The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Giving up before even starting (social and capitalistic apathy)
ege02
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
Below is an article written by Tuna Kiremitçi, Turkish author and column-writer in the Vatan (Nation) newspaper. I thought he makes a good observation so I'm translating it below:
He touches on quite a few subjects so I didn't want to categorize this thread. He talks about the mentality of giving up, about the gap between education and the real world (whatever that may be), about the difference between our times and those of our parents, among other, more nuanced points that are probably lost in translation.
In any case, after reading the article, I was immediately able to identify some people I know as quitters. I'm not using the term "quitter" in a pejorative way, and neither is the author. However, when I think about their attitudes towards those who have not chosen to quit, those who try, struggle, work hard, etc., when I think about their condescending smirks and snide comments, I admit it does get under my skin a little.
Attitudes that are powered by an illusion of disillusionment, the mistaken belief that they know it all, when in fact what they know is limited to a paragraph they have read in a book in school or a detached discussion they have participated in in class.
In any case, what do you guys think?
Tuna Kiremitçi wrote:Even though they are far more skilled than I am, there are people out there who have chosen to do nothing with their lives. They spend their days doing nothing and mocking what we do, what we struggle with.
"Quitting" is not what everyone is able to do. Since the rest of us haven't succeeded in giving up yet, it must be difficult. Besides, you must be financially secure enough to live life doing nothing.
Quitters are free of every ambition. They are not bothered by doing nothing.
Since they are out of the game, they regard what we do with a condescending, know-it-all smile. While we struggle to overcome obstacles, they have the time to spare for fun things and small pleasures of life.
We cannot call them "losers". They don't count as having lost, since they have never wanted to win.
We cannot call them the French term "rate" either; there is no target they have missed. In fact, they haven't even fired their guns.
****
Criticizing quitters is neither any of our business, nor is it meaningful in any way. Besides, when there are so many people who are ruining the world with their ambitions, I'd like to say I'm even sympathetic towards quitters.
Just an observation: these people generally come out of schools that give Western educations. Shortly after getting depressed by the tremendous chasm between the real world and what they have learned in class, they give up.
Among them are valuable minds of my generation: had they been born twenty years ago, they would have become the brilliant thinkers, scientists, authors, leaders. But because their youth coincides with times when the utopias have diminished, social dissidence has regressed, and the republic is exhausted, they have no other option but to give up.
They will never be able to compromise with the new world; they neither have any ambition to seek careers, nor any capitalist goals. Instead of heeding the call of the wild, they have chosen to sit back in a corner and make themselves forgotten.
They now live undisturbed in their shell. When they look at their country's situation, they even consider leaving, running away. But even this takes too much effort, so they stay where they are.
He touches on quite a few subjects so I didn't want to categorize this thread. He talks about the mentality of giving up, about the gap between education and the real world (whatever that may be), about the difference between our times and those of our parents, among other, more nuanced points that are probably lost in translation.
In any case, after reading the article, I was immediately able to identify some people I know as quitters. I'm not using the term "quitter" in a pejorative way, and neither is the author. However, when I think about their attitudes towards those who have not chosen to quit, those who try, struggle, work hard, etc., when I think about their condescending smirks and snide comments, I admit it does get under my skin a little.
Attitudes that are powered by an illusion of disillusionment, the mistaken belief that they know it all, when in fact what they know is limited to a paragraph they have read in a book in school or a detached discussion they have participated in in class.
In any case, what do you guys think?
ege02 on
0
Posts
Is he trying to raise public awareness of unmotivated people, or what?
No, he is not talking about the sour grapes mentality.
He is talking about people who haven't even wanted to succeed in the first place.
I mean... duh?
I thought it would make a good foundation for a discussion. *shrug*
Those who never win but still don't quit are idiots.
No offense intended, i just couldn't think of anything to talk about on the subject.
Odd considering it could've been written about me
There is no purpose to "working hard." We all end up dead, anyway, and we could be dead tomorrow or the next day. The world is a grim place, and it seems unlikely that any plans and schemes will last long enough to be meaningful. Our parents (and perhaps our grandparents, depending on the length of generations in your family) have lived in a charmed period if they're Western European or American. They were born directly after World War II, and this was a period of incredible prosperity and growth. It was a time of technological revolutions, social upheaval, and economic opportunity. Those times are over, and struggling to reach the ever-dwindling opportunities the modern world offers just seems futile, for some of us; better to have an easy job without much stress that allows us to enjoy ourselves day-by-day.
This attitude is profoundly offensive to many people who possess the famed "Protestant work ethic," and particularly to those people who grew up in the period from 1950 through 1990. They have spent their entire formative years believing in the Bright and Glorious Future; they will spend their waning years wondering why all the young people are so unmotivated, oblivious to the fact that they grew up in the best period of American history.
