Rebel Scum

I can’t write worth a shit. Even the revisions are nothing but cliches because I don’t know how else to say things.

At the link is information about the horrific pig cull in Egypt and a place where you can send a letter to the Egyptian president asking him to end it.

Summary of why Nagel thinks life is absurd:

Nagel defines absurdity as a discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality. He argues that are lives are made absurd by the clash between the seriousness with which we take our lives and being able to view ourselves objectively, which leads to seeing the things we take seriously as arbitary. He argues that we all take our lives seriously because we do not act solely on impulse but reflect and consider consequences, wonder if what we are doing is worth it, and prioritize values and aims. He argues that we spend a lot of time worrying about details such as how people are concerned about things like appearance and personal relationships and what is happening in the world. Yet we can also step back and view our lives from a detached point of view and see that our justifications for doing thing rests on habits we never question and that we can’t explain our justifications without being circular. When we step outside ourselves and take this view, we recognize all we do as arbitrary, yet this does not disengage from life, we remain the persons who we are viewing from a detached perspective. This is what makes our lives absurd. Absurdity doesn’t come from a clash between us and the world as Camus argues, but from a clash within ourselves. Stepping back and viewing ourselves from outside doesn’t show us that we are small and meaningless but that we can justify what we do only in reference to those justifications and that we follow them because of who we are. If we were someone different, we would not value the same things.

Summary of Hare’s views in “Nothing Matters” (again, in prepartion of philosophy exam next week):

Hare’s response to the concern that nothing matters is that this concern is based on a confusion of what we mean when we say something matters. Hare argues that to say that something matters is saying that it matters to someone because mattering is not something that things do, but is a value we ascribe to them. “Matter” means concern and concern always has to belong to someone. Things can only matter to someone; they cannot matter on their own. Hare also argues that it is almost impossible for nothing to matter to someone because humans are not built that way. We feel concern for things and think some things are better than others and we act upon these beliefs.

I attempt to summarize some of Camus’s philosophy for my upcoming philosophy exam:

Camus thinks that suicide is the only serious philosophical problem because judging whether life is worth living is the most fundamental question of philosophy and all the other issues in philosophy are secondary. Camus argues that no one is willing to die or kill over any other philosophical problem other than the meaning of life. The reason why people commit suicide can reveal something about the meaning of life. Committing suicide, Camus argues, is confessing that life is not worth living, that it is meaningless. He argues that the absurdity of life causes people to consider suicide. The absurdity of life is the disconnect between the person and their life, which occurs when the world loses meaning and the person has no reason to do anything. Camus then discuses if one must kill themselves when they find that life is absurd. He argues that finding life absurd doesn’t mean you must commit suicide because if there is no reason to do anything, then there is also no reason to kill yourself. If there is no reason to do anything, then we should just follow our natural impulses because to do anything else, you would have to have a reason to resist your natural impulses. Therefore, you should only commit suicide if you feel a strong impulse to do so. Camus argues that we should face absurdity with scorn or contempt for our situation. Once you have this, you can move from despair to joy by realizing and valuing that if there is no meaning, you are master of your condition and of your fate.

I have some stuff about what I think of this, but I’m probably just all wrong, so I rather not share