I needed a few solid years of good strong individualist pep-talks before I was at all ready to be an adult.
“Non serviam,”
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine,”
“Listen to the fools reproach! It is a kingly title!”
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
“Truth forever on the scaffold/ Wrong forever on the throne,”
There’s a cluster of writers (generally science fiction, libertarian, and atheist, with a little Tom Paine and Blake and Joyce in the mix) who were really good at inspiring me to be less automatically servile, more willing to stand for things on my own, less excessively guilty. I actually knew some people who were like that in real life, and would say things to the effect that they’d rather die on their feet than live on their knees. Wonderful folks.
As time goes by, I find that the more I internalize personal independence, the less overt it becomes, and the less I seek out writing that has a propagandistic tone—I find I need it less and less. This might be why the post has a lukewarm reception around here—it’s the sort of writing that’s for inspiring people not to be lapdogs. People who have not been lapdogs for a long time sometimes forget how important this kind of language can be. And people who are still between “denunciation and confession” like b1shop find it hard to imagine that there will be a time when they’ll completely take personal independence for granted.
There’s a cluster of writers (generally science fiction, libertarian, and atheist, with a little Tom Paine and Blake and Joyce in the mix) who were really good at inspiring me to be less automatically servile, more willing to stand for things on my own, less excessively guilty. I actually knew some people who were like that in real life, and would say things to the effect that they’d rather die on their feet than live on their knees.
Trouble is, there are things in life where being servile and shutting up about your complaints is the only sane thing to do, and standing up for yourself would be a self-destructive act. Someone who consistently lives by the principle you cite will almost inevitably end up prematurely dead or in prison.
Of course, in many cases you’ll benefit from standing up for yourself, and in fact, the willingness to do so is one of the main things that sets successful people apart from losers. However, the problem is not only how to tell these cases apart in practice (which can be very difficult by itself), but also how to manage inconsistent attitudes that you’re supposed to have. Ideally, you’d like to suppress your aversion against servility in situations where it’s rational be servile, to eliminate the temptation for self-destructive rebellion and avoid the unhappiness of being reminded of your subjugation and low status. At the same time, you want to feel bad about being servile in situations where it’s rational to snap out of it and stand up for yourself—but only in those. It seems to me that one of the marks of very successful people is that they’re extremely well calibrated in this regard.
Well, the very thing about the exhortatory (sp?) mode is that it tells you that some kinds of behavior are admirable and others shameful—not what’s practical.
This site is not particularly fond of exhorting people to behave any one way, except to behave rationally. I suspect that is not because LW readers have no beliefs about what admirable behavior includes; I suspect there is even some overlap in their beliefs. I think it’s more likely that they already take their own values for granted and are no longer looking to be preached at.
This post helps me understand where you’re coming from. You write that there were those that “were really good at inspiring me to be less automatically servile, more willing to stand for things on my own, less excessively guilty.” So it seems that your background was an expectation to serve and surrender to something external. So if you believed in God, God was the powerful force that needed to be served because God was good whereas you only had the potential to be good. I think people would and should chafe against such a world view of overt control and self-negation.
My background is different, and perhaps it explains why there seems to be a spectrum of some theists and atheists seeing God as a dictator, with different theists and atheists have angst about ‘the meaning of life’.
In my background, independence and self-actualization was always emphasized, but unfortunately this was combined with a skepticism about everything. There was still strongly instilled that idea that you should live to ‘something higher’ but it’s never explained what that is (you need to find it for yourself) and meanwhile all the things that are proffered as examples (being wealthy or famous, playing a great role in history, making discoveries, decreasing suffering and helping others) are always handled cynically. It seems there’s actually ‘nothing to believe in’, nothing higher than oneself, and thus no way to improve oneself or transcend circumstances. There’s a running joke in my family, expressed in different ways, that the only life-philosophy that successfully bears testing is materialism.
My whole life I’ve been looking for meaning. As a child, I went to any local place of worship that I could walk to, because I liked the idea of a perfect plane of existence parallel to this one. I felt like a worthwhile life would be one that somehow transcended this life.