As far as technological advancement and economic opportunity, the age we live in trumps the past by a long shot.
The barriers of entry for success are incredibly low now too, thanks to the Internet and various other technologies that make communication and spread of ideas almost free of cost. In the old days if you had an idea or a product, you had to spend millions of dollars on advertisement to spread it, which meant you needed a huge initial capital to establish a foothold. Nowadays, you make a website or a song, you write a blog, and if they are good, they spread and you win.
So I find your kind of attitude very intriguing; considering the facts, the age we live in should be one of optimism, not pessimism, at least as far as opportunities go.
Well it translates as either "quitting" or "giving up". I chose "quitting" because "giver-ups" or "give-uppers" sounds weird.
Some of the meaning is lost in translation, so let's not focus on semantics.
Oh, the beginnings of a real debate begin to emerge. A contention!
"Life," and the success therein, isn't something anyone has a choice not to start, really. Right?
And we also have to assume the game of Life is societal contribution. That's the measure that I'm understanding here. Obviously we're not talking about financial success, cause having money means you've won.
Living freely or happily can't have been his meaning, because again, all you have to do is be happy, or be free, and you've won.
So measuring Life by how much you've done for the world, the people who have quit (or more accurately, preferred apathy in this matter), weren't really given a choice not to start. They were born.
They just decided not to go along with the game. They quit. That in itself isn't so bad. Maybe a little selfish, and depending on the society, it may be very well damnable. But on its own, it's not such a terrible act.
The snide prick attitude, however, that's simply inexcusable, imo.
Quitting could be well mistranslated to suicide. And in this context it still could be suicide, but I don't think we mean the refusal to keep on living. I think we mean quitting by... refusal to "play along" with society. Consumerism, or whatever.
And in that case, I think apathy may be closer to what's being discussed.
That entire article is so biased though. Quiting, giving up; does that mean these people have stopped doing everything, or have just stopped doing some things? The author mentions how some people who "quit" could have turned out to be our generation's "great thinkers". The whole thing reeks of potential lost and an idea of success that hasn't been met. But each individual has a right to pursue their own idea of success and happiness, and maybe some people just haven't "done anything" with their lives the author finds valid. Not everyone wants to meet their potential, nor do they have to, and there isn't some definitive way to measure ones success.
The guy who pumps my gas might make less than me, but who's to say he isn't happier and a greater contributor to the lives of those around him? He may have given up on a "worthwhile career" or greater education, but he managed to pursue and excel at something else. No matter how you put it, calling these people quitters sounds negative and they don't deserve that type of judgment.
I agree, but I still feel like a piece of shit for not doing anything with my life. I'm only 21 but I'm terrified of getting any older because I don't want to waste my life away, even though that is exactly what I've been doing. I won't be happy unless I've got some highly-respectable (and high-paying) job, which is a self-esteem thing more than anything i think, but i don't know what i should do with myself and don't think i'll succeed at anything, and i know i don't have the motivation to see anything through, so I don't even get started.
Now, when my dad grew up, you could walk out of high school and go to work in any of several dozen industrial plants nearby making the equivalent of $30 an hour. That amounts to an income of roughly $57k per year, for an entry level management position in a factory.
Personally I am also unhappy with the current political state of the world. Of course there was the Cold War and Vietnam, but there was still some faith in the process and a feeling of destiny connected to the U.S. in that time frame. Most people felt that America was a force for good in the world. I don't, and I don't see any way that the current state of affairs (with America attempting to exercise worldwide power it doesn't have) can persist long enough for me to safely retire and die. Planning that far ahead seems... silly.
Another issue is the problem of population. I won't go into a lengthy discussion of resources, the environment, pollution, and so on--there are just too many people, and I have already decided never to have children, so I'm not building up an inheritance for the scions of my bloodline to inherit. After I'm dead, they can use whatever pittance I still have to bury me. If it won't cover it, they can throw me in the ocean or something; I'm not in a position to complain.
To me, social optimism at the present time is connected with a sense that the status quo is permanent and stable. It isn't.
It's almost like you're acknowledging the concept of opportunity-cost. That's crazy-talk. People who quit are just weak and lazy, never making carefully weighed decisions.
As an example, you mentioned smoking, which I recently quit. A reason that did factor into it was that I knew and saw that I was missing out on opportunities to meet interesting people that were turned off by smoking. There's obviously other reasons that factor into quitting smoking, but that did play into it for me. Not really the same thing as pursuing an occupation or such, but it is a situation where it applies.
I do miss smoking though.
I always took it to be that it wasn't just quitting that earned...
This is entirely an ethics debate. Deontology, virture ethics, etc. So... yeah.
And yet I feel I'm still accomplished.
Strange, no?
