Philosophy Now Forum

we ''moderns'' have named our age... we are not the age of ideology
or the Medieval age, no, we are the ''Age of Sisyphus''

Sisyphus: was one who was condemned by the gods for eternity to
repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it role down again,
once it gets to the top...

and why did the gods punish Sisyphus? They punished him for trickery
of others including that is cheating death twice...
Sisyphus believed that his cleverness surpassed even that of Zeus
himself.. just as we believe ourselves to be the cleverest beings in
the universe.... are we just as wrong as Sisyphus?

the question becomes, not of the classic questions
of escaping suffering or gaining wealth or escaping death...
No, the question becomes, how do we escape this Sisyphean existence
we have today? A system as far as I can tell, we have done to ourselves....
why would a people condemn themselves in this barbaric manner?
as if we took Sisyphus as a role model... Someone to be followed
unto death?

why would anyone, any society believe that the answer to existence
is Sisyphus?

Kropotkin

Many Americans believe in the concept of ''American
exceptionalism" in which America, in some fashion,
is distinctive or unique or exemplary compared to other
nations.. that we have ''divine'' oversight because of the
uniqueness of America...and only god can call us to task,
because we are so ''unique''... and this hubris is different
from Sisyphus, how exactly?

this ''uniqueness'' allows us to escape accountability for our collective
actions.. once again, I am not sure how, but the ''how'' is irrelevant
to those who believe in the God-given superiority of America...

but if we were to judge America on its actual practices, we
would fail miserably... take the idea of Justice...
that America is clearly not a place where justice, the equality
of everyone before the law, is practiced... IQ45 with his
constant delay of Justice, leading to justice being delayed,
and justice delayed is ''justice denied''....
there are many who have said, that the wealthy and powerful
and connected have always had justice delayed or denied....
and this make this right, how exactly?
we cannot call ourselves ''exceptional'' if we don't even practice
basic justice, and justice here, is equality before the law....

Our hubris is incredible here... and what is worse, that we can't even
imagine our immense hubris, that is the state of modern America....
the entitlement of people is also part of this hubris...
everyone, EVERYONE, thinks that they are entitled and
above accountability/ or responsibility...the ''Not in my neighborhood''
crowd believes that it is others who should be held accountable....

the truth is no one is held accountable today except those who
are too poor or without any advantages... they are blamed for
everything because they can't fight back... our deficit?
blame the poor, high crime rate, again, blame the poor,
the state of education, you guessed it, the poor...
and it is an easy target because no one defends the poor...
attack the rich and you will a thousand defenders,
attack capitalism, and again, you will get a thousand plus
defenders...and attack the poor, and you will get crickets....

the cure for what ails America? to overcome our hubris and
take responsibility for who we are...

Kropotkin

with the understanding of the ""Myth of Sisyphus"" as being the
our entire modern existence... we can now work out what that means?

what do you have to look forward to in your own life?
What is your dream?
and I will be willing to bet that it is driven in some fashion by
visions of wealth or fame or titles or material possessions
or even power..... that our very dreams and hopes were indoctrinated
by the myths of the state, society, our family, our media and our church....

now, some clown will shout, but not me, I am clean as white snow...
I don't want that... and I call bullshit... one might say, I want
knowledge.. and that value, while very valuable leads us to what end?
to become a university professor.. that is a chase for titles...
to be a CEO, that is a chase for money and titles...
to be independent of others... that requires money.....
and there is no other means of being independent outside of money...

who here, who exactly here, lives in the far corner of their society,
in the wild forest that inhabits their respected country?
here in America, the wild reaches of Alaska? or as far away as one
can get in the UK? Each and every single one of us, clearly owns
a computer... rents something or like me, owns... we have jobs
or going to school to get the skills to get a job....

the biggest fantasy that anyone has, is that they are independent
of the state or the society....spoiler alert, you're not....

this ''myth of Sisyphus'' dominates every aspect of our lives...
one might say, not me... that just means you haven't figured
out the boulder you are pushing up the hill...and there is a boulder
that everyone on planet earth is pushing uphill... either you are aware of it,
or you are not..... it is still there...

