Hello everyone, Ive been reading about nietzsche recently and some concepts really resonate, especially the part with overcoming suffering, finding value in struggle and affirming eternal recurrence. But, I am not sure if these views are seen as plausible in todays philosophy, like, are there any contemporary philosophers that are rather pessimistic but hold that we should still affirm to life strongly?

Edit: the discussion is very interesting, thank you for your replies. I could make use of more top.level comments discussing the (contemporary) plausability of his views tho!

I am currently conflicted in how to deal with nihilism. I currently reject suicide on the basis that I am to weak to combat 2 billions years of evolution, programming me to want to live.

Nietzsche and Schopenhauer both offer a means to live in an absurd and inherentley meaningless world filled with suffering.

Nietzsche affirms life in that he preaches embracing suffering, and he uses nihilism as a means to destroy all previously held morals and values and create your own, to live dangerously and authentically, to affirm every aspect of existence, and love life in spite of its pain.

Schopenhauer believed existence was a tragedy, that it would have been better to have never been born. He preaches that desire causes suffering, all striving is ultimately vain, that the happiest man is he who goes through life with the minimum of pain. He advocated giving up on life and your desires, to live an ascetic life free from suffering. Thereby negating the "will to life" (i.e. evolutionary imperative to survive and strive in vain).

Aizen Sōsuke... we've heard this name countless times throughout the years. Some of us worshipped the ground he walked on with awe, some of us sighed in exhaustion because of his overzealous fans, some of us hated him, and some of us thought of him as a god. Therefore it's not surprising that I chose this multilayered character to examine in a philosophical manner. What I'm gonna do in this post is to examine Aizen's character from various angles, and show that philosophy, specifically Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy, is vital to understanding him. Some other angles, such as mythological and psychological, are also mentioned.

Here's the music to set the mood.

Morality

To understand Aizen, we first need to know a little bit about the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Without understanding this philosopher, we can't fully grasp neither Aizen nor Bleach. In a story as multilayered as Bleach, in my opinion, Aizen is the villain and maybe the character with most layers. You'll see many philosophical concepts throughout the post, but don't worry, I'll explain them.

First and foremost, we turn our gaze to Nietzsche's book "On the Genealogy of Morals". According to the idea presented in this book, the traditional view about morality's origin is wrong. Meaning the idea that "things that benefited the majority were deemed 'good' and that's how morality formed" is wrong. According to Nietzsche, at some point, our world became inverted (upside down).

https://i.redd.it/yx00fmxk3wd81.gif

Nietzsche differentiates between Good (Gut), Bad (Schlecht) and Evil (Böse). The diffference between Schlecht and Böse is very important here.

According to Nietzsche, in ancient times, noble and strong people were the upper caste in our world. These people affirmed their own qualities and called them good, so "good" was born. He supports this claim by looking at etymological origins of certain words. Words and descriptions such as "noble", "aristocratic", "with a soul of high order", "with a privileged soul" were used to praise someone. On the other hand, he says, the German word Schlecht (bad) is identical to another word, Schlicht (plain, simple). He lists some other, similar, examples.

In summary, the strong group of people called the qualities present in themselves good, and called the people who lacked them bad. They certainly weren't "good" in the current sense of the word, meaning they didn't care about human rights etc., b

The series always seemed to me to have had a Schopenhauerian undercurrent (world as irredeemably cruel and ultimately not worthworth living) that was meant to act as a powerful contrast to Isayama's ultimate affirmation of life. But as I look over everything again, everything really points to Isayama's belief in life's futility and advocacy of resignation.

Examples:

The metaphysical implications of ED1 (the cosmos is beautiful but is truly just daggers and cruelty) and OP3 (there is one insatiable Will-to-Live at the heart of all living beings that cruelly and irrationally consumes itself).

The gratuitous violence and cruelty of Season 2: being slowly torn apart, watching your mother slowly devoured, a psychic break at the point of death bringing up childhood sexual abuse, not even getting a swig of booze before being eaten.

