He does? I barely follow his largely incoherent babbling. I think the principal appeal of DFW is what a geek he is. And how lame and insubstantial his little cultural critiques are, if they even rise to that level. And that's what actually resonates with his legions of inconsequential, rudderless, college-educated followers. They see themselves in him. Let's just say John Irving he is not. I don't know if that's what he was going for, but if it was, he missed badly.....
Haha - i think you know more and have given him more time in your life than some of his “geeky fans”. I’ve yet to make it through his novel though I’d started it years ago. Other projects took priority - who has time for tomes these days? But I can’t really say that he’s NOT making sense in this 5 min clip, seems to be alright, articulative enough. Like that bit about the politicians, the voters not really paying attention to WHO (or what … e.g money..) all they’re actually catering to. And who has the time to SERIOUSLY look at and read about all the politicians before casting their votes (which in my mind are mostly pre-determined by what party you prefer which seems so frustratingly/senselessly binary-divided). If John Irving captures that bit better in his works, then I guess we should all tune into him also. Or instead?
I think I read his famous commencement speech, which was a disappointment, some piece for Harpers about his afternoon at a state fair in Illinois and whatever his musings in light of that, and a few short stories, and that was enough DFW for me. He was such a cultural phenomenon, and I was just curious. And it was worse than I thought it would be. He's obviously very ambitious and was determined to make it as a writer and it shows in his prose. But it worked, and he struck a chord with a certain demographic, presumably millennials, I suppose for obvious reasons. And now some people are like, what would he have to say now in our crazy culture wars, in woke America, what would DFW's take be? I guess on account of his suicide he was spared that minefield to have to navigate. F if know what he would say. It probably wouldn't have been much. Probably pretty spineless. And that's his main legacy that I see, from what little I know of him. He was a voice of a generation, and perhaps an apt one. And it was too much for him....
Hmmm.. very interesting. Well thanks for taking the time out to share YOUR thoughts on him anyways. Haha Yah it’s very unfortunate , the suicide bit. Cus if he kept writing and reading, he would have totally grown and evolved, even PAST some of his former ideas, whatever they were. I didn’t get through much of infinite jest like I said earlier, but from the first 10% of it, it seemed like we were heading towards some kind of a vast CRITICISM of society, coming from a sense of frustration as well as a desire to do something about it. What I’m saying is, if he was able to beat the monsters inside his head/heart/soul/ego complex, had he continued firing away at them (using words, reading, writing, learning as ammo) we might have finally gotten to see/hear a DFW today that … idk … made more sense? Like moved from criticism over to good critique? someone truly worthy of being a voice (not THE voice, we’re no longer in a world where gthats even possible haha), for HIS (my) generation as well as the upcoming and even previous generations? Just questions I’m posing, good for thought I guess. Keeping in mind the dynamic/evolution model for humans, rather than one that holds them in stasis. And respecting the reader/writer’s process in general. But I guess we’ll never get to know…
Whenever I hear DFW speaking about these large political-cultural American phenomena I can't help but wonder what he would say or write if he were alive today in 2018.... So much of what he understood has come to pass and perhaps even worse than he imagined, at least what he revealed from his imagination. RIP DFW, you still represent the voice of a generation.
What an insightful and respectful comment. But is RUclips really the place for this? As I'm forced to watch those ads, I like to think my money promotes the comment sections we KNOW and LOVE from this SITE
everything he's talking about had already been true about america since at least the robber baron era. it's nothing new. he's being descriptive, not prophetic. you're just projecting your specified political views onto the words of someone you perceive as an intellectual authority.
@@levitatingoctahedron922 Agreed. These truths he articulates, and he articulates them well and genuinely, simply reside right beneath the creped skin of the decaying corpse of Uncle Sam and have since the end of WWII (perhaps even the Civil War). In any online anarchist forum every 16 yo with half a soul routinely voices similar sentiments. The prophetic part, if there is one, emerges as Wallace braves an interview enough to say these things, unapologetic and unbeholden. That is the fairly rare part. Someone of success saying these things aloud on camera. The scary part? Truths this simple to see are considered deep and rare philosophical breakthroughs, which shows us just how dumbed down Americans are.
To be fair it isn’t exactly new insight. And he’s not talking about freedom, he’s talking about impulses. The capitalist system capitalizes on our impulses and by modern smart phones, by constant media it makes us even more impulsive. So not only does it actually prey upon our impulses, but it expands our impulses and makes them more comfortable reality. And then on the other hand, media is always projecting fear, so we are always either impulsive or scared all the time.
I've hardly ever heard so many insightful observations in five minutes. Lots of 'lightbulb' moments where you can see what he is talking about manifesting in your own life.
Indeed. I think an equally 'lightbulb moment-generating' philosopher that was so culturally rejected I had to read him myself is Marx, who generates _a lot_ of the same sentiments, so it's easy to see where that mainstream societal rejection comes from. Here's an example from one of his manuscripts on 'alienation' that I think might be particularly explanatory for DFW's description of American society: _What, then, constitutes the alienation of labor?_ _First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague. External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Lastly, the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another. Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of the human imagination, of the human brain and the human heart, operates on the individual independently of him - that is, operates as an alien, divine or diabolical activity - so is the worker’s activity not his spontaneous activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self._ _As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions - eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal._
@@Bisquick Really remarkable set of observations. Thanks for sharing. Is there a work in which his manuscripts like these are compiled? I've been inrigued by the prospect of reading Marx for a while however I'm unsure of where to start, something like that sounds like it would be good.
