Celebrating Finitude

[Received]

The will, especially in the West, even more especially in America, often is conceptualized implicitly (and this is a strange part about it) as being limitless. The American ethos is "just try harder," which interestingly gets other people off the hook for their role as caring for each other, meaning responsibility is often hoisted onto others as a way of avoiding it ourselves. But hey, I digress.

Why can't we celebrate finitude, of the will's (and self's) reaching a limit? This means by logical progression celebrating how we're all dependent on one another and on the world in general. Our wills go perhaps the most important distance -- seeing how we often equate the will with our selves, i.e., consciousness in active form, and we "live from within" through consciousness exercising its will (but not always) -- in defining who we are, but if all wills are finite, why don't we speak of what "picks up the slack," so to speak, in helping us become who we are?

Old grad school stuff (Bronfenbrenner's ecological model):

How little the individual is in this picture! Therefore how little our wills are in determining our own lives. But hey, we like heroes, even if we ignore the advantages they're given in being heroes. More heroes need unveiled macrosystems, if you ask me.

 

[bhsmte]

The will, especially in the West, even more especially in America, often is conceptualized implicitly (and this is a strange part about it) as being limitless. The American ethos is "just try harder," which interestingly gets other people off the hook for their role as caring for each other, meaning responsibility is often hoisted onto others as a way of avoiding it ourselves. But hey, I digress.

Why can't we celebrate finitude, of the will's (and self's) reaching a limit? This means by logical progression celebrating how we're all dependent on one another and on the world in general. Our wills go perhaps the most important distance -- seeing how we often equate the will with our selves, i.e., consciousness in active form, and we "live from within" through consciousness exercising its will (but not always) -- in defining who we are, but if all wills are finite, why don't we speak of what "picks up the slack," so to speak, in helping us become who we are?

Old grad school stuff (Bronfenbrenner's ecological model):

How little the individual is in this picture! Therefore how little our wills are in determining our own lives. But hey, we like heroes, even if we ignore the advantages they're given in being heroes. More heroes need unveiled macrosystems, if you ask me.

America definitely has a culture of; just try harder and never give up.

Now, I don't think that is a bad thing, because when we start to tell ourselves we have a ceiling, we tend to self limit ourselves before we even approach that ceiling. What I would like to see more of; is not always try harder, but try smarter.

 

[Received]

America definitely has a culture of; just try harder and never give up.

Now, I don't think that is a bad thing, because when we start to tell ourselves we have a ceiling, we tend to self limit ourselves before we even approach that ceiling. What I would like to see more of; is not always try harder, but try smarter.

Definitely. But there's a sinister downside to the idea of "you can always try harder," which is: if you're not feeling better, you're not trying hard enough. This is an unfalsifiable position in favor of infinitude of the will, i.e., the will can never fail. We need an empowering philosophy such as "keep trying," but this also needs to be balanced with, "you also have limits," and with it the idea that it's the responsibility of society ("it takes a village...") to help you out.

My guess is if you were to give people a basic psychological survey testing these two main positions -- your will can do all things (e.g., you can always try harder) and the opposite (e.g., there are some things I can't do, I can't always try harder, etc.) -- that you'd see societies like America strongly on the first side (your will can do all things) and Nordic/Scandanavian societies towards the middle or right-of-center (toward the idea that your will is finite, we need help, etc.).

Note that in no way would a society that admits limitations of the will mean the will doesn't have central focus of determining individuality, just that individuality is properly seen as growing out of an ecology of multifarious influences. I becomes who I am, and am who I am, because of the "collective" of society that surrounds me.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Definitely. But there's a sinister downside to the idea of "you can always try harder," which is: if you're not feeling better, you're not trying hard enough. This is an unfalsifiable position in favor of infinitude of the will, i.e., the will can never fail. We need an empowering philosophy such as "keep trying," but this also needs to be balanced with, "you also have limits," and with it the idea that it's the responsibility of society ("it takes a village...") to help you out.

