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> I think modern society suffers from a lack of life philosophy

No, we never had that many people reading philosophy, trying to practice some kind of vision or another, asking questions and the like.

I think the current tendancy is a symptom of people being freer to ask themself questions and do something else than survive. So we hear about it more.

Anybody looking at the astonishing phenomenom called life will be stunned and desoriented. It's part of the deal. And with internet, we can now not only express that in mass, but we can share with each others the result of our soul searching.

I believe the current "crisis" is actually good news. People feel lost, not because they were not before, but because for once, they have the opportunity to look around.

That doesn't make it less painful though, and of course, anybody in that state pays for it. Growing as a specie has a price.

> I think modern society suffers from a lack of life philosophy

To me life philosophy is just another way of saying religion. And people in the west I think are slowly but surely losing their religion. Religions used to give people purpose, now the silent agnostics and atheists need to figure out how to have purpose in their lives.

I definitely agree with everything else you're saying though.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx

It's hard to pinpoint a definition for religion.

Does that imply some kind of practice ? Does that imply veneration ? Does that imply you hold something sacred ? Does that imply you have dogmatic principles ? Does that imply you have a mythology ? Does it mean you need a crowd ? Do you have an external reference driving your conduct, your view of the world, your morality ? And most importantly, should they all resolve around the same source ?

Having a life phylosophy doesn't seem to be attached to most of those, and doesn't limit itself to one source. And a lot of those don't seem to necessarly imply a life philosophy.

Besides, there is a huge difference between religion as it's designed, and religion as it's lived. Not to mention people of the same religion disagree on the living AND on the design part.

But I do agree with you on one point: religion used to answer to those pesky deep life questions for everybody. Now that our source of points of view is much broader, we do miss the easy sense of purpose that was provided by many religions.

My working definition of religion is a system that produces easy answers to tough questions. These tough questions can eat away at a person so religion has an important “damping” function in a society, especially with the 90% of the population who need an answer to these questions to stay mentally healrhy

When I read deep religious thinkers works, I find that those questions are only easily answered by those who didn't scratched the surface. The honest ones are full of doubts.

People use religion for the purpose of getting easy answers, but does it mean that the purpose of religion is to give easy answers to people ?

Religion can be seen as a cultural phenomenom, or a tool, and it doesn't look like the same thing at all depending which you choose.

I'm pretty sure that any tool you give to humans, they will turn it into a cultural phenomenom.

> My working definition of religion is a system that produces easy answers to tough questions

Wow, this is really useful. It implies that people who believe in religions, are people who prefer to have an answer, even if it's wrong (even obviously so), rather than be in the ambigous and confusing limbo state of seeking for the correct answer.

Similar to how Nigerian Princes intentionally write bad grammar in order to target low-educated people who are more easily scammed.

Yea good catch I phrased my comment wrong. Saying religion and life philosophy are the same thing is definitely incorrect. Religion usually has life philosophy incorporated in it. But life philosophy definitely doesn't have to have religious features to it.

I feel like people tend to forget that a religion like Christianity is an entirely new way of framing the universe. Re-discovering Christianity in my 30s was like learning how to read and write for the first time in my life.

Activist atheists tend to paint religious folk as just mindless sheep blindly bumping through ceremonies because their parents did. It's similar to how anti-drug education tries to paint, say, cannabis as just this ritual people do out of peer pressure and no other reason. Then, when you actually experience cannabis for yourself, you suddenly realize, oh. People do this for a reason!

It's fashionable to talk about how it's so good to be non-judgmental. Come join our rave, bro, everyone here's so open-minded and chill! But what I found is that those groups are just as judgmental as religious folks, only the rules are unwritten. Which makes it that much worse. I love how in proper Christianity, the baseline assumption is that everyone is utterly, hopelessly depraved (yes, even the pastor). Only when you start from a common assumption like that (I find) can you actually start to realize a truly welcoming and non-judgmental society.

Religions, because of their nature, are used to motivate behavior, hold jugement and organise communities.

Since behaviors, jugments and communities are subject to dispute, it's only natural people will attack their source and motivation.

If you kill somebody, you are hated. If you kill somebody in the name of something, that something is what's been hated.

> Religions, because of their nature, are used to motivate behavior, hold jugement and organise communities.

You're describing culture, not religion. The two are often intertwined but are not the same.

"We use the weight of a hammer to hit nails"

"What you are describing is gravity, it's not the same thing"

>I love how in proper Christianity

One common thing religious people tend to share is that they all think their own interpretation of their religion is the right one. Is there any reason to believe your use of "proper christianity" here is any different from that?

Besides that, though, I found your comment about how christianity makes the assumption that everyone is utterly, hopelessly depraved very good. I agree with you, but I haven't considered it in that way before.

I'm an ex-christian, because I've found I can't bring myself to believe in the supernatural, but I still see valuable things in the religion.

I don't think that you need to start off with the assumption that everyone is hopelessly depraved in order to have a non-judgemental society. I'm not even sure that's really desirable, or how that would work. But I definitely agree that we tend to be too judgemental and ego-driven.

