Norsemaiden
barbarian
Russell was not an official member of the group but he closely associated with them and his philosophy fits with theirs perfectly.
http://www.amazon.com/BERTRAND-RUSSELL-Spirit-Solitude-1872-1921/dp/0684828022
What Is To Be Done
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Russell was not an official member of the group but he closely associated with them and his philosophy fits with theirs perfectly.
I actually find such a obvious break with contemporary morals and mores quite refreshing. Where has this spirit gone? Now, its not even fashionable to live a debauched or paganistic life.
Seditious
GodSlayer
Come now, hip hop is materialistic and hedonistic. I dont know of any hip hop novelist, poets, economists, or philosophers either.
Onto the subject at hand though, which is what to be done. I see some are urging a return to morals.
Norsemaiden
barbarian
I was going to say that it is widespread in the British underclass and has fairly much spread throughout our society. It is not unusual for junior school boys to make inappropriate sexual comments to mothers at the school gates. Right up to the top where the Queen's grand-daughter wears a tongue-stud.
There are plently of debauched amoral novelists and poets. The more decadent and debauched the more celebrated they are.
Look at the art rewarded by the Turner Art Prize. Only the sickest most shocking art is valued. And that goes for all modern art generally.
In no county in the world has the process of vulgarization gone further than in Britain. Once famed for the restraint of our manners, now Britain is notorious for the courseness of our behaviour and unbridled and anti-social attempts to satisfy our appetites. There is mass drunkenness every weekend in every town and city center, making them intolerable to anyone half decent, and extremely crude, violent and shallow relations between the sexes.
All this hedonism leads rapidly to chaos and misery, especially amongst the poor. Taking restraint away results in violent discord.
This revolution in British manners came, not from the lower class but, on the contrary, from the British intellectual elite.
I think this violence and "immorality" is a result of our stressed work-for-life, capitalistic culture, more than anything else. The Brits and Americans did place last, and second last in the recent UN children/parenting survey, and very poorly in quality of family and work survey released last month (the U.S. was 5th to last next to Liberia, Guinea Bissau and other such countries). In each country, poor labor laws allowing almost no off days, sick days, etc were blamed, as well as low government support for education and childrens programs, stressed over-worked parents, and so on and so forth.
And you know, the classical age all the way up to the 4th century, as well as the Renaissance up to the age of enlightenment, were all marked by what I suppose what you'd consider debauchery, sex, decadence, and yet produced the finest art, music, drama, literature, math, etc in Western history. We've just hit the ultimate stage in debauchery, sex and decadence, where its become tied to consumerism and advertising, and in essence, has lost its reality and true value.
But still, can one really return to traditional modes of morality, family, etc? God, the social order or class, dedication and sacrifice to family, etc., have all been rendered useless by modern society. There is no morality but utility (and a corrupted form, of that).
Norsemaiden
barbarian
The fall of civilisations cooincides with the kind of debauchery you mention - like the dying days of Rome.
A lot of this is related to class in that some parts of the wealthiest classes were behaving with the moral abandon that you describe at the time of the Renaissance, and other times but the lower classes were far less affected. These things have tended to go in waves though, such as when you consider the puritianism under Cromwell and how that all changed with Charles II. I can't believe that debauchery in any way helps science or the finest art and literature. That is counter-intuitive. But extreme religious oppression is no use either.
So, what is to be done, is that i should buy a Bible, or join a church, and then become moral? Or is there a secular morality?
Well, I suppose I understand where you're coming from. However, I would say this moral degeneracy is merely part of a very large problem--a few tiles of the mosaic if you will. Obviously, we've covered ad infinitum all the reasons why people are acting with such hedonism.
And as a counterargument, I remind you of those who are supposedly acting "morally" (i.e. christian fundamentalists, mormons, etc).
Nile577
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- Jun 26, 2003
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I'd love to discuss this further with you. If you don't mind me asking - just to give me a framework - which Virigina Woolf novels have you read?
Norsemaiden
barbarian
The most moral people have a sense of honour so they are doing the right thing by their own judgement. This rules out the unrestrained sensation seekers and it rules out the religious hypocrites as well. You can't make people who are naturally not like this behave in this way.
Such people may behave, however, in a way that others may deem immoral - but the essential point is that the individual himself feels that he is behaving honourably.