My guess is if you were to give people a basic psychological survey testing these two main positions -- your will can do all things (e.g., you can always try harder) and the opposite (e.g., there are some things I can't do, I can't always try harder, etc.) -- that you'd see societies like America strongly on the first side (your will can do all things) and Nordic/Scandanavian societies towards the middle or right-of-center (toward the idea that your will is finite, we need help, etc.).

Note that in no way would a society that admits limitations of the will mean the will doesn't have central focus of determining individuality, just that individuality is properly seen as growing out of an ecology of multifarious influences. I becomes who I am, and am who I am, because of the "collective" of society that surrounds me.

I think the basic problem behind what you're proposing is the idea that we should "celebrate" needing others. It's far too ordinary, too easy, too common for people to throw up their hands and admit they need help. Not that there's anything wrong with it...but it doesn't exactly inspire anyone to their own personal best.

On the other hand,the celebration of those who excel through the force of their will are comparatively rare...and their accomplishments all the more outstanding.

 

[Received]

I think the basic problem behind what you're proposing is the idea that we should "celebrate" needing others. It's far too ordinary, too easy, too common for people to throw up their hands and admit they need help. Not that there's anything wrong with it...but it doesn't exactly inspire anyone to their own personal best.

On the other hand,the celebration of those who excel through the force of their will are comparatively rare...and their accomplishments all the more outstanding.

For reasons too complicated for me to (yet) hash out, I think the person who excels through the force of their will has hidden variables that push him along. This reaches the point to where analyzing a person's pure fundamental willing in a cumulative sense -- and often in a specific instance -- is totally elusive, given the subjectivity involved with choice and the hidden variables that might make choosing that much easier but to the outside world aren't even realized.

Take motivation: I am motivated and so my choosing is easier. So imagine a person who has nothing but a good intellect who sees how little he has, how disgusted he is with it, and how much he can have, and even add in a key negative experience where people make fun of him for his poverty. All this creates a level of motivation where the will becomes rutted to a path and even is pushed along this path to some degree, although there are clearly plenty of times when this person has to push himself against the grain through brute choice to propel himself along.

I think we undervalue motivation as a "cushion" for our wills -- and it might be just as fitting to call it rutted, as motivation cuts away most of our other possibilities and helps us focus on a specific path. Well, the big question: is motivation self-created? No, but it can be perpetuated through following where it leads.

That's just one majorly important psychological variable that's usually hidden from sight in analyzing the path of the "great ones". I think if you add three central neurotransmitters and their huge degrees of variation and combination, namely norepinephrine (energy), dopamine (pleasure/motivation), and serotonin (well-being, thinking style), this only makes the case that much more solid for my contention that determining how much will is really put in by the person at the end of the day is probably really totally indeterminate from an objective (standing from the outside) point of view -- and probably often or even always from a subjective standing as well.

So do I think there are people who do amazing things with their wills? Yes and no, the latter because motivation, if accounted for, would make their actions that much less amazing, and more in the area of impressive at best.

 

[quatona]

Of course, our willpower is limited and can be - depending on a lot of factors - exhausted, just like pretty much all our resources are and can.

 

[Received]

Of course, our willpower is limited and can be - depending on a lot of factors - exhausted, just like pretty much all our resources are and can.

Yep.

Gee, this thread isn't getting a lot of attention, not surprisingly.

If I were to meld the Nietzschean Ubermensch with Christian Ayn Rand capitalism, I'm sure that'd be a different story.

 

[quatona]

Yep.

I guess the next question would be:
If/when we are suffering from a lack of will-power or motivation (or experience ourselves as being unresourceful in whatever way) - what´s the best way to deal with it?

Gee, this thread isn't getting a lot of attention, not surprisingly.

I can only tell you why I sometimes don´t feel like responding to your threads even though I sense you are touching an interesting topic:
You tend to present your questions within a frame of intellectual (overintellectualized?) and abstract concepts which - from my perspective - are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I feel like I would have to do a lot of effort to untangle this complex intellectual construct in order to prompt a more direct, associated view on things. (But I guess that´s just me).

If I were to meld the Nietzschean Ubermensch with Christian Ayn Rand capitalism, I'm sure that'd be a different story.

