This is the OP’s point.
“In the case in point, if one stops being sarcastic, as in expressing bitter or wounding remarks to others, then one has more chance of being happy … which in turn means that one has less reason to feel cynical …which in turn means one is less prone to be sarcastic and so on … until both cynicism and sarcasm eventually disappear as if by magic.”
We are talking about a particular component of harmlessness.
Sarcasm doesn’t end the way he described. It’s expression will end, but the root of the need for sarcasm will not. Trying to alleviate the existing pain by the pleasure that comes from one-upping others will continue. Happiness dissolves that need.
I guess the difficult part is that the spiritual viewpoint permeates so deeply into human thinking that it is difficult to even begin to see the extent of it in oneself. My recommendation would be to look in that direction, of course I have my potential biases and could be mistaken but this is my sincere advice based on what I see
This is the full sentence:
“Harmlessness is not intrinsically good, it’s good only because it is associated with intimacy and happiness.”
May be I should have used “salutary” instead of “intrinsically good”.
Salutary for what? For ‘intimacy and happiness’.
That is not moral because, there’s no compulsion or “should be”, for ‘Intimacy and happiness’ is what I want.
It is so blatantly clear that aggression (and therefore a lack of harmlessness) is something that is intrinsic to organisms existing on this planet. It is simply a part of the instinctual programming. To say that malice only happens because of hurt is to believe that ‘I’ am actually innocent deep down, come on
To put this to test we could say that if only we have a ‘self’ that never experiences sorrow that this self would therefore be free from malice and of course it would not, malice is what ‘I’ am deep down. Malice is just as much of a part of ‘me’ as is the sorrow.
I don’t know where you gonna put these replies now @claudiu
Yeah course that’s what we’re all doing for sure haha defo agree there
Although it probably is worth mentioning that they are relative in both ways to each other, felicitous and innocuous cannot be separated in a way that makes any sense practically.
Let me have a think when I’m free and times that would work and I will drop you a message, I’m thinking Fri/Sat/Sun in the evening (around 5-7pm UK time).
@claudiu I just realised I could have quoted Andrews post and then linked it straight to the ‘harmlessness’ thread but I got too passionate to reply first, let’s maybe move all these too then
Instinctual aggression comes by birth…that’s the “infant throwing tantrums at their toy taken away” example Richard gives…but there is also the other one Richard says - taking offence.
He said something like - I never take offence, so I’m freed from the horror of revenge… in this sense, one can say that if there is no hurt, then there is no need to hurt back.
Methinks its just a matter of what you want to call as hurt here.
This is assuming children wouldn’t have egos. As young as 1.5 years, they form identities. I didn’t see malice in kids prior to that, and malice(which is different from violence, and even aggression due to a physical threat) needs some degree of intelligence. So kids younger than a year are incapable of it, anyway.
Not many non-primates exhibit malice because they lack required intelligence.
Pleasure from one-upping others is a social phenomenon. Pleasure, although it reinforces its need thereby perpetuating itself, is a reprieve from a myriad of pains that people face or even existential sadness. Like a fresh rain on a barren land.
Malice may be a part of human condition, but a huge part of it is caused by social identity. It’s everybody’s experience that they are far less likely to hurt when they are happy.
They got hurt due to their social identity.
That’s a conditioned response. That and many such reactions can be gotten rid of by just being aware of our responses.
We are of course, not talking about physical threats here, but about clearing out the hurts caused by our social identity. Sarcasm isn’t about physical hurt or threat.
Yes. Malice is an egoic game. It’s a response to (an already) hurt identity.
Machiavellianism and maintaining hierarchies is observed in chimps and bonobos, but they too have identities, cruder than humans, sophisticated than most other mammals.
Malice is mostly, if not all, an identity issue.
Aggression as a reaction to a threat, or violence are encoded.
Wait, why are instinctual passions even discussed here? Can anything be done about them, except extinguishing them via self-immolation?
