Jordan Peterson on The Necessity of Virtue

[PatrickC]

An interesting perspective on 'virtue'. I'll be straight up and honest, that I'm not entirely sure of his perspective. But I like that he sees virtue as being attached to material reality. Be great to hear other peoples thoughts on this talk.

 

[LifeIsBrief]

"The Buddhists say life is suffering.  That's the first fundamental Buddhist dictum, and I suppose, a modern person would tend to think of that as a very pessimistic claim, but I found when I've shared that information with my students, once they understand what it means... It's actually a relief, because people run around madly, suffering away, and all of them inside their little shell think... Well, there must be something wrong with me, because here I am suffering, and you know, I mean... That isn't how things are supposed to be.  Well then, you might say, who says that's not the way life's supposed to be? The Buddhists say life is suffering, so what that means is... If you're not suffering, that's a good thing, that's lucky, that's fortunate, that's not the way of the world, that may be something to be grateful for, ecstatic about even"

 

This is the fundamental truth that allows me to think that Stefan is one of the greatest philosophers of our time, but still consider myself Buddhish, despite his utter distaste for Buddhism.  I'm only 5 minutes in, but that was so well put, I can't help but be enthralled.  If you are remotely interested in the more rational aspects of Buddhism, there is a really great, incredibly short book written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, called "The Dalai Lama's Book of Awakening", which in my early 20's, and honestly, to this day, I find to be an absolutely magnificent treatise on morality.  It gets a bit hippy dippy, and he has difficulty translating some concepts to English, but it is entirely worth the 2-3 hour read.  FYI, the current Dalai Lama, actually believes it might be immoral to select the next Dalai Lama using the same archaic methods used to select him, and it's one of very few religions that require no belief in god.

[PatrickC]

This is the fundamental truth that allows me to think that Stefan is one of the greatest philosophers of our time, but still consider myself Buddhish, despite his utter distaste for Buddhism.  I'm only 5 minutes in, but that was so well put, I can't help but be enthralled.  If you are remotely interested in the more rational aspects of Buddhism, there is a really great, incredibly short book written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, called "The Dalai Lama's Book of Awakening", which in my early 20's, and honestly, to this day, I find to be an absolutely magnificent treatise on morality.  It gets a bit hippy dippy, and he has difficulty translating some concepts to English, but it is entirely worth the 2-3 hour read.  FYI, the current Dalai Lama, actually believes it might be immoral to select the next Dalai Lama using the same archaic methods used to select him, and it's one of very few religions that require no belief in god.

 

I've read it too, many moons ago now. I studied quite a lot about Tibetan Buddhism in my 20's, as a part of my (unknown to me then) journey out of my families Chrsitian mythology. I certainly found it more compelling than Christianity, but I was never entirely convinced. I met a lot of dysfunction and passive aggression within a small community I knocked around with in Cambridge. Not to mention seeing the Dalai Lama swanning it around with the hoi polloi basically kidding people that his form of dictatorship was better than everyone else's. Of course dysfunction goes on in every community, even at FDR. So I'm not entirely attributing these traits to Buddhism. But I do find the forgiveness aspect a difficult one to swallow. To me forgiveness is an involuntary response to virtue. You literally have no control on whom you forgive, if that makes sense.

[LifeIsBrief]

That's very interesting.  I never swallowed the theory whole, and never really "engaged with the community"...  thus sparing me the problem of hypocrisy, which seems inherent in almost all human endeavors.  I would say... The people you have the option of forgiving, have control over whether or not you forgive them, if that makes any sense.

 

When someone truly regrets their actions, and desperately wants to reconcile, for no self interested benefit, but peace of mind... It becomes very hard not to give them the opportunity.  Your forgiveness becomes their carrot, and their actions become yours.  I think this is something I have personally experienced however, and thus it might in objective reality, be incredibly rare.

[PatrickC]

The people you have the option of forgiving, have control over whether or not you forgive them, if that makes any sense.

 

Yes, it will be their actions that will dictate whether or not they will be forgiven.

[LifeIsBrief]

Ahh, yes, forgiveness is a response to virtue... Should have been self explanatory... Too early in the morning for me...