Depends on who you want to talk with, I guess.

 

[Received]

I guess the next question would be:
If/when we are suffering from a lack of will-power or motivation (or experience ourselves as being unresourceful in whatever way) - what´s the best way to deal with it?

I don't really think that's the problem the OP is trying to get to, though. I think the problem is that we put way, way too much emphasis (again, here in America at least) on the implicit infinitude of the will -- the "you can always try harder" mentality.

But to your good question, I'd say lack of will power needs a good "kick in the rear" by ideas and even certain emotions (tempered anger, etc.) from others to cause us to believe different things and also (as part of this package) build up more motivation. So the best way to deal with it is to have good friends, family, a good community.

I can only tell you why I sometimes don´t feel like responding to your threads even though I sense you are touching an interesting topic:
You tend to present your questions within a frame of intellectual (overintellectualized?) and abstract concepts which - from my perspective - are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I feel like I would have to do a lot of effort to untangle this complex intellectual construct in order to prompt a more direct, associated view on things. (But I guess that´s just me).

Well, I think I have a pretty good track record with opening up discussion with threads, despite going into lots of detail in presenting pretty complicated arguments sometimes -- but hey, the world is very complicated when you get to the things I like to write about, and (importantly, at least for me) writing them down here has the advantage of helping me figure them out as I write them and also through constructive criticism by others.

Seeing how the line between intellectualizing and overintellectualizing is vastly subjective, I don't know if I can question you further about this. I also find your posts to be dense -- and I mean that in a good way, and perhaps can even see them as "over"intellectualized in the way you're talking about regarding me, which is why I often don't get around to responding to them, or respond to them slowly many times, given their depth and the thought put into them. But what do you mean when you say that these posts are "part of the problem rather than part of the solution"?

 

[Dave-W]

Why can't we celebrate finitude, of the will's (and self's) reaching a limit? This means by logical progression celebrating how we're all dependent on one another and on the world in general.

It runs counter to the American pioneer attitude. You are out there all alone in the wilderness with no one (of your kind anyway) for a hundred miles. What ever the obstacle you have to overcome it by yourself. If you do - you will thrive. If not - you die.

Currently it displayed in sporting achievements. How many home runs can you hit? How many touchdown passes can you complete? How many outside 3 point baskets?

Where is the cooperation in any of that? (it is actually there of course but never celebrated)

 

[quatona]

I don't really think that's the problem the OP is trying to get to, though.

Indeed, I am still not sure i fully understood your concern.

I think the problem is that we put way, way too much emphasis (again, here in America at least) on the implicit infinitude of the will -- the "you can always try harder" mentality.

Well, in my world the important things don´t seem to be achievable by "trying hard", but rather the opposite is the challenge (but I guess that´s besides your point, again. )
So, if speaking of things that can only be achieved by "trying hard" (and I know there are many of them in the capitalist world of competition) - what other options are there than "trying harder" or giving up?
Thus, "try harder (or adjust your ambitions)" seems to be a good advice in these fields. So i guess that understanding the message as "If you want to achieve that goal, all you can do is to try harder" would already help. I am not sure it needs to be understood as "you can always try harder".

But to your good question, I'd say lack of will power needs a good "kick in the rear" by ideas and even certain emotions (tempered anger, etc.) from others to cause us to believe different things and also (as part of this package) build up more motivation. So the best way to deal with it is to have good friends, family, a good community.

While I agree on the importance of friends, family, community and supportive input, I am not sure how the first part of this paragraph is not describing an external push based on the idea that the person can try harder (even though it might not necessarily come with the explicit message "try harder!").

Well, I think I have a pretty good track record with opening up discussion with threads, despite going into lots of detail in presenting pretty complicated arguments sometimes -- but hey, the world is very complicated when you get to the things I like to write about, and (importantly, at least for me) writing them down here has the advantage of helping me figure them out as I write them and also through constructive criticism by others.