@@maddcowcompany Indeed! I think I would have to recommend the Grundrisse as it's a pretty great collection of a bunch of his manuscripts that act as kind of an overview of everything else he elaborated in "official" texts (like Capital) but it's kind of hard to make like an official 'best of' compilation just because he wrote so damn much. The manifesto was the first thing I read of his, having the preconceived notion that it would be ridiculous (rereading my first post, this is what I meant to say if anyone was confused, I think I messed up the phrasing), and coming out of it pretty much understanding why people fought revolutions for it, especially as I had subconsciously intuited something broadly similar but had no idea there was an entire movement to make such an ideal reality. Probably the best/worst thing is how empirically dense something like Capital is, which stands in stark contrast to how it is often presented. Soo I'm gonna say maybe breeze through the pamphlet-ized manifesto for a broad overview (unless you're somewhat familiar already) and then check out the Grundrisse. And awesomely, you can find it all at this awesome resource: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ Just a side note real quick for something that particularly blew my mind in the grundrisse and I'll try to find the specific sections if anyone is interested, but one particular section effectively abstractly predicted the inevitability of computers and AI completely logically through a sort of deconstructive analysis of what qualities are imbued in "machines". Though of course he would have no idea how to describe the actual physical mechanisms involved in such machinery considering it was like the 1860s, he basically intuited that even basic machinery has a sort of built in "specialized knowledge" through its very physical structure and that taking this progression of automation, catalyzed by the drive of replacing the worker to maximize profits, to its logical conclusions, the generalized process of producing knowledge itself or "thinking" machines will be the inevitable end goal. Anyway, sorry for all the digressions but hopefully it gave you some idea of where you'd want to start.
0:19 It can't be talked about directly. Reminded me of George Santayana :- Faust - the philosophy of life "He who strives strays, and in straying finds redemption" Goethe warned us not to take this too seriously .......more profound for being lived rather than taught ....the vital straining toward an ideal....may express that ideal more fully than the best chosen words (From 3 philosophical essays)
It's interesting comparing Orwell vs. Huxley. Orwell fear was that people would be controlled by having pain inflicted upon them. Where as Huxley feared pleasure would be used to control people.
Paleface , yeah I think we suffer from both too much shallow 'peasure', and this attempt to impose a fear, and distrust amongst us. Listen to every. Michael Jones discuss his book Libido Domanandi, on pleasures.
Chomsky points out that people are controlled by their mindset and opinions as opposed to by force nowadays. These opinions are instilled in them through television, the Internet, and the media, most of which corporations fund.
Interesting observation. The US perfected Huxley's cautions. Don't deny them what they want and make them live in misery, give them what they want in abundance to foster their self-enslaved to it. This is on a local small American scale, and permeates throughout the world. The trouble? All those wants and ego fulfillments take loads of energy, in the form of oil, which Americans must beg, borrow or steal to continue down their materialist path. Only so many puppet governments the US can install, only so many wars they can fight at once (used to be major war every 50 years, then 20 years, then 10 years, now.... perpetual), only so many enticement loans from the IMF handed out as bait.
Average Johnson allegedly it was just the woman who wanted to be his ex-wife that he'd stalk being stuck in some sort of primitive obsession it's as enraging as it is depressing as it is confusing.... What in the actual fu#@k though.... Bro you're an incredibly intelligent successful author there are quite literally thousands upon thousands of women to meet and be friends with without acting like a damn obsessive freak with the one who doesn't want you..... Women are not gdamn possessions whom must feel and think as you, based upon your superior intelligence, assume and demand they feel and think
1:54. He knew what was coming. He also knew there was absolutely nothing that could change the path we were heading down. Sometimes it really sucks to be the prophet.
He was right in many ways. Part of what he was talking about in the end is “velleity” - the knowledge of what is right, but lacking the willingness to do it.
3:40 he hits the nail right on the head. Its not rocket science but you almost never hear people spell out the US political complex so well. We miss you DFW
the greeks figured this out over two thousand years ago and wrote extensively about it. wealth = popularity. in democracy, popularity = power. therefore, in democracy, wealth = power. it's why they abandoned the system, it was too corruptible, too weak to stand against internal/external forces after it consistently devolved into tyranny. nothing's changed.
the democratic process is not mutually exclusive with the concept of a republic. the US is a republic with democratically elected representatives. obviously
all you're doing is explaining that our government, which contains democratically elected officials and is therefore democratic in nature, is a plutocracy. which i explained in my initial post. also socialism isn't mutually exclusive with democracy either and there isn't a single nation on this planet that doesn't utilize socialist institutions. your mind is built entirely of parrotted buzzwords
@@levitatingoctahedron922 Do you feel there is a chance for this nation to gain some sense of balance and avoid the steamrolling towards what feels like an inevitable and tragic end? Corruption may have always been a factor in politics, but it is so overt these days and seemingly getting worse. It feels like the end of democracy as we know it, may be the only chance we have for redemption, so to speak. It is f-ing scary.
It's really gratifying to see an incredibly humble guy like DFW say so many insightful things in such a precise and accessible way in such a short amount of time. Meanwhile, you have a guy like Jordan Peterson running around gobbling up intellectual bandwidth, saying near nothing of value and yet he's the one that gets labeled as a genius or intellectual powerhouse.
Jordan Peterson says many things of value. Me and many others have had their lives changed and even saved by his philosophy of telling the truth, finding a purpose and taking responsibility for oneself
@@Snowpire Hello, I didn't mean for my comment to come off as insensitive to anyone who has been helped by hearing or reading Jordan Peterson. I'm not arguing against the value of taking personal responsibility for a second. I think any mental health professional worth their salt would say many of the same things as Peterson and that's more to what I was talking about. I read 12 rules and found it to be needlessly abstract and convoluted as opposed to clear and precise. There were a few useful nuggets of wisdom, but there was also nothing new or revolutionary in his words, certainly nothing close to warranting the title of "the world's most important intellectual" or genius as some have claimed. This is contrasted with DFWs words that come across as far more empathetic, humane, and speaking more directly to the heart of the human condition, in my opinion, while only needing a few minutes to do so.