What is your boulder?

Kropotkin

in thinking about this idea that human life today is
just another variation/continuation of the ''myth of Sisyphus''...

it is not just an individual thing, but a collective thing...
take ART for example, there is no culmination in ART...
as there is no culmination to philosophy or history or science,
or any of our other disciplines...

Culmination: the highest or climactic point of something,
especially as attained after a long time...

in these disciplines, there is no final, high point of existence....
there is no ultimate or concluding statements to be made...
just more variations on variations on variations..
everything ''new'' is just a reworking of an old story....

so, in a very real way, science and ART and history and even
philosophy is just another variation of the ''myth of Sisyphus''
continuously pushing the boulder uphill... but in this case, the
boulder in question is ART or history or science or, yep, you guessed
it, philosophy.... will there ever be an ''end game'', or final
solution in any of these disciplines? NO, I don't think so....
Will the boulder ever make it up the final uphill?
I don't see how....

Now comes the 64,000-dollar question, does that even matter,
the final conclusion of any of the disciplines?

Actually, for us, this is better news than we can hope for....
the human inability to discover a final answer, creates hope for us...
for a final answer, the definitive answer to any question also
prevents us from giving our own answer... how do you build on
something that is already complete and full?
this incompletion of our familar disciplines allows us room
to create our own vision of existence.... for if philosophy, for example,
is incomplete, it allows us room to bring in our own understanding
of philosophy...and what it means....

let us look at this question from another angle....
let us say, as if in the bible, that the final answer is given...
that of god... now, tell me, where is room for our answer?
if god is the final answer, we have nowhere else to go..
it is the final and complete answer which leads us to having
no where else to go... if god is the final answer, what else
can we say? the ''myth of Sisyphus'' allows us room to grow
and answer those questions as we see fit because there
is no final, complete answer to the ''myth of Sisyphus"...
or said another way...

the answer being god, stifles us, silences us,
the myth of Sisyphus enables us, frees us to seek our own
answers... that is why the myth of Sisyphus is a far more
important belief than the myth of god....the myth of Sisyphus
allows us room for interpretation whereas the myth of god, does not.....

beware of any answer that proclaims itself to be the final answer,
for that leaves us no room to grow or build upon... the final
answer always leaves us at the final point, with nowhere else to go...

far from being a total value destroyer, the myth of Sisyphus, offers
us room to become who we are....

Kropotkin

the interesting part of this existence that is our modern age,
this ''age of Sisyphus'' is not in the rolling the boulder uphill
for our entire lifetime, no, the interesting part, as noted
by Camus, is that small time when we must walk back down
the hill to begin our endless chore... there is that moment in time,
when we, ever so temporarily free from our task....
and what of those fleeting moments? those are the moments
in which we create, in which we can become, in we can discover
what it means to be human.....

Camus even has the insolence to wonder, to ask, to imagine, that
Sisyphus is happy.... I say no, but we can find our meaning, our
happiness within those brief moments away from pushing that
boulder uphill..... in those brief moments, we can imagine ourselves
with dignity and value and worth... things not possible if we are
forever pushing a boulder uphill....and of course forever, that is
just the length of our lifetime....

we can create wonders like philosophy and history and science in those
moments between the utter futility of existence...
when we are walking back downhill to begin anew our daily bread.....

we can hope and believe that life can be/get better during those brief
moments of walking downhill.... and given a choice between the angst
and despair of never being able to complete our tasks, because they
are, by their very nature, forever tasks...and the possibility of hope,
of being free to discover our own path... I will take hope every single time....

Kropotkin

_
You are what you think you are, so Sisyphus for you.


I am.. the World

MagsJ wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:24 pm _
You are what you think you are, so Sisyphus for you.


I am.. the World

And I am just an old retired bloke, who goes out once a week to do his shopping. For an hour, once a week, I am Tesco.

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:58 pm

MagsJ wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:24 pm _
You are what you think you are, so Sisyphus for you.


I am.. the World

And I am just an old retired bloke, who goes out once a week to do his shopping. For an hour, once a week, I am Tesco.