Here´s hoping you didn´t misunderstand my remarks as criticism of the fact that you open threads or how you present your questions (I usually find your threads quite intriguing). I just meant to tell you why I personally sometimes don´t feel like responding even though I find the topic quite interesting.

Seeing how the line between intellectualizing and overintellectualizing is vastly subjective, I don't know if I can question you further about this.

Yes, it´s quite subjective, and I meant to express that by putting the "over" in parentheses and adding a question mark.
So possibly "intellectualizing" would be sufficient as a description of why I perceive a communication gap. Let me expand on this in response to your question further down.

I also find your posts to be dense -- and I mean that in a good way, and perhaps can even see them as "over"intellectualized in the way you're talking about regarding me, which is why I often don't get around to responding to them, or respond to them slowly many times, given their depth and the thought put into them.

That´s odd, because I´d like to think that I am getting less and less intellectual the older I get, and somehow I was hoping that this would show.

But what do you mean when you say that these posts are "part of the problem rather than part of the solution"?

Well, just for clarification: I didn´t (mean to) say that your posts are part of the problem, but that the concepts you use to approach the topics with are part of the problem.
Personally, I am convinced that our concerns aren´t caused by the outside world but by our ideas about it (I think Epikur was the first guy to verbalize this idea, at least in Western cultures).
Thus, as soon as we accept the thought system in which the problem comes up as the basis for our further contemplations there can´t be a solution. A solution isn´t possible on the level on which a problem appears - it is only possible on the next level.
Now, the question is: Does "next level" mean: More abstractions, even more intellectualizing? I confess that this used to be my approach. I don´t believe in it anymore.
You say "this issue is complex, complicated". I, on the other hand, tend to think that issues become "complex/complicated" only when we try to approach them by analyzing them in a digitalized manner. Yes, the world is analogous - it has all shades of grey and colours. That´s the beauty of it. This beauty tends to be lost (and tends to be perceived as complication, and easily as a problem) when we try to digitalize it.
So, to illustrate my problem with your posts in a more or less good analogy: You tend to present your concerns in long sequence of 0´s and 1´s. And i feel that there´s no way to calculate a solution.

 

[bhsmte]

In all my years of playing competitive sports and later in the business world, I have found the majority of people tend to set artificial ceilings for themselves, which self limits what they can achieve. Finding ways to break those artificial barriers, are what allows people to achieve and move forward.

In regards to motivation? It is a complicated phenomenon, which is highly unique to each person's psyche and life experiences. The right blend of life events and experiences, can flip switches in people and cause their motivation to greatly increase.

 

[Received]

It runs counter to the American pioneer attitude. You are out there all alone in the wilderness with no one (of your kind anyway) for a hundred miles. What ever the obstacle you have to overcome it by yourself. If you do - you will thrive. If not - you die.

Currently it displayed in sporting achievements. How many home runs can you hit? How many touchdown passes can you complete? How many outside 3 point baskets?

Where is the cooperation in any of that? (it is actually there of course but never celebrated)

That's more like the civilization post-agriculture, pre-city attitude, and it's outdated for pretty much everyone in civilization now. If we're talking about human beings pre-agriculture (pre-10,000 years ago), we have a totally different story, and therefore arguably a completely different wiring than this era you speak of: pre-agriculture was a time of groups from 50-90 people, massive interdependence, and what anthropologists call "fierce egalitarianism" as one of the centerpieces of society. The idea of being a loner who thrives for an extreme vision of private life (i.e., to the point of cutting out communication on a daily or even hourly basis) is totally post-agriculture, and it's probably no surprise that one of the classic research-supported treatments for our ever-increasing levels of depression is going out and hanging out with people.

More importantly maybe, "you alone" isn't really a singular thing as I'm speaking about in this thread. The individual is himself the accumulation of an incredible number of causes starting at the genome (which everyone seems to ignore, especially in political arguments) to the womb to early attachment with caregivers to upbringing and early environment to family, school, and society environment, including nutritional, ideational (ideology, self-image, etc.), culture, and so on. We are by definition the result of and continual interplay with a pretty considerable number of variables, and let's not forget oxygen here.

