GENIUS FORUMS

About living a "normal" existence. Having a home family and kids. At least one would would not be an outcaste from society.
We are social animals after all, the alienation of a Hermit's life may be hazardous to the mind.

M.

Each society has outcasts as part of its functioning.

maestro wrote:About living a "normal" existence. Having a home family and kids. At least one would would not be an outcaste from society.
We are social animals after all, the alienation of a Hermit's life may be hazardous to the mind.

M.

If everyone was living a plain existence, progress of humanity would have been much slower.

People are different. Some wish to live the usual life and some do not. To you someone like Tesla was an outcast from society. Tell to him how having little contact with mediocre humans was detrimental to his mind.

Each society has outcasts as part of its functioning.

Maybe, but it is harmful to be an outcast for long. Unfortunately the need for company and belonging is very much the part of our mental makeup and society is so structured that only family is sanctioned for this need. Though I would very much prefer a commune of like minded people to live together with no legal obligations.

People are different. Some wish to live the usual life and some do not. To you someone like Tesla was an outcast from society. Tell to him how having little contact with mediocre humans was detrimental to his mind.

But Tesla was a scientist, he advanced the cause of the industrial society. I am sure he would not have thought deeply about philosophical or psychological issues. Scientists are generally narrowly focused on their areas of interest, it is tragic that current society upholds them as the highest examples of genius (and worth emulating for anybody with a good intellect).

My question is more relevant for the real philosophers. Family has an unsound philosophical/psychological basis and may be the cause of a lot of needless suffering, but the alternative of being an lonely outcaste is also terrible.

maestro wrote:

Each society has outcasts as part of its functioning.

People are different. Some wish to live the usual life and some do not. To you someone like Tesla was an outcast from society. Tell to him how having little contact with mediocre humans was detrimental to his mind.

But Tesla was a scientist, he advanced the cause of the industrial society. I am sure he would not have thought deeply about philosophical or psychological issues. Scientists are generally narrowly focused on their areas of interest, it is tragic that current society upholds them as the highest examples of genius (and worth emulating for anybody with a good intellect).

Tesla never thinking deeply about philosophical issues? You have no idea. Oh, he thought deeply and much more than you. Tesla was not narrow. Speaking 7 languages, translating literary works, being friends with people like Mark Twain. Only the most superficial or ignorant person would put Tesla down as simply a great scientist/inventor.

From wiki:

'Tesla never married. He was celibate and claimed that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities.[20][93] Nonetheless there have been numerous accounts of women vying for Tesla's affection, even some madly in love with him. Tesla, though polite, behaved rather ambivalently to these women in the romantic sense.

What is this? Seems like something the QRS would strongly approve of.

Tesla was prone to alienating himself and was generally soft-spoken. However, when he did engage in a social life, many people spoke very positively and admiringly of him. Robert Underwood Johnson described him as attaining a "distinguished sweetness, sincerity, modesty, refinement, generosity, and force..." His loyal secretary, Dorothy Skerrit, wrote "his genial smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that were so ingrained in his soul." Tesla's friend Hawthorne wrote that, "seldom did one meet a scientist or engineer who was also a poet, a philosopher, an appreciator of fine music, a linguist, and a connoisseur of food and drink."

It is tragic that society upholds them as the highest example of genius? One of the reasons for that is because what scientists do/did is the easiest to observe perhaps. And it is not tragic.

How is being an outcast terrible? Terrible for who? So 1 out of a thousand people maybe, becomes alienated from the everyday persons. Big deal.

maestro wrote:Maybe, but it is harmful to be an outcast for long. Unfortunately the need for company and belonging is very much the part of our mental makeup and society is so structured that only family is sanctioned for this need.

If that is what you want and need, then go do it.

But blaming society, and needing to think that everyone has the same needs as you, is bullshit. At least have the balls to say you are doing it because that's what you want to do.

DHodges wrote:But blaming society, and needing to think that everyone has the same needs as you, is bullshit. At least have the balls to say you are doing it because that's what you want to do.

how about you live in total social isolation then for the next few years, alright? alright.

I'm not sure what your point is.

I'm not sure what your point is.

The point I raise is an old one (many philosophers/writers have also pondered the issue). Even though marriage family and such is a most unsatisfactory arrangement, the alternative (isolation) is also highly problematic. And I would like everybody to keep in mind that we are humans after all and come with limitations and needs and are not infinitely malleable. Thus one can imagine that he has transcended such trivial needs as society and company but (as a skeptic I would say that) very likely it is a delusion.