"Everyone's a slave to something" is meant to imply that Eren's quest would always have failed because freedom is not possible in Isayama's world; the only freedom being the resignation from striving for freedom.

Armin and others' emphasis on friendship and compassion as temporary escapes from life. Also, Armin being the one who was foretold to save humanity; this salvation being extinction. Remember his weeping at the "beauty" of Zeke's plan and then his eventual alliance with Zeke.

Eren's recognition of the Rumbling as himself killing himself ("Reiner, we are the same"). Now this could have continued in a Mishimist direction, a pessimism of strength, like Erwin's suicide charge but the thematic groundwork was already laid for Eren's eventual resignation. I wrote on that topic here: https://www.reddit.com/r/titanfolk/comments/mtwq40/yukio_mishima_and_attack_on_titan/

The final ending with the destruction of Paradis and likely the rest of the world with it is a continuation of all these themes (as well as the cycle never being broken with the discovery of the tree).

TL;DR

Isayama is a pessimist of weakness who only teased Nietzschean affirmation to further contrast his view of the world as irredeemably cruel rather than the reverse and the warning signs were there throughout the manga and anime.

AMA has started! You can find the thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/qxlwsc/hey_this_is_jonas_%C4%8Deika_cck_philosophy_i_make/

We are pleased to announce an AMA with Jonas Čeika, who runs the "Jonas Čeika - CCK Philosophy" Youtube channel (formerly known as Cuck Philosophy). The channel is known for in-depth and well-researched videos concerning mostly continental philosophy as well as Marxism and socialism, and how they relate to contemporary politics, culture and media.

Jonas will be discussing among other things his recently released book, How to Philosophize with a Hammer and Sickle, about what modern socialists can learn from Nietzsche and Marx. (You can order it here.)

The AMA will begin roughly at 1:00 PM Eastern Time on the coming Friday, November 19.

If you can't make it to the AMA but want to ask a question, post it as a comment here, and we will repost it in the actual AMA thread and mention your username.

In the meantime, you may want to check out Jonas' channel. Here's a selection of videos I personally found particularly worthwhile:

Berserk as a Nietzschean Tragedy — Art, Morality, Affirmation

Marx was not a "statist"

Learning about Marx with Jordan Peterson (feat. Anarchopac and Red Plateaus)

What are societies of control?

Neoliberalism, World Music and Corporate Aesthetics

American Psycho, Baudrillard and the Postmodern Condition

The Late Capitalism of K-Pop

(For what it's worth, I'm agnostic.) The point I'm trying to make or trying to find out about is that Nietzsche’s value system is essentially tied to his atheism, and that modulo the question of theism vs atheism, Nietzsche’s and the Christian's value system is basically equivalent. So the cases are symmetrical; both sides are on par, dialectically speaking. Each side is life-affirming under its ontology while the opposing side is life-denying.

Also, again for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that it is a consensus among philosophers of religion that there exist no conclusive arguments for either atheism nor theism, so we cannot assign probability 0 or 1 to either of them, and therefore admit the nonzero probability of either being true, and admit both being possible.

Also for the sake of discussion let's just focus on (Christian) theism and ignore all other theisms/religions.

Edit: ITT a bunch of Nietzscheans mistaking my point and moreover thinking I am Christian, and not one yet refuting my alleged symmetry.

Comments from an lengthy email exchange with an ethno-nationalist acquaintance who I was on very good terms with, but has since become passive-aggressive with me. What are your thoughts?

“I'm still not entirely convinced by Benatar's approach to non-identity, probably because I've been very influenced in the past by writings on existence in Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā:

"All experienced phenomena are empty (sunya). This did not mean that they are not experienced and, therefore, non-existent; only that they are devoid of a permanent and eternal substance (svabhava) because, like a dream, they are mere projections of human consciousness. Since these imaginary fictions are experienced, they are not mere names (prajnapti)."