I’m very happy in this life, and am converging on the idea that my personal meaning of life is to learn to love more fully in the ways that I am capable. But it all seems terribly imperfect, first of all, and sometimes not sufficient.
It seems that our backgrounds were similar in that we were supposed to serve something higher. In your case, this something higher was made explicit and found inadequate. In my case, this something higher was not described but all potentials for ‘defining your own goals’ were measured inadequate.
What I’ve written here seems only sort of right… but I’m not sure yet which part is just-so. I’ll think about it and possibly add something later. (Later edit: I think stories make me uncomfortable. I think it’s only in a very limited way they could ever be true.)
It seems there’s actually ‘nothing to believe in’, nothing higher than oneself, and thus no way to improve oneself or transcend circumstances.
I don’t follow the reasoning. Why does ‘nothing higher than oneself’ mean there is no way to improve oneself? And it’s even less relevant to being able to transcend circumstances. Crazy talk.
Why does ‘nothing higher than oneself’ mean there is no way to improve oneself?
I suppose because any changes you make will result only result in differences, not anything better. If you can’t define a better way to be, which direction should you move in?
Crazy talk.
I agree. For several months now, no directions on this topic have not seemed crazy. I think it’s crazy to look for value outside oneself, and I don’t believe one chooses what to value; they choose what it is they value.
Yes, I had some trouble writing that sentence. (My initial, “I don’t believe one chooses what to value; one chooses what they value” was even worse.)
There is the idea floating around that if there is no God dictating values, we get to define our values for ourselves. There’s this sense—perhaps I am misreading it—that there’s joy in this unexpected freedom to define our own values and define who we are.
My point was that whatever values we ‘decide’ to have, we picked those values because we already valued them.
It doesn’t feel like freedom to me. It feels like we have exactly the same set of values we’ve always had, but now instead of being guided in a positive direction by something “inherently good” (e.g., God made us in his image) they are given by something I feel neutral about and not so loyal towards (evolution and chance circumstance).
On the other hand, I understand that if someone had a view of God as doling out arbitrary or burdensome values (you must go to church, you must get married to someone of the correct gender, etc), then being able to go by your own internal values would feel relatively free.
I liked this post.
I needed a few solid years of good strong individualist pep-talks before I was at all ready to be an adult.
“Non serviam,”
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine,”
“Listen to the fools reproach! It is a kingly title!”
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
“Truth forever on the scaffold/ Wrong forever on the throne,”
and so on. (This song is in the same vein. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnV6hKhFDs)
There’s a cluster of writers (generally science fiction, libertarian, and atheist, with a little Tom Paine and Blake and Joyce in the mix) who were really good at inspiring me to be less automatically servile, more willing to stand for things on my own, less excessively guilty. I actually knew some people who were like that in real life, and would say things to the effect that they’d rather die on their feet than live on their knees. Wonderful folks.
As time goes by, I find that the more I internalize personal independence, the less overt it becomes, and the less I seek out writing that has a propagandistic tone—I find I need it less and less. This might be why the post has a lukewarm reception around here—it’s the sort of writing that’s for inspiring people not to be lapdogs. People who have not been lapdogs for a long time sometimes forget how important this kind of language can be. And people who are still between “denunciation and confession” like b1shop find it hard to imagine that there will be a time when they’ll completely take personal independence for granted.
SarahC:
Trouble is, there are things in life where being servile and shutting up about your complaints is the only sane thing to do, and standing up for yourself would be a self-destructive act. Someone who consistently lives by the principle you cite will almost inevitably end up prematurely dead or in prison.
Of course, in many cases you’ll benefit from standing up for yourself, and in fact, the willingness to do so is one of the main things that sets successful people apart from losers. However, the problem is not only how to tell these cases apart in practice (which can be very difficult by itself), but also how to manage inconsistent attitudes that you’re supposed to have. Ideally, you’d like to suppress your aversion against servility in situations where it’s rational be servile, to eliminate the temptation for self-destructive rebellion and avoid the unhappiness of being reminded of your subjugation and low status. At the same time, you want to feel bad about being servile in situations where it’s rational to snap out of it and stand up for yourself—but only in those. It seems to me that one of the marks of very successful people is that they’re extremely well calibrated in this regard.