On a side note it seems that Nietzsche imagined himself as a superman and remained in his lofty seclusion for years. In my opinion this is what caused his descent into madness.

maestro wrote:Even though marriage family and such is a most unsatisfactory arrangement, the alternative (isolation) is also highly problematic. And I would like everybody to keep in mind that we are humans after all and come with limitations and needs and are not infinitely malleable. Thus one can imagine that he has transcended such trivial needs as society and company but (as a skeptic I would say that) very likely it is a delusion.

Well, okay, it sounds like it's time to get personal.

I was living with a woman and her kids, and I had sort of settled into that lifestyle when she moved out, around the end of 2005. I'm still in contact with her and her kids, although she is married now. That was not the first woman I lived with. I was generally in a relationship with some woman or other (with a break here and there, sometimes as long as a year) from about the time I was 17 until I was 43.

Anyway, since she moved out, I have not really pursued a new relationship. Oh, I made a half-assed foray onto eHarmony.com, I'm embarrassed to say, but I bailed out after a month or so, and it never went farther than a few emails. I don't go out to bars and my social life is pretty limited. The women where I work are mostly married, or are twenty years too young for me.

A good relationship is a lot of work; anyone will tell you that. But most people never really stop and ask, is it worth all the work? What do I get out of this vs. what I put in - not just in this particular relationship, but in general? What are the advantages of being self-sufficient? Do I really enjoy all the shit that comes along with a relationship - birthdays, Valentine's Day, Christmas presents? What does it do to me as a person to engage in that? Why is it that I'm out buying flowers and cutesy bears and that kind of girly stuff? WTF?

I'm not saying I've "transcended" anything, and I definitely still notice the women. I mean, I still like to look at them. Even talk to some, now and then.

I'm not completely isolated or removed from society. I'm not a hermit. I still go to work, I still go play with my band. I even talk to my neighbors occasionally. But - and I have to think this is one of the advantages of being a man - if I want to be left alone, I pretty much will be. And I am comfortable being alone. (Some people just aren't; they seem to need to have other people around, all the time.)

I'm not pushing any limits here. It's quite possible to live alone, free, without a woman, without drama. It's possible to make a rational decision that being involved in all that is just not worthwhile. Well, for me it is, at least.

Until you've tried that - been alone by your own choice, not just momentarily "between relationships" - it's hard to see how much effort really goes into relationships, how it takes over your entire life and outlook.

maestro wrote:

I'm not sure what your point is.

The point I raise is an old one (many philosophers/writers have also pondered the issue). Even though marriage family and such is a most unsatisfactory arrangement, the alternative (isolation) is also highly problematic. And I would like everybody to keep in mind that we are humans after all and come with limitations and needs and are not infinitely malleable. Thus one can imagine that he has transcended such trivial needs as society and company but (as a skeptic I would say that) very likely it is a delusion.

On a side note it seems that Nietzsche imagined himself as a superman and remained in his lofty seclusion for years. In my opinion this is what caused his descent into madness.

So you think it's possible for someone to be social often and do something he himself feels needs isolation for. Nietzsche wanted that isolation because he knew that was what he needed to give birth to his work. He even said so himself.

maestro wrote:About living a "normal" existence. Having a home family and kids. At least one would would not be an outcaste from society.
We are social animals after all, the alienation of a Hermit's life may be hazardous to the mind.

M.

My opinion:

There's nothing wrong with a "normal" existence. There's nothing wrong with a Hermit's life.

There is something wrong in finding security and dependence in a home, family, and kids. (But in the same sense there's something wrong if your being an outcast because it gives you the secure feeling that that's what philosopher's do).

The 'at least' part of your statement makes me think either you don't think it's right but you're trying to make excuses for it, or you feel like it's right for you but you'd be an outcast to philosophers. Either way it seems you're worried about being some kind of outcast. Stop thinking about what others will say, and worry about what's best for your development.

It's the reason why you choose how you will live that determines whether it's good for you or not. Think about what's right, not what's easy; if it's not right, it won't really be that easy, and you won't get anywhere.

That said, I think better when I'm around a few people, and I do plan on having a home, family, and kids one day.

Hope that helps.