This leads me to believe that there is a certain inevitability to experienced phenomena, including suffering - which has no independent existence (what are the essential parts of suffering? You could say pain, but these are just other words or euphemisms for the same thing rather than the thing in itself). In fact, suffering is nothing more than (a negative aspect of) experience. It can be caused by physical or mental damage but is ultimately a response, and feature, of consciousness. There is a clear contradiction in asserting that life has no meaning or inherent value but suffering (an inherent component of life and existing) does have value (negative) and meaning (something to be avoided and which to base our view of existence on). Benatar seems to me to be particularly sensitive to suffering and exaggerates its importance in relation to the generality of experience. As a fan of Schopenhauer and pessimistic philosophy I'm sympathetic to this, although he turns the dial in an extreme direction.

Discussion of value for the non-existent also strikes me as a problem. On some level it makes sense, but in another sense it seems like trying to insert a blank into a mathematical equation. I'm trying not to be pedantic or obtuse about it, but since we are ascribing a benefit (a value) to not existing (a blank), this question of ontology would need to be fully resolved. Benatar is novel in moving away from ontology when discussing Rejectionist ideas, but I think he's just letting himself off the hook. If all our systems and calculations of value are fully and solely human and existential, then they cannot apply to non-existence and therefore they cannot apply to the non-existent. Any talk then of "sparing" suffering for the non-existent is

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Peterson’s Nietzsche is not merely some fiction of his imagination nor a contrivance used as a convenient mouthpiece for his own ideas, though occasionally his descriptions of classic aphorisms and passages can give this impression. Rather, from carefully attending to the many mentions Nietzsche receives during Peterson’s “Biblical Series Lectures,” and his other public speeches, we can see that Peterson has certainly, at least during some portion of his life, read a portion of Nietzsche’s work. The real problem begins when he attempts to put those readings towards a coherent interpretation and convincing exegesis. To illustrate this point it would behoove us to closely and attentively examine Peterson’s reading of one of Nietzsche’s most famous passages from The Gay Science about the madman and the death of God, and his ideas about how and why it relates to modern nihilism.

Peterson rightly hits on the theme that Nietzsche’s central concern in most of his thought is with the development of nihilism in western thought, though Nietzsche is specifically concerned with Christian and enlightenment thinking, most especially that of the Kantian variety, and the overcoming of this nihilism. Peterson rather repetitively and tirelessly hammers home the notion in a lecture at the Ottawa Public Library that he believes for Nietzsche the death of God and the advent of nihilism was predicated on the finding that “the ideational foundation of Western Civilization was predicated on an illusion.” (Peterson, “Strengthen the Individual,” 2017) He goes so far as to suggest in this same lecture that a side of effect of discovering one such system, the system of belief in a Christian god, can be undermined is that one can begin to question if all such systems are doomed to fail: “But if your system fails enough than [you] can [end] up in a situation where you don’t even have any faith in the idea that systems as such can work and that makes you nihilistic.” (Peterson, Ibid.) Peterson fundamentally attributes this nihilism to the loss of faith in God and “western values” more broadly, rather than as something constitutive of the western Christian moralistic framework. Here in this fundamental attribution, we have a marked and important distinction between Peterson’s and Nietzsche’s conception of nihilism. While one can imagine this might be how Peterson conceives of nihilism, its emergence and character, it would be wholly another thing to suggest this is Nietzsche’

The nurse asked the rabbit, “what is your blood type?”

“I am probably a type O” said the rabbit.

The doctor says it terminal.