@@lewisbracken5520 That's the best you can do Lewis? I'm too stupid to understand Peterson? I may be stupid, but I'm not lazy and dishonest like you. You twisted my words to attack me as a person. Par for the course for Peterson simps. Yeah, telling people to make their beds and pet dogs is good advice, but it's hardly groundbreaking. In my opinion, the guy speaks almost exclusively in equivocation to give himself an out that he's being misunderstood. That's when he's not trashing trans people, fawning over Nazis, or just flat-out making stuff up. Perhaps these truths are why you find him appealing? Regardless, his word-salad intellectualism is hardly suitable for a guy that espouses the virtue of speaking precisely. Whatever credibility he had is gone as far as I'm concerned.
I do think DFW is a very intelligent man, but a lot of what he says here is also just plain common sense, which is really hard to find these days. I mean it's purely logical. Or maybe we're so used to be being exposed to nonsense, I guess, that listening to this guy speak is so refreshing.
He is so pleasant to hear. Even if you're not paying total attention to what he's saying - but much more if you are, of course. I could just spend hours listening to him talk.
I’ve been looking (for years now) for the bit from one of his interviews where he predicts our decent into totalitarian rule. Explaining that we’ll want someone to come along and just make the hard choices for us. I’d be indebted to anyone who send me that clip.
Bill Brieger we're always at risk of slipping into a totalitarian state.... Thank God that insane egomaniac Trump is President right now otherwise the Supreme Leader Hillary Clinton would see to it that no one leaves their home, all cities would be under military occupation with a strict curfew which means Black folks would be getting shot by the police at 10 times the present rate because they are not staying home as they're yearning for freedom is too strong for understandable reasons and of course the Supreme Leader would tell us it's to protect us from the coronavirus but in reality it would be the perfect opportunity to seize power, cancel elections and figure out a way to keep it permanent..... For our own protection mind you.... From the virus. Anyone seen outside without a mask will be arrested and sent to a prison/re-education camp, remote temperature scanners will be installed in all public buildings and all interstate travel will require a permit from your local Commisar
Foster Wallace's analysis at 3:45 of the American political system is absolutely brilliant. I literally only found out about him a few days ago when hearing Jonathan Franzen talking about him, but I think "Infinate Jest" is on my reading list.
My family gets annoyed when I say things like embrace pain don't flee from it. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to know what it really means to embrace something either. It makes me very despondent to know of few adults have values and principals grounded in reality.
So true. Very similar to when you catch the eye of the crazy person ranting and raving on the street corner. In both cases, They know you have "seen" them, and they rebel. Many time while talking with people, you can watch the moment they check out of what you are saying. I know it's hard being a caring person these days , but stay true and stay strong. Your rewards will come when you reach out to someone who really needs and gets it ( usually a stranger lol) watch your despondency closely, depression is a normal human reaction/emotion. Despondency is letting it get the best of you. Much love Take care
I have tremendous respect for DFW. He’s a brilliant writer and social critic. But, he doesn’t understand how the unconscious works in psychoanalysis. One remains that hurt/angry/frustrates child if one doesn’t give voice to the wounded child. Giving h/er an new un-narcissistic view of themselves via the work done in psychoanalysis can actually be quite liberating. It’s from such a liberation that clients learn to take the reigns of their lives and grow up.
@@roobs456 yes, giving voice to the wounded chid using reductive 'pop' psychology can also lead to a person deriving one's power and identity from being perpetually hurt/angry/frustrated which reinforces the victimhood
His books are much less "reductive" than this interview might suggest. Why would you ever judge a writer's work by a few things he's said to a interviewer? Especially since he's simplifying a lot of what he means in the hope for clarity speaking to a German interviewer and European audience.
Imagine a president with these insights and convictions. DFW knew we'd never see one. What a loss. Did he ever get to know Bill Hicks? I'm sure he had to at least know of him.
@thepurpleyouth Genius, regrettably, is no antidote for physical or emotional well being. The hope he offered readers, I think, was to make them aware of their state-of-being, in a non-didactic, preachy manner, through the medium of fiction. I imagine his works attempt to aid us in our search for a lucid and meaningful life?
Rumi in the Masnavi: "Then our souls are prey to diverse whims, Thoughts of loss and gain and fear of misery. They retain not purity, nor dignity, nor lustre, Nor aspiration to soar heavenwards. The man is really sleeping who hankers after each whim And holds parley with each fancy."
I really, really wish that there were no comments section on this site. In fact, I'm done reading them. There are a small minority of intelligent people with wonderful insights, true. But about 90% of it is just useless, self-absorbed, self aggrandizing, small, ugly people throwing out ridiculous, vapid, pointless comments and insults (myself included). Also, this man was completely brilliant, Is this entire interview available for download anywhere?
I've seen behavior like yours from people who are too proud to simply admit that they are incapable of engaging in a meaningful and productive level of discourse. you're making an excuse for yourself, "everyone else is bad just like me!".
@Artzineonline I think the entire point of his work as well as him as a human being can be articulated best in his kenyon commencement speech. if you haven't read this speech, please take the time to do so. if you care, in the time of my life when i was most upset and most lost, DFW allowed me to articulate my 'lostness' and 'emptyness' and thus allowed me to address and cure my own internal strife.
The kind of immediate impulse gratification that is built into unbridled Consumer Capitalism is also not helpful in a pandemic where discipline and delayed gratification are a matter of life and death. Just saying. Also not helpful to avoid riots/looting in economic deprivation resulting from job losses due to said pandemic.
Maybe this is part of the ethos of CCP's recent crackdown on tech and consumerism. It kind of makes sense economically but maybe they are just grossed out by what America had become that they are making a conscious effort to avoid going down that same path.