Well, the very thing about the exhortatory (sp?) mode is that it tells you that some kinds of behavior are admirable and others shameful—not what’s practical.
This site is not particularly fond of exhorting people to behave any one way, except to behave rationally. I suspect that is not because LW readers have no beliefs about what admirable behavior includes; I suspect there is even some overlap in their beliefs. I think it’s more likely that they already take their own values for granted and are no longer looking to be preached at.
This post helps me understand where you’re coming from. You write that there were those that “were really good at inspiring me to be less automatically servile, more willing to stand for things on my own, less excessively guilty.” So it seems that your background was an expectation to serve and surrender to something external. So if you believed in God, God was the powerful force that needed to be served because God was good whereas you only had the potential to be good. I think people would and should chafe against such a world view of overt control and self-negation.
My background is different, and perhaps it explains why there seems to be a spectrum of some theists and atheists seeing God as a dictator, with different theists and atheists have angst about ‘the meaning of life’.
In my background, independence and self-actualization was always emphasized, but unfortunately this was combined with a skepticism about everything. There was still strongly instilled that idea that you should live to ‘something higher’ but it’s never explained what that is (you need to find it for yourself) and meanwhile all the things that are proffered as examples (being wealthy or famous, playing a great role in history, making discoveries, decreasing suffering and helping others) are always handled cynically. It seems there’s actually ‘nothing to believe in’, nothing higher than oneself, and thus no way to improve oneself or transcend circumstances. There’s a running joke in my family, expressed in different ways, that the only life-philosophy that successfully bears testing is materialism.
My whole life I’ve been looking for meaning. As a child, I went to any local place of worship that I could walk to, because I liked the idea of a perfect plane of existence parallel to this one. I felt like a worthwhile life would be one that somehow transcended this life.
I’m very happy in this life, and am converging on the idea that my personal meaning of life is to learn to love more fully in the ways that I am capable. But it all seems terribly imperfect, first of all, and sometimes not sufficient.
It seems that our backgrounds were similar in that we were supposed to serve something higher. In your case, this something higher was made explicit and found inadequate. In my case, this something higher was not described but all potentials for ‘defining your own goals’ were measured inadequate.
What I’ve written here seems only sort of right… but I’m not sure yet which part is just-so. I’ll think about it and possibly add something later. (Later edit: I think stories make me uncomfortable. I think it’s only in a very limited way they could ever be true.)
I don’t follow the reasoning. Why does ‘nothing higher than oneself’ mean there is no way to improve oneself? And it’s even less relevant to being able to transcend circumstances. Crazy talk.
I suppose because any changes you make will result only result in differences, not anything better. If you can’t define a better way to be, which direction should you move in?
I agree. For several months now, no directions on this topic have not seemed crazy. I think it’s crazy to look for value outside oneself, and I don’t believe one chooses what to value; they choose what it is they value.
This seems like a distinction without a difference. Can you explain in more detail what you mean here?
Yes, I had some trouble writing that sentence. (My initial, “I don’t believe one chooses what to value; one chooses what they value” was even worse.)
There is the idea floating around that if there is no God dictating values, we get to define our values for ourselves. There’s this sense—perhaps I am misreading it—that there’s joy in this unexpected freedom to define our own values and define who we are.
My point was that whatever values we ‘decide’ to have, we picked those values because we already valued them.
It doesn’t feel like freedom to me. It feels like we have exactly the same set of values we’ve always had, but now instead of being guided in a positive direction by something “inherently good” (e.g., God made us in his image) they are given by something I feel neutral about and not so loyal towards (evolution and chance circumstance).
On the other hand, I understand that if someone had a view of God as doling out arbitrary or burdensome values (you must go to church, you must get married to someone of the correct gender, etc), then being able to go by your own internal values would feel relatively free.
Hmm, this implies that if/when someone here becomes a much stronger rationalist they’ll start finding Eliezer’s posts to be overly preachy
Probably will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87r_SMBNfrQ
“Heretic Heart”—a song which only has modest philosophical overlap with LW, but is solidly inspirational for living by one’s own judgement.
“I think with my own brain” could slotted in near the end, and rhyme better than actual lyrics.