Romanticism Vs. Enlightenment

The part where they don't fell much else. The whole point was to hand wave a scenario where everything could be sacrificed for happiness alone, as a reducto absurdum.

If your trying to make it seem better by saying they can still create art, then you already agree that good is more than happiness.

edited 17th Dec '14 8:45:44 AM by SuperMerlin100

Every individual choice "potentially" conveys future harm to others. Naturally, this is a different discussion if we're talking about one person with overt authority or influence on other people. But I don't think we're talking about someone who's saying, "I don't want to go to the dentist, so let's get rid of all dentists". We're talking about someone who says "I don't want to go to the dentist, so I'll deal with my toothache."

That should be their choice. If their choice influences other people that also make a choice, then we address the trend, not take away the individual's ability to choose.

Here you go. Just two writings on the subject, but that give the gist of what I mean. Yes, it's more complex than "feelings matter", but that's still the most basic core of the philosophy. It was specifically a rejection of Straw Vulcan logic.

edited 17th Dec '14 8:50:43 AM by KingZeal

Let's say you choose not to go to the doctor when you're sick, because you have a moral objection to medicine, or don't want to deal with getting a shot, or something. Your inaction leads to severe illness which requires hospitalization and costs a hundred times more than that earlier treatment would have. Or you die and leave your family without a wage earner. These are external consequences of your selfish choice.

It seems that you are declaring the Romantic point of view to be that you should be allowed to make such a choice in favor of your own transient happiness, sacrificing your future unhappiness and that of many others. I don't necessarily agree.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That's crystal ball morality: because it's possible that this bad thing can happen in the future, that supercedes any decision you make in the present. In either case, the individual deals with the consequences of their actions. It's not inherently better that society decides they know what's best.

In your analogy, if the person is a breadwinner or wage earner for their family and said family can't survive without them, that's symptomatic of wider problems beyond that single person's choice. If the rest of the family can't earn wages because of physical illness, social stigmas, lack of opportunity, or simply not wanting to do it, then it is those factors that need to be examined—NOT the wage earner's choice. What you're discussing is basically the entire point of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

edited 17th Dec '14 9:00:47 AM by KingZeal

Just skimming through the post. This has become a very dense discussion, and I can't really spend much time analyzing it.

@ Handle: The Metal Gear series in general seems to be a manifestation of Kojima's tug of war between Romanticist and Enlightenment ideals; his guarded appreciation of technology, the successes (and horrors) of science, his affinity for fraternal bonds, noble sacrifices from its female characters, etc. He seems to see-saw between the two philosophies, but it appears that he ultimately wants to place the series in the Romanticist camp. I could be wrong.

Something I and many others have noticed is that Japanese students tend to really enjoy Romanticist literature classes, and the underlying assumption here is that Western Romanticist ideology bears numerous similarities with Shintoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. I'm not sure if Kojima is celebrating these themes in the Metal Gear series or if he is using the games to actually critique and deconstruct the ideals, showing what they would actually look like in practice. Liquid Snake's dream of recreating Outer Heaven, for example, has a lot of Romanticist underpinnings that are enveloped in military idealism. However, Liquid's ideals of a warrior paradise quickly fall apart when you apply real-world logic to what he's saying. Kojima may or not have been saying that Romanticist military glorification is very dangerous, at least when left unchecked.

There's also the trope that King Zeal established called Japanese Spirit. I really like that trope because it sums up a lot of the political and cultural values that permeate Japanese society to this day, as such can be seen in video games and anime. Just from a feminist perspective, it's peculiar to see Enlightenment values (techno-enthusiasm, achievement through training rather than destiny) and Romanticist values (adherence to tradition, the "beauty" of a woman's failures) both being used to put Kojima's female characters through a lot of crap, basically turning them into punching bags. EVA of MGS 3 is probably the closest deconstruction of this philosophy because Snake actually needs her to complete the mission in addition to her actually outperforming him in the end in ways I won't spoil here.

@ Fighteer: As you noted, we can see the Romanticist influence on the Constitution, and many of its tenets can be heard loud and clear in political discourse. The American Romanticist and Trancendentalist movements were keystones in promulgating individualist ideology. The general trend seems to be that individualism is primary to collectivism, but that the two are ultimately necessary parts of a whole. Something has changed in American politics to where individualism has been interpreted as a competing force against collectivism, and I believe that's where many of our current misunderstandings about government's role in society stem from.

Going back to Thoreau, his teachings and philosophy are grossly misunderstood. Only living a mile or so away from the nearest town, he mostly certainly was not "roughing it". Strict adherents of Thoreauian Romanticism also don't seem to understand the consequences of rugged individualism writ large partly because many of the people who prop up this ideology tend to be wealthy enough to not care. Thoreau wasn't exactly destitute. I also can't help but notice that many early Romanticist scholars were fairly well off. Samuel Johnson, by contrast, was much more of a rationalist, and this probably had something to do with the fact that he spent most of his life in overwhelming debt despite being a successful writer and cultural critic. It's easy to sit outside and write poems about the beauty of nature when you're loaded.

