Schopenhauer's philosophy (in/and my life)
11 July 2017 [link youtube]
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Youtube Automatic Transcription
it's very common to hear a vague lament
that people believe what they want to believe people only see what they want to see to hear complaints about wishful thinking in general and about the extent to which desire tends to rule over the rational lives of men even when they think what they're saying and doing is eminently rational what they're really doing is providing justifications for their own desires for me the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer was really part and parcel of decade-long examination of those issues that started in childhood I definitely had the example of my own parents and the way my parents thought the way they pot thought about politics the way they figured things out and made excuses for things in their own personal lives terms now they lived in what they did I really saw a world around me where for the most part reason was a tool in the hands of desire and in large part people were manipulating themselves manipulating others and making excuses for things even when they were engaged in formal academic philosophy and definitely when they were discussing politics or discussing the the choices they made their values and so on in their in their personal lives I could say you know from my childhood onward part of my interest in both European philosophy and Buddhist philosophy had to do with this problem of understanding the role of desire in our lives in this video I'm not going to provide an overview of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer I'm going to talk about the ways in which Schopenhauer's philosophy shaped or influenced or impacted my life you know thought of an example last night just before I went to bed one of my employers one of my bosses guy was directly my boss I remember he read this formal academic linguistic theory it was a paper presented at a linguistics conference and then he tacked on to it this elaborate fantasy he was German himself and he was explaining to me in apparently national terms you know in a calm rational way and he perceives himself as being completely rational and he explained to me his theory that a group of Germans you know 2,000 years ago or something in ancient times could have come to Thailand and conquered a small Kingdom you know taking over smoking and influenced the development of the Thai language you on the basis of some alleged similarities between you know linguistic similarities between German and tuyas languages and I laughed at him because from my perspective it was so obvious that this was a self-serving fantasy or self-serving delusion he was himself a German at one time a German tourist now a German who lived in Thailand permanently it was such an obvious power fantasy like Conan the Barbarian or something and I said to allo you know ancient Thailand was a was a slave society we're not we can't even be talking about 2,000 years ago by the way it would probably have to be less than 500 years ago in order to influence the Thai language in Thailand not going to get into why that is historical would actually have to be pretty recent history and because at one point there were no times in Thailand and the time a group migration and linguistic formation in Thailand is much more recent than people want to believe in it anyway modern Thai is not an ancient language long story short um but I said to him even if you had this fantasy on the basis of reading this academic article why wouldn't you assume that there were Germans who were shipwrecked here and became slaves who were shipwrecked in Thailand and ended up its laser why wouldn't you assume some other more plausible explanation rather than arriving here as conquerors and forming a forming a kingdom of their own within Thailand you know and then leaving no historical evidence and that is a ridiculous you know tinfoil hat theory but this guy was talking to him he's an intelligent human being and you know he's in some ways well-read you know reading an academic paper and to him it's invisible to him the extent to which desire is shaping what he sees and what he doesn't see is shaping his thoughts is motivating his speculation his perception of that speculation as reasonable and so on even though it's a small example I mean it's not nearly as salacious as the type of delusion you get into with you know personal romance or what-have-you you know when desire is really shaping how people think and feel and behave in a very sharp and obvious way you know my whole life I mostly grew up around left-wing people people on the far left wing for the most part somewhere between you know socialist and communist you know a lot of the people I grew up around and the way they thought about politics in history whether recent politics or politics now from a hundred years ago 1917 the way they would see some things and not see others self-selected blindness that was a big deal to me as a young man like even 12 years old I was really bothered by that willing ignorance voluntary ignorance and the people they didn't see themselves as being voluntarily it is being willingly ignorant you know those were really issues that haunted my youth so when I encountered you know philosopher Schopenhauer I was not interested in the metaphysical side of what he did I mean it's very true to say that Schopenhauer's concept of the will the will with a capital W if you like is not the same as desire I mean if you're teaching a course you know the university students or something you can't mix up Schopenhauer's concept of the will and show Banaras concept of desire you can see that very clearly for example in Chopin hours work the will in nature or Schopenhauer's influence on Charles Darwin and on early Darwinist thought and so including social Darwinism but