
Against Cynicism: A philosopher's brilliant reasons for living  - 1337biz
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113387/peter-sloterdijks-philosophy-gives-reasons-living
======
javajosh
This very long article is at once both thought-provoking and rather confused,
like reading the beginning of a hundred interesting conversations, each
interrupting the last before they get anywhere. I'm not really sure _what_ to
take away from it, other than "if you want to finish the conversation, buy the
books."

The title here gives a clue as to what someone else got out of it. "Against
Cynicism: A philosopher's brilliant reasons for living." We might infer that
this was about reasons for living, that they are brilliant, and that cynicism
isn't part of those reasons. And yet, I'm not entirely sure that "reasons for
living" are what Sloterdijk is even addressing. It seems more like he's
addressing the concern of minimizing suffering in a culture that's largely
given up God. He's an atheist who admits that religion in general and the
belief in God in particular has utility, and he's exploring replacement
therapies. An eminently reasonable thing to do. But this isn't a reason for
living: for the vast majority of people, the "reason for living" is simply
that the alternative, death, is petrifying.

~~~
VLM
"for the vast majority of people, the "reason for living" is simply that the
alternative, death, is petrifying."

Perhaps I'm unusually happy, but my reason is to have the most fun, which
pretty strongly implies helping those around me have fun, while being focused
on long term. Some sociocultural rules from the other side of the planet three
thousand years ago are interesting and all that, but don't float my boat or
fit my needs.

~~~
javajosh
Let's say rather that the least common denominator reason for living is that,
well, death sucks. Yes, of course are positive reasons to live, and while
those are nice to have, they aren't as universal a motivator, I think, as
simple fear of death.

~~~
SCAQTony
I have to agree.

Shakespeare: "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...?" Or as
brilliantly stated by XKCD, you end up going back into the "Lego box"
[http://xkcd.com/659/](http://xkcd.com/659/)

To define what sucks about death is the concept of complete non-existence and
the the total erasure of everything you ever were and consequently destined to
never exist again.

Your atoms may change into different forms but you will never experience it.
That to me makes even the worst of life experiences better than death sentence
known as "...we owe god one death."

~~~
daviator88
Shakespeare has a wonderfully ability to make me feel okay with my own
mortality.

------
gregw134
Thanks for sharing this. I'm glad to see a secular author who has a real
appreciation of religion--he doesn't treat it as something that makes
dimwitted people happy, but as a training regimen designed for self-
improvement, a struggle to develop good mental hygiene and psychologically
safe communities, etc. If I read the article right, he is saying we need to
develop these practices in a nonreligious context.

I agree, but how can secular people and communities practice spirituality in a
way that will cause these changes without sharing a common set of beliefs,
practices and language?

~~~
mgkimsal
It doesn't need to be called 'spirituality' \- you hit it on the head before
with 'self-improvement'

It's possible for secular people to practice self-improvement, but why would
we not share a common set of beliefs/practices/language? I think many self-
improvement groups do just that - obvious ones like churches, but also non-
obvious ones (book clubs, running clubs, etc).

~~~
rayiner
You can practice self improvement, but there is not really anything to tie
people together in ordinary living in the absence of religion. Self
improvement groups do not create the kind of bonds in a community that will
cause people to make real sacrifices for their neighbors. As an atheist
married to a practicing Christian I am acutely aware of the fact that my
wife's church offers a level of community, tied together by common beliefs and
practices, that I've never found outside a religious context. Book clubs don't
give you a shared way of life, and political organizations are linked by a
common fight not a common way of living ordinary life. I can't think of
anything in my secular urban world that is quite like the barn raisings my
wife tells me about from the small, Christian, town in Iowa where she grew up.
The closest thing I guess would be some sort of Habitat for Humanity project,
but that's very different: focused outward rather than inward; charity rather
than reciprocity.

~~~
dctoedt
> _there is not really anything to tie people together_ in ordinary living
> _[emphasis added] in the absence of religion. Self improvement groups do not
> create the kind of bonds in a community that will cause people to make real
> sacrifices for their neighbors._

1\. A sense that we share an on-going narrative can give rise to a shared
sense of purpose or mission. That in turn can be a significant motivator of
communal behavior, even in ordinary life.

(EXAMPLES: + The founding of the modern state of Israel [many founders were
secular or even atheistic]. + American exceptionalism and "manifest destiny."
\+ Tradition in, e.g., military units and sports teams. + Scientific teams in
pursuit of a discovery.)

2\. QUESTION: Do we share any non-religious on-going narrative that can
_scalably_ and _sustainably_ generate a sense of shared purpose or mission?
Certainly different individuals are motivated by different things. Here's what
sort of does it for me: It's plausible that we're all participating in a
cosmic construction project that's been in progress for at least the past 13.8
billion years. In the words of an old story, we aren't just cutting stone to
pay the bills, we're building a cathedral [0]. We can't know what the final
outcome of the construction project will be, but if past trends are any
indication, it'll be amazing. To me, that's pretty exciting.

[0] Self-cite:
[http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/06/metanarratives_....](http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/06/metanarratives_.html)
and
[http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/09/creation_a_tita....](http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/09/creation_a_tita.html)
and
[http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/03/progress_hope_a....](http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/03/progress_hope_a.html)

~~~
rayiner
Re: (1), it seems to me that, at least in my circle of friends (yuppies,
basically), there is precious little narrative that gives rise to a shared
sense of purpose. There are bonds of friendship, but between people of
comparable social class and experience. There is nothing that binds me to the
people in my neighborhoods, etc, at least nothing that compares to the depth
of the ties my wife experiences in her religious community.