Lol

..once a week, I will call you Tesco.

MagsJ wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 10:51 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:58 pm

MagsJ wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:24 pm _
You are what you think you are, so Sisyphus for you.


I am.. the World

And I am just an old retired bloke, who goes out once a week to do his shopping. For an hour, once a week, I am Tesco.

Lol

..once a week, I will call you Tesco.

Thanks. Every little helps.

Sisyphus has been around long before Homer first penned the myth in the Odyssey.

And he has always been used one way or another in every age.
I see no particular reason why this is more relevant to "Our Age" than to any other, probably less.

Ages are nominated usually when they are completed. We've had a range of suggestions for this one.

Space Age
Nuclear Age
Computer Age
Internet Age.
Are the most common
One thing is for sure no age in history has managed to collect as many in so short a time, because no age in history has see this much change.
You might also suggest:

Age of Internal Combustion
Age of World Wide Conflicts - Let's hope we do not have cause for this to continue to be a prospective suggestion

duplicate

Sculptor wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 11:41 pm Sisyphus has been around long before Homer first penned the myth in the Odyssey.

And he has always been used one way or another in every age.
I see no particular reason why this is more relevant to "Our Age" than to any other, probably less.

Ages are nominated usually when they are completed. We've had a range of suggestions for this one.

Space Age
Nuclear Age
Computer Age
Internet Age.
Are the most common
One thing is for sure no age in history has managed to collect as many in so short a time, because no age in history has see this much change.
You might also suggest:

Age of Internal Combustion
Age of World Wide Conflicts - Let's hope we do not have cause for this to continue to be a prospective suggestion

K: my use for the name ''the age of Sisyphus'' was in fact, twofold....
one, to get people engaged in thinking about our age and what
it means to be alive in this time period...

the second usage was to wake people up to what this means...
I don't think that the usage of the ''information age'' or
the ''Nuclear age'' or the ''computer age'' is wrong, but what does
the term ''Nuclear age'' actually mean?

it means we live with nuclear weapons... and does this tell us,
people anything new or actually, anything useful?

Ok, we live in the "nuclear age'' and now what? or the ''information age''
what does that do for us? it tells us what we already know...and what
we act upon....

and the second point is this, the ''nuclear weapons'' or the computer
or the ''internet'' are things outside of us...we have no personal control
over these things... but the idea of the ''age of Sisyphus''... where
we spend our lives engaged in pushing boulders up a hill, and
our entire economic system is ''Sisyphean'' that most jobs/careers
are very much in the order of being ''Sisyphean'', endless drudgery
jobs that never end... that grind of existence that most of us face,
is as familiar as breathing, for most of us....

I work in a grocery store... and I deal with customers all the time
about the exact same things... why didn't I get this deal, or what
is the code for Bananas, 4011, or where is this item?
I deal with these exact same things every single day...
and I did so yesterday, and I will do so today....
and I will do so until I either die or can retire... 1 year and 8 months from
now... there is no changes or difference between yesterday and today...
just the same old stuff in a different order... and then I get those who
are stealing stuff... and that is pretty old too... my job is either
really slow or really, really busy... and even that has a time schedule...
before 9 am, is busy, between 9 and 11:45 is relatively slow,
then the lunch crowd comes in from 11:45 to about 1:15...
then it's really slow until 3:00 and its busy from then until
6:00 or 7:00...I can set my watch by the wave of people coming in...

and my schedule is not very different than any other business schedule...
today, I am off at 7:00... a fairly short shift of 6.25 hours...
I start at 11:45 today... I have the next three days off...for me,
this is very standard stuff... it is the story of my last 17 years
at my grocery store... I lead, as with most people, very, very
''Sisyphean'' lives... rolling that boulder uphill until the day ends,
and then tomorrow, the exact same thing... nothing changes..
and nothing will change until the day I retire... and I am free
of my never changing job... of a factory-lite job...

that is my point... to get people to think or at least rethink
about what it means to live in our modern times... especially
considering we engage in ''Sisyphean'' lives....

