What is The Good?

I am a presocraticist in this one, meaning existence is the good.
My ethics is a phrase: thrive, and reason from there.

This is the outcome of six years of asking you all about value by stating my own.
I can’t see how there is any other virtue than that which determines itself.
But it is not relativism, mind you very much. Thriving is even more definitive than an absolute.

Heidegger and Camus weren’t wrong. The rest of the 20th century mostly was, as it followed the analytic school even through poststructuralism, they held on to the symbol as the signifier. It couldn’t produce anything but art as toilets and street violence with literally salivating philosopher to preside and encourage. This is not the Good.

Good is health. Nietzsche “deciphered” this even as he himself had no such health; thusly, he posited the Beyond-man.

but oh how well he understood the ill health, and how fucking nice he is, in his honesty.
Nietzsche is this beyond-man. He didnt know it but the symbol he created refers to himself; as within him lies the contradiction of Baron von Muenchhausen, he is that man that pulls himself out from the swamp by his own bootstraps. There is no more superhuman act. Nietzsche, thus is the Best - Aristos.

health is a result.

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THE WILL TO POWER

765 (Jan.-Fall 1888 )

“Redemption from all guilt’’

One speaks of the “profound injustice” of the social pact; as
if the fact that this man is born in favorable circumstances, that
in unfavorable ones, were in itself an injustice; or even that it is
unjust that this man should be born with these qualities, that
man with those. Among the most honest of these opponents of
society it is asserted: “we ourselves, with all our bad, sick, crim-
inal qualities, which we admit tq, are only the inescapable con-
sequences of a long suppression of the weak by the strong”; they
make the ruling classes responsible for their characters. And they
threaten, they rage, they curse; they become virtuous from indig-
nation — they do not want to have become bad men, canaille, for
nothing.

This pose, an invention of the last few decades, is also called
pessimism, as I hear; the pessimism of indignation. Here the claim
is made to judge history, to divest it of its fatality, to discover
responsibility behind it, guilty men in it. For this is the rub: one
needs guilty men. The underprivileged, the decadents of all kinds
are in revolt on account of themselves and need victims so as not
to quench their thirst for destruction by destroying themselves
( — which would perhaps be reasonable). To this end, they heed
ah appearance of justice, i.e., a theory through which they can
shift the responsibility for their existence, for their being thus and
thus, on to some sort of scapegoat. This scapegoat can be God —
in Russia there is no lack of such atheists from ressentiment — or
the social order, or education and training, or the Jews, or the
nobility, or those who have turned out well in any way. “It is a
crime to be born in favorable circumstances; for thus one has
disinherited the others, pushed them aside, condemned them to vice,
even to work — How can I help it that I am wretched! But some-
body must be responsible, otherwise it would be unberablel ”

In short, the pessimism of indignation invents responsibility
in order to create a pleasant feeling for itself — revenge — “Sweeter
than honey” old Homer called it. —

=================

I think that existence is the good because, or rather when, (an) existence is actually good, and of course when (an) existence is not actually good then existence is not (cannot be) ‘the good’.

Thus to my view here there are values deeper than merely existing. Therefore existing is a value only when other values are sustained by that existing. Existing as a means to the ends of other values. These other values are precisely what I call the good.

Existence is good in so far as and iff it is actually good, in so far as and iff it actually sustains good values.

Health is similar, and appears intrinsically valuable for the same reason that existing appears intrinsically valuable, but is not, in fact, intrinsically valuable as it appears to be, and by the application of same rationale as above. But just as “existence” can be defined to mean “good existence” (thereby turning the question as to rather or not existence is the good into a mere truism, or tautology; begging the question) so too can health be defined to mean good health, healthy in so far as values beyond health as such are sustained. After all we can always ask, “Healthy to what end? For what purpose?” We can also ask, “Healthy in what sense, physical, mental, social, emotional, financial, intellectual?”

This is why I do not accept that statements like ‘health is the good’ or ‘existence is the good’ can really get to the bottom. In so far as those statements are true they already smuggle in unstated propositions as to which forms of health/existence are preferable and why; but this is done largely without wishing to discuss those variations amongst the possible kinds and ends of healths/existences, which is something that I notice Nietzsche tends to equivocate on most of the time.

When he isn’t equivocating and is actually trying not to merely beg his own questions, he ends up devolving into the same truistic statements as he started with… existence (survival, or thriving, or power) is good as such, or health (strength, power) is good as such.

