The Joy of Battle

[Nick_A]

Now in these times in which feminized tolerant males and aggressive intolerant females are featured in PC thought, is the joy of battle still a sign of strength or just a sign of weakeness in modern men?

“By some ardent enthusiasts Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither; but its principle characteristic seems to be—what human nature mostly delights in—a fight.”
― Emanuel Lasker, Common Sense in Chess

Is Dr. Lasker right? If so the fight is natural but the question becomes what is worth fighting for and how do we acquire the ability to fight? In chess we fight with our minds but in life we fight with our whole being. If our lives are the result of conditioning we may not know what to fight for or even how to fight. So if Dr. Lasker is right and the fight is what offers Man one of his greatest delights, how do we learn what to fight for and the ability to fight as a human being rather than a conditioned automaton living in denial?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Don't expect any sympathy then when you get your arms and legs blown off, or get disemboweled in the process of your 'joy'.
Besides, it's ordinary civilians who suffer the most, by far, in wars, not moronic soldier boys getting their jollies.

[Nick_A]

Don't expect any sympathy then when you get your arms and legs blown off, or get disemboweled in the process of your 'joy'.
Besides, it's ordinary civilians who suffer the most, by far, in wars, not moronic soldier boys getting their jollies.

Your trouble vege is that you ignore the breadth and depth of the question in favor of a rant. What is the reality your rant obscures?

"A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams." ~ Simone Weil -- Gravity and Grace

[Dubious]

Isn't that what sports is for the joy of battle by proxy. One adopts a team, usually the home team, and if it loses it's almost as if it were a personal insult.

[commonsense]

If the fight or flight response is considered to be the result of internal human biochemistry, then to fight is natural.

However, that delight may be derived from fighting is not universal. Therefore it is not natural.

[Nick_A]

Jacob Needleman in his book "Lost Christianity" says the following after a lecture he had been giving took an unexpected turn:

Of course it had been stupid of me to express it in quite that way, but nevertheless the point was worth pondering: does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure? The history of religion in the west seems by and large to rest on the assumption that the answer is no. Therefore, externally induced emotions of egoistic fear (hellfire), anticipation of pleasure (heaven), vengeance, etc., have been marshaled to keep people in the faith.

The whole notion of sainthood, both in the East and in the West, has contributed to this notion. the saint is often presented as though he were a being with an unnaturally strong impulse towards truth. The picture of the saint's sacrifices and asceticism are so presented as to assure the rest of us that what he attained is impossible for us. This of course, easily supports human passivity and wishful thinking, for at the same time that one is endowing the saint with an unnaturally strong impulse toward truth one might as well endow him, in the bargain, with a miraculous power to help the seeker without the latter making any real efforts of inner questioning and search.

P.59

The point I am making is that it has become natural to underestimate the relative meaning of the concept of battle. Nietzsche wrote of the will to power. Vege associates battle with corpses, Dr. Lasker appreciates the joy of the struggle for the world chess championship while a person on an esoteric path would appreciate battle as the struggle with himself. The joy of success must be greater than the pleasure from casual acceptance.

Those into AI will only be concerned with the pleasures of casual acceptance while those aware of the inner need for the struggle for truth in themselves will be aware of the dangers AI present by promoting casual self acceptance.

The latest tendency to promote the feminization of boys is directed at eliminating the benefits of battle - of masculine inner and outer struggle while promoting the passive tendencies indoctrinated by the state.

This is not an easy question for me anyhow since people have become emotionally involved with it. A boy taught to use a gun to protect his future family for example is frowned on in many circles. He should be taught to cry and call the police rather than battle to protect his home.

Aspiration struggles with nature but can also be understood as the aspiration to become oneself and reconcile our two natures.

[gaffo]

Now in these times in which feminized tolerant males and aggressive intolerant females are featured in PC thought, is the joy of battle still a sign of strength or just a sign of weakeness in modern men?

