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The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby evilgenius » Sun 15 Oct 2017, 11:28:28

onlooker wrote:Anger is a reactionary emotion. I would be more concerned with Hate. To me wisdom means controlling one's impulsive reactionary emotions. But it also means to chose positive emotions for the sake of one's own happiness and the harmony of those around you and who you interact with. If people tried to have more positive emotions more often, I also think all of us would get along much better.

Speaking of hatred, I think too many people place it onto some kind of a continuum with love. They look upon them as opposites. The opposite of love is not hatred. It is indifference.

Hatred is something that is born out of perceived reasons for its existence. It doesn't matter if what is perceived is real or imagined. There is a cause for it. That cause is tied to the relationship of the perceived thing to the perceiver, or to a greater idea that the perceiver aligns themselves with. Hatred is either earned or believed earned. Love exists because of itself. It won't magically appear in the absence of hatred. It will, however, if the right seeds are sown.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 15 Oct 2017, 17:53:42

evilgenius wrote:
onlooker wrote:Anger is a reactionary emotion. I would be more concerned with Hate. To me wisdom means controlling one's impulsive reactionary emotions. But it also means to chose positive emotions for the sake of one's own happiness and the harmony of those around you and who you interact with. If people tried to have more positive emotions more often, I also think all of us would get along much better.

Speaking of hatred, I think too many people place it onto some kind of a continuum with love. They look upon them as opposites. The opposite of love is not hatred. It is indifference.

Hatred is something that is born out of perceived reasons for its existence. It doesn't matter if what is perceived is real or imagined. There is a cause for it. That cause is tied to the relationship of the perceived thing to the perceiver, or to a greater idea that the perceiver aligns themselves with. Hatred is either earned or believed earned. Love exists because of itself. It won't magically appear in the absence of hatred. It will, however, if the right seeds are sown.


I think that is a very wise assessment Evil :)
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby Ibon » Sun 15 Oct 2017, 18:51:48

evilgenius wrote:
Hatred is something that is born out of perceived reasons for its existence. It doesn't matter if what is perceived is real or imagined. There is a cause for it. That cause is tied to the relationship of the perceived thing to the perceiver, or to a greater idea that the perceiver aligns themselves with. Hatred is either earned or believed earned. Love exists because of itself. It won't magically appear in the absence of hatred. It will, however, if the right seeds are sown.


Well said. I would add something about hatred. It can be very easy to manipulate someone toward hatred when that person is feeling slighted, or is low on the pecking order, or has lost status and is feeling frustrated and persecuted. Whether real or perceived. It is then quite easy for scape goats to be created and hatred projected on to them by the powerful especially when they want to distract the masses from their own corruption and incompetence.

As you say love on the other hand stands more firmly on its own and is more rebellious and cannot be so easily manipulated.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Tue 17 Oct 2017, 02:53:02

I would say hatred's opposite is pity & the continuum is fairly obvious.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby evilgenius » Tue 17 Oct 2017, 12:03:00

SeaGypsy wrote:I would say hatred's opposite is pity & the continuum is fairly obvious.


Maybe that's why I find myself turning away from all of those victim stories that come after mass murders, they are trying to elicit pity? The media loves to find a few heroes, and castigate the bad guys. It's not fashionable to talk about their deaths like the lawnmower came for them all at once rather than singly. The reasons for the event are mostly taboo, and rarely solved. Together, they were the victims of sin, and we are all sinners. Alongside the few who may be actual heroes, they make heroes out of people who stumbled right instead of left sometimes. They forget that the demons that haunted the bad guys haunt most of the rest of us too. Either way, there is so much judgement involved, and judgement is the one thing present all across that continuum.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby Newfie » Wed 18 Oct 2017, 07:26:06

Evil,

Have you read "Amusing Ourselves to Death"?

If not you would find much to agree with in the books position
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby roccman » Wed 18 Oct 2017, 13:06:25

asg70 wrote:
Cog wrote:There are times righteous anger is justified.


I take it this is what you had in mind?

Image


I finished reading this last month. Something does not ring true with this book. I also just finished reading Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Notwithstanding the out of tune nature of MK, it is clear to me that the Age of the Herd will be based in Marxist Socialism (think "the bar set to high" as explained in the Brother's Karamazov The Grand Inquisitor - https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/grand.htm). And think Nietzsche's Uberman - or more specifically - the "surface" as described in Rudolf Steiner's The Acanthus Leaf https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/grand.htm.