Alexander Pope and David Hume were quick to note that we should be wary of those with heavily concentrated wealth arguing against social contracts that promote the pursuit of happiness. Or to put it differently, Pope himself summarily called bullshit on the "I've got mine, fuck you" rhetoric that he saw from those in society with the financial and political means to make life less miserable for those below them.

edited 17th Dec '14 9:47:00 AM by Aprilla

I've heard the argument that the advent of Civil Rights had a lot to do with this. Prior to the 60s, the government was viewed as a force for protecting the interests of American values. But, when the government began implementing Civil Rights laws that prevent discrimination and segregation, private owners became disillusioned with government, because now they were forced to abandon their values in favor of diversity.

Remember that in 1961, the President could still say things like "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." to thunderous applause.

Yeah, that may be a more definitive and more accurate turning point.

Are you in favor of mandatory seat belt use? If not, why not? After all, you can't know that you will or won't be in a crash, yet we as a society consider the external costs of not wearing a belt to be worthy of criminal penalties. After all, if it were only about a person's choice to value comfort over safety, why bother having that law?

edited 17th Dec '14 10:23:47 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I often wonder what our country would have been like if JFK had not been murdered.

We lost a lot of great leaders who were getting shit done at that time. That's frustrating.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I'm indifferent to that law for the most part. I see an argument for both sides, and can't make a reasonable argument at this point as for which is better. I lean toward making them madatory, as compulsory seat belts are great as an incentive to wear them.

However, that's comparing apples and oranges. Seat belts are an either-or solution; you either wear one or you don't. You don't ask for a second opinion on a seat belt, or ask for an alternative to a seat belt. Medical treatment isn't limited to "drink this health potion or don't". You can't incentivize "do what this doctor tells you to do, when and how they tell you to do it".

edited 17th Dec '14 11:01:44 AM by KingZeal

Well, we do consider certain disease states to merit mandatory treatment lest they be transmitted. HIV is one. We have mandatory immunizations to prevent the resurgence of diseases that once depopulated nations. There are parallels; calling them unrelated is missing a lot of the nuance.

It is true that medical treatment seems to enjoy a certain unwarranted privilege in terms of people voluntarily seeking it out; I suspect that this is because people might refuse to go to the doctor if they knew they would be compelled to do things rather than offered them.

Incidentally, this is a point of frustration for me in these conversations: insisting that each situation and problem be be treated in philosophical isolation rather than considering that everything is part of a whole.

edited 17th Dec '14 11:07:10 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

A disease is a communicable affliction. Refusing to put a cast on your broken bone, for whatever reason, is not. As I said, the line is drawn when making decisions for yourself does immediate or direct harm to others.

I don't know what you mean by that second point, though.

You said it was an apples-to-oranges comparison, yet both you and I just offered situations in which mandatory treatment might be warranted. I also specifically mentioned cases where failure to get treatment harms nobody but yourself (e.g., a root canal).

edited 17th Dec '14 11:10:44 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Getting a root canal or having a broken leg affects no one (directly) but you, so you choose your own consequences. If you want to walk with a limp or have a toothache for the rest of your life, then you deal with that and all that comes with it and no one is obligated to help you (outside of basic human decency).

edited 17th Dec '14 11:28:15 AM by KingZeal

That's why we have the notions of "criminal negligence" and "manslaughter": failure to consider what might happen as a result of your actions is very grave.

It would be interesting if there was an option to waive one's right to social security/insurance/etc. in exchange for not being obliged by the law to wear seatbelts or not-consume heroin or such. "You may be allowed to do this and that without repression by the State, so long as you don't require the State to save your ass from the consequences of doing this and that."

There's few things I find more depressing than anecdotes by doctors of unappreciative drug addicts who keep putting themselves in mortal danger, cost a fortune to save, and then literally spit in the face of hospital staff and demand to be released as if they were being subjected to abominable guinea piggery. I suppose those would be the corrupt brand of romantic?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Unless I'm mistaken, though, that's limited to allowing things to happen that makes harm to others a likely outcome. Like, I can't leave a loose wire on my doorbell and claim to be an innocent if someone gets electrocuted the next time they press it.

Indeed; now all we need is define where "maybe" becomes "likely", and how much of an excuse stupidity and ignorance can be, i.e. when can it be said that, even though you could have seen it coming from the available evidence, you didn't because "it didn't occur to you".

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Or just addicts who need mental health treatment. Not everything is a matter of personal ideology, and not everybody can be saved from themselves. My father died of smoking-related illness whilst smoking two packs a day. He wasn't a raging "nobody tells me what to do" Tea Party nut, he was an addict.

What you're describing above is the Libertarian ideal of the explicit social contract (again I refer you to David Brin's essay, long though it may be), replacing the implicit social contract that Western societies currently operate under.

I don't think we're ready for it by any stretch of the imagination. People remain too selfishly ignorant to be trusted with such a system. If someone refuses the contract and then decides on a whim to get drunk and crash his car through my house, or rape my children, I'd like to think that I'd have some form of protection against it rather than shrugging and saying, "Well, he didn't sign."

edited 17th Dec '14 11:59:47 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Er, as far as I can tell, "he didn't sign" means "he's allowed to hurt himself (in some specific ways that directly hurt only him) and no-one will save him from himself", not "he's allowed to hurt other people".