“By some ardent enthusiasts Chess has been elevated into a science or an art. It is neither; but its principle characteristic seems to be—what human nature mostly delights in—a fight.”
― Emanuel Lasker, Common Sense in Chess

Is Dr. Lasker right? If so the fight is natural but the question becomes what is worth fighting for and how do we acquire the ability to fight? In chess we fight with our minds but in life we fight with our whole being. If our lives are the result of conditioning we may not know what to fight for or even how to fight. So if Dr. Lasker is right and the fight is what offers Man one of his greatest delights, how do we learn what to fight for and the ability to fight as a human being rather than a conditioned automaton living in denial?

Lasker is right, but your use of the term "battle" to me means "War" and there is nothing good about death, dying and killing.

perhaps another term (competition?) would be better suited to your thread/theme?

[gaffo]

Don't expect any sympathy then when you get your arms and legs blown off, or get disemboweled in the process of your 'joy'.

LOL!! indeed Madam!

Besides, it's ordinary civilians who suffer the most, by far, in wars, not moronic soldier boys getting their jollies.

concur.

ask the 70+ yrs ago residence of Dresden and Tokyo. (Lemay was a war criminal in my mind/IMO).

[gaffo]

Don't expect any sympathy then when you get your arms and legs blown off, or get disemboweled in the process of your 'joy'.
Besides, it's ordinary civilians who suffer the most, by far, in wars, not moronic soldier boys getting their jollies.

Your trouble vege is that you ignore the breadth and depth of the question in favor of a rant. What is the reality your rant obscures?

"A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams." ~ Simone Weil -- Gravity and Grace

No, i think Veg was right, your use of "Battle" is a poor one. i understood your point - after reading your post AFTER into use of the term Battle.

[gaffo]

If the fight or flight response is considered to be the result of internal human biochemistry, then to fight is natural.

However, that delight may be derived from fighting is not universal. Therefore it is not natural.

one should also note the difference between adrenelin and joy/happyness.

is suspect per Battles - there is only the former, for some. the rest are just praying to their god and hunkering down for the end of the battle(and/or planing how to surrender/ not let their fellows down/ how to desert.

[gaffo]

Jacob Needleman in his book "Lost Christianity" says the following after a lecture he had been giving took an unexpected turn:

Of course it had been stupid of me to express it in quite that way, but nevertheless the point was worth pondering: does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure? The history of religion in the west seems by and large to rest on the assumption that the answer is no. Therefore, externally induced emotions of egoistic fear (hellfire), anticipation of pleasure (heaven), vengeance, etc., have been marshaled to keep people in the faith.

The whole notion of sainthood, both in the East and in the West, has contributed to this notion. the saint is often presented as though he were a being with an unnaturally strong impulse towards truth. The picture of the saint's sacrifices and asceticism are so presented as to assure the rest of us that what he attained is impossible for us. This of course, easily supports human passivity and wishful thinking, for at the same time that one is endowing the saint with an unnaturally strong impulse toward truth one might as well endow him, in the bargain, with a miraculous power to help the seeker without the latter making any real efforts of inner questioning and search.

P.59

The point I am making is that it has become natural to underestimate the relative meaning of the concept of battle. Nietzsche wrote of the will to power. Vege associates battle with corpses, Dr. Lasker appreciates the joy of the struggle for the world chess championship while a person on an esoteric path would appreciate battle as the struggle with himself. The joy of success must be greater than the pleasure from casual acceptance.

Those into AI will only be concerned with the pleasures of casual acceptance while those aware of the inner need for the struggle for truth in themselves will be aware of the dangers AI present by promoting casual self acceptance.

The latest tendency to promote the feminization of boys is directed at eliminating the benefits of battle - of masculine inner and outer struggle while promoting the passive tendencies indoctrinated by the state.

This is not an easy question for me anyhow since people have become emotionally involved with it. A boy taught to use a gun to protect his future family for example is frowned on in many circles. He should be taught to cry and call the police rather than battle to protect his home.

the old and excellent movie Saw Dogs comes to mind here. a wimp who finally "mans up" - without killing anyone though (thats good thing BTW).

I think the boy taught to use and gun, and known by the dad as wise enough to use it prior to getting one, is fine! however if dad knows his son is a fool then should never give the son a gun.

if dad is a fool and gives his son a gun, who is also a fool, then watch your head.