Basically - Das Rheingold - R. Wagner - specifically only a few get a chance to cross the rainbow bridge to Valhalla.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Wed 18 Oct 2017, 14:51:53

Flashback to Freshman Literature in 1971. Which my particular, disallusioned-with-George-McGovern Teaching Assistant turned into a three-times-a-week political debate, and I barely got a "C" because I was not a flaming liberal. Mein Kamph. the Communist Manifesto, the endless debates about whether Capitalism exploited the proles or enriched them. Which in turn caused me to burn countless credit hours in Philosophy, History, and Economics.

Decades before I found out about Peak Oil. Not really simpler times, just different worries.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Wed 18 Oct 2017, 15:43:23

roccman wrote:
asg70 wrote:
Cog wrote:There are times righteous anger is justified.


I take it this is what you had in mind?

Image


I finished reading this last month. Something does not ring true with this book. I also just finished reading Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Notwithstanding the out of tune nature of MK, it is clear to me that the Age of the Herd will be based in Marxist Socialism (think "the bar set to high" as explained in the Brother's Karamazov The Grand Inquisitor - https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/grand.htm). And think Nietzsche's Uberman - or more specifically - the "surface" as described in Rudolf Steiner's The Acanthus Leaf https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/grand.htm.

Basically - Das Rheingold - R. Wagner - specifically only a few get a chance to cross the rainbow bridge to Valhalla.


My take on Nietzsche's later works is not so much about getting the chance as taking it being the rarity. Probably the strangest thing about him is how his life contradicted his ethos. He was basically a pathetic sexually frustrated desk jockey who died of syphilis from his second sexual encounter. But his mind was truly awesome.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby roccman » Wed 18 Oct 2017, 16:06:00

SeaGypsy wrote:
But his mind was truly awesome.


His writings suggested he had experiences "beyond the veil". Yet he never mentions anything but "this dimensional stuff". Probably left on the publisher's clipping floor.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Wed 18 Oct 2017, 17:24:22

From what I read only a tiny percentage of what he wrote ever got published. The first volumes funny enough were all Christian, treatises on the Bible & reflections on Church history- relatively conforming stuff. It seems his best work was written in the last several years of his life, when his brain was gradually being destroyed by syphilis.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby evilgenius » Mon 23 Oct 2017, 01:19:24

evilgenius wrote:
SeaGypsy wrote:I would say hatred's opposite is pity & the continuum is fairly obvious.


Maybe that's why I find myself turning away from all of those victim stories that come after mass murders, they are trying to elicit pity? The media loves to find a few heroes, and castigate the bad guys. It's not fashionable to talk about their deaths like the lawnmower came for them all at once rather than singly. The reasons for the event are mostly taboo, and rarely solved. Together, they were the victims of sin, and we are all sinners. Alongside the few who may be actual heroes, they make heroes out of people who stumbled right instead of left sometimes. They forget that the demons that haunted the bad guys haunt most of the rest of us too. Either way, there is so much judgement involved, and judgement is the one thing present all across that continuum.


This comparison of hatred and pity on a continuum has bothered me ever since I first read it. I don't think, even though they both involve judgement, that it is true. You see, hatred is a human thing. It's not present in any other part of nature. It is something that exists entirely under the providence of the human mind. Animals can be aggressive, but if the threat goes away they will usually resume whatever it was they were doing. If they pick on something, it will be the weak, and not an object that they hate. But, yes, dogs do set upon other dogs as a matter of course. I can't prove they don't do that out of hatred, though, it is more likely territorial behavior. Animals might learn to avoid pain, but they won't learn to attack what brings it except in immediate defense. They will, instead, learn to run.

Hatred actually has to come about as the result of a perceived violation of what only man can perceive. Yes, hatred does have to do with judgement, but the judgement that comes about as a result of that perceived violation. I suggest that selfishness is what has been violated. Therefore, if you are going to place hatred on a continuum, I think you need to place it at one end with selfishness, for that is the thing which balances its existence. Selfishness comes in many forms, all of which are capable of engendering hatred toward those who violate their natures. It can, for instance, be formed of the idea that your family group takes precedence over all other family groups. It can be formed of the idea that your national, religious, or ethnic identity takes precedence over others. It can simply be composed of the idea that you are always right.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 23 Oct 2017, 02:02:57

I don't think so. Hatred can happen in groups, against either individuals or another group. Your analysis is missing a layer, that of the response to suppression. Suppression is self preservation in response to collective social pressure. Hatred is the less socially acceptable response, pity is the more acceptable. The continuum stands, uncomfortable as it might be.