Why does he merely rephrase the original questions rather than seek true answers from them? We’re simply just supposed to “get it” what he means, what he really means with these vague uses of “strength, power, thrive, become” type concepts as he inserts into the truistic equations. But I’m not too big on innuendo and “wink wink”, I want philosophers who know and desire precision.

Existence is merely a state of being. No more or no less. Whether it is good or bad depends
up on the psychological and philosophical attitude of the one whose existence it actually is

I’m not a Nietzsche expert, but how was Nietzsche himself thriving as a sickly man? And why would such ‘truth’ come from a sick man who praises health? I mean, if you don’t have it how can you know more about it than someone who has? I’m saying that because the source of information must influence/filter it too.

The Good is what is good and beneficial for group X of people, abstracted to include all groups of people, and ultimately to include “What is Good for all humanity”.

Thus Humanism is deemed as the moral successor of all Christian faiths. Christ, the “Perfect Human”, is most Good or Goodest possible.

This ideal of “The Good” has mostly been pushed forward and progressed by Christian monks, thinkers, intellectuals, under the security, umbrella, and protection of the Catholic Church, for two thousand years. It is a very powerful ideology if understood and used correctly. However, moral goodness and supremacy is an ideal, therefore not real. And therefore, most prone to corruption. As any ideal becomes closer to realization, it fragments and breaks apart.

Therefore any “Good” realized would quickly be replaced and made irrelevant. Humanity would always chase a higher Good.

And if you were to base your “ideal” on what is the real, compensating only for merely a few small normally real evils (aka “not-goods”)? Would its real manifestation still dissolve?

An act of Goodness, made real, is still memorable or even miraculous. There are events and histories of such actions, great deeds, heroic acts, of selflessness. However they do all break ideals, because real actions only serve as a platform to build ideals higher than before. Such ideals, based on The Good for example, give meaning and purpose when people do not have their own.

The good is taking care of your needs, and the needs of those that matter most to you, and allowing everyone/thing else the opportunity to take care of theirs, instead of trying to hoard all the resources.

I am personally disappointed in Fixed Cross. It appears to me that, even though he spends a lot of his time reading philosophy books, posting on philosophy boards and also making philosophy videos, he isn’t exactly serious about philosophy. He asks questions but he never bothers making a serious effort to find the answers.

Rumors have it that he’s really only interested in popularity.
He wants to be seen, praised, followed, glorified, celebrated . . . valued.
Serious philosophy he considers too dry.

The problem I have with him is that he bores me.
His threads are generally without a substance.
No reasoning whatsoever.
He asks questions pretending that he’s interested in their answers.
But is he?
Does he really want to know what good is?
I don’t think so.

What he wants to hear is . . .
. . . Fixed Cross is good.

In my view human existence ceased to be existence, and therefore ceased to be good, with the advent of Socratic method. Before that, the deep truth of goodness and being being necessarily one - otherwise, neither would make sense as a concept - held in Greece.

Human existence only rarely amounts to a full existence, thriving, thus, to the good.

“Good” is itself “the good value” - if we take it analytically.
But that would lead to circular definitions, as all not self-valuing based logics do.

I would rather say value is necessarily cognate to health.
Not specifically this or that type of health. But there is no depth for me behind these concepts - rather, health and value are depths, the concepts are measures of depth.

Selfvaluing is not a teleological logic, so health is always only to the end of enjoying and increasing itself.
There is no truth in austerity - the world is excess, and only in health can this be consistent, Being. All the rest is simply debris.

Again, I dont hold a simplistic view of health. Health is most certainly not the absence of pain or discomfort, of struggle. Quite the contrary.

I cant agree there. Nietzsche is a subtle physician if there has been one.

But Nietzsche never takes survival as a signifier value, nor do I - we survive in order to value. N is explicit in referring the will to survive at all cost to slavemorality. But this is in fact precisely what slave-morality is defined as.
So there you have the basic distinction of different healths; what is healthy to the slave is a sickness to the real entity. From there on, it splits open like a rainbow - Maybe all his writing is about health and its different kinds.

I find in N the first philosopher since the Presocratics that actually addresses something at all. It is I who is responsible for making his wisdom into an exact formula. And my work so far already eclipses all the combined philosophy of the 20th century- or devours it rather, like sunlight swallows the moon.

