Comment by bryananderson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bryananderson | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry but I can’t stand when someone takes their own dissatisfaction (which is entirely valid, it’s your life after all) and generalizes it to a grand social theory in a way that is simultaneously immensely self-important (everyone who isn’t dissatisfied in the exact same way as me is fooling themselves, no one could have a different experience from me) and deeply self-pitying (oh noo I’m a literal criminal in this society because someone had a surprised reaction to my dissatisfaction).

> But you can't even say that out loud anymore, because that means "questioning the whole western ideology" and suddenly someone feels threatened, and myself becomes a criminal.

What reality are you living in? The consensus in the west, online at least, seems to be that everything sucks and is getting worse. Personally I think that’s overwrought, but it’s certainly a sentiment that’s everywhere. It sounds like you are the one who’s struggling with the fact that some people disagree with you, which sounds like something you should be able to handle if you want to live a “wild, natural, and rough” life.

> Western culture has become empty and fake - and I'm tired to explain the most obvious thing to so many people - and in the end, they don't believe you anyway. They really believe, they are part of something bigger, are very important and are going to be famous or something. Intellectual vanity and luxury and bragging.

This is the embodiment of the meme of the guy in the corner at the party (“they don’t know…”) while everyone else is dancing happily. The fact that you feel that life in Austria is empty and fake actually does not mean that everyone else must be feeling the exact same thing and are just deluding themselves! The ability to understand that other people have different internal experiences than yourself is a really basic emotional skill.

I’m sorry that you haven’t been happy in the west. I’m sure you’re far from the only one. But your unhappiness doesn’t mean that western culture is against “life itself”, whatever that even means.

> The consensus in the west, online at least, seems to be that everything sucks and is getting worse.

It might be so in words, but it's not so in meaning. I understand what the GP means, the west has a mindset of "things are terrible and getting worse, the elite rule us, but this is still the best country in the world". The eastern mindset is more of a "this country is shit, but there are some nice things, and we try to focus on those".

It's hard to communicate a whole culture in a few comments, but the sentiment is very different.

Exactly. One of the reasons why the West feels so empty and artificial is because it has lost this complex understanding of the world and people and acts only according to simple maxims, logical sentences or final conclusions. In principle, all of life has been reduced to the pure logic of political economy and statistics. Language, thinking, arts and freedom become impoverished. Now that life is so simple and can be controlled politically and economically, even the existential problems are being reinterpreted. They suddenly become logical problems themselves, solvable through calculation. Suddenly they are overcome with optimism that they can in principle be solved, and for everyone equally. So we don't have to worry about anything anymore and can just trust that someone will find the algorithm for it.

I think the only reason people can't read between the lines anymore is because they're too quick to get hung up on words that can be used as criticism. This destroys mutual understanding immensely.

> I think the only reason people can't read between the lines anymore is because they're too quick to get hung up on words that can be used as criticism. This destroys mutual understanding immensely.

Unfortunately yes, this has become much more common now. "I'm offended by your words, therefore you have no right to say them" is a thing that is very widespread. Yes, free speech does mean that you allow poisonous ideologies to spread, but a lack of free speech means that you allow them to ossify and persist because nothing can be challenged any more.

It's an ongoing path of over-rationalisation which is developing since early modernity. The current trend of the "appification" of the entire human condition is just a late manifestation of that intellectual lineage starting at least since Descartes and Spinoza. All aspects of life are seen through a rigid, mechanistic structure of institutions, rules and behaviours. "Anecdotal experience" is often discarded for a unique "reputable" source of truth.

Wait a second. You accuse the West of being overly reductionist? Isn't that an incredibly reductionist thing to say? There isn't a monolithic "West". There's billions of people with widely divergent attitudes and beliefs.

The self pitying from people claiming “you can’t even say anything anymore” is almost comical at times.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wt8Dxpb3b6E

I guess I have to take a stand on this. I don't care about social media, I said goodbye to it a long time ago. It is even a problem to measure or evaluate the world based on social media.

So where does the feeling of people not feeling heard or understood come from? Well, firstly, because they like to be told first and foremost that this isn't true at all. You could say anything. But you overlook the simple fact that you didn't listen to the other person when you gave your reply. People neither listened to his reasons nor asked about them, nor were interested in them. Second, people who like to feel entitled or special have learned to simply ignore other people's problems. As Taylor Swift aptly said - 'shake it off'. This 'shacking off' occurs all the more, the deeper and more complex, i.e. more incomprehensible, your problems are to outsiders, so that an enormous effort is necessary to make them understandable. And also very compressed, because the time span of attention is also no more. On the one hand, it is often difficult to communicate, but on the other hand, interest in listening has also decreased. Thirdly, many people probably have similar problems and therefore intuitively avoid each other. Suddenly the company of others feels exhausting, perhaps demanding an imagined care that you cannot give because your own strength is not enough, or creating a fear of rejection because you need the care of others, but they also have the right to refuse this.

I could go on with many other reasons...

So far all I’ve read are vague claims of oppression. I do sympathise that you don’t feel happy about something. Life can be a struggle and nearly everyone has their share of challenges. But based on what you have written so far I’m very unconvinced it’s anything much to do with western life because a) it’s terribly vague and b) sounds very familiar to stuff I’ve heard before from people just wanting to blame others for their own problems. I’m listening though so be specific and I’ll genuinely consider anything you have to say.

Hey Jahnu,

I don't know if this of any interest to you. And it is in German too, so maybe even not understandable to you. But the findings are shocking. The majority of German people are afraid to express their opinion as it strikes them. So if you are interested in it or just want to look up how the "trend" feels in Germany, here a very actual analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOvG35T8NEw

Thanks for your comments I find your writing has some satisfying and interesting components to it. These are important observations— putting in words some of my own feelings of my own western society. I would emphasize also a feeling of decline: that there is a sense of helplessness with the state of society sometimes.

Here is some gunpowder, crafted by a "cosmopolitan" post WWII german jewish emigree. It's called the Jargon of Authenticity and it can be fun : https://ia801903.us.archive.org/0/items/adorno_jargon/adorno...

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