@IDontBuyIt50 perspective is everything though. There is a burden that may come with intelligence, but I think that's mostly ego. No one is asking anybody to atlas the world and hold it all. See the sour but choose the sweet. Choice is personal. "Society" may be messed up and bleak as you say, but your life and internal worlds is of your own creation.
A paradox of selfish immediate gratification: I am gonna splurge money on a Savings Bond while the country is going into Recession just because I feel like blowing my money. I guess not...oh well.
@thepurpleyouth He did an interview where he had published a book early and he wasn't happy. Writting and getting published, he thought would make him happy bit it didn't therfore he got depressed.
"It's all...complicated." Nah, power is simple in it's needs and methods, people can be complicated and they can have power, but the power, heartbreakingly simple.
"We get candidates beholden to large donors and become corrupt which disgusts the voters." And then along came a billionaire who was beholden to no one, who was hated even more. Which is your hint that their stated issue is not their actual issue.
I dont know much abt depression, n im jst speculating here, bt it seems that understanding life nd society that well, made him nt wanna live that life anymore
its not your fault personally that you always feel like there is more to life. Its not your fault that you don' "just do it", there isnt just something wrong with YOU. You can carve out your own sanctuary, but you first must admit that something is wrong with this system and that you are just currently a part in it. Blaming yourself for the system you were born into will lead to suicide.
I agree to the extent that anti-depressants aren't the end all solution to depression, however we do need to understand that chronic depression is indeed a medical condition, just like having a broken leg is. I doubt you would say that repairing broken legs makes us any less human. The issue is that anti-depressants do not "repair" chronic depression, but nonetheless, if your femur was popping out of your thigh you would be asking for the morphine, even if you knew it wasn't "repair".
Paleface the one Republican who publicly impeached Trump..... What a scumbag that Romney is defying Donald Trump and voting what he felt instead of what the party demanded
As I am sure I will receive ridicule for this statement, let me first begin by saying I do not disagree with David Foster Wallace. However, the fact that he committed suicide is a paradox when one considers how concerned he is with others' methods to achieving life fulfillment. Nietzsche, too, had extreme ideologies in relation to humanity's perception of life. Both Wallace and Nietzsche seem to be overly critical of humanity when they themselves are guilty of their own criticisms.
Selfcontroll is eroded and people become large infants, not fully realized adults. Celebrate your ability to controll your desires and endulge wisely when its ok to do so.
What sounded intellectual then sounds banal and sophomoric today. Is this just because it's become accepted wisdom as we've all lived through the postmodern era? Or is DFW as overrated a thinker (and human) as people allege?
This guy expresses spontaneously and clearly what a lot of us are probably thinking all the time. RIP DFW
He does? I barely follow his largely incoherent babbling. I think the principal appeal of DFW is what a geek he is. And how lame and insubstantial his little cultural critiques are, if they even rise to that level. And that's what actually resonates with his legions of inconsequential, rudderless, college-educated followers. They see themselves in him. Let's just say John Irving he is not. I don't know if that's what he was going for, but if it was, he missed badly.....
Haha - i think you know more and have given him more time in your life than some of his “geeky fans”. I’ve yet to make it through his novel though I’d started it years ago. Other projects took priority - who has time for tomes these days? But I can’t really say that he’s NOT making sense in this 5 min clip, seems to be alright, articulative enough. Like that bit about the politicians, the voters not really paying attention to WHO (or what … e.g money..) all they’re actually catering to. And who has the time to SERIOUSLY look at and read about all the politicians before casting their votes (which in my mind are mostly pre-determined by what party you prefer which seems so frustratingly/senselessly binary-divided). If John Irving captures that bit better in his works, then I guess we should all tune into him also. Or instead?
I think I read his famous commencement speech, which was a disappointment, some piece for Harpers about his afternoon at a state fair in Illinois and whatever his musings in light of that, and a few short stories, and that was enough DFW for me. He was such a cultural phenomenon, and I was just curious. And it was worse than I thought it would be. He's obviously very ambitious and was determined to make it as a writer and it shows in his prose. But it worked, and he struck a chord with a certain demographic, presumably millennials, I suppose for obvious reasons. And now some people are like, what would he have to say now in our crazy culture wars, in woke America, what would DFW's take be? I guess on account of his suicide he was spared that minefield to have to navigate. F if know what he would say. It probably wouldn't have been much. Probably pretty spineless. And that's his main legacy that I see, from what little I know of him. He was a voice of a generation, and perhaps an apt one. And it was too much for him....
Hmmm.. very interesting.
Well thanks for taking the time out to share YOUR thoughts on him anyways. Haha
Yah it’s very unfortunate , the suicide bit. Cus if he kept writing and reading, he would have totally grown and evolved, even PAST some of his former ideas, whatever they were. I didn’t get through much of infinite jest like I said earlier, but from the first 10% of it, it seemed like we were heading towards some kind of a vast CRITICISM of society, coming from a sense of frustration as well as a desire to do something about it. What I’m saying is, if he was able to beat the monsters inside his head/heart/soul/ego complex, had he continued firing away at them (using words, reading, writing, learning as ammo) we might have finally gotten to see/hear a DFW today that … idk … made more sense? Like moved from criticism over to good critique? someone truly worthy of being a voice (not THE voice, we’re no longer in a world where gthats even possible haha), for HIS (my) generation as well as the upcoming and even previous generations? Just questions I’m posing, good for thought I guess. Keeping in mind the dynamic/evolution model for humans, rather than one that holds them in stasis. And respecting the reader/writer’s process in general. But I guess we’ll never get to know…
Whenever I hear DFW speaking about these large political-cultural American phenomena I can't help but wonder what he would say or write if he were alive today in 2018.... So much of what he understood has come to pass and perhaps even worse than he imagined, at least what he revealed from his imagination. RIP DFW, you still represent the voice of a generation.