Edit to add- example- homeless beggars can be seen as passively suppressing our perceived right to walk unmolested down the city streets. Hating them for this disturbance is generally seen as over responding. So generally we pity them.

Drug & arms smugglers into our countries are seen as aggressors- vectors of physical & moral danger to us & our community. It is socially acceptable to hate them. However if one looks a little deeper, into why, what drove these people to this perceived aggression- very often dire poverty, desperation- it's not hard to feel pity for them.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 23 Oct 2017, 04:17:03

Try this- hate is internalised anger, pity is resentment transmuted through socialisation. The continuum between anger & resentment is obvious.

(I spent a lot of time around camp dogs, horses, the higher socialised domestic animals- i can see reflections of the human traits we are discussing, just less developed through dialectics/ language. There are languages with no word for hate.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby evilgenius » Mon 23 Oct 2017, 11:37:56

Tolerance is the opposite of hatred. It isn't necessarily dependent upon selfishness, but is something that selfishness can achieve.

SeaGypsy, you were right that my analysis lacked a layer. I could only take hatred as far as its origin before. I couldn't find its opposite. That's because its opposite doesn't necessarily need selfishness to exist. Tolerance is a trait that animals do possess. It makes me wonder if all of the 'virtues' are things that animals can possess? I wonder if the consciousness that an animal has is capable of love, for instance? That's a steep for instance. Love is probably the chief emotion of human beings. It's easy for us to project it upon an animal. It's much harder to tell if it is really there. You can say the same thing about our fellow man, actually. I was watching some program the other day and they were talking about psychopathy/sociopaths. The defining trait is their inability to empathize with other people and treat them as if they matter. They get trapped in such a selfish vision of the world that other people are just things to deal with, and not beings of importance. Any emotion can give meaning to a thing, but it takes love to give it the kind of meaning for which a self would willingly sacrifice.

I like how you see through pity. It's not really the same thing as compassion. Pity moves a person to feel, but not necessarily to act. I can see why so many people react so powerfully to other people's pity when it is placed upon them. Frankly, I've often wondered why so many reacted so violently toward pity when it was aimed at them. It can be that it serves no purpose other than to induce self-loathing when it comes with no action. At least I can see that may be the case for someone who has already gone through the steps of self-examination, and seen what might be their fault in their circumstances. They may be ready to change, or they may recognize that they cannot change. Either way, they don't need someone to come along and judge them. They need action. In action's absence I suppose that is where the rejection, and, sometimes, hostility I've wondered about has come from. Yet, even with action I've still seen rejection. When I was young it was always expressed as the result of wounded pride.

That rejection is interesting all by itself too. Many who would give, or so they say, are looking for a situation where they can give and it will mean something. They don't want to perpetuate an unexamined behavior or lifestyle. They don't want to give when their giving would seem to have no impact. That may mean they are simply being taken advantage of. Well, perhaps the person who rejects their pity is more probably the one who 'deserves' it, when it comes with action, so to speak. You can never know for sure, if you are one of those who won't give unless their giving has to meet certain standards. Those who are the most egregious takers are also those who reckon what you have ought to belong to them, without them having to do much to earn it. It's one of those points in life, like Kierkegard's leap of faith, where you just have to trust in your intentions.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 23 Oct 2017, 15:33:41

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&sour ... FztJeDnRYT

Probably require a Facebook account to open? Copy paste. Love is just another natural behaviour. Animals can't speak Greek, but they can be very loving.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby roccman » Tue 24 Oct 2017, 11:17:20

SeaGypsy wrote:https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.facebook.com/NTDLifeOfficial/videos/438506363327497/&ved=0ahUKEwiJq6_FvYfXAhVLUbwKHQQCDxUQo7QBCCYwAA&usg=AOvVaw2tTGZq8W0fkFFztJeDnRYT

Probably require a Facebook account to open? Copy paste. Love is just another natural behaviour. Animals can't speak Greek, but they can be very loving.


I have given "love" and "caring" considerable thought - and have determined that evil/hate/revenge is based in love/caring. Consider this - a man will give his life for the banner he "believes" in. Because his family - far behind enemy lines - will be slaughtered if he does not - and in this sense - he must hate - because he cares.

Any other non-human animal who may be "very loving" will not hate or seek revenge.

