about the emptiness of existence and that all our lives revolve around filling it up with various activities and pursuits?

Since we swing from one extreme to another, we're either going to pursue something and suffer the pain as a natural consequence. Else, it's going to be boredom, which again will make us pursue something despite the pain. So even if we were to establish a socialist utopia where all things are perfect, would that perfection itself bore us, disappoint us, and make us fight each other all over again?

Is arts, especially music, the ultimate escape from this unhappy business of life?

[Tablo]

I don't think anyone here thinks we are going to create a socialist utopia because socialism is not utopian. It will not make everyone happy all the time, just the majority. Besides, there are many struggles in life outside of the oppressive institutions we live with today.

[Meridian]

Was he right about the emptiness of existence and that all our lives revolve around filling it up with various activities and pursuits?
No. Whether or not you feel your life is boring, or whether it is filled with excitement or not, is not a philosophical issue. There is no such thing as 'existence', there is nothing to empty or fill.


Since we swing from one extreme to another, we're either going to pursue something and suffer the pain as a natural consequence. Else, it's going to be boredom, which again will make us pursue something despite the pain. So even if we were to establish a socialist utopia where all things are perfect, would that perfection itself bore us, disappoint us, and make us fight each other all over again?
The claims you make to pose a question are either unfounded, nonsensical or based on nonsensical premises. Humans don't swing from one extreme to another, only occasionally is this the case, regarding certain things. No one claims that everything will be "perfect" (which is nonsensical used this way) in a socialist society.


Is arts, especially music, the ultimate escape from this unhappy business of life?
Many people enjoy various genres of music. Some people do not particularly care for it at all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Certainly not. For one thing, life now has a point: rubbishing the work of cosmic pessimists like Schopenhauer.:)

[Milk Sheikh]

According to Schopenhauer:boredom is a direct proof that existence is itself valueless, for boredom
is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence ("On the Vanity of Existence").

Again he says in The World as Will and Representation: The
striving after existence is what occupies all living things and keeps them in motion. When existence is
assured to them they do not know what to do with it. Therefore the (second) thing that sets them in
motion is the effort to get rid of the burden of existence, to make it no longer felt, 'to kill time' in other
words to escape from boredom...it causes beings who love one another as little as men do, to seek
one another so much, and this becomes the source of sociality.

Doesn't all this show that we merely swing from boredom to pain and back to boredom again?

[Milk Sheikh]

Humans don't swing from one extreme to another, only occasionally is this the case, regarding certain things. No one claims that everything will be "perfect" (which is nonsensical used this way) in a socialist society.


Observe yourself and people, and you'll see this for a fact. Either you're fighting for survival, in which case there's activity followed by conflict and pain. Or, if your survival is taken care of and you're living a comfortable life, there's too much time on your hands - and hence boredom. To get away from it, you lose yourself in various occupations and activities - arts, sciences, music, philosophy.

As you can see, it's either boredom or pain: we're never in that state which transcends both boredom and pain.

[Crux]

Apolitical Intellectuals

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.

They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.

No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with "the idea
of the nothing"
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.

They won't be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward's death.

They'll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total life.

On that day
the simple men will come.

Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they'll ask:

"What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?"

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.

A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.

Your own misery
will pick at your soul.

And you will be mute in your shame.

[ZeroNowhere]

Attitudes aren't philosophy. The feeling that existence is empty is, in fact, a feeling, not an empirical proposition. The proposition that humans are always either bored or in pain is a psychological proposition, and a rather bizarrely reductionist one at that. Certainly, most of the time I am neither bored nor in pain. The proposition that people are either fighting for survival, doing nothing, or doing something which is not fighting for survival is essentially tautologous.


Again he says in The World as Will and Representation: The striving after existence is what occupies all living things and keeps them in motion. When existence is assured to them they do not know what to do with it. Therefore the (second) thing that sets them in motion is the effort to get rid of the burden of existence, to make it no longer felt, 'to kill time' in other words to escape from boredom...it causes beings who love one another as little as men do, to seek one another so much, and this becomes the source of sociality.All that we seem to be saying here is that when people are assured of existence and do not need to spend all of their time ensuring it, they get spare time to spend in other ways. That's not really much of an insight.


According to Schopenhauer:boredom is a direct proof that existence is itself valueless, for boredom is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence ("On the Vanity of Existence").That sounds like one of Kundera's profound trivialities. Of course, one can't prove that existence is valueless in the same sense as one may prove empirical or mathematical propositions, because one can't prove attitudes.


Observe yourself and people, and you'll see this for a fact. Either you're fighting for survival, in which case there's activity followed by conflict and pain. Or, if your survival is taken care of and you're living a comfortable life, there's too much time on your hands - and hence boredom. To get away from it, you lose yourself in various occupations and activities - arts, sciences, music, philosophy.So, basically, you're either ensuring survival (it's not entirely certain why one must 'fight' for survival if one is to survive), doing nothing, or doing something. Doing nothing may be boring (not necessarily the case for everybody), and hence you do stuff.