Thank you for your opinion.
What if ones needs include violence?

And this striving for a higher good, this, per my definition of the good as existence-proper, is the good itself!

Good is self-overcoming. Whatever is good needs to get better to remain the good, and not become the sick, and beyond that, dead, or worse, slave.

So what, exactly, does “the deep truth of goodness and being being necessarily one” really mean? To me this is circular and meaningless unless we actually define our terms, namely what does “goodness” really mean? Since Nietzsche defines it as “power” and “strength”, and I already explained why I consider these insufficient (for the same reason that I consider “goodness and being are necessarily one” is insufficient (because it begs the question)), I cannot logically accept that. Nietzsche merely states that strength and power are good, or that if goodness really means anything then it means these two things, but this is the exact same answer as you just implied, namely that “existing is good as such”. But that is clearly incorrect, because many existences can not be considered good, quite the opposite, and existing as such doesn’t give any moral reasons whatsoever, nothing in the way of meaning or sufficiency regarding whatever “good” might be said to mean.

To say that existing is the good is, to me, pure nonsense. Unless we define what “good” really means, which of course cannot be define as “existing” because that begs the question as: Existing is good, because good means existing. No, that will not work.

Thus I am sure you can see why I consider Nietzsche’s response inadequate.

My elaboration here is not circular at all, and only appears circular if, again, you do not want to ask “what does ‘good’ really mean?” Since Nietzsche never really asks that, and I don’t see that you are asking it either, then of course the statement of mine “Existence is good in so far as and iff it is actually good, in so far as and iff it actually sustains good values” appears circular. But only appears.

We need to be asking about precise goods; what actions or beings are good, and why? I want to ask those questions. And I do not see anyone else asking them. Except maybe Kant, whom Nietzsche hated of course (because Nietzsche hated asking about the nature of good).

My point is that we need to ask: health for what purpose, to what ends, or why? Why is health good? Health is good because it allows us to exist, so we are back to the Nietzschean circle again unless we actually define beyond “health allows existence”; we need to ask “what kinds of existences, what should this healthy existence be doing and why, other than merely ‘being healthy’”? What should it not be doing, and why not?

What do you think?

Then self-valuing is unable to answer this most basic question. That is a real problem.

Yes, being requires health. Of course this is true. But that is not a moral statement, that is merely an ontological observation. My objection is that this merely ontological necessity is being falsely used as if it prescribed morality or explained what good is and means. It does not.

So what is health then, in your view? Again I am trying to get beyond “health is being able to exist”. Yeah, we can all understand that. Let’s move on from there to more interesting questions.

So what does Nietzsche say about “which forms of health/existence are preferable and why”? Remember, saying something like “forms of health/existence are preferable that sustain your existence” is circular and meaningless.

Right, so again, let’s be specific here. What are the specific kinds of health that are “good” for the slave morality and bad for the master morality, and why? And I am not merely stating that Nietzsche considered survival an end in itself, I know that he did not. He conditions the value of survival to the values of health, strength, and power. He considers these last three to be what thriving means. But as I have been pointing out, he doesn’t actually explain what “health, strength, and power” really mean beyond the circular “to keep existing; to grow in one’s existing”. That is not a proper answer, it is an equivocation.

What is Nietzsche actually addressing? You state “I find in N the first philosopher since the Presocratics that actually addresses something at all”, so tell me what this “actually addresses something” really and precisely is, and how that addresses the question about what good means?

Good: what you want to do.
Bad: what you don’t want to do.

Good/bad is relative.
This means that different people will want/not want to do different things.

There is no universal good as there are no universal/eternal/absolute forms or anything for that matter.
These are meaningless terms: universal, eternal, absolute.
Try to define them, which means, try to reduce them to a sequence of events they refer to, and you will see it for yourself.

FC is making things too complicated.
This is because he has some kind of strange aversion towards rigorous thinking.
It’s too dry (i.e. too difficult) for him.
He wants to remain a child.

Let me give you an example of some good’s and some bad’s.
Suppose we have a man who finds his life extremely painful.
What he’s going to do?
He’s going to say “look, living life is bad, what is good is to not live at all, which is to say, to sit still and do nothing, then call that meditation”.
Of course, he’s not gonna say it like that, but you get my point.
Because he sees nothing good in real life – he cannot see because it’s too painful – he has no choice but to call it bad.
And by extension, to call whatever remains, which is nothingness, good.
Hence, we say he’s a nihilist.
Because he worships nothingness.
Of course, he’s not gonna call it nothingness . . . he’s gonna call it “Subject” or “thing-in-itself” or “transcendental Being”.
But these are just fancy terms for nothingness.