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
Avoiding meeting people who go around passing judgment on people for making ethically-neutral choices they personally wouldn't have is one of the main reasons I keep smoking. The "oh I don't talk to smokers" crowd isn't any better than the "oh I don't talk to people who don't wear brand X" crowd. Smoking keeps douchebags away.
I don't know what I'm trying to say, but that isn't it.
Actually, what I'm saying is more obvious, and doesn't even need to be said. No one here's arguing that quitting is always a fine action.
I was more arguing that some people see the action itself as most important. Dewey, for example. But it's all how you look at it. It also matters how you judge it.
You might quit writing the book for what you feel at the time are valid reasons. Your friends, hwoever, frown upon your actions, realizing that your decision was entirely foolish, and based only on self-doubt, emotional problems, whatever.
But then, to stipulate in the question that the decider is wrong is to answer the question already of whether or not the decider is wrong.
All I was trying to get at is that I think, on the whole, quitting in itself doesn't have the bad connotation. It's quitting for foolish or bad reasons that's looked down upon. But then I'll just start arguing with myself again.
Or, maybe what I'm trying to say is "life is complicated."
Eh... I never saw the real value of smoking cigarettes. The health issues never seemed to match up to the benefit of the nicotine high.
Other highs, however, seem well fucking worth it.
But humans are horrible judges of what will make them happy in the future. Or at least that's what my experiences and that one interesting TED talk tell me.
(Mostly the TED talk, since I could fit (consciously or not) any biased selection of my experiences to any framework I used.)
What about the people who avoid smokers because they don't like secondhand smoke? I'm in that crowd, and you can do whatever you want I just don't want to breathe in your smoke so I'm gonna stay over here. People who avoid smokers aren't all dicks.
Again, I think it's less the action, here, and more the intent.
Not all people who avoid smokers are dicks. Not all reckless drivers on the road are dicks, either. They might have legitimate reasons for driving as they do.
How many times do you say, "Oh, I hope he's able to make it to the hospital in time!" however... I try to avoid that. It's mostly, "He better have a good fucking reason for being such a dick... like... he's bleeding out of his hair, or something."
Look at the trends.
Large corporations are no longer growing; they are laying off huge numbers of workers.
In contrast, small companies -- start-ups and those with 200 employees or less -- have contributed to close to 100 percent of new jobs in the last decade.
If popular economics has a focus on entrepreneurs, it's for a reason: this is the age of the entrepreneur. "Big" no longer means successful. "Small" does.
I think it would be nice if you could come up with a statistic backing up this claim, because from my perspective it looks like the vast majority of the great ideas of our generation were invented by nobodies.
The fact that the status quo is not permanent is precisely the reason why I am optimistic.
People who only smoke for the nicotine confuse me. Those people I think would benefit greatly from quitting, maybe smoking the herb instead since all they're after is a high. They wouldn't have to spend as much that way. If your only benefit from smoking is the high, the opportunity cost of smoking is vastly higher than if you're also a fan of the flavor and the social aspects and so on.
Yeah. I suggested we think of it more as social apathy, instead. It carries a much less negative connotation (which would almost certainly help people focus more on the topic than defining "quitting"), and is more accurate to begin with.
One thing I've noticed about those who don't try at the many things our society has decided people need to try -- and work toward being good at -- are more comfortable than happy. Work is generally not very comfortable and requires effort, and not doing it keeps people in their comfort zone. Working and having a goal leads to concern, worry, stress, and anxiety. Not having a goal allows you to live a life without these things. Is this such a bad thing?
You misspelled "kids today, rabblerabblerabble". The author makes a bunch of stupid assumptions and talks in incredibly vague terms in order to make it sound like he's saying something more meaningful than that but he really isn't.
Could you please name one product, brand, anything outside IT that is relatively established today and was not started by somebody already considered rich? Depending on your definition of success, arguing with the following statement:
is nonsensical unless you consider getting a business from 4 employees to 10 in 15 years to be a a major achievement.
Is this true? I really didn't know that. If so, its pretty neat.
I think the author of your article probably has a more narrow definition of success than they should (lol-money-and-sex-and-a-big-house-on-a-hill), but the article can still be generously read as talking about people who really have held themselves back for whatever reason - frequently, things like the reasons fallout cited last page. World's a scary place, and a lot of people grow up sheltered from risk so they feel lost and floundery in early adulthood. I think its a function of being spoilt for choice rather than 'a western education', the author is pretty much talking out his ass there as far as I'm concerned. There's nothing magically different about schools outside of Europe and the US. There really is a huge number of things one can conceivably do with one's life now though, and I think perhaps we don't outline them very well to young people - for instance, its only the last couple of years that technical educations have been re-emphasised in response to a shortage of tradespeople. That 'you must go to college unless you're a total dumbass' thing is still a strong pressure, even though college just plain doesn't suit some people, or doesn't suit them until they're older.