I don't think avoid but trying to balance angst or despair with opposite, accepting all shades of experiencing-reality and seeking for a balanced ground.
Hmm, that certainly seems like what's happening with incels, which I wrote about in the first article linked below. Your comment also reminds me of another old article on this blog, "Sexual Bliss and the Anguish of Enlightenment," in which I talk about sex as a metaphor for enlightenment (second link). You might be interested in that one. (I thought it was pretty cool at the time I wrote it.) I talk about sex as a power game in the third link.
The problem with a Freudian or Nietzschean reductive explanation is that it's unfalsifiable. You can compare anything to sex, which is why there's such a wide variety of naughty innuendos. You can also posit a covert thirst for power even in a selfless act, as the psychological egoist does. It's like positing God's generosity as being at the root even of all natural evils, like diseases and hurricanes. It becomes a stretch.
In any case, the question for me wouldn't be just whether philosophy is unconsciously about sexual domination. There's the whole promethean venture to consider, our "civilized" attempt to dominate nature. That even has the heterosexual dichotomy going for it: nature as feminine and passive, and civilization as aggressively masculine. I believe there's some rapey language in Francis Bacon when he talks about technoscientific industry and the need to learn nature's secrets.
Finally! I was really looking forward to this. Thanks a lot for taking my suggestion into account, this was brilliant!
ReplyDeleteThanks. The editor of that Medium publication seemed to be on vacation, so there was an extra delay.
DeleteThis isn't my final word on what makes life worth living even for cynics and pessimists. But it's a good start, I think.
I don't think avoid but trying to balance angst or despair with opposite, accepting all shades of experiencing-reality and seeking for a balanced ground.
ReplyDeleteBalance would be good, but I'm not sure the truth or the healthiest or noblest disposition always lies exactly in the middle between extremes.
DeleteHmm, that certainly seems like what's happening with incels, which I wrote about in the first article linked below. Your comment also reminds me of another old article on this blog, "Sexual Bliss and the Anguish of Enlightenment," in which I talk about sex as a metaphor for enlightenment (second link). You might be interested in that one. (I thought it was pretty cool at the time I wrote it.) I talk about sex as a power game in the third link.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with a Freudian or Nietzschean reductive explanation is that it's unfalsifiable. You can compare anything to sex, which is why there's such a wide variety of naughty innuendos. You can also posit a covert thirst for power even in a selfless act, as the psychological egoist does. It's like positing God's generosity as being at the root even of all natural evils, like diseases and hurricanes. It becomes a stretch.
In any case, the question for me wouldn't be just whether philosophy is unconsciously about sexual domination. There's the whole promethean venture to consider, our "civilized" attempt to dominate nature. That even has the heterosexual dichotomy going for it: nature as feminine and passive, and civilization as aggressively masculine. I believe there's some rapey language in Francis Bacon when he talks about technoscientific industry and the need to learn nature's secrets.
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2018/05/incels-and-call-for-omega-enlightenment.html
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2016/05/sexual-bliss-and-anguish-of.html
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2016/05/sex-and-authenticity.html