What an insightful and respectful comment. But is RUclips really the place for this? As I'm forced to watch those ads, I like to think my money promotes the comment sections we KNOW and LOVE from this SITE
You’re so wrong it’s not even funny.
Niko How so?
everything he's talking about had already been true about america since at least the robber baron era. it's nothing new. he's being descriptive, not prophetic. you're just projecting your specified political views onto the words of someone you perceive as an intellectual authority.
@@levitatingoctahedron922 Agreed. These truths he articulates, and he articulates them well and genuinely, simply reside right beneath the creped skin of the decaying corpse of Uncle Sam and have since the end of WWII (perhaps even the Civil War). In any online anarchist forum every 16 yo with half a soul routinely voices similar sentiments.
The prophetic part, if there is one, emerges as Wallace braves an interview enough to say these things, unapologetic and unbeholden. That is the fairly rare part. Someone of success saying these things aloud on camera.
The scary part? Truths this simple to see are considered deep and rare philosophical breakthroughs, which shows us just how dumbed down Americans are.
Such an interesting point about being slaves to our own freedom to do anything we might want.
This was just one of Kant’s powerful insights more than 200 years ago: bit.ly/2Rag9lL
@@ec1385 Jesus also, but much earlier.
@@owsleys89 More like Aristotle lmao
Augustine said it quite eloquently a few thousand years before with “A man has as many masters as he has vices.”
To be fair it isn’t exactly new insight. And he’s not talking about freedom, he’s talking about impulses. The capitalist system capitalizes on our impulses and by modern smart phones, by constant media it makes us even more impulsive. So not only does it actually prey upon our impulses, but it expands our impulses and makes them more comfortable reality. And then on the other hand, media is always projecting fear, so we are always either impulsive or scared all the time.
I've hardly ever heard so many insightful observations in five minutes. Lots of 'lightbulb' moments where you can see what he is talking about manifesting in your own life.
Indeed. I think an equally 'lightbulb moment-generating' philosopher that was so culturally rejected I had to read him myself is Marx, who generates _a lot_ of the same sentiments, so it's easy to see where that mainstream societal rejection comes from. Here's an example from one of his manuscripts on 'alienation' that I think might be particularly explanatory for DFW's description of American society:
_What, then, constitutes the alienation of labor?_
_First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague. External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Lastly, the external character of labor for the worker appears in the fact that it is not his own, but someone else’s, that it does not belong to him, that in it he belongs, not to himself, but to another. Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of the human imagination, of the human brain and the human heart, operates on the individual independently of him - that is, operates as an alien, divine or diabolical activity - so is the worker’s activity not his spontaneous activity. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self._
_As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions - eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal._
@@Bisquick Really remarkable set of observations. Thanks for sharing. Is there a work in which his manuscripts like these are compiled? I've been inrigued by the prospect of reading Marx for a while however I'm unsure of where to start, something like that sounds like it would be good.
Marx is great for a diagnosis but absolutely useless for a cure, same as every other "deep thinker"
@@maddcowcompany Indeed! I think I would have to recommend the Grundrisse as it's a pretty great collection of a bunch of his manuscripts that act as kind of an overview of everything else he elaborated in "official" texts (like Capital) but it's kind of hard to make like an official 'best of' compilation just because he wrote so damn much.
The manifesto was the first thing I read of his, having the preconceived notion that it would be ridiculous (rereading my first post, this is what I meant to say if anyone was confused, I think I messed up the phrasing), and coming out of it pretty much understanding why people fought revolutions for it, especially as I had subconsciously intuited something broadly similar but had no idea there was an entire movement to make such an ideal reality. Probably the best/worst thing is how empirically dense something like Capital is, which stands in stark contrast to how it is often presented.
Soo I'm gonna say maybe breeze through the pamphlet-ized manifesto for a broad overview (unless you're somewhat familiar already) and then check out the Grundrisse. And awesomely, you can find it all at this awesome resource:
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/
Just a side note real quick for something that particularly blew my mind in the grundrisse and I'll try to find the specific sections if anyone is interested, but one particular section effectively abstractly predicted the inevitability of computers and AI completely logically through a sort of deconstructive analysis of what qualities are imbued in "machines". Though of course he would have no idea how to describe the actual physical mechanisms involved in such machinery considering it was like the 1860s, he basically intuited that even basic machinery has a sort of built in "specialized knowledge" through its very physical structure and that taking this progression of automation, catalyzed by the drive of replacing the worker to maximize profits, to its logical conclusions, the generalized process of producing knowledge itself or "thinking" machines will be the inevitable end goal.
Anyway, sorry for all the digressions but hopefully it gave you some idea of where you'd want to start.
@@Mateo-et3wl Unless you mean like we're inevitably doomed which sadly _may_ be true, I have to agree to disagree haha.
0:19 It can't be talked about directly.
Reminded me of George Santayana :-
Faust - the philosophy of life "He who strives strays, and in straying finds redemption"
Goethe warned us not to take this too seriously
.......more profound for being lived rather than taught
....the vital straining toward an ideal....may express that ideal more fully than the best chosen words
(From 3 philosophical essays)
It's interesting comparing Orwell vs. Huxley. Orwell fear was that people would be controlled by having pain inflicted upon them. Where as Huxley feared pleasure would be used to control people.
Too much pleasure may well be understood as pain in a certain understanding, no?
Paleface , yeah I think we suffer from both too much shallow 'peasure', and this attempt to impose a fear, and distrust amongst us. Listen to every. Michael Jones discuss his book Libido Domanandi, on pleasures.