in general you know philosophy of nature evolution etc I mean the concept of evolution itself was really new and contested during Schopenhauer's life and he was influential for better and for worse than that you know I realized my interest in Schopenhauer is not at all Schopenhauer's own interest in why he wrote those books and why he project propounded that philosophy but you know in the same way I do think that any serious reading of Buddhist philosophy tera vaada Buddhist flaws is going to lead you to Crest question the roots of desire and in what way our perception of the world is different with and without desire put it like that you know we have these sayings that we throw around so casually that beauty is in the eye of the beholder right but you know I had gay friends growing up gay and bisexual friends it's so easy to just say beauty's men the older and it's really hard to profoundly reflect on the way in which your gay friend may perceive the world differently and feel differently about the world and politics because of the rule of desire in his life or her life whatever we're talking about you know um you know it's it's easy to say to talk about you know wishful thinking but the role wishful thinking has in terms of your own friends your own colleagues your own frenemy using your own enemy and why they believe the things they do why they're protesting the things they're protesting politically or something why they approach the world where they do why they set certain priorities you know are they even aware themselves that they made a choice when they got outraged over the war in Yugoslavia it's an old reference or you know Israel's occupation of Palestine if type of white people living in Canada there's I mean all-out range is self-selected outrage but normally when you talk to these people the role of desire the passions are so overwhelming they don't think of themselves as making rational choices or irrational choices as choosing to put a priority on this issue instead of that issue I met people who would care passionately about one political issue but totally ignore you know the status of First Nations native people can at the Creator within Mohawks and so on and I wouldn't just jump down their throats about that I wouldn't just you know insult them for that we all have to make those choices but it was very troubling to me that the people involved old did not perceive those as choices now look in some ways the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer if you take it too seriously is utter madness if you read for example what Schopenhauer did with the theory of colors I think that's very instructive Schopenhauer was one of the last people on earth to refuse to accept Newtonian color theory like you refuse to accept that it's an objective fact that you can take white light and put it through a prism like a rock crystal and then the white light will split into you know the color spectrum as we say now in which the red green blue and violet so in a sense in a manner of speaking white light contains the other colors Schopenhauer was furious at this and reacted against it and that's a really instructive example of the way in which Schopenhauer doesn't separate the subjective from the objective world he is really talking about the psychology of color the psychology of the perception of color and not the objective reality of what happens when you take light and put it through a prism that's obvious to me that's probably obvious to 99% of modern people today you can say well look show up an hour you're making this interesting point about how we perceive color how we think about color but just can't possibly have the racine kind of reality of the laws of physics the discussion of Newton's theory of color and then the way light actually operates in a laboratory this is ridiculous in the same way and in parallel to that you know what Schopenhauer says the will existing objectively in contrast to the perception of phenomena or material reality if you take it seriously it's complete madness but definitely for me in terms of the significance of reading Schopenhauer it was just this long complex meditation on the role of desire in life desire and perception desire and what we think of as objective reality when most of the time in our personal lives or our political lives we're not dealing with objective reality or instead dealing with that difficult gray area where beauty is in the eye of the beholder ugliness is in the eye of the beholder you perceive things as important or you perceive things at all because of desires and concerns that are in the eye of the beholder and definitely I mean at the end of that process of study in terms of all the bits and pieces that I that I found useful in both European velocity and Buddhist philosophy I was someone who was very detached about very sharply aware of the role of my desires in shaping my own reasoning and so my employer in Thailand at that example he reads this academic paper and has this kind of power to repent that's why that was so clear to me and so laughable to me in that split-second in that moment I didn't have to go away and think about it or something it was immediately obvious to me what the problem with this course of reasoning was and ultimately the way the shapes informs my life now is that you know I in a profound sense I'm not susceptible to my own wishful thinking in a profound sense I don't become trapped in the riddle of you know railing against ugliness that's merely in the eye of the beholder or lusting after forms of beauty that are in the eye of the beholder and that beauty can definitely can definitely include ideals and idealism beautiful ideas beautiful aspirations you know the things that motivate political activism and idealism I'm profoundly detached about that in a way that I wouldn't be if I hadn't engaged in that decade or more of engagement with philosophy both European philosophy and Buddhist philosophy including Arthur Schopenhauer