Nile577
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Seditious
GodSlayer
I don't know what you're responding to here, you said "now, its not even fashionable to live a debauched or paganistic life", and I suggested one such fashionable dehauched lifestyle.
Justin S.
Member
I live in the heart of the south side of Chicago, and contemporary urban black/hip-hop culture is far from being liberated or truly debauched, and miles away from paganistic.
In fact, it is an immensely agitated and repressed culture. An authentic Dionysian potlatch is completely foreign to their conceptual framework. Simply put, they know only of material striving. Their "debauchery" is generally an ignorant lashing-out.
(please note: this is greatly reductive and general. The reality is, of course, much more complicated)
In fact, it is an immensely agitated and repressed culture. An authentic Dionysian potlatch is completely foreign to their conceptual framework. Simply put, they know only of material striving. Their "debauchery" is generally an ignorant lashing-out.
(please note: this is greatly reductive and general. The reality is, of course, much more complicated)
Yes, I agree. Somehow Virginia Woolf ended up into a morality/ hip hop /Nietszche discussion. Hehe. See, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf! Interesting, but I hope the discussion continues--and moves onto other topics.
Seditious
GodSlayer
I didn't realise he only meant some high minded liberation. a four day a week drinking binge is fashionable debauchery too, I didn't know anyone attached high minded ideas to hedonism or antimodernism, and definitely didn't know those words already connoted such. my bad.
Seditious
GodSlayer
the real topic to me is 'does anything need to be done'? (loosely using the word need of course). If something needs to be done isn't it first convincing the majority who really accept what is as if it's not a problem? What can you really do if you're just one person trying to make yourself smarter for a world who doesn't need your shit, ya know?
You know, I think I really get where you're coming from. I've already stated my pessimism of the efficacy of any "solution." And, as years pass and my wisdom grows, I really think it now almost impossible for anyone to truly change the world (or to "do" anything very impactful), unless its in a scientific or computer-related nature. Our society has become so standardized, its as if we're living in a hive of bees, or a network. Plug one person in or out based on training. Really, thats all it is anymore, illusory individual economic freedom, and social isolation-- a big middle class network of nothingness and economic concerns. My pyhrronian nature becomes even more doubtful by the day. Thus, bettering oneself to better others, I see as equally pointless. Look how many of us on this board are well-read and on top of contemporary issues and ideas, and look how little traction and understanding our ideas have. People dont even care about most of the things we discuss. And besides taking over the media, or somehow getting elected to government, I dont see how this can ever change.
How many of us actually *do* anything substantial? Are we here gathered around the campfire of our philosophy forum because we're too jaded / incapable of doing anything we would view as valuable in the broader world? 
I sure am - but being here is part of the learning I hope can become valuable to more than myself one day...
I sure am - but being here is part of the learning I hope can become valuable to more than myself one day...
Seditious
GodSlayer
so true. and of course once we've covered our contemporary survival needs what do we (majority) do?---engage in distractions: video games, dating, drinking, tv watching, sports. They say a republic depends on cultivating virtue, and I think Aristotle was right at the greatest threat isn't faction but distraction. In our world where everyone is more concerned with their instant gratification to make bearable their otherwise monotonous lives, how much impact can any of us have if we need to rely on their help?! No one is being shown value to virtues like wisdom, all they need is money so they make their money and then relax, unless already so inclined there's no reason to go to the effort of study, and no one is being rewarded for it, we have to choose to take our own leisure time away from pleasures for it, and even pay for it.
the only way I can see things working is to go with the flow of desires. If people care about music and games and tv/movies then maybe our best hope is to modify our inclinations from scholarly discourse and academic texts, and take what we know and translate it into pop culture mediums. We may not be able to actually have control of the media, but so long as they want media if we could bring our content to that media we would have some level of control--give people what you want them to have, in the way they want to have it. It may be the first way we can get people to listen, much easier than cultivating the virtue to use what little time they have for study and deep thought.
There are probably a lot of teenagers who had never heard of 'the brain in a vat' thought experiment until they saw Matrix. As shallow as it may be (not able to convey a lot), fiction may be at least a basic format for beginning a gestalt shift from which people could be encouraged into a deeper understanding of a philosophy.