1984 is not about people being controlled by pain, it is about totalitarianism.
Chomsky points out that people are controlled by their mindset and opinions as opposed to by force nowadays. These opinions are instilled in them through television, the Internet, and the media, most of which corporations fund.
Interesting observation. The US perfected Huxley's cautions. Don't deny them what they want and make them live in misery, give them what they want in abundance to foster their self-enslaved to it. This is on a local small American scale, and permeates throughout the world.
The trouble? All those wants and ego fulfillments take loads of energy, in the form of oil, which Americans must beg, borrow or steal to continue down their materialist path. Only so many puppet governments the US can install, only so many wars they can fight at once (used to be major war every 50 years, then 20 years, then 10 years, now.... perpetual), only so many enticement loans from the IMF handed out as bait.
RIP...I can't imagine how this dude would suffer during last few years...
Infinite Jest
I cant imagine how much he'd be suffering if he were alive today. he saw the writing on the wall presumably
he'd probably stalk random women like he did when he was alive
@@averagejohnson3985 God bruh go back to ur BBC porn foh
Average Johnson allegedly it was just the woman who wanted to be his ex-wife that he'd stalk being stuck in some sort of primitive obsession it's as enraging as it is depressing as it is confusing.... What in the actual fu#@k though.... Bro you're an incredibly intelligent successful author there are quite literally thousands upon thousands of women to meet and be friends with without acting like a damn obsessive freak with the one who doesn't want you..... Women are not gdamn possessions whom must feel and think as you, based upon your superior intelligence, assume and demand they feel and think
1:54. He knew what was coming. He also knew there was absolutely nothing that could change the path we were heading down. Sometimes it really sucks to be the prophet.
He was right in many ways.
Part of what he was talking about in the end is “velleity” - the knowledge of what is right, but lacking the willingness to do it.
Thank you for editing the interview to amplify the core of David's ideas.
3:40 he hits the nail right on the head. Its not rocket science but you almost never hear people spell out the US political complex so well. We miss you DFW
the greeks figured this out over two thousand years ago and wrote extensively about it. wealth = popularity. in democracy, popularity = power. therefore, in democracy, wealth = power. it's why they abandoned the system, it was too corruptible, too weak to stand against internal/external forces after it consistently devolved into tyranny. nothing's changed.
the democratic process is not mutually exclusive with the concept of a republic. the US is a republic with democratically elected representatives. obviously
all you're doing is explaining that our government, which contains democratically elected officials and is therefore democratic in nature, is a plutocracy. which i explained in my initial post. also socialism isn't mutually exclusive with democracy either and there isn't a single nation on this planet that doesn't utilize socialist institutions. your mind is built entirely of parrotted buzzwords
@@levitatingoctahedron922 Do you feel there is a chance for this nation to gain some sense of balance and avoid the steamrolling towards what feels like an inevitable and tragic end? Corruption may have always been a factor in politics, but it is so overt these days and seemingly getting worse. It feels like the end of democracy as we know it, may be the only chance we have for redemption, so to speak. It is f-ing scary.
nice to hear this without the interviewer's words and comments imho
Yes I didn't notice ,it allows you to focus
It's really gratifying to see an incredibly humble guy like DFW say so many insightful things in such a precise and accessible way in such a short amount of time. Meanwhile, you have a guy like Jordan Peterson running around gobbling up intellectual bandwidth, saying near nothing of value and yet he's the one that gets labeled as a genius or intellectual powerhouse.
Jordan Peterson says many things of value. Me and many others have had their lives changed and even saved by his philosophy of telling the truth, finding a purpose and taking responsibility for oneself
@@Snowpire Hello, I didn't mean for my comment to come off as insensitive to anyone who has been helped by hearing or reading Jordan Peterson. I'm not arguing against the value of taking personal responsibility for a second. I think any mental health professional worth their salt would say many of the same things as Peterson and that's more to what I was talking about. I read 12 rules and found it to be needlessly abstract and convoluted as opposed to clear and precise. There were a few useful nuggets of wisdom, but there was also nothing new or revolutionary in his words, certainly nothing close to warranting the title of "the world's most important intellectual" or genius as some have claimed. This is contrasted with DFWs words that come across as far more empathetic, humane, and speaking more directly to the heart of the human condition, in my opinion, while only needing a few minutes to do so.
Just because you don’t have the mental capacity to understand what Peterson says, doesn’t mean he’s said nothing of value 😅
@@lewisbracken5520 That's the best you can do Lewis? I'm too stupid to understand Peterson? I may be stupid, but I'm not lazy and dishonest like you. You twisted my words to attack me as a person. Par for the course for Peterson simps. Yeah, telling people to make their beds and pet dogs is good advice, but it's hardly groundbreaking. In my opinion, the guy speaks almost exclusively in equivocation to give himself an out that he's being misunderstood. That's when he's not trashing trans people, fawning over Nazis, or just flat-out making stuff up. Perhaps these truths are why you find him appealing? Regardless, his word-salad intellectualism is hardly suitable for a guy that espouses the virtue of speaking precisely. Whatever credibility he had is gone as far as I'm concerned.
I can't STAND Jordan Peterson.
I have never heard what this man said ....and I don't need to.... he said it all in his eyes .....its all in your eyes
I do think DFW is a very intelligent man, but a lot of what he says here is also just plain common sense, which is really hard to find these days. I mean it's purely logical. Or maybe we're so used to be being exposed to nonsense, I guess, that listening to this guy speak is so refreshing.
Common sense is the lifeblood of civil existence.
Intelligence is often marked by how simply a person can explain a complex issue.
He is so pleasant to hear. Even if you're not paying total attention to what he's saying - but much more if you are, of course. I could just spend hours listening to him talk.
Profundity just gushing out of his ears. I love listening to him speak.