[11011]

i agree that humans enjoy battle in essence - competition, victory, respect, challenge - all of these things make the essence of battle enjoyable both for men and women.

however...

war as a particular form of battle does not appear to be enjoyable on the whole, even for the victors. anyone who has studied or even better participated in war, like a real full out war, being on the front lines and in the thick of it, not mere posturing or idle threats from afar, despite the hype and encouragement they may have received back home before going to war, these people will tell you that war is gruesomely terrifying and quickly becomes a game of survival in a very hostile environment.

as proof of the individuals response as not being a favorable one on the whole, why is it that so many soldiers return with PTSD or severe maladjustment once back in civil society?

yes, it can sew a sense of comradery like nothing else perhaps, as you routinely put your life in danger for others and vice-versa, yes killing someone can give you a sense of power when you may have felt powerless in your life prior, yes it can give you a sense of purpose when you may have been without direction thus far, and so on, but my impression is that, these things can be better realized in the context of sports and other things (for everyone, including spectators), and that on the whole war is not joyful, moreover if anyone really gains from war, i would wonder how bad their life or condition was back in civil society for that to be so, and maybe instead just that needs to be remedied, rather than war being overall joyful by comparison.

why humans still engage in wars is imo a result of their inability, as things currently stand, to find true happiness in constancy. so long as there is useless change lacking such a goal, there will be wars.

[commonsense]

i agree that humans enjoy battle in essence - competition, victory, respect, challenge - all of these things make the essence of battle enjoyable both for men and women.

however...

war as a particular form of battle does not appear to be enjoyable on the whole, even for the victors. anyone who has studied or even better participated in war, like a real full out war, being on the front lines and in the thick of it, not mere posturing or idle threats from afar, despite the hype and encouragement they may have received back home before going to war, these people will tell you that war is gruesomely terrifying and quickly becomes a game of survival in a very hostile environment.

as proof of the individuals response as not being a favorable one on the whole, why is it that so many soldiers return with PTSD or severe maladjustment once back in civil society?

yes, it can sew a sense of comradery like nothing else perhaps, as you routinely put your life in danger for others and vice-versa, yes killing someone can give you a sense of power when you may have felt powerless in your life prior, yes it can give you a sense of purpose when you may have been without direction thus far, and so on, but my impression is that, these things can be better realized in the context of sports and other things (for everyone, including spectators), and that on the whole war is not joyful, moreover if anyone really gains from war, i would wonder how bad their life or condition was back in civil society for that to be so, and maybe instead just that needs to be remedied, rather than war being overall joyful by comparison.

why humans still engage in wars is imo a result of their inability, as things currently stand, to find true happiness in constancy. so long as there is useless change lacking such a goal, there will be wars.

Extremely well said.

[Nick_A]

i agree that humans enjoy battle in essence - competition, victory, respect, challenge - all of these things make the essence of battle enjoyable both for men and women.

however...

war as a particular form of battle does not appear to be enjoyable on the whole, even for the victors. anyone who has studied or even better participated in war, like a real full out war, being on the front lines and in the thick of it, not mere posturing or idle threats from afar, despite the hype and encouragement they may have received back home before going to war, these people will tell you that war is gruesomely terrifying and quickly becomes a game of survival in a very hostile environment.

as proof of the individuals response as not being a favorable one on the whole, why is it that so many soldiers return with PTSD or severe maladjustment once back in civil society?

yes, it can sew a sense of comradery like nothing else perhaps, as you routinely put your life in danger for others and vice-versa, yes killing someone can give you a sense of power when you may have felt powerless in your life prior, yes it can give you a sense of purpose when you may have been without direction thus far, and so on, but my impression is that, these things can be better realized in the context of sports and other things (for everyone, including spectators), and that on the whole war is not joyful, moreover if anyone really gains from war, i would wonder how bad their life or condition was back in civil society for that to be so, and maybe instead just that needs to be remedied, rather than war being overall joyful by comparison.

why humans still engage in wars is imo a result of their inability, as things currently stand, to find true happiness in constancy. so long as there is useless change lacking such a goal, there will be wars.