Kropotkin

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 11:26 pm

MagsJ wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 10:51 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 8:58 pm

And I am just an old retired bloke, who goes out once a week to do his shopping. For an hour, once a week, I am Tesco.

Lol

..once a week, I will call you Tesco.

Thanks. Every little helps.

Ha’ha!

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 5:20 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2024 11:41 pm Sisyphus has been around long before Homer first penned the myth in the Odyssey.

And he has always been used one way or another in every age.
I see no particular reason why this is more relevant to "Our Age" than to any other, probably less.

Ages are nominated usually when they are completed. We've had a range of suggestions for this one.

Space Age
Nuclear Age
Computer Age
Internet Age.
Are the most common
One thing is for sure no age in history has managed to collect as many in so short a time, because no age in history has see this much change.
You might also suggest:

Age of Internal Combustion
Age of World Wide Conflicts - Let's hope we do not have cause for this to continue to be a prospective suggestion

K: my use for the name ''the age of Sisyphus'' was in fact, twofold....
one, to get people engaged in thinking about our age and what
it means to be alive in this time period...

the second usage was to wake people up to what this means...
I don't think that the usage of the ''information age'' or
the ''Nuclear age'' or the ''computer age'' is wrong, but what does
the term ''Nuclear age'' actually mean?

it means we live with nuclear weapons... and does this tell us,
people anything new or actually, anything useful?

Ok, we live in the "nuclear age'' and now what? or the ''information age''
what does that do for us? it tells us what we already know...and what
we act upon....

and the second point is this, the ''nuclear weapons'' or the computer
or the ''internet'' are things outside of us...we have no personal control
over these things... but the idea of the ''age of Sisyphus''... where
we spend our lives engaged in pushing boulders up a hill, and
our entire economic system is ''Sisyphean'' that most jobs/careers
are very much in the order of being ''Sisyphean'', endless drudgery
jobs that never end... that grind of existence that most of us face,
is as familiar as breathing, for most of us....

I work in a grocery store... and I deal with customers all the time
about the exact same things... why didn't I get this deal, or what
is the code for Bananas, 4011, or where is this item?
I deal with these exact same things every single day...
and I did so yesterday, and I will do so today....
and I will do so until I either die or can retire... 1 year and 8 months from
now... there is no changes or difference between yesterday and today...
just the same old stuff in a different order... and then I get those who
are stealing stuff... and that is pretty old too... my job is either
really slow or really, really busy... and even that has a time schedule...
before 9 am, is busy, between 9 and 11:45 is relatively slow,
then the lunch crowd comes in from 11:45 to about 1:15...
then it's really slow until 3:00 and its busy from then until
6:00 or 7:00...I can set my watch by the wave of people coming in...

and my schedule is not very different than any other business schedule...
today, I am off at 7:00... a fairly short shift of 6.25 hours...
I start at 11:45 today... I have the next three days off...for me,
this is very standard stuff... it is the story of my last 17 years
at my grocery store... I lead, as with most people, very, very
''Sisyphean'' lives... rolling that boulder uphill until the day ends,
and then tomorrow, the exact same thing... nothing changes..
and nothing will change until the day I retire... and I am free
of my never changing job... of a factory-lite job...

that is my point... to get people to think or at least rethink
about what it means to live in our modern times... especially
considering we engage in ''Sisyphean'' lives....

Kropotkin

The moment we invented agriculture, towns, the priesthood to tell people when to plant, and the soldiers to protect the land, and the heirarchy to control the people the vast majority of the population were on the sisyphean treadmill of plough, sow, weed, reap, mill, bake, store, plough,sow, weed, reap, mill, bake, store....
Now we have the 8-6, which used to be 9-5..
But is this the thing that most characterises the historical "reality".

History tends to specialisation. and the sub-discipline determines the choice of "age".
A history of science and technology will inevitably nominate "steam age"; and so on. History of art Renaissance; Pre-raph.. moderns, impressionsits etc..


Sisyphus is the workers history for all time.

Nit picking.

Wait, weren’t you talking about our Age?