Re: (2), it is an interesting open question to me. I don't yearn for the
spiritual aspect of religion. I don't fear death, I don't lack any sense of
purpose, etc. I do lament not being able to participate in the communal aspect
of religion. I haven't encountered any secular alternative. I'll give an
example: my wife had our daughter dedicated in her church. I have encountered
nothing like that in the secular realm. Maybe you can offer a baby shower as
an example, but our baby shower would involve other upper middle class people,
not a broad cross-section of the people who live near us.

~~~
selmnoo
It's worthwhile to note that it's unclear if religion is so decidedly behind a
shared sense of purpose among the people. E.g. Pakistan, an Islamic nation
with 97% of its populace being Muslim, is littered with social problems, there
is very much a lack of shared sense of purpose. I think culture and history
are better candidates for what unites people together.

My apologies for getting off-topic, but if I may inquire: how is it, being
atheistic and being married to a religious person? Isn't it difficult to work
things out, when the other believes that you're destined to hell? To believe
that there's nothing after death, and that there's a whole afterlife of heaven
(or hell) is quite a gap. How do you reconcile with this, do you often try to
convert her, or make her see things differently?

> I do lament not being able to participate in the communal aspect of
> religion. I haven't encountered any secular alternative.

There are atheist churches our there:
[http://firstchurchofatheism.com/](http://firstchurchofatheism.com/)

The one near me has quite a vibrant community. They do clean-ups, social work,
etc. I have made many good friends there.

~~~
dctoedt
> _how is it, being atheistic and being married to a religious person?_

You didn't direct the question to me, but I was an agnostic married (then and
now) to a fairly-serious Christian. These days I'm sort of in the believer
camp, for reasons that I think are intellectually defensible [0]. I still
don't subscribe to many of the official tenets of Christianity [1].

The key to that aspect of our marriage seems to be mutual love and -admiration
--- which dictate respectful behavior --- while agreeing to disagree about
certain matters theological. We each recognize that for all we know, _both_ of
us could be wrong.

We see the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin's approach: Concerning the divinity of
Jesus, Franklin wrote, a few weeks before his death at age 84, that, _" it is
a question I do not dogmatize upon, ... and think it needless to busy myself
with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less
trouble."_ [2].

\-----------

> _Isn 't it difficult to work things out, when the other believes that you're
> destined to hell?_

Your premise won't always be true. I can't speak to what Muslims, Jews, etc.,
would believe, but most traditional Christians claim that even a deathbed
conversion will be rewarded with eternal salvation. Such a Christian, married
to an atheist, can thus hope that the loved one will still make it to heaven.

While some Calvinist-style Christians believe in pre-destination [3], they're
in the minority. As I understand it, Calvinists don't claim to know _who_ will
go to heaven or to hell.

In liberal Christianity, there's a strain of universalist thought that says
God would not punish finite sin with eternal damnation; therefore, everyone
will make it to heaven eventually.

Finally, not all religious people believe in heaven or hell; some (like me)
simply don't know what happens after death.

\-----------

[0] Self-cite:
[http://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/05/why_i_call_myse....](http://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/05/why_i_call_myse.html)

[1]
[http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/redacting_the_n....](http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/redacting_the_n.html)

[2]
[http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/benjamin_frankl....](http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/benjamin_frankl.html)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination)

------
PavlovsCat
Though I heard the name so often I never read the man, I think have to rectify
that.

 _We need to recover, and give to one another, the trust that we once gave our
placentas._

