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The Art of Negativity

przekroj.pl

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Re: The Art of Negativity

#41

Post by belval »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #28
bsenftner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a Polish Intellectual magazine site, so an Eastern European perspective on Capitalism. If you can't read such global opinions, you're gonna be a one-sided citizen. You need to grasp the wants and desires of others to find middle ground peacefully.

I disagree. I read the full article and enjoyed it a lot. But the attempts to pull in “late capitalism” and gender / queer issues were just poor writing. It’s like mixing all the paint colors and just getting an ugly gray. There was no convincing connection to “structural inequality” in this at all, nor any sense of significant radical opposition to entrenched powers that be. Piling that stuff on just made the essay…

It feels a little bit like the author combined two different articles. Both are good (I don't mind anti-capitalist rhetoric), but the tone change and continuity break is hard to miss.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#42

Post by mrtesthah »

feralimal wrote: post #27
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to be productive in life and cooperate with people you need at least some level of trust. For example if you are meeting up with someone, do you distrust that they will not show up and not go at all or do you demand they send their GPS location every minute of their way to know that you are not wasting an hour of your time going to the meeting? This is just one minor example. There's several other things…

I'm happy to co-operate. I don't have to trust them for that. I extend my hand to others first. I can trade. I go in with the possibility that I can be ripped off - I'm happy to do so. I don't think most people are nefarious. Most are incredibly ignorant though. Despite apparent intellectual abilities, most people are unable to think for themselves - they have been programmed. They have received their values and beha…

Your cynicism is so dysfunctional that it prevents you from acknowledging basic scientific facts. Why should any person adopt a worldview which demonstrably allows its adherents to renounce something as basic as 1800s germ theory? Because they think they’re smarter and more independent than everyone else? No, your cynicism borders on mental illness.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#43

Post by V-2 »

prionassembly wrote: post #34
nathell wrote: post #30

So happy to see Przekrój on HN! Started in 1945, it's to the Polish culture what New Yorker is to the American one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przekr%C3%B3j

I've become a fan of what little one gets from Polish culture from Netflix shows such as "1983" and "Rojst". (I was aware of Chopin, Kieslowski and even Gorecki, but somehow everything until 1983 registed as "European" and not specifically Polish to me). I've even been doing Duolingo exercises almost nightly for over a year now. It's great to find out about this!

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but, being Polish, I have to say I was quite disappointed with "1983". I could tell that the screenwriter wasn't Polish before I looked it up. The core premise - that the society would flock to back the communist party in the view of the terrorist attacks, post-9/11 style - is by itself American to the bone, and totally out of sync with Polish political reality of that era.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#44

Post by feralimal »

mrtesthah wrote: post #42
feralimal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy to co-operate. I don't have to trust them for that. I extend my hand to others first. I can trade. I go in with the possibility that I can be ripped off - I'm happy to do so. I don't think most people are nefarious. Most are incredibly ignorant though. Despite apparent intellectual abilities, most people are unable to think for themselves - they have been programmed. They have received their values and beha…

Your cynicism is so dysfunctional that it prevents you from acknowledging basic scientific facts. Why should any person adopt a worldview which demonstrably allows its adherents to renounce something as basic as 1800s germ theory? Because they think they’re smarter and more independent than everyone else? No, your cynicism borders on mental illness.

Mental illness - absolutely.

This is exactly what independent thinkers will be diagnosed with. If you don't go along with what consensus calls true, you are mentally ill - its obvious! That person doesn't believe x or y - despite being taught it at school. He or she wants to know and understand for themselves! My, my - that's definitely a crime.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#45

Post by mrtesthah »

feralimal wrote: post #44
mrtesthah wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your cynicism is so dysfunctional that it prevents you from acknowledging basic scientific facts. Why should any person adopt a worldview which demonstrably allows its adherents to renounce something as basic as 1800s germ theory? Because they think they’re smarter and more independent than everyone else? No, your cynicism borders on mental illness.

Mental illness - absolutely. This is exactly what independent thinkers will be diagnosed with. If you don't go along with what consensus calls true, you are mentally ill - its obvious! That person doesn't believe x or y - despite being taught it at school. He or she wants to know and understand for themselves! My, my - that's definitely a crime.