Moral of the story: any independence we have grows out of dependence. But it's the American way, particularly the lasseiz-faire libertarian neoliberal way to arbitrarily cut out the part that is by definition individual -- the will, i.e., "free will" -- and ignore the rest.

 

[Received]

Indeed, I am still not sure i fully understood your concern.

Well, in my world the important things don´t seem to be achievable by "trying hard", but rather the opposite is the challenge (but I guess that´s besides your point, again. )
So, if speaking of things that can only be achieved by "trying hard" (and I know there are many of them in the capitalist world of competition) - what other options are there than "trying harder" or giving up?
Thus, "try harder (or adjust your ambitions)" seems to be a good advice in these fields. So i guess that understanding the message as "If you want to achieve that goal, all you can do is to try harder" would already help. I am not sure it needs to be understood as "you can always try harder".

But the problem is with that last sentence you talked about. Of course you need to try, and of course most of it is done through not really trying too hard but almost sort of moving along, as if the growth in question sort of mostly grows out of you while the "you" that wills isn't willing in a really tiresome way. But here in America the idea is "you can always try harder," meaning, "there is no end to what you can accomplish," which often means, "if you're in a tough situation [no matter how badly the deck is stacked against you even from birth, e.g., politically, economically, genetically, etc.], it's always up to you to make it better."

It's so sad to have to write these words, because they truly capture the ethos of so much of my society (just see who we elected as president). What maybe bothers me the most is this type of thinking (the unfalsifiable infinite will) by definition prevents us from looking at the institutions (rules, organizations, corporations, politics, etc.) that are stacking the deck against us. And it becomes really perverse when you realize that lots of people who are well off and who rarely if ever had any sort of deck stacked against them push this ideology as propaganda onto the "unwashed masses" to keep them from questioning the psychological bars of their cages (to speak a little hyperbolically).

While I agree on the importance of friends, family, community and supportive input, I am not sure how the first part of this paragraph is not describing an external push based on the idea that the person can try harder (even though it might not necessarily come with the explicit message "try harder!").

It is an external push. More specifically an external push in terms of words that become internalized whose cash value becomes motivation.

Here´s hoping you didn´t misunderstand my remarks as criticism of the fact that you open threads or how you present your questions (I usually find your threads quite intriguing). I just meant to tell you why I personally sometimes don´t feel like responding even though I find the topic quite interesting.

Oh no, I think I totally got what you're saying.

Yes, it´s quite subjective, and I meant to express that by putting the "over" in parentheses and adding a question mark.
So possibly "intellectualizing" would be sufficient as a description of why I perceive a communication gap. Let me expand on this in response to your question further down.


That´s odd, because I´d like to think that I am getting less and less intellectual the older I get, and somehow I was hoping that this would show.

Well, just for clarification: I didn´t (mean to) say that your posts are part of the problem, but that the concepts you use to approach the topics with are part of the problem.

Right, thanks for clarifying even though I picked up on this.

Personally, I am convinced that our concerns aren´t caused by the outside world but by our ideas about it (I think Epikur was the first guy to verbalize this idea, at least in Western cultures).
Thus, as soon as we accept the thought system in which the problem comes up as the basis for our further contemplations there can´t be a solution. A solution isn´t possible on the level on which a problem appears - it is only possible on the next level.
Now, the question is: Does "next level" mean: More abstractions, even more intellectualizing? I confess that this used to be my approach. I don´t believe in it anymore.
You say "this issue is complex, complicated". I, on the other hand, tend to think that issues become "complex/complicated" only when we try to approach them by analyzing them in a digitalized manner. Yes, the world is analogous - it has all shades of grey and colours. That´s the beauty of it. This beauty tends to be lost (and tends to be perceived as complication, and easily as a problem) when we try to digitalize it.
So, to illustrate my problem with your posts in a more or less good analogy: You tend to present your concerns in long sequence of 0´s and 1´s. And i feel that there´s no way to calculate a solution.

Fascinating. No way to calculate a solution given the "self-sealing" (so to speak) of the thought systems we try to analyze? Therefore "whatever we can't speak about we must pass over in silence," as one of you Germans (Wittgenstein) said?

