Sartre on Emotions

This week we discussed Sartre and I wanted to focus mainly on his fox and the grapes story taken from Aesop’s fables. In the story, the fox comes across some grapes that he initially desires, but upon finding that they are out of his reach, decides that they are too sour anyway. Sartre uses this fable to explain his theory on emotions, and says that the fox is making an excuse to avoid action and responsibility because it is not the grape’s chemistry that has changed; the flavor of the grape didn’t change between the time the fox decided he wanted the grape and after he realized they were out of reach. The only thing that changed is the Fox’s attitude toward the grape.

The problem I have with Sartre’s analysis isn’t that the Fox’s attitude is what has changed, that I am in full agreement with, however I cannot agree that our emotions are a way for us to flee from freedom. The fox might have been deluding himself about the real reason he wasn’t devouring the grapes, but to say that he has fled from freedom or responsibility is a bit of a stretch. Had he assumed from then on that all grapes were sour because of his one bad experience with them, then perhaps you could say he was fleeing from freedom and/or responsibility. He would have been taking an extremely lazy route by doing that, basing his reality of the world on narrow ranges of experience and perception, instead of seeking out for himself whether or not his experience was really true. He would have become content with his conception of himself and reality (and his relationship to that reality). The Rabbi Menacham Mendel said of contentment with being:

"Just as it is the way of an ape to imitate humans, so too, a person, when he has become old, imitates himself, and does what was his manner previously. In other words, most of us, at some point in life, either consciously or not, become satisfied with who we are and what we've become. As such, we cease to strive toward attaining greater spiritual heights. We are content to live out our remaining days as a mere imitation of ourselves!”

When I injured my elbow because I was pushing the envelope while lifting heavy weights I said-- oh well, it’s probably not good for me anyway. And 3 and a half years later it is largely true. I’ve done only calisthenics since and I’m a lot lighter, leaner and my joints don’t ache. So while the initial response would have been seen as making an excuse by Sartre, sometimes excuses turn out to be something good later on as life unfolds. Had I refused to accept defeat and continued on, I would have likely caused serious injury to my elbow, and one that required major surgery, a cost I cannot afford. An excuse is just a response to a situation, same as any other, and it is neither good or bad. In this specific instance, the excuse was the appropriate response.

I think it is less important to place emphasis on excuses and more important to place emphasis on moralizing, especially in regards to other people. Where we really get into trouble in this culture is when any of us starts comparing ourself too much other people, which is a problem because that is the basic premise of our culture. This kind of competitive narrative we’ve framed for ourselves has led to whole lot of damn moralizing. And excuses. And that is when excuses reallllyyy become a problem, when used in conjunction with moralizing. For instance whenever an overly religious person blames the problems of the world on atheists, gays and baby killers, they are making excuses while simultaneously moralizing. This combination of the two is what leads people to oppress each other, which leads to immense amounts of suffering. I don’t think any of us want to be oppressed or to suffer needlessly.

(Semi-quick side note: While I realize that saying that weights weren’t good for me could be seen as moralizing, in this case it’s not moralizing because it really does lessen quality of life more than it adds to it. Maybe a similar comparison might be smoking tobacco vs not smoking. If looked at over a long enough span of time, it’s pretty easy to argue that tobacco is bad for you considering you can similar stress relief benefits from other activities, without all health risks. I’d be moralizing if I tried to create laws banning people from lifting heavy weights. I can share my experience and hope that it might lead a person to a better decision, but ultimately I can only be responsible for my own decision.)

I think similarly to Sartre when he said that man ought to ask himself the following, "Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?" Similarly, I believe that we must consider each and every one of our decisions from the perspective of the other. We must try to imagine how the actions of our decisions would affect me/I if the roles were reversed and the other was on the delivering end of the decision and me/I was on the receiving. And not just a singular other, an other of our particular liking, because that is just more moralizing. Everyone must be allowed.

Heidegger, death and our renewal

My apologies for the late post.

This week we covered Heidegger, especially his views on death. I have decided to take some time discussing a few things I think our society struggles with when it comes to death, and why it leads to problems. 

Immortality has been something that has fascinated westerners for hundreds of years. One of Columbus’ hopes was to find the infamous fountain of youth that promised eternal life. Through immortality, empires like Spain could ensure that their leaders could go on leading the ignorant masses forever. Imagine the feats great men could achieve if only they were given more time! Or so we think.

Though we no longer believe in mythical fountains of youth, we have kept the dream of immortality alive through ideas like cyber-technology, advances in medicine and even storing our consciousness, so that it might be transferred to another body or maybe even a machine. (Of course we’d have to find the neural correlates of consciousness in order for the last one to work.) 

Though I have no longing for death, I have always felt that our obsession with immortality and our cultural refusal to accept the cyclicality of the world, and the absolute necessity of death. Even stars die! What makes us think that we are meant to go on and on forever? What would that even mean? To go on and on without end? Think about it. Reallllllyyyy think about it. I think if anyone spends enough time thinking about immortality, it will lose a good deal of its luster. Because it is only through death that we get renewal. Life becomes stagnant, rooted in its old ways of doing things. Death shakes things up, and allows for novelty to arise, something new and interesting, a fresh take on the world. If death were eliminated, evolution would be impossible. And so would life.

And yet we ignore death, pretend that it isn’t there, except when tragedy strikes. When grandma or grandpa are dying, we like to tell them that they aren’t, and that things will be okay and they’ll get to go home soon. You’ll see! Soon they’ll be on the porch reading their favorite newspaper, with their morning cup of coffee and all this horrible hospital and sickness business will be behind us. And so we never come to terms with our death. We pretend that life is a static image, something like polaroid, and if we hold onto that image hard enough, it will remain burned into space. But it isn’t so. Life is in constant motion, and so is death. Neither is a permanent state of things, they are each dependent upon the other. They are like two sides of the same coin, which are dependent upon the other to form the coin. 

I think that this whole relationship we have with death is one of the bigger problems plaguing our society. We worship youth and shun the elderly, who are virtual outcasts. Once they reach an age we no longer wish to be exposed to or deal with, we shove them off onto someone else by putting them into assisted living facilities. And so they’re insecure, and suspicious of society. They are the ultimate outsiders, no longer of any use to society. Which is why you see the elderly move to places like Sun City, and fight tax codes that make them pay for schools. The way they see it, since society no longer wants anything to do with them, why should they have to continue supporting it. It’s a bad argument, since they benefited from free schooling and other public services, however it’s not difficult to see where they are coming from. 

Therefore I think it is important that we come to grips with death and do a better job incorporating it into our culture. It does us no good to continue pretending that life is good and death is bad; and that life is something we should focus on prolonging indefinitely, and death is something to be avoided at all costs. This attitude is, in my opinion, decidedly anti-life because it is only through acceptance of a finality of your life and this experience that it has any kind of meaning (which is what you make of it). If this life went on indefinitely, what would you do with it? How would you really live if you KNEW you could not die? Sayings like carpe diem would go entirely out the window. 

So let us accept death as a necessity of life, and perhaps through our acceptance of death we can begin anew, creating a world full of love for life, because we finally understand how beautiful and sacred it really is.