Tuesday Dec 12, 2006

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So I am beginning to think that Heracleitus may be correct about philosophy, it may be mental masturbation at the end of the day. That isn't quite correct, it feels less like masturbation than it does something akin to a harpsichord brought out to entertain company. It is certainly not a serious pursuit, but rather something done to provide a moment of novelty to those nearby. I guess that would make it mental mutual masturbation. While I like the alliteration of the phrase, I can't help but imagine that there should be more to it. It should not merely be an activity to show how well educated or well read you are, but something more than that. It seems like it is never done to provide answers, but just done to ask questions that make the asker seem clever because they are poorly worded and stupid. What makes me more infuriated is that any attempt at having any kind of deep or meaningful discussion of the nature of anything is met with one of two responses. Either it is immediately read as the aforementioned attempt to be clever, is acknowledged as such, and then there is some reciprocation of an off topic nature (since meaningful discussion would interfere with our philosophical cock measuring contest) and then the conversation goes back to meaningless smalltalk. The other response is of frustration with why anyone would want to talk about the nature of anything. While I certainly understand the pragmatic or hedonistic impulse, I find it depressing that I find myself talking about nothing so often. I wish this had a point other than merely expressing my frustration with this phenomena, but I am afraid that I am a huge hypocrite and I have just said nothing.

/L
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
jj_r0x0rz:
don't be sad to be talking about nothing, at least your are talking ^_^

i talk about nothing a lot but it adds up sometimes into a little somthing
heracleitus:
Did I say it was like mental masturbation? It certainly sounds like something I might have said at some point. If so, I'm not sure I agree with myself. I think philosophical systems on a whole are bullshit, as anyone trying to come up with a unified theorem of anything is usually forgetting more than several somethings. Ethical systems especially are riddled with holes. That, however, is where I think philosophy might demonstrate its importance - assuming whatever value you attach to your existence is properly placed. Since life is never so simple as to be guided by a set of sure and steady rules, I think it's valuable to question not only your beliefs, but also your decisions and logic and the heightened awareness of possibilities that I find comes from reading written philosophy are powerful tools in that endeavor. Your problem arises from that all but the very best of people are little better than cows most of the time and even those select few sometimes choose to only stray so far from the herd.

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