So IYO what should be the goal of education in dealing with the apparent attraction to the joy of the fight? Society can first say that boys and girls are the same so just feminize boys to think like girls which should solve the problem. Will it? The second approach teaches boys how to fight and what to fight for. The problem is that the tyrant will be happy to teach you what to fight for. Yet suppose Dr. Tarrasch was right when he wrote that "Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy." What about the fight makes us happy and is it right to destroy the delight of the fight rather than being overly concerned with victory or loss?

Firstly I believe the current drive to feminize boys is nothing but child abuse Consider this article in Psychology Today. It concludes with

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... nize-girls

I am not saying that extremes of masculinity, which could include violence, are acceptable. But given the association of masculine traits with self-esteem and success, something which our society has now at least tacitly recognized for our daughters, and given the many ways in which boys and young men are lagging behind girls and young women in their education as well as many other ways, it seems unwise to feminize our sons while we encourage independence, self-confidence, and competitiveness in our daughters.

Finally, if evolutionary psychology means anything at all -- and there is much evidence that it does -- will our independent, strong, and confident daughters ultimately want men who don’t share these traits?

We shall see. Sweden is experimenting with trying to make its pre-schools as gender-neutral as possible, but this necessarily means a reversal of the usual sex roles. The headline of a front page story in the New York Times several days ago reads “In Sweden’s Preschools, Boys Learn to Dance and Girls Learn to Yell.” Is this the wave of the future? If so, decades of research suggest that it is a very uncertain one.

What better way to destroy the natural joy of the fight than making boys lovely? I don't buy it. Just consider what is lost on a philosophy forum by not knowing what to fight for in relation to philosophy and how to fight? How to awaken to the idea that the fight is with ourselves. The ultimate battle for prestige we know of as war is the result of not knowing what to fight for

Simone Weil wrote:

“The struggle between the opponents and defenders of capitalism is a struggle between innovators who do not know what innovation to make and conservatives who do not know what to conserve.”

“Capitalism has brought about the emancipation of collective humanity with respect to nature. But this collective humanity has itself taken on with respect to the individual the oppressive function formerly exercised by nature.”

4) “The thought of being under absolute compulsion, the plaything of another, is unendurable for a human being. Hence, if every way of escape from the constraint is taken from him, there is nothing left for him to do but to persuade himself that he does the things he is forced to do willingly.”

We seem to be victims of forces we don't understand so blindly cooperate with obvious absurdities including war. Society doesn't know what it is doing so makes sure young boys and girls will never become normal from respecting the natural inclination to fight and how to put it into a conscious human perspective..

Is there a way out of this psychological deformity?

[11011]

the delight in the fight for short-term gain is stress relief, but encouraging people to fight may not bring overall delight.

in other words, if you're really concerned with delight - putting aside fighting for a moment - like maximizing this for the individual in terms of their life overall, then fighting outside of competitive fighting or other sport doesn't make sense period because rarely is a single individual or party responsible for a grievance to the extent that fighting them will resolve the problem once and for all; and insofar as the problem will reemerge again and again including in different contexts then fighting will not bring overall delight. because it will just cause endless stress, requiring endless fighting to relieve (temporarily).

in other words, the delight in the fight you are talking about requires that people be essentially unhappy the rest of the time or engaged in other escapist activities : S

is such momentary delight worth it to you?

but i mean, idealism aside, if a better scenario isn't in our foreseeable future (one where the underlying cause of the stress compelling us to fight is absent), then yes people should be taught to fight as grievances arise rather than bear the stress. in my mind, both scenarios will wrought overall unhappiness, though the former perhaps bringing temporary relief (assuming you win; if you lose it may make your situation worse and thus increase your stress whereas if you didn't fight you might at least avoid a worse situation), so might as well go down with a fight

but it all depends on whether that underlying cause or problem can be addressed, but if it can't, then yes, FIGHT! everyone will lose in the end anyway, might as well get something good out of it some of the time, assuming you won't gain more stress relief from opting our of a probable lose. so ya you should only fight if you're going to win, unless you enjoy losing