kurt vonnegut said:AGC said:
I'm glad you agree with me that we must help others navigate their decisions. There is wisdom with age that gets jettisoned otherwise. And to your next point, no, most often people don't understand what truly makes them happy. We have happiness in a moment and happiness in aggregate as the sum of choices. An example: the ironic paradox of how much freedom and choice modern women have relative to their great grandmothers, to pursue what makes them happy. Yet what we find is each successive generation is less happy.
According to your philosophy, we should ask them what they want and help them pursue it. Mine would be to ask their mothers and grandmothers what made them happy, and encourage a pursuit of that.
You would ask someone with body dysmorphia which limb they want cut off and help. I'd look at what they'd lose by doing so, and encourage them not to. Reality grounds us all and it is madness to fight it, no matter what the mind says about happiness. You can't be a tiger no matter what may make you happy, and the rest of society should not be burdened by your choices with the cost of healthcare and accommodation. The individual is not the building block of society.
Super late edit: as a Christian, happiness is not achievable apart from God. I should add that before I get to far. He is reality and existence.
I have a friend and coworker who came to the states from India about 10 years ago. As he has described to me, his family in India is very religious, but he follows a much less strict Hindu tradition. When he came to the states he struggled for some time and then again recently when his father passed and his mother has gotten very ill. He describes his beliefs as something that gives him a lot of strength and peace and something that helps him feel connected to his family.
Were I a Christian, would it be acceptable to be happy for him and be content that he has something in his life that gives him that peace? Or should I be distraught by him leaning into what I consider to be false belief?
Is there any value in the peace and connection that my friend feels?
What are reasonable limitations on assuming to know better than those that disagree with us?
Here is my hang-up with your post:
My friend believes something different from me. I could easily make the argument that believing in something that is false is never a positive. But I recognize that he does not believe it to be false and I recognize that it provides him with something positive in his life. The idea that I would tell him that I know better than him and that he ought to purse happiness in the exact same manner as me is not something I am comfortable with. It feels arrogant.
I see no issue with person 'A' navigating person 'B' toward what gives person 'A' happiness and peace and comfort. But if person 'A' is to demand that person 'B' follow the same path or is to diminish person 'B' for following a different path, then I worry that person 'A' is no longer primarily concerned with helping person 'B'. At what point is helping others navigate their decisions an altruistic exercise? And at what point is it an exercise in conceit?
Before objections are raised about comparisons between Hinduism and Transgenderism, I'm only trying to better understand your position on 'happiness' not achieved through Christianity.
Also, I never said anything about encouraging someone to cut off a limb. I don't think that is an honest account of a position I've taken.
I'd say we're conflating things of differing levels of gravity here. A materialist Hindu doesn't demand accommodation or affirmation in the same way: his religious practice is private and personal, not really lived out. Think Jordan Peterson toeing the line of theist each podcast before backing down. This isn't about gatekeeping everything that doesn't lead to ultimate happiness and unity with God.
As a friend you're not hands off, even if you disagree. We could go off on a tangent but yes, it's possible as a Christian to be friends with someone else and no, your ideas of happiness don't have to align for that, and no, you don't necessarily view everyone as a project you have to fix, and so on and so forth. Is there value to feeling peace? Might as well post the 'this is fine' meme. Obviously not if you feel peace and connection in the wrong circumstances, we often call that complacency.
The transgender argument is much closer to a spiritual argument because it rejects the empirical, verifiable world so many claim to preference, in favor of the ethereal (and materialists fall all over themselves for it every time).
Your limitations to knowledge are hard to engage with because you have a clear moral code you follow (changing with the times of course, as all men do, myself not excepted), all the while rejecting the ability to know better than others (or that they could know better, either). Best I can tell it's a, 'wherever you go there you are' type. Perhaps you can sum it up better. That's part of why we go in circles.
Cutting off a limb was simply to point out the difference in momentary or situational happiness and happiness in aggregate. A life well lived has its own happiness that cannot be quantified in a moment. Savvy?