Alot of great jokes get posted here! However just because you have a joke, doesn't mean it's a dad joke.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT NSFW, THIS IS ABOUT LONG JOKES, BLONDE JOKES, SEXUAL JOKES, KNOCK KNOCK JOKES, POLITICAL JOKES, ETC BEING POSTED IN A DAD JOKE SUB

Try telling these sexual jokes that get posted here, to your kid and see how your spouse likes it.. if that goes well, Try telling one of your friends kid about your sex life being like Coca cola, first it was normal, than light and now zero , and see if the parents are OK with you telling their kid the "dad joke"

I'm not even referencing the NSFW, I'm saying Dad jokes are corny, and sometimes painful, not sexual

So check out r/jokes for all types of jokes

r/unclejokes for dirty jokes

r/3amjokes for real weird and alot of OC

r/cleandadjokes If your really sick of seeing not dad jokes in r/dadjokes

Punchline !

Edit: this is not a post about NSFW , This is about jokes, knock knock jokes, blonde jokes, political jokes etc being posted in a dad joke sub

Edit 2: don't touch the thermostat

Do your worst!

How the hell am I suppose to know when it’s raining in Sweden?

Mathematical puns makes me number

We told her she can lean on us for support. Although, we are going to have to change her driver's license, her height is going down by a foot. I don't want to go too far out on a limb here but it better not be a hack job.

Ants don’t even have the concept fathers, let alone a good dad joke. Keep r/ants out of my r/dadjokes.

But no, seriously. I understand rule 7 is great to have intelligent discussion, but sometimes it feels like 1 in 10 posts here is someone getting upset about the jokes on this sub. Let the mods deal with it, they regulate the sub.

Mentos

(I will see myself out)

They were cooked in Greece.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

He lost May

Now that I listen to albums, I hardly ever leave the house.

Said if she ever hosts a gender reveal party, when it comes time to pop the balloon she'll spray everyone with water.

Gender is fluid.

Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"

Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?

But let me give it a shot.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

He’s the new temp.

And now I’m cannelloni

Because she wanted to see the task manager.

But that’s comparing apples to oranges

And boy are my arms legs.

Amy

Put it on my bill

Heard they've been doing some shady business.

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/OmniscientReader/comments/prpbiw/thus_regressed_zarathustra_the_eternal_recurrence/

Amor Fati

In ORV, Ariadne has a vision of YJH as “one who carries the wheel of fate on his back”. This is a clear reference to the Nietzschean concept of “Amor Fati” (at least to me). The term is Latin for “love of fate”, although some translations of Nietszche's writings use “love of life”, since in the context of eternal recurrence fate and life are almost interchangeable. As the demon that first gave the hypothesis of eternal recurrence asked, if one is made to live out one’s life again and again ceaselessly – the good and the ugly, guaranteed tragedies and traumas, and the long stretches of mundane – can one meet the challenge of loving one’s fate? Nietzsche wants to believe that it is possible, that at some point we would come to realize that every moment, the mundane and painful ones too, are meaningful precisely because they repeat and are therefore eternal. There is no need to go to an afterlife or escape Samsara to witness eternity. Therefore, for Nietzsche, amor fati is life-affirming and can only be accepted and understood by someone who has developed their physical and psychological fortitude enough to grab life by the balls, even if – especially if – that life is hard or seems empty of meaning. In this light, it’s clear then that the “will to power” is not a will to dominate over others but the will to reach this state of fortitude to not only withstand the eternal recurrence but to celebrate it as well. This is touching upon the definition of “the aesthetic life” to Nietzsche: a life ‘artistically’ lived, in all its shades from disaster to glory.

And what about TWSA’s Nietzschean hero, YJH? Even having to live and re-live the same events and tragedies, and all the mundane beats in-between, knowing that even the small advancement he made in a regression compared to the one before will recur and be re-experienced…can he not only accept but celebrate his fate? Unfortunately, in TWSA, YJH ultimately fails to achieve amor fati. The eternal recurrence breaks him (literally) in psyche and body. As SP, he becomes a Zarathustra seeking death.

From the Eternity to the Epilogue (ORV)

Then something shifts in the epilogue of TWSA. The protagonist suddenly is not YJH but KDJ; it’s not the narrative hero but the