Tom Walker wrote:
>
> Has it occurred to anyone that the putative Calvinist leftist's "lust
> for suffering" may simply be a form of conspicuous consumption (or in
> this case conspicuous unconsumption) that performs or is intended to
> perform the same status function that much consumption of wealth
> performs, once we move a way from literalist interpretations of utility?
Sure, anything can serve as a vehicle for the ego -- including humility. But I did not call for suffering; this was Doug's interpretation of my post. I called the wish for a "cushy" life infantile and suggested that maybe Nietzche had a point when he called Xtianity a slave religion, well suited to exploited, suffering people who did not own themselves, could not formulate personal aims, and could see nothing better than "eternal rest."
Modern man under capitalism is not in much better shape. Still a slave, still wishing for rest, still unable to conceive how meeting life half-way through some sort of actual engagement might trump the eternal tit. Think about how reality shows pit some humiliating, terrifying, completely arbitrary piece of "reality" as a stepping stone to the cushy reward of walking away with a million bucks and never having to work again. This is our modern metaphysics. Ugh.
Joanna