Trying to come up with the one correct interpretation is as futile as trying to get to heaven by good deeds (impossible). All interpretations fall short just like all humans do. Salvation is not won by ingenious interpreting, but by grace through the sacrificial death of Christ, given to believers regardless of denomination. See 1st Corinthians 3:12-15.

That said, I think certain denominations do a better job of spreading Christianity. Some liberal denominations seem to think they can win hearts and minds by being bland enough. Who would go to a YMCA with a preacher, when they could just go to a regular YMCA instead? See Proverbs 14:12; James 4:4.

> life philosophy is just another way of saying religion.

Have to disagree. Religion, for most, is imposed. Some come to it by choice, but for most it a given that provides context, community, and a set of rules to operate with.

Religion is also dogmatic and static and to make it relevant to modern society often requires lots of obviously inconsistent double think.

We're replacing religion with science and the rule of law. These might be poor substitutes for some of the context that religion provides but at least they are mutable and not quite so incoherent. And these slowly adjust.

Similarly, a life philosophy is mutable. I find it difficult to believe that you go through life with a static life philosophy. Things change, you experience stuff, and that forces you to change.

Sorry I phrased my comment wrong. Saying religion and life philosophy are the same thing is definitely incorrect. Religion usually has life philosophy incorporated in it. But life philosophy definitely doesn't have to have religious features to it.

>Religion is also dogmatic and static and to make it relevant to modern society often requires lots of obviously inconsistent double think.

I think this is a narrowminded view of religions in general, based solely on how various regressive factions have co-opted certain Abrahamic religions to justify their regressive politics. Other religions exist, and the even the ones in question can be "relevant to modern society" by allowing them the be less "dogmatic and static". Conservatives are drawn to religion because it's traditional, not because accepting religion forces to to be conservative. Plenty of scientific and liberal minded people are able to see the value in a belief in some greater order to the universe that comes with a strong community of individuals with shared beliefs.

I recognize that religion has hurt a lot of people, but that doesn't make it useless or inherently evil.

>We're replacing religion with science and the rule of law.

The good parts of religion, the ones which guide your life philosophy and contribute to your "Sense of Direction and Fulfillment", are totally separate from those two and can easily coexist.

I’ve been playing around with a thought lately, that religion is to philosophy what engineering is to science - the practical application of otherwise esoteric ideas about the world in which we live.

More like one field of engeenering then. Because they are other ways to apply philosophy.

This is a false read of history that is biased by the false positive trajectory. We've never had this many people completely distracted by consumerism.

The population has been systematically distracted. Chomsky talks about how well read British working class laborers were in the 19th century: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CFwSQiTu3I

The work cited based on a huge study: https://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Life-British-Working-Cla...

> We've never had this many people completely distracted by consumerism.

Those are not opposite.

We never had that many people.

I don't think it is a lack of philosophy so much as it is a crisis in the currently accepted philosophy of society. Basically, people are starting to realize that empiricism is incomplete, but society as a whole is so married to it that we suffer cognitive dissonance about this realization. One part of us wants to double down and insist that it is reality, rather than our model of it, that is wrong, while the other grasps desperately for a better model.

Also, MENSA is a self selected group and I have never held a high opinion of it.

I recall a comedic/editorial column in the old Omni magazine about MENSA. (I think it was the early 80's) The author knew he couldn't qualify for MENSA membership, so he got together with a friend, then he phoned the organization's office and asked if he and his friend, with their IQ scores added together, could qualify for a joint membership. The secretary put down her phone and went to ask.

At this, the writer hung up. He then spent the rest of the article describing how he was going to establish the DENSA organization, which only would exist to oppose the MENSA organization, which he maintained had no point for existing.

(Insert Dr. Evil meme here.)

I always imagined that MENSA was the final test of intelligence. You scored high enough on the IQ test, but if you pay a self-congratulation fee to get your name printed in a book, you're still a rube

There was a psych experiment Lisa performed on Bart in The Simpsons. I think she electrified a candybar then proceeded to count the number of times Bart would shock himself trying to grab it. In other words, "Forrest Gump."

I would hold compassion in higher esteem than stoic virtue. Remember that society where stoics came from considered enslavement as good and natural and feeding people to animals as good sport.

That's not to say Epictetus does not have lots of worthwhile things to say, but that there are other facets to living a good life in addition to what was stoics prescribed.

Oh man, Emperor Commodus[0] is a perfect example of this. Commodus was the first emperor to be 'born in the purple'. His father was Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Yes THAT Marcus Aurelius, the stoic of all stoics. Commodus was likely insane and participated in daily gladiatorial combat against people and animals already behanded or hamstrung before the fight (so as to not actual pose a threat to the emperor), slaughtering hundreds. He was drowned in the bath by his wrestling partner. His death kicked off the year of the five emperors and civil war in the empire.

So, even when the prime example of stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius, is given the sole reigns of power to the prime example of an empire at it's height, Rome in the Nerva–Antonines, it falls apart at the hands of familial duty/love.