Wow! It's so refreshing to hear something like that put so strongly. When
discussing politics, people often say competition and struggle is normal and
lets us have all the nice things, but I like this radically different outlook
much more, man should not be predator to man. After all, we can also invent
things because it makes ourselves and others happy, just as an expression of
our creativity or intelligence... I would even say we can't avoid it.
Competition is nice, sportsmanship and/or cooperation are nicer.

~~~
zepolud
It's a lot less poetic if you consider that it wasn't "trust" that brought our
placentas into being but a mutated retrovirus.

More power to this guy if he helps people feel better about themselves and the
world but he should refrain from entering public debates about "genetic
engineering and economics" while presenting himself as somebody enlightened,
knowledgeable or even adequately informed.

It is unfair to judge him solely from this article without having read his
books but what can be gathered from it and a cursory search suggests that his
interest in modern science consists exclusively of surfing the current
zeitgeist without actually being interested in science, or even the philosophy
of science.

If he indeed is "at the forefront of European intellectual life" it would be a
pretty sad testament to the dismal state of contemporary philosophy.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Fair enough ^^

------
n1ghtm4n
1) obscurantist jargon. check.

2) banal observations once you finally figure out WTF they are talking about.
check.

3) lauded for being the smartest, greatest, most brilliant intellectual of
their age. check.

4) books with inscrutable titles like _Bubbles: Spheres Volume I:
Microspherology_ and _Rage and Time_. check. (LOL! How big do your balls have
to be to give a book a title like that?)

5) constant name-dropping of fashionable intellectuals. check.

Must be European philosophy!

UPDATE: quote from Amazon description of _Bubbles_. Behold the enormity of
Peter Sloterdijk's balls:

    
    
        "reinterprets the history of Western metaphysics as an
        inherently spatial and immunological project, from the 
        discovery of self (bubble) to the exploration of world 
        (globe) to the poetics of plurality (foam)."
    

[http://www.amazon.com/Bubbles-Spheres-Microspherology-
Semiot...](http://www.amazon.com/Bubbles-Spheres-Microspherology-Semiotext-
Foreign/dp/1584351047/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374460081&sr=1-2)

------
jivatmanx
I think it's possible to believe that a cause is lost, and yet still believe
in the categorical imperative of fighting for it.

Cicero is immortal as both the greatest and last defender of the Roman
Republic.

~~~
webnrrd2k
There is a saying I really like: "I may not have hope, but I do have
determination". I'm not sure who said it, but it's true (for some things).

People have faced many hopeless tasks and triumphed. They only seem inevitable
_after_ the fact. I'm sure it was difficult to expect the end of racism in
South Africa, but it happened. It's not hard to think of many other examples.

It's worth it to start working on a cause you believe in, and other people
will join.

~~~
Goosey
Correct. There is no racism is South Africa.

~~~
webnrrd2k
I should have written "institutionalized racism" or maybe "overt state
sponsored racism". I wasn't trying to imply that racism no longer exists in
South Africa.

~~~
Goosey
Yeah, I realize my comment was overly sensitive. Sorry 'bout that. :)

------
milesf
Provocative title, but in the end no message.

Reminds me of watching the series "Lost", where the expectation was set from
the beginning that there was a logical, rational explanation for the whole
thing. In the end they producers basically lied, and it ended up being a big
shaggy dog story.

If anyone can extract the "brilliant reasons for living" from that article,
please post them here. I don't expect much of a list.

~~~
danbmil99
Haha, the plot of "Lost" is a great metaphor for studying philosophy.

------
9h1d9j809s
"[...] it is just one of the many provocative ideas that he develops and then
drops in the course of the book, which reads less like a structured argument
than a long prose poem. Sloterdijk’s strength and appeal come from the
intuitive and metaphorical quality of his thought, his unconventional
approaches to familiar problems, his willingness to scandalize."

This sums up Sloterdijk pretty well. I highly recommend reading him.

------
jdmitch
While I wasn't previously familiar with Sloterdijk, I find it interesting that
he takes exactly the opposite value from Christianity as Slavoj Zizek, the
other great popular atheist apologist for Christianity (cf. Zizek's _The
Fragile Absolute: Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting for_ ).

"Sloterdijk’s ideal is not Pauline conversion but Trinitarian 'perichoresis,'"

Unfortunately, I don't think Sloterdijk has understood the theological context
of _perichoresis_ which he goes on to define:

"'Perichoresis means that the milieu of the persons is entirely the
relationship itself,' he writes, envisioning love as a total mutual
absorption."

 _Perichoresis_ is literally "mutual interpenetration" and refers to the greek
_choros_ and their dances around ( _peri_ ) each other in interlocking rings
in the theatre. In the theological appropriation of this imagery, this has
more to do with the depth and interdependence of the relationship than with
the "milieu" \- though it's not clear what he means by that.

------
MWil
I really enjoyed this phrase: ""brilliant at diagnosis and helpless at cure""

------
thyrsus
Call me cynical, but this exudes the intellectual aroma of Fuller's
"Synergetics". In the words of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and
remembering everything to which it referred): "Mostly harmless."

------
cousin_it
I couldn't understand the article. Can someone summarize the new ideas?

~~~
louwrentius
I don't understand it either. I didn't understand anything and I gave up after
a few paragraphs. If we're dumb, we are at least not alone ;)

~~~
winfred
I understood it reasonably well. The article wasn't very good, randomly
quoting from several books and the writer of the article added onto the
already complex language with his own even more complex descriptions.

Anyway Sloterdijk is apparently a borderline new-age post-existentialist, who
hopes that (new, updated) religions can provide solace for the masses, in
these books at least hasn't bothered to keep up with the technological changes
of the last 20 years or so (although there is some mention of genetics, but
that's old news by now).