Now compare that to a man who can enjoy life.
Of course, he too will find certain aspects of life to be painful.
But not to such an extent that he sees absolutely nothing of value in it.
And even those things he considers to be painful he can understand that it is only him finding them painful and that they wouldn’t be so painful if he had the strength to take advantage of them.
He thereby shows much more strength than the above person.
So he understands that nothingness – the pathological introversion or autism the above type suffers from – to be inferior and not superior.

let’s assume for now morals and values are subjective.

Occasionally violence is necessary.

For example: a person may be surrounded by physically and mentally abusive people, and in order to protect himself and/or his friends and neighbors, he has to retaliate.
It’s not always possible to escape abusive people, and rarely is it possible to educate them, sometimes it’s necessary to defend yourself and others, and sometimes it’s necessary to punish abusers.

Another example: say there’s no jobs available, or no decent jobs (jobs that aren’t too demanding and pay enough so that you and yours can live comfortably), and say there’s no government programs, or decent ones, if you can’t pack up your things and move to a better place, it may be necessary to steal, especially if the people you plan to steal from have inordinate wealth and resources and are squandering them on frivolities.

However, if a person is merely under the impression violence is necessary when it’s not, than they need to be reeducated and/or segregated from the rest of society, because their false needs are coming into conflict with the true needs (like the need not be physically and mentally abused or have their wares stolen) of others.

Even if a person has no sympathy, and on top of that is a sadist, it’s irrational, even from their own standpoint to live by the sword, because odds are, they’re going to die by it, and you know what they say, live fast die young.
So as lustful as they may be for inordinate wealth and power over others, in all likelihood their power will eventually be stripped from them, and they’ll be imprisoned or executed.
So their psychological ‘need’, if it can be called that, to have inordinate wealth and be sadistic, is coming into conflict with their own other, arguably greater needs, like the need to be, well, alive, to be safe, secure and live comfortably.

Now there are a few people who slip through the cracks, and aren’t punished by the law or vigilantes, but they are just that, few and far in between.
Punishment comes in all forms, people who don’t break the law, but who’re mentally abusive, they usually were abused, and will wind up abused again, and alone, and at a disadvantage psychosocioeconomically, it’s a cycle.

It’s usually better to swim with society rather than against it, especially when society is treating you reasonably fairly (there’s no such thing as perfect fairness).
But there is a time and place for everything, including degrees of rebellion and revolution, I wouldn’t say it’s always better to swim with the current (I’m trying to be balanced here, find the middle course between being social, antisocial and asocial).
Of course you can’t always convince people of such things, and you don’t have to, people who’re violent still, need, to be incarcerated or in extreme cases, executed, because society has needs of its own, and some conflicts of interest are inevitable.

A lot of people who’re abusive, thou not all, are extremely imbalanced physically, mentally and emotionally, and if their physical and mental health and sanity could be restored, than they’d be able to see the foolishness and futility of their ways.

I could get into objective morals and values but for now, I’ll leave it at the subjective.

Isn’t the self-valuing logic likewise circular, though? I ask this, I respond here, because I’ve been exploring the question “What does ‘good’ mean?”–or rather, “What does ‘valuable’, what does ‘valuing’ mean?”–in my videos lately: especially from episode 14 onward (haven’t uploaded episode 15 yet, though). My Nietzschean answer thus far:

good = valuable = pleasurable (WP 55)
pleasure = the feeling of power (e.g., WP 693; cf. AC 2)
the feeling of power = the will to power = power itself (AC 2)
the will to power = the instinct of freedom (GM 2.18)

good = valuable = being accompanied by a feeling of freedom
the feeling of freedom = the will

“Goal setting itself is a joy [Lust, “pleasure”?],–a mass of force of the intellect expends itself in means and ends thinking!
Willing: A pressing feeling, very agreeable! It is the accompaniment of every effusion of force. Likewise already all wishing in itself (wholly regardless of attaining).” (Nietzsche, Nachlass, supposedly Autumn 1883, my translation from several years ago.)