Look into an old man's eyes - one who you feel has lived well. What one should notice - in the words of Tolkien - is a "care worn" face.

Cormac McCarthy states that "War is God" in Blood Meridian - I think he is as close to being right as one can be.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby evilgenius » Fri 27 Oct 2017, 12:23:40

roccman wrote:
SeaGypsy wrote:https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.facebook.com/NTDLifeOfficial/videos/438506363327497/&ved=0ahUKEwiJq6_FvYfXAhVLUbwKHQQCDxUQo7QBCCYwAA&usg=AOvVaw2tTGZq8W0fkFFztJeDnRYT

Probably require a Facebook account to open? Copy paste. Love is just another natural behaviour. Animals can't speak Greek, but they can be very loving.


I have given "love" and "caring" considerable thought - and have determined that evil/hate/revenge is based in love/caring. Consider this - a man will give his life for the banner he "believes" in. Because his family - far behind enemy lines - will be slaughtered if he does not - and in this sense - he must hate - because he cares.

Any other non-human animal who may be "very loving" will not hate or seek revenge.

Look into an old man's eyes - one who you feel has lived well. What one should notice - in the words of Tolkien - is a "care worn" face.

Cormac McCarthy states that "War is God" in Blood Meridian - I think he is as close to being right as one can be.


You bring up an interesting point. I think it pertains directly to the after school special mentality that argues about whether there is a God. You know, the one that says, "How can there be a God if there is so much evil in the world?" The well thought out question would actually be, "How could there not be evil in the world if there is a God?" Why did God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden along with the Tree of Life? Well, if the garden is but a metaphor for the universe, and we are beings who are stumbling along trying to find true consciousness, you can sort of see why. A true consciousness will be composed of every facet of what makes up consciousness. It will understand all of the facets in the order of how they relate to each other. It won't be beholden to one particular facet. It could, indeed, use any facet as a tool. It wouldn't make any difference if there were evil. Evil doesn't rule anything, unless we let it, by subverting all of the other aspects to it. It takes fear or shame to create evil. They hid from God after they partook of the fruit, out of shame.

Everybody wants God to do this or that thing for them. People want money, or healing. Seldom do they want to change in the fundamental ways that keep them from those things, or falsely present them to their consciousness as panaceas. People don't seek enlightenment. They want stuff. Jesus went about healing all kinds of people because there were all kinds of people who needed healing. I don't think God can turn from helping people immediately when the proximity is that close. But that shouldn't be a reason to say that God must be dead or that there is no God only because we read those things and they aren't happening to us. We shouldn't expect God to be like Santa Claus. I don't think Jesus healed many of those people of the stupidity that lead them to need the things they traveled so many miles to get from him. Nor did he banish death from the lives of anybody who came to Him. He told some of them to, "Go and sin no more," but, with the exception of casting out demons, He didn't change anybody's consciousness fundamentally. I think that is because, ultimately, God is only trying to convince us of something we have to come to realize ourselves. Remember, he told almost everyone that He healed that their faith had made them whole.

It's like this, many say that we don't actually think for ourselves. Most of what we think is actually just us regurgitating what others say or do, after we process it a bit. There is a lot of doubt associated with that. Most of us don't have any original thoughts. Most of us don't have to. We can have our disabilities and keep our unenlightened selves. There is also the possibility that everything in time has already been done. That the arrow of time is simply an illusion. In that case, emotions are something that makes the observer in us comfortable with that. I don't know about that because of entropy, but there is a point to that, even if time does move one way. That struggle, and there is a sort of struggle there, does have a bearing upon the question of what sort of a resurrected self would religion be talking about when it talks about resurrecting the self. What age self? The self who was too young to have learned all of the things an old person might know? The creaky old self? Doesn't loss have to teach us something more than anger or doubt? Isn't there something central to eternal life in humility? Maybe it's the self that God can get hold of and teach something about ordering all of the facets, and overcoming fears? The one that exists over time and isn't worried so much about its body, though it does have one. Kind of the one you are right now, but are only partly able to understand because we don't have much faith and too much fear and shame.
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Re: The Wisdom Of The Dark Emotions

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Fri 27 Oct 2017, 17:49:32

There's not much evidence "God" is anything more than a way of lining one's self up, getting your ducks in a row so to speak. Sorry but long blathering spiels about "God"- just lose me completely. Not one new thought in any of it, just repeat dogmatic programming.
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