This "ideology of emptiness"

[whYNOT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV4tMvr7xZY

 

[Eiuol]

He has a pretty Nietzschean approach. I think he's largely right about things but I have doubts about what he was saying about the studies he read. Anyway, what he is talking about is a lot like the concept "the last man". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_man

[Easy Truth]

"Young people don't know how to think", or "30 percent can't feel good about anything", if true, is alarming. The fact that people have a hard time finding their way to the truth has both psychological but also sociological/political reasons that need to be dealt with.

A human, by nature, wants to feel pleasure. When they want to feel numb, it's a reaction to something. They are shut down to protect themselves. Removing those reactions, those maladaptations is the direction that is sought. Psychology has plenty of techniques to deal with that nowaday. When he talks about "object relations", he is still steeped in a Freudian perspective when so much more is available.

There is no question that one should "work on oneself" and improve, but the idea that "the young" as a group, and the  idea that "current young" vs. "when he was young", are dealing with new issues, is not true. 1968 with multiple assassinations and having to go to war and die was just as confusing and numbing as now. The difference is in "numbing" technology.

Similar to saying "more reading will solve the problem". It might help depending what you read.

He made a lot of sense, but I could not bear to watch the whole thing. If the summary was at the end I missed it. If someone could summarize it, it would be helpful.

[dream_weaver]

He speaks at the end of everything being the consequence of choices. 

He speaks also of actions based on emotions while never bring up or identifying that emotions are the consequences of the ideas chosen and held.

@whYNOTa separate thread, an uncommented upon link? Are you tossing out bones here, or do you think this somehow ties in and advocates the roles of reason and morality in shaping the course of history?

[whYNOT]

12 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

He speaks at the end of everything being the consequence of choices. 

He speaks also of actions based on emotions while never bring up or identifying that emotions are the consequences of the ideas chosen and held.

@whYNOTa separate thread, an uncommented upon link? Are you tossing out bones here, or do you think this somehow ties in and advocates the roles of reason and morality in shaping the course of history?

d_w, When looked at as observations, a commentary, on the activities and motivations (or lack of) of more recent generations, his findings are generally valid - and shocking - and his insights have large merit I think. 

What after all does he point to, but what has become visible: a growing lack of purpose, loss of individual values, the disintegrating cognitive-emotional self, anti-intellectualism, appearances to others mattering more than truths ("reality"), expressed emotions, when not deadened, not even being the genuine article any longer, but facsimiles for presentation to others, the degradation of literacy evident in superficial, meaningless communication among people; actions without cause - and right, the free will was implied.

Previous psychological tenets have to be discarded to explain the phenomena of these later generations (he states). Almost as an alien race. I don't know about that, but that as a psychologist he's deeply shaken is obvious.

One would fault the causalities, e.g. emotion-cognition-action, while acknowledging the accuracy of the symptoms he observes. A general nihilism and despair, that I've also been observing, which may well be disastrous to mankind on the grand scale.

In conclusion, both implied and stated I think, is his urgent counter to those: take charge, be authentic, think, aim for the good emotions and good relationships, Love Life, love your own life. To which one can only say: And how!

Edited April 7, 2021 by whYNOT

[dream_weaver]

It is not hard to find what is described by Prof. Vaknin, agreed. Your elaboration helps to understand better the motivation behind posting of the link here, as well as providing an improved summation of Sam's takeaway.

 

 

[MisterSwig]

In the past, those who couldn't hack it mentally could run off to war and die a noble death for their nation. Now we don't have great wars anymore because nukes. So our societies are overrun with mental cases imposing their psychotic ideas and behaviors on the culture.

[Eiuol]

2 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

In the past, those who couldn't hack it mentally could run off to war and die a noble death for their nation.

I mean, I'm not sure if it's better to be altruistic and die for the greater good of the nation, or to live a life with an empty shell of a self. In any case, you still can go off to war and die for the nation. I think people realize by now that is an insufficient way to find even a replacement of meaning. 

I don't think what this guy in the video is observing is very different from the end of the nineteenth century. It's just easier to see nowadays. 

 

[MisterSwig]

2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

In any case, you still can go off to war and die for the nation.

Not really, very few people die in wars now compared to prior generations. We've looked at this fact as a good thing generally, but it has negative consequences.