The will is the accompanying feeling or appearance (Begleiterscheinung), accompanying every effusion of force, that oneself, one’s willing, be the cause of that effusion and its potential attainments.
It is the feeling of free will, which would be a self-willing in the sense of the willing of that very willing–to speak with Spinoza, the free cause of its essence as well as its existence (compare Sartre, “existence precedes essence”).

I’ve also started to explore Rousseau, who argues existence, or rather the feeling of existence, is the highest good, and for whom freedom was of absolute importance. Of equal importance to the requirements of society, in fact, between freedom and which he then supposedly found a perfect harmony. I associate that with Seung’s interpretation of Zarathustra, which interprets it as a progressive conflict between free will and predestination or determinism–the Faustian self and the Spinozan (cosmic) self, respectively. Compare:

“Spinoza reached such an affirmative position [i.e., pantheism] in so far as every moment has a logical necessity, and with his basic instinct, which was logical, he felt a sense of triumph that the world should be constituted that way.
But his case is only a single case. Every basic character trait that is encountered at the bottom of every event, that finds expression in every event, would have to lead the individual who experienced it as his own basic character trait to welcome every moment of universal existence with a sense of triumph. The crucial point would be that one experienced this basic character trait in oneself as good, valuable–with pleasure.
[…] the basic character trait of those who rule: the will to power.” (WP 55; cf. “The Greek State” and BGE 260, end.)

Ultimately I think the Spinozan affirmative position consists in identifying with God, “the first and only free cause of the essence of all things and also of their existence”:

“I confess, that the theory which subjects all things to the will of an indifferent deity, and asserts that they are all dependent on his fiat, is less far from the truth than the theory of those, who maintain that God acts in all things with a view of promoting what is good. For these latter persons seem to set up something beyond God, which does not depend on God, but which God in acting looks to as an exemplar, or which he aims at as a definite goal. This is only another name for subjecting God to the dominion of destiny, an utter absurdity in respect to God, whom we have shown to be the first and only free cause of the essence of all things and also of their existence. I need, therefore, spend no time in refuting such wild theories.” (Spinoza, The Ethics, Part I, Prop. XXXIII, 1883 Elwes translation.)

Secular Humanism is basically Judeo-Christianity without God; Spinoza’s philosophy is basically Judeo-Christianity without the Idea of the Good. And the difference between Nietzsche’s and Spinoza’s philosophies is basically that Spinoza’s is monotheist whereas Nietzsche’s is polytheist (though both are, paradoxically, pantheist). [https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/196644-Things-to-do-in-the-stateless-classless-society Actually, I think Spinoza’s philosophy identifies the Idea of the Good and God–or Nature. Compare the early Nietzsche, where Nature is just an imaginary self-fragmentation of the Primordial One, Whose abysmal freedom impels It to imagine Itself as many unfree beings. The absolutely free must be free from its freedom, too–and from every “must”!..]

Yes, I do not believe that self-valuing is circular logic. I made that claim, or rather implication that it may be circular, in response to Fixed and because I want us to explicate exactly how that claim is false.

I also agree with your analysis of freedom and the feeling of freedom, these are crucially close to the root of being. But freedom is never for its own sake, while the feeling of freedom is (almost always) for its own sake; therefore, freedom as such is deeper than the feeling of freedom.

If we limit ourselves to talking about the feeling of freedom then we stagnate in mere psychology, and do not penetrate into philosophy.

We must also differentiate nature, the natural world and even in the case of Spinoza and early Nietzsche as you mention, from the human realm. The human realm is build upon the natural world, but is quite different from it. This is not difficult to explicate philosophically, and has already been done so I will not rehash that here unless you want me to.

We know that the will to power constitutes the being of the natural world; so what constitutes the being of the human realm? I content it is morality as such, or rather what we really mean by the concept ‘morality’, that constitutes the being of the human realm. This is, in a word, logic. Logic as per the requirements of those beings which we are, moving closer to Heidegger’s Dasein here, and we must recognize the need to split Being from the being of being(s) such as ourselves. The being of our own being is but one instance of Being, and this being of our own being participates in Being but is not the same as Being. Likewise, the being of the natural world also participates in Being, although differently than does the being of the human being, but is also not the same as Being.