And why is it always males in those scenarios anyways?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Default social assumptions, I would guess. Women do that too.

And yes, obviously if he doesn't sign the contract, he can kill himself in any way he pleases. But what most people mean when they talk about this type of negative coercion is that they want to take advantage of the benefits of membership in society without any of the responsibilities.

The reason I brought up Libertarianism (again, see the David Brin essay) is that the modern adherents of that school seem to live in a world where they Romanticize and enshrine in ideological "truth" the notion of individual freedom, without the slightest notion of their own hypocrisy.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Addiction is, again, something different. That's a physical dependency, not a choice. Likewise, psychological dependency shouldn't be considered a "choice", either.

This is the reason that "apples and oranges" and semantic considerations must exist. Just because I posit that people should be free to choose doesn't mean I have to accept the broadest definition of "choice". I don't put someone addicted to a chemical substance under the same category as someone who is fully cognizant and decides they don't want a root canal.

Treating them as the same thing groups people in broad, inaccurate categories. That may be pragmatic for taking action, but again, we're simply discussing philosophy in this thread. Which means we have no reason to ignore accuracy in favor of pragmatism.

Except that the addict may claim that they "freely chose" to indulge in the behavior which caused their addiction. That's how many smokers rationalize it, after all.

Romanticism: Smoking (or taking heroin) makes me happy, ergo it is sufficiently Good in and of itself. Its consequences are something I freely choose.

Enlightenment: Your "choice" is an illusion. Your happiness is transient and carries such terrible downside costs (to yourself and others) that it's not worth offering it to you in the first place.

edited 17th Dec '14 12:16:27 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

They can say whatever they want. If they're dependent, they're dependent.

EDIT: I'm done for the moment. We're going in circles, and I don't want to have the next 20 posts be you and I back-and-forthing more.

That said, I'll take a break while noting that you're presenting a False Dichotomy in the post above.

edited 17th Dec '14 12:31:00 PM by KingZeal

The crux of the debate seems to be to what extent it is justifiable to suppress or control human subjectivity for the purpose of general utility. Like most things, I think a balance is needed. A purely rationalistic worldview is ultimately an exercise in futility due to the lack of an objective, ultimate reason to pursue any goal or moral purpose. Any attempts to direct human society according to such ultimate truths amount to baseless theology in the end. The greatest good for the greatest number? Liberté, égalité, fraternité? All such ideals are ultimately meaningless appeals to the great abstraction, Mankind, which, in the last analysis, is equally lacking in objective validity. It amounts to utopian hubris and secular religion in the end.

On the other hand, a purely Romanticist viewpoint is ultimately self-defeating. Subjectivity at the cost of reason ultimately undermines its purposes by drawing unnecessary resistance from the outside world. A person who seeks freedom through defiance of reality ultimately loses the former to the latter. The libertine must, in the end, become the slave of his passions and to the consequences of unrestrained desire. However, I hold to the principle that the individual precedes the social identity, and that the human will has the power to build its reality instead of bowing before it. I lean towards Romanticism as a personal philosophy, but I believe that the social environment is no different from the natural environment in principle, and so, self-realization need not entail the destruction or devaluation of society. Ultimately, though, for the individual to truly develop, it becomes necessary to make use of reason, not as deity or religion, but as the servant of individual purpose. Utility is meaningless outside this context, though society, as the engine of utility, must curb the individual to preserve its integrity. The individual has no inherent obligation to society, but must recognize that causing harm leads to a backlash, and that others can justifiably attempt to stop you if you become cancerous. Sometimes, it is an acceptable cost. However, it is a cost that must be taken into account.

My personal position is a bit of a fusion between the two. I believe that, through the use of our reason, humans can build a better world in some ways (an Enlightenment idea), but that when we focus on utopian reason, we inevitably devalue much about the world that may carry great subjective value, and fail to examine ourselves to see if the goal is right for us, or if the cost is worth it (a Romantic viewpoint). Basically, I see the religion of Progress as a Faustian bargain that provides us with some things of value, holds some truth to it, but is ultimately flawed and limited.

edited 18th Dec '14 3:09:55 PM by tropetown

You guys appear to be debating Romanticism in its most extreme and simplistic form. Other, more sophisticated approaches to Romanticism have no problem with forcing people to conform to the General Will, or in adhering to a Social Contract. But, you have to do this in a way that will not compromise overall individual liberty in the long run. And human liberty is defined in positive terms, not negative terms, in Romanticism. Liberty is the freedom to fulfill your individual potential, living that life which allows you to express yourself as you truly are, provided you do not interfere with anyone else's ability to do the same. Hence, you cant choose to prevent your children from getting medical care, because that does nothing to help the parents fulfill their self potential, while interfering with their children's ability be healthy (lack of health will interfere with the opportunity to achieve self actualization).

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."