[Amphictyonis]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/deconstructing-schopenhauer-t141968/index.html

:)

[La Comédie Noire]

I actually thought of this idea before I had ever heard of Schopenhauer. I think he describes the attitude of people who suffer from depression. I feel this way when I'm extremely depressed, but not on my good days.

[Milk Sheikh]

Just one question to make things clear: Why is it we find it hard to 'do nothing'? Why do our minds move toward ceaseless activities? And I am not talking about activities like eating etc., which are important for survival. An honest answer to this question might help.

[Adorno4498]

Schopenhauer was partly right. Another great author was Albert Camus. I am assuming you have read the Siphyuss Myth.

[Adorno4498]

And why is there such opposition to Schopenhauer, Hegel, Kant, and Post-Modernism? "Never before have so many talked so much of that which they knew so little" I think an understanding of Hegel, Kant, the Frankfurt School, and other "apolitical" intellectuals is just asimportant to fighting stereotypes and building revolution as is defiance to the system. Just because one understands (and advocates some) Hegel or Kant doesn't mean they accept all their propositions, just as one doesn't have to accept alchemy to accept the advancements to science of Newton ;)

[Acostak3]

IMO Nietzsche put Schopenhauer in his place a long time ago.

[Meridian]

And why is there such opposition to Schopenhauer, Hegel, Kant, and Post-Modernism? "Never before have so many talked so much of that which they knew so little" I think an understanding of Hegel, Kant, the Frankfurt School, and other "apolitical" intellectuals is just asimportant to fighting stereotypes and building revolution as is defiance to the system. Just because one understands (and advocates some) Hegel or Kant doesn't mean they accept all their propositions, just as one doesn't have to accept alchemy to accept the advancements to science of Newton ;)
This could be correct if the reason there is such opposition to those you mentioned is because followers are presumed to accept all their propositions. It could be that the anti-philosophically inclined disagree with assumptions underlying all their theoretical propositions, or at least those of a philosophical nature.

I think the most meaningful, and radical, form of criticism of philosophy in general is the one rooted in the view of language as primarily a means of communication; that language is determined by its use and not its ability to represent. Following this line of thought leads one to a method of examining philosophical propositions, comparing them to ordinary, contingent propositions where similar expressions and language-use may occur (which is what gives philosophical assertions a semblance of coherence). This in turn reshapes the role of (helpful) philosophy, to be one of reminding of the order and usage of language, instead of attempting to discover the real truths behind appearances by misusing it.

Philosophical assertions may take many forms, but one feature that I've seen many times is the misaligned application of expressions of one form of language to another one. This causes confusion and 'questions' without any answer possibly being correct or false. Kind of like asking whether my cup of tea wants to go to bed, or what time my keyboard is.

Another type I see quite often are statements like "nothing is modern", assuming the word "modern" is detachable from its common use, amongst which is to refer to recent times, as description of certain societies, etc. If the statement was true it would negate sentences uttered every day, all over the world. Verifying it would also be quite a challenging task, as it would require researching everything and determining whether or not it is modern.

[Dean]

According to Schopenhauer:boredom is a direct proof that existence is itself valueless, for boredom
is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence ("On the Vanity of Existence").

Again he says in The World as Will and Representation: The
striving after existence is what occupies all living things and keeps them in motion. When existence is
assured to them they do not know what to do with it. Therefore the (second) thing that sets them in
motion is the effort to get rid of the burden of existence, to make it no longer felt, 'to kill time' in other
words to escape from boredom...it causes beings who love one another as little as men do, to seek
one another so much, and this becomes the source of sociality.

Doesn't all this show that we merely swing from boredom to pain and back to boredom again?

What about the positive fulfillment of tension?

Schopenhauer has some good and unique ideas worth referencing. But The above is too narrow.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Was he right about the emptiness of existence and that all our lives revolve around filling it up with various activities and pursuits?

If I'm understanding Schopenhauer correctly, then he is correct in that existence has no telos, or purposeful reason for being. But I fail to see why that is important, beyond the popular conceit that existence must have an intrinsic telos.

If "life is pain" then life is also joy and comfort, since without life (or at least mind) none of those things exist.


Since we swing from one extreme to another, we're either going to pursue something and suffer the pain as a natural consequence. Else, it's going to be boredom, which again will make us pursue something despite the pain. So even if we were to establish a socialist utopia where all things are perfect, would that perfection itself bore us, disappoint us, and make us fight each other all over again?

I don't think that a socialist utopia would end all conflict - rather, I'm of the opinion that we would fight over different things than we do now.

Even if conflict between humans were to somehow be completely eradicated, the universe through it's very indifferent nature would serve to oppose our goals and wishes at every turn on every level.

Only when the universe has been completely reshaped according to the desires of mindkind would conflict be eradicated forever.


Is arts, especially music, the ultimate escape from this unhappy business of life?

Absolutely not. There are plenty of art works that comment on the less savoury aspects of life and existence.