that people believe what they want to believe people only see what they want to see to hear complaints about wishful thinking in general and about the extent to which desire tends to rule over the rational lives of men even when they think what they're saying and doing is eminently rational what they're really doing is providing justifications for their own desires for me the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer was really part and parcel of decade-long examination of those issues that started in childhood I definitely had the example of my own parents and the way my parents thought the way they pot thought about politics the way they figured things out and made excuses for things in their own personal lives terms now they lived in what they did I really saw a world around me where for the most part reason was a tool in the hands of desire and in large part people were manipulating themselves manipulating others and making excuses for things even when they were engaged in formal academic philosophy and definitely when they were discussing politics or discussing the the choices they made their values and so on in their in their personal lives I could say you know from my childhood onward part of my interest in both European philosophy and Buddhist philosophy had to do with this problem of understanding the role of desire in our lives in this video I'm not going to provide an overview of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer I'm going to talk about the ways in which Schopenhauer's philosophy shaped or influenced or impacted my life you know thought of an example last night just before I went to bed one of my employers one of my bosses guy was directly my boss I remember he read this formal academic linguistic theory it was a paper presented at a linguistics conference and then he tacked on to it this elaborate fantasy he was German himself and he was explaining to me in apparently national terms you know in a calm rational way and he perceives himself as being completely rational and he explained to me his theory that a group of Germans you know 2,000 years ago or something in ancient times could have come to Thailand and conquered a small Kingdom you know taking over smoking and influenced the development of the Thai language you on the basis of some alleged similarities between you know linguistic similarities between German and tuyas languages and I laughed at him because from my perspective it was so obvious that this was a self-serving fantasy or self-serving delusion he was himself a German at one time a German tourist now a German who lived in Thailand permanently it was such an obvious power fantasy like Conan the Barbarian or something and I said to allo you know ancient Thailand was a was a slave society we're not we can't even be talking about 2,000 years ago by the way it would probably have to be less than 500 years ago in order to influence the Thai language in Thailand not going to get into why that is historical would actually have to be pretty recent history and because at one point there were no times in Thailand and the time a group migration and linguistic formation in Thailand is much more recent than people want to believe in it anyway modern Thai is not an ancient language long story short um but I said to him even if you had this fantasy on the basis of reading this academic article why wouldn't you assume that there were Germans who were shipwrecked here and became slaves who were shipwrecked in Thailand and ended up its laser why wouldn't you assume some other more plausible explanation rather than arriving here as conquerors and forming a forming a kingdom of their own within Thailand you know and then leaving no historical evidence and that is a ridiculous you know tinfoil hat theory but this guy was talking to him he's an intelligent human being and you know he's in some ways well-read you know reading an academic paper and to him it's invisible to him the extent to which desire is shaping what he sees and what he doesn't see is shaping his thoughts is motivating his speculation his perception of that speculation as reasonable and so on even though it's a small example I mean it's not nearly as salacious as the type of delusion you get into with you know personal romance or what-have-you you know when desire is really shaping how people think and feel and behave in a very sharp and obvious way you know my whole life I mostly grew up around left-wing people people on the far left wing for the most part somewhere between you know socialist and communist you know a lot of the people I grew up around and the way they thought about politics in history whether recent politics or politics now from a hundred years ago 1917 the way they would see some things and not see others self-selected blindness that was a big deal to me as a young man like even 12 years old I was really bothered by that willing ignorance voluntary ignorance and the people they didn't see themselves as being voluntarily it is being willingly ignorant you know those were really issues that haunted my youth so when I encountered you know philosopher Schopenhauer I was not interested in the metaphysical side of what he did I mean it's very true to say that Schopenhauer's concept of the will the will with a capital W if you like is not the same as desire I mean if you're teaching a course you know the university students or something you can't mix up Schopenhauer's concept of the will and show Banaras concept of desire you can see that very clearly for example in Chopin hours work the will in nature or Schopenhauer's influence on Charles Darwin and on early Darwinist thought and so including social Darwinism but in general you know philosophy of nature evolution etc I mean the concept of evolution itself was