Being itself requires us to articulate logic as such, at far as possible to trace the deepest most necessary and universal logics underneath all of existence. Self-valuing is the concept that gets closest to this, as far as I can tell. So we might say that self-valuing captures the nature of Being as closely as possible so far, yet we must remember that the nature of Being is not the same as (does not ‘=’) the nature of beings; the nature of the being of the natural world, and the nature of the being of the human being, are two examples of where beings have beings that diverge (derive from, build upon) the nature of Being itself. The nature of Being is universal precisely because it is an absolute ground, but that does not explain or belie what builds itself from that ground and, at times, in antithesis to it.

Thus I consider the being of the human being to be morality, or rather what we call logic and morality are the same thing, ultimately: what is this particular being that we are, of what logics is it made, how it is put together, what does it require, what does it desire, toward what does it move, what are its freedoms and its limitations, and toward what does it aim (both explicitly and implicitly)? These questions are each vitally important if we are to begin exploring the nature of the being which we are. We must conceptually explode and then exhaust this being that we are, to get to the being of this being that we are, and this endeavor is the only proper task of the modern and future philosopher.

This exploration must take two forms, in order to be sufficient: it must explode and exhaust the being of the natural world, and it must explode and exhaust the being of the (human) being that we are, namely we must unite determinism and freedom, or instinct and morality, or unconsciousness and consciousness depending on how you want to think about it. This unification will, once it is achieved, bring us as close as possible to understanding how beings (these two beings in particular, the natural and the human) derive from Being. But we are not there yet. This is what philosophy ought to be occupying itself with. I see Nietzsche as remaining in the layer of the natural world, which is fine because that too must be explicated, but he fails to move into the human realm and this can be seen precisely as his absence of asking into the nature of the good. Nietzsche rejects and even mocks that question, restricting it to the work of mystics and theological philosophers only, and therefore he cuts himself off from this vital half of the analysis.

I fundamentally, though not wholly, disagree. In fact I find it odd that you’d say the will to power describes the natural world, as distinct from the human. I think it’s rather the other way round, in that Nietzsche starts from himself, his human being, and then extrapolates that into the rest. Thus he does ask into the nature of the good: good = valuable = pleasurable = giving one a feeling of power = being accompanied by the will to power = being accompanied by the sensation of freedom. You say freedom is prior and deeper than the feeling of freedom, but how do we know freedom exists? Doesn’t only the feeling, the appearance of freedom exist? I contend that the human and the natural world do not both derive from the nature of Being itself, or at least that the natural world derives from it more directly than does the human–unless the human is somehow the beginning of the natural world…

“Where man is not, nature is barren.” (Blake, Proverbs of Hell.)

Freedom in itself might just as well not exist: inasmuch as there is no experience of it. I agree that logic and morality are basically the same: logic, like morality, is posited, not natural; what is natural, for this species of being, at least, is positing one. And even as there is a universal morality in the sense of the most basic moral prequisites of man as a social animal (a “law of reason”), so there is a universal logic: the word, fellow understanding.

This positing, this imposition is a form of the will to power. The imposition of harmony. This understanding was for the longest time shared only by the wisest. It’s ultimately rooted in the Narcissism of the wisest, the self-love, self-enjoyment of the wisest, their feeling of power, of freedom–ho Lusios, Liber, Dionysus to Ariadne, who is all beings that are not wise, not consciously wise, noble, divine,–. The philosopher is a glimpsing, a gleaning, a clearing in the woods, burning his Ariadne for light, warmth, fuel. Energy, power, electricity, lightning, sparks. I think you’ll get the picture.

Krishna adoring Himself

“He who sees the Infinite in all things, sees God. He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself only.” (Blake, “There is No Natural Religion”.)

Power can be defined as ability.
Ability means being able to do something.
More ability means being able to do more things.
Less ability means being able to do less.

Power = more ability
Weakness = less ability

There are people who are said to hate power.
What does this mean?
Well, nothing other than that they are unable to, because they find difficult to, do certain things.
Say think.
Thinking requires the ability we call intelligence.

When you find something difficult to do you’re gonna hate doing it so you’re gonna say bad things about it.
Like Jakoff saying bad things about intellectual rigor . . . too dry, he says.
Then they gonna do and worship whatever they can do.
Like doing drugs.
Now that they no longer have reason, i.e. long-term considerations or simply long-term goals, there is nothing to impose restrictions on such practices as taking drugs.
Drugs are now okay.
Why not . . . when you have no sense of the future, no goals bigger than sex, then that’s perfectly fine.