BTW, Epicurus is considered the intellectual father of the cognitive behavioral tradition, which is giant here in America at least in psychotherapy circles, and really has some incredible insights, but by itself is too cold and abstract to change people much of the time (which is why I prefer eclectic approaches including emotion-focused, solution-focused, Gestalt/experiential approaches).

I like your digital metaphor, and I think (maybe ironically to you) that this is why I don't like a lot of contemporary philosophy -- i.e., analytic philosophy, as opposed to, say, Heidegger, who one level is almost impossible to read, but on a more intuitive, poetic level you "get him" even if you're not fully able to articulate why sometimes. But interestingly, I find that thinking "digitally" (i.e., in complex ways) actually makes the problem easier to see and articulate. I don't know if that would still mean it's part of the problem given it's part of the thought system; I guess what I'm saying is that the mind's state is chaos, and out of the chaos you think up semi-order, then more order, and eventually everything makes totally lucid sense and you can explain it to a ten-year-old. Which reminds me of the idea Chesterton had that it's much harder to talk in single syllable words than all the polysyllabic technical speak that lots of people use thinking they're really thinking, when in fact they're barely thinking, in the sense that they're taking the easier way of vomiting whatever complicated stuff is in their heads onto paper or verbally rather than the harder way of really thinking it through and "rewriting" and editing your ideas again and again so that you can speak clearly and simply.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I was wondering what the definition of "lazy" is.

 

[Received]

I was wondering what the definition of "lazy" is.

Not doing what you're capable of doing on at least a slightly consistent basis.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I imagine Karl Marx may have had a different definition to that president guy, Trump.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Yep.

Gee, this thread isn't getting a lot of attention, not surprisingly.

If I were to meld the Nietzschean Ubermensch with Christian Ayn Rand capitalism, I'm sure that'd be a different story.

A question, do you think thet ubermensch was meant to be apollonian, semi psychopathically calculating in a sober sense, and the "hoi polloi" (aka the herd or the mob) are destined for dionesianism, drunkenness, abandon etc. That's how I read some of our culture, a rift of values with capitalists coldly making cash from part neitzschian YOLO decadence aiming at infinity now. Like talk of the dionesian spirit was (or is) marketing advice to the fat capitalist masters, kings and princes of the world.

'Joy—deeper than heart's agony:
'Woe says: Fade! Go!
'But all joy wants eternity,
'Wants deep, deep, deep eternity!'

 

[Received]

A question, do you think thet ubermensch was meant to be apollonian, semi psychopathically calculating in a sober sense, and the "hoi polloi" (aka the herd or the mob) are destined for dionesianism, drunkenness, abandon etc. That's how I read some of our culture, a rift of values with capitalists coldly making cash from part neitzschian YOLO decadence aiming at infinity now. Like talk of the dionesian spirit was (or is) marketing advice to the fat capitalist masters, kings and princes of the world.

'Joy—deeper than heart's agony:
'Woe says: Fade! Go!
'But all joy wants eternity,
'Wants deep, deep, deep eternity!'

No, I don't think the Ubermensch has psychopathic tendencies or that Nietzsche would consider the Ayn Rand immortalized capitalist as anything less than sensationalistic self-worship without quite ascertaining the virtues Nietzsche (who did, after all, have healthy values) would support. It's interesting that you claim the masses are the Dionysian ones, because Nietzsche considered Dionysus, and not Apollo, to be the ideal, whom he contrasted with the (Christianized, i.e., superficial) "crucified", i.e., Christ.

I think the average politician and capitalist players of this system that are making things worse (far from being synonymous with capitalism per se) would be considered pretty superficial by Nietzsche's standing. He actually spoke in one place about the duty (this the most anti-Kantian philosopher you can imagine) the strong have toward the weak. The average decadent capitalist is just that: decadent, even if he might have a nice exterior, e.g., Martin Shkreli.

 

[bhsmte]

I was wondering what the definition of "lazy" is.

Or, how one determines whether someone is; trying too hard.