really new and contested during Schopenhauer's life and he was influential for better and for worse than that you know I realized my interest in Schopenhauer is not at all Schopenhauer's own interest in why he wrote those books and why he project propounded that philosophy but you know in the same way I do think that any serious reading of Buddhist philosophy tera vaada Buddhist flaws is going to lead you to Crest question the roots of desire and in what way our perception of the world is different with and without desire put it like that you know we have these sayings that we throw around so casually that beauty is in the eye of the beholder right but you know I had gay friends growing up gay and bisexual friends it's so easy to just say beauty's men the older and it's really hard to profoundly reflect on the way in which your gay friend may perceive the world differently and feel differently about the world and politics because of the rule of desire in his life or her life whatever we're talking about you know um you know it's it's easy to say to talk about you know wishful thinking but the role wishful thinking has in terms of your own friends your own colleagues your own frenemy using your own enemy and why they believe the things they do why they're protesting the things they're protesting politically or something why they approach the world where they do why they set certain priorities you know are they even aware themselves that they made a choice when they got outraged over the war in Yugoslavia it's an old reference or you know Israel's occupation of Palestine if type of white people living in Canada there's I mean all-out range is self-selected outrage but normally when you talk to these people the role of desire the passions are so overwhelming they don't think of themselves as making rational choices or irrational choices as choosing to put a priority on this issue instead of that issue I met people who would care passionately about one political issue but totally ignore you know the status of First Nations native people can at the Creator within Mohawks and so on and I wouldn't just jump down their throats about that I wouldn't just you know insult them for that we all have to make those choices but it was very troubling to me that the people involved old did not perceive those as choices now look in some ways the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer if you take it too seriously is utter madness if you read for example what Schopenhauer did with the theory of colors I think that's very instructive Schopenhauer was one of the last people on earth to refuse to accept Newtonian color theory like you refuse to accept that it's an objective fact that you can take white light and put it through a prism like a rock crystal and then the white light will split into you know the color spectrum as we say now in which the red green blue and violet so in a sense in a manner of speaking white light contains the other colors Schopenhauer was furious at this and reacted against it and that's a really instructive example of the way in which Schopenhauer doesn't separate the subjective from the objective world he is really talking about the psychology of color the psychology of the perception of color and not the objective reality of what happens when you take light and put it through a prism that's obvious to me that's probably obvious to 99% of modern people today you can say well look show up an hour you're making this interesting point about how we perceive color how we think about color but just can't possibly have the racine kind of reality of the laws of physics the discussion of Newton's theory of color and then the way light actually operates in a laboratory this is ridiculous in the same way and in parallel to that you know what Schopenhauer says the will existing objectively in contrast to the perception of phenomena or material reality if you take it seriously it's complete madness but definitely for me in terms of the significance of reading Schopenhauer it was just this long complex meditation on the role of desire in life desire and perception desire and what we think of as objective reality when most of the time in our personal lives or our political lives we're not dealing with objective reality or instead dealing with that difficult gray area where beauty is in the eye of the beholder ugliness is in the eye of the beholder you perceive things as important or you perceive things at all because of desires and concerns that are in the eye of the beholder and definitely I mean at the end of that process of study in terms of all the bits and pieces that I that I found useful in both European velocity and Buddhist philosophy I was someone who was very detached about very sharply aware of the role of my desires in shaping my own reasoning and so my employer in Thailand at that example he reads this academic paper and has this kind of power to repent that's why that was so clear to me and so laughable to me in that split-second in that moment I didn't have to go away and think about it or something it was immediately obvious to me what the problem with this course of reasoning was and ultimately the way the shapes informs my life now is that you know I in a profound sense I'm not susceptible to my own wishful thinking in a profound sense I don't become trapped in the riddle of you know railing against ugliness that's merely in the eye of the beholder or lusting after forms of beauty that are in the eye of the beholder and that beauty can definitely can definitely include ideals and idealism beautiful ideas beautiful aspirations you know the things that motivate political activism and idealism I'm profoundly detached about that in a way that I wouldn't be if I hadn't engaged in that decade or more of engagement with philosophy both European philosophy and Buddhist philosophy including Arthur Schopenhauer