Mental illness is when one ignores basic facts which have been independently validated by scientists around the world, all for the sake of his own narcissism. I have no time or respect for people too intellectually lazy to do basic reading while praising themselves for their own ignorance. The very people who rationalize their ignorance with self-indulgence inevitably end up revealing themselves to be the greatest slaves to their own cognitive dissonance. Their minds are simply too weak and their egos too frail to admit flaws in their worldview.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#46

Post by _cloudkate »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #10
FriedrichN wrote: post #3

I find the dichotomy of pessimism/optimism and positive/negative not very useful in daily life, I prefer to think of defeatism and naivety. To me realism or (practical) optimism lies between those two. You can't go through life either distrusting everyone and everything, nor can you do the opposite and live a good life. People don't like negativity because it ruins their mood, but you sometimes have to be critical. P…

Pragmatic optimism is the best. You don't delude yourself that everything is okay when it's clearly not, but you know that you can handle most challenges thrown at you and you use the best methods suitable for handling any problems. You are only negative if it's worth being negative about. And this is about the things that are changeable and you are negative so you would know what you have to change or improve. You g…

I really love this response; thanks for the perspective!

Re: The Art of Negativity

#47

Post by Nasrudith »

mrtesthah wrote: post #42
feralimal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy to co-operate. I don't have to trust them for that. I extend my hand to others first. I can trade. I go in with the possibility that I can be ripped off - I'm happy to do so. I don't think most people are nefarious. Most are incredibly ignorant though. Despite apparent intellectual abilities, most people are unable to think for themselves - they have been programmed. They have received their values and beha…

Your cynicism is so dysfunctional that it prevents you from acknowledging basic scientific facts. Why should any person adopt a worldview which demonstrably allows its adherents to renounce something as basic as 1800s germ theory? Because they think they’re smarter and more independent than everyone else? No, your cynicism borders on mental illness.

Where exactly do you get the conclusion that it alloes for renouncing germ theory? What are the facts not acknowledged?

Exact proof of something simple as 2+2 is laborious and hilariously disproportionate but one can work with approximations well enough and handle the vast majority of cases in the same way friction and time dillation are often omitted from equations.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#48

Post by mrtesthah »

Nasrudith wrote: post #47
mrtesthah wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your cynicism is so dysfunctional that it prevents you from acknowledging basic scientific facts. Why should any person adopt a worldview which demonstrably allows its adherents to renounce something as basic as 1800s germ theory? Because they think they’re smarter and more independent than everyone else? No, your cynicism borders on mental illness.

Where exactly do you get the conclusion that it alloes for renouncing germ theory? What are the facts not acknowledged? Exact proof of something simple as 2+2 is laborious and hilariously disproportionate but one can work with approximations well enough and handle the vast majority of cases in the same way friction and time dillation are often omitted from equations.

feralimal implies that people wearing masks aren't thinking for themselves, when the reality is that masks are in everyone's collective self-interest and the vast majority of people understand this. Widespread mask-wearing is highly correlated with reduced spread of airborne contagion, coronavirus included.

Re: The Art of Negativity

#49

Post by Nasrudith »

paulpauper wrote: post #18

I have found that the people who keep pushing optimism are those who are already successful. It is not that being optimistic leads to success but that successful people are more inclined to feel optimistic.

I have seen the opposite personally - people who push optimism as less successful but cheerfully repeatedly making terrible foolish mistakes. From "I totally won't wind up homeless in LA if I move there to make it as a star with no acting education or experience." To "If I stay loyal to this horrible person who abuses me they will get better."

Pessimists I have seen generally as more secure from planning for the worst perhaps to overkill extents but less happy.

The snarky summary is "An optimist is a million dollars in debt, losing money every day and thinks it will get better. A pessimist will eventually have a million dollars, feel precariously worried about pending disaster while their true greatest risk is their urge to commit suicide."

Re: The Art of Negativity

#50

Post by Nasrudith »

belval wrote: post #41
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I read the full article and enjoyed it a lot. But the attempts to pull in “late capitalism” and gender / queer issues were just poor writing. It’s like mixing all the paint colors and just getting an ugly gray. There was no convincing connection to “structural inequality” in this at all, nor any sense of significant radical opposition to entrenched powers that be. Piling that stuff on just made the essay…

It feels a little bit like the author combined two different articles. Both are good (I don't mind anti-capitalist rhetoric), but the tone change and continuity break is hard to miss.

Really it feels like they had a vocabulary list of anticapitalist terms and names to include in a separate assignment.

Just dropping all of the communist bits and stating /how/ and /why/ capitalism pushes optimism would give it some intergration. It would at least fit in as a "novel or less commonly listed flaw of capitalism" instead of just including the list of top down beliefs as articles of faith.

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