One thing to remember about Romans is that there is not 'thesis' to them. They did whatever they needed to do at the time. For example: look at the Roman Honor of the Republic days. It was fierce, passionate, and swift. Any slight was dealt with in total violence and societal honor was worth much more than your life. Compare that to the stoics, where nothing could 'slight' a person, only their internal life was important, and society was to be nearly forgotten. The Romans were, if anything, adaptable to the extreme, which is why they lasted nearly 2000 years.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodus

> I would hold compassion in higher esteem than stoic virtue.

I do too, but "compassion > stoicism" is not something science can prove. That's why I find articles like this one a little silly.

Stoicism was a coping mechanism for a brutal world. You see the same ideas in Eastern Philosophy as well.

An example is that people lost children much more often.

> "It doesn't matter how you feel, feelings are just an appearance in consciousness"

I wish that were actually true. It is however, objectively, quite false. You cannot simply will yourself out of a lack of motivation, or depression. Sure, you can to SOME degree, but your feeling of motivation is not trivial. It dramatically impacts how you function, down to the level in which your brain is engaged.

Maybe you can, maybe we just don't know how.

Several religions include "mastery of one self" at the top of their list for hapiness. Whether it is possible and how is another question. Meditation, for example, is advertised as having exactly that purpose.

It isn’t about will power. Will power can and will fail you. This is not a proposed solution to depression. Though, you will find, these same ideas I sketched from Stoicism are at the center of CBT, which is one of the few modern therapies that helps improve depression. This is more about having a framework for coping with negative emotions and positive emotions. I understand the biological issues with depression, this is just dealing with life from a relatively well adjusted starting point. If you are clinically depressed, life philosophy is important for maintenance and staying out of the hole (IMO). You certainly can’t get out if you are caught in a cycle of self defeat and the brains chemicals are out of whack. There is no universal advice that will work for everyone. But Stoicism is a powerful tool that has helped people endure unimaginable circumstances. (Stockdsle, Vietnam POW, concentration camp survivors, etc).

Final thought, depression is about recognizing the thought patterns of depression. Having awareness of thought patterns is a key part of how psychology treats modern depression.

>There are no new fundamental insights into the human condition in 3000 years.

I'd say the discovery of evolution along with the big bang and much of the rest of science are some fundamental insights. They have the effect of making some of the prior religious stories seem less plausible than previously. I think we're still working on making sense of that.

My cursory understanding of the stoics is that they are focused on excellence in virtue (wisdom, morality, courage, and moderation) and mastering the self. What I don't understand is whether these constitute the purpose. In other words, is life purpose according to Epictetus mastering virtue or is mastering virtue a way to achieve a purpose that one defines for oneself? Any pointers?

As far as I can tell, stoics believe that being an excellent man (or woman) is the purpose of a man (or woman). Just as being an excellent horse is the purpose of a horse, or being an excellent chair is the purpose of being a chair.

Yes! But they also viewed society and connection to others as vital. So many people think Stoicism is a dour internally focused philosophy, and that is very nearly the opposite of truth. Being excellent meant being as good at your profession as you could be. Being the best father, etc.

> There are no new fundamental insights into the human condition in 3000 years.

Human nature has not changed much in the meanwhile, if at all.

If anyone is interested in learning what the greek philosophy of life was all about, I don’t think gets more entertaining then listening to Rufus Fears lecture on it. The message is definitely buried but oh what gems when he goes off on a tangent.

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/famous-greeks.html

To my eyes the main difference between today and ancient societies is lack of central narratives. Greek philosophy was hung up on appeals to nature, souls, and the greats unequivocally believed in a creator god of some kind (not the Pantheon). Today philosophy is much more detached from these ideas that were once central. Today a rational explanation of reality leaves little necessity for invoking God.

Greeks could take solace in the unexplainable by chalking it up to a creator's will. We don't have that luxury anymore. Science has been so powerful in explaining reality that the natural instinct is no longer to invoke theistic reasonings. We take the wait and see approach.

Well wait and see is antithetical to narrative building. Yet at this point there are no other tenable stances to take. Agnosticism is the only justifiable stance to take, but it is a very unfulfilling one for many people.

There are smaller narratives around today such as humanism (and capitalism?), but they are not all encompassing. Would love to hear others' thoughts about the (in my opinion) unqiue philosophical setting three centuries of deferring to science has left us.

I don’t see that much has changed. Life events unfold around us largely out of our control. We have a few scraps of knowledge and can frame our place differently, but nothing fundamental about human existence has changed. We live a bit longer. We have some cool gadgets. But we still die. We have not spread beyond earth. People still murder and kill and conquer and the only way to save ourselves is through ourselves. Call it a creator. Call it life. Most of it, we have no control over, just like the ancient Greeks. Until we radically alter the human condition, not much changes.

For a time, science had a very strong finalistic narrative too - that science itself would remove all misery from the world. The strength of this narrative is much diminished today, even if it's not dead - it's often visible on HN, especially when commenting on themes like climate change.

Personally, I envy those who still believe in that vision.

Long time lurker here. Created an account just to say that I agree with this comment.