I’ve been looking (for years now) for the bit from one of his interviews where he predicts our decent into totalitarian rule. Explaining that we’ll want someone to come along and just make the hard choices for us. I’d be indebted to anyone who send me that clip.
Bill Brieger we're always at risk of slipping into a totalitarian state.... Thank God that insane egomaniac Trump is President right now otherwise the Supreme Leader Hillary Clinton would see to it that no one leaves their home, all cities would be under military occupation with a strict curfew which means Black folks would be getting shot by the police at 10 times the present rate because they are not staying home as they're yearning for freedom is too strong for understandable reasons and of course the Supreme Leader would tell us it's to protect us from the coronavirus but in reality it would be the perfect opportunity to seize power, cancel elections and figure out a way to keep it permanent..... For our own protection mind you.... From the virus. Anyone seen outside without a mask will be arrested and sent to a prison/re-education camp, remote temperature scanners will be installed in all public buildings and all interstate travel will require a permit from your local Commisar
Foster Wallace's analysis at 3:45 of the American political system is absolutely brilliant. I literally only found out about him a few days ago when hearing Jonathan Franzen talking about him, but I think "Infinate Jest" is on my reading list.
I'm about to start Infinite Jest - what'd you think of it?
@@tonys.5029it’s been 12 years, I also wonder what he thought about it
@@tonys.5029 It is really good. I am about 230 pages in.
My family gets annoyed when I say things like embrace pain don't flee from it. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to know what it really means to embrace something either. It makes me very despondent to know of few adults have values and principals grounded in reality.
So true. Very similar to when you catch the eye of the crazy person ranting and raving on the street corner. In both cases, They know you have "seen" them, and they rebel. Many time while talking with people, you can watch the moment they check out of what you are saying. I know it's hard being a caring person these days , but stay true and stay strong. Your rewards will come when you reach out to someone who really needs and gets it ( usually a stranger lol) watch your despondency closely, depression is a normal human reaction/emotion. Despondency is letting it get the best of you.
Much love
Take care
@@diviningrod2671 thanks for the suggestions. i might actually try to start reading again and that might be a good starting point.
I like the way he says it's complex after simplifying it.
I have tremendous respect for DFW. He’s a brilliant writer and social critic. But, he doesn’t understand how the unconscious works in psychoanalysis.
One remains that hurt/angry/frustrates child if one doesn’t give voice to the wounded child. Giving h/er an new un-narcissistic view of themselves via the work done in psychoanalysis can actually be quite liberating. It’s from such a liberation that clients learn to take the reigns of their lives and grow up.
This is a basic point and I'm sure he understands it. He's criticising 'pop' psychology and I've seen people with my own eyes become victim to it.
@@roobs456 yes, giving voice to the wounded chid using reductive 'pop' psychology can also lead to a person deriving one's power and identity from being perpetually hurt/angry/frustrated which reinforces the victimhood
Zizek is on that now. Compulsion is not freedom. DFW way ahead of his time
he called it
I like the idea of seeking happiness through pleasure, and how that turns us into slaves. We become emotionally dependent in a way. Very interesting.
His books are much less "reductive" than this interview might suggest. Why would you ever judge a writer's work by a few things he's said to a interviewer? Especially since he's simplifying a lot of what he means in the hope for clarity speaking to a German interviewer and European audience.
HEY YT ALGO time to run some dfw right now listen up 2020
This man was a prophet.
Imagine a president with these insights and convictions. DFW knew we'd never see one. What a loss. Did he ever get to know Bill Hicks? I'm sure he had to at least know of him.
Great question. I'd love to know the answer to that as well
“Helping us help eachother how to live”
I am amazed at the culture’s state. Was raised in it but escaped early.
Be careful
"It's all... complicated."
The injunction to enjoy is what we must ignore.
Thanks, Mr. Goodvibes.
Stay classy!
@thepurpleyouth Genius, regrettably, is no antidote for physical or emotional well being. The hope he offered readers, I think, was to make them aware of their state-of-being, in a non-didactic, preachy manner, through the medium of fiction. I imagine his works attempt to aid us in our search for a lucid and meaningful life?
No homo, but i deeply love this mans brain, it,s so Easy to understand his points, The World is i poorer with out him.
Rumi in the Masnavi:
"Then our souls are prey to diverse whims,
Thoughts of loss and gain and fear of misery.
They retain not purity, nor dignity, nor lustre,
Nor aspiration to soar heavenwards.
The man is really sleeping who hankers after each whim
And holds parley with each fancy."
Makes you think about who and what big corporations in America and around the world support these days.
profit.
I never knew the guy died in 2008 RIP Man
I really, really wish that there were no comments section on this site. In fact, I'm done reading them. There are a small minority of intelligent people with wonderful insights, true. But about 90% of it is just useless, self-absorbed, self aggrandizing, small, ugly people throwing out ridiculous, vapid, pointless comments and insults (myself included). Also, this man was completely brilliant, Is this entire interview available for download anywhere?
I guess you’ll never know since you are done reading comments
jeff smith I feel ya brother
Magneto Rex all we ever do is throw it out to the ether
I've seen behavior like yours from people who are too proud to simply admit that they are incapable of engaging in a meaningful and productive level of discourse. you're making an excuse for yourself, "everyone else is bad just like me!".
He reminds me of Otacon from Metal gear
Just like him!
The frame rate weirds me out.
Yeah there's a better video of this full interview, just watch that
Hey, I'm 46, the same age as DFW when he killed himself!
only one more thing to do!
I had totally forgotten that 2010 only had a framerate of about 15 frames per second.
@Artzineonline I think the entire point of his work as well as him as a human being can be articulated best in his kenyon commencement speech. if you haven't read this speech, please take the time to do so. if you care, in the time of my life when i was most upset and most lost, DFW allowed me to articulate my 'lostness' and 'emptyness' and thus allowed me to address and cure my own internal strife.
The kind of immediate impulse gratification that is built into unbridled Consumer Capitalism is also not helpful in a pandemic where discipline and delayed gratification are a matter of life and death. Just saying. Also not helpful to avoid riots/looting in economic deprivation resulting from job losses due to said pandemic.
Maybe this is part of the ethos of CCP's recent crackdown on tech and consumerism. It kind of makes sense economically but maybe they are just grossed out by what America had become that they are making a conscious effort to avoid going down that same path.
Very well said. Look like we can't escape it anywhere.....other than maybe the mountains of Tibet, lol.
is that platitude which states: "people with higher intelligence are more predisposed to suicide" true?
@IDontBuyIt50 perspective is everything though. There is a burden that may come with intelligence, but I think that's mostly ego. No one is asking anybody to atlas the world and hold it all. See the sour but choose the sweet. Choice is personal. "Society" may be messed up and bleak as you say, but your life and internal worlds is of your own creation.
Reminds me a lot of Plato. Especially 2:30.
This sounds like Jonathan Franzen's thesis in Freedom.
Did David come to these conclusions on his own? who guided him to this knowledge?
neat
Stating the obvious, yes; but the point is: why doesn't anyone care? why isn't anyone doing anything about it?
A paradox of selfish immediate gratification: I am gonna splurge money on a Savings Bond while the country is going into Recession just because I feel like blowing my money. I guess not...oh well.
@thepurpleyouth He did an interview where he had published a book early and he wasn't happy. Writting and getting published, he thought would make him happy bit it didn't therfore he got depressed.
Not at all, he was depressed long before that, he tried to commit suicide in his early 20s
I don't resent my childhood.
Wooo!!!! What a comment!
They don’t appeal to our wants for fun they appeal to our fear of missing out
is that... um... but but... i think... *grabs glasses*
You should listen to Queen not lezepplin
"It's all...complicated."
Nah, power is simple in it's needs and methods, people can be complicated and they can have power, but the power, heartbreakingly simple.
"We get candidates beholden to large donors and become corrupt which disgusts the voters."
And then along came a billionaire who was beholden to no one, who was hated even more.
Which is your hint that their stated issue is not their actual issue.
Money runs politics , wars, education, media etc. So who controls the money is the main question..
Yes quite so.
This is probably the way the country wants its citizens to be.
prrrrecious you mean like Wallace? We wish.....
I dont know much abt depression, n im jst speculating here, bt it seems that understanding life nd society that well, made him nt wanna live that life anymore
Do the work of citizenship
its not your fault personally that you always feel like there is more to life. Its not your fault that you don' "just do it", there isnt just something wrong with YOU. You can carve out your own sanctuary, but you first must admit that something is wrong with this system and that you are just currently a part in it. Blaming yourself for the system you were born into will lead to suicide.
I agree to the extent that anti-depressants aren't the end all solution to depression, however we do need to understand that chronic depression is indeed a medical condition, just like having a broken leg is. I doubt you would say that repairing broken legs makes us any less human. The issue is that anti-depressants do not "repair" chronic depression, but nonetheless, if your femur was popping out of your thigh you would be asking for the morphine, even if you knew it wasn't "repair".
Dude ate tons of raisins and you can tell.
agreed.
How clueless he was. I wish he was around to explain The Orange.
Huxley analysis > Orwell analysis
IN America and rich countries. In poor Orwell's book speaks more accurately to power dynamics.
He reminds me of a more articulate version of my teenage self.
What yr was this, do you know?
B Neilson 2003
Mirror, Mirror
another great comment by you
I wonder if he voted?
3:30 This is Mitt Rommney to a tee.....the inevitable dumbing down of America...
Paleface the one Republican who publicly impeached Trump..... What a scumbag that Romney is defying Donald Trump and voting what he felt instead of what the party demanded
As I am sure I will receive ridicule for this statement, let me first begin by saying I do not disagree with David Foster Wallace. However, the fact that he committed suicide is a paradox when one considers how concerned he is with others' methods to achieving life fulfillment. Nietzsche, too, had extreme ideologies in relation to humanity's perception of life. Both Wallace and Nietzsche seem to be overly critical of humanity when they themselves are guilty of their own criticisms.
@The0Endless0Thread agree.
Holyhotdog
well slavery it is, when you every feeling, every whim dictates you life... pathologically... that's slavery
Very odd to see the man with short hair instead of his usual long, flowing mane
Hahahaha. Amazing.
@adamfkimball zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/823228/David-Foster-Wallace-im-Interview-%25282003%2529
he reminds me so much of Kurt Cobain in this respect.
@benski81 Beautiful.
Just stop buying shit jfc
what a fucking genius. if he killed himself then what hope do we have?
This dudes theories are mid
It's impossible to take the political opinions of someone who voted for Reagan seriously.
@Marko Fahrenheit Try harder, fanboy.
@Marko Fahrenheit Still upset that somebody insulted Daddy Wallace, huh? Cry harder, bitch.
Excuse me?
Selfcontroll is eroded and people become large infants, not fully realized adults. Celebrate your ability to controll your desires and endulge wisely when its ok to do so.
troll harder
Edgy!
What sounded intellectual then sounds banal and sophomoric today. Is this just because it's become accepted wisdom as we've all lived through the postmodern era? Or is DFW as overrated a thinker (and human) as people allege?
Go to back to bed Bret Easton Ellis
Do you not understand English?
This dude should totally go on joe rogan.
If he was still alive that might've been a great podcast episode. He died over a decade ago though.
More proof that we really need a sarcasm font.
the worst editing I have seen of a brilliant mind than this??? NEVA!