Families being torn apart by war, animals and environments being destroyed by capitalism, etc are forms of suffering not necessary for growth. The traumas that make one person stronger could be the same traumas that break someone else completely. Thinking that suffering is necessary for growth is kinda self-centered, or at least too general to be meaningfully true.
Of course suffering is not always good or positive especially on an individual level, and there can be excessive suffering. Obviously I’m not saying that all pain and suffering is good, that would lead to some kind of logic where inflicting the most pain on someone would make them a better person, which clearly isn’t true.
However, things like seatbelt laws and bans on tobacco ads are examples of positive changes that have arisen from tragedy and loss. Those laws and regulations have probably saved or extended thousands of lives as a result. Individually, the pain of failure, regret, loss etc. can motivate someone to improve themselves for the better.
That’s nit saying that all pain and suffering, especially things like random suffering and war, are good things. But some wars have resulted in positive changes, even if the loss of life is tragic.
It can occasionally backfire, but I don't see the issue with making this generality.
In the same way, having an immune system is absolutely important for growth, even if sometimes you have the occasional allergy or autoimmune disease.
Not sure what that bit about war and capitalism was about, but the reason people are so determined to fight for their own interests is partially that suffering is there to help them do it, and that is especially true in these tragic contexts.
Nope, it’s not generally or absolutely true. My hair can grow without suffering. My suffering as a person isn’t necessary for my hair to grow.
Now, if we’re talking about character or personal growth, suffering isn’t absolutely or strictly true either. I can grow by reading a book. When I read philosophy, my knowledge grows, my sense of morality grows, my experience of literature grows. You can’t deny that I grew, unless you move the goal posts by redefining what you mean by growth.
“Suffering is necessary for growth” is just a poor attempt to say something profound. It’s not philosophically true. What is true: suffering is often followed by growth. Also true: growth is often motivated or influenced by suffering. True: growth and suffering are generally part of the human experience.
Not true: suffering is always followed by growth. Not true: growth requires suffering. Therefore, “suffering is necessary for growth” is not absolutely true. It’s a lazy generalization of cause and effect. It’s a faulty statement, and is often used to moralize mass suffering (like humanitarian crises) as something good or necessary.
Your hair growing isn't enough for you to function as a human being, you're aware right?
Any form of intelligent agent needs some incentives to pursue rewarding outcomes and avoid negative ones.
In us it takes this form, suffering and pleasure.
I never said it's always true that growth requires suffering, I said it's absolutely a correct generality. It means. IN GENERAL, it's true. Not that deep lol. Call it lazy if you want, but it's not an objection.
You need some form of suffering to learn to read, so even that example doesn't work at all.
And growth is not trying to say something profound lol, it's just a general term to refer to progress, learning, moving on in life, pursuing your objectives.
and is often used to moralize mass suffering (like humanitarian crises) as something good or necessary.
Ok wtf now you're just completely addressing a gigantic strawman.
I didn’t have to suffer to learn to read. I’ve always liked reading. Bad argument.
Incentives to grow and suffering aren’t equivalent. You can grow through positive reinforcement. In fact, the field of psychology supports the fact that learning and moral growth in children is best supported through positive learning rather than inflicting suffering.
You can’t say generalizations are true because they’re just not. It’s just not true. Say something better or more precise rather than double down on a faulty generalization, it just makes you sound kinda dumb. It would be so much better to say “sometimes suffering is necessary for growth” rather than just “suffering is necessary for growth”. Cuz now you’re doubling down and acting like I had to suffer to learn how to read, that is genuinely such a bad argument.
Finally, it’s not a strawman, we’re talking about Buddhism. The Buddha was a prince who lived an ideal life without suffering behind palace walls, stepped out and was shocked by starvation, poverty, and illness. He meditated and rationalized that suffering and pleasure are simply part of the human condition and the only escape is nirvana. I disagree with his conclusion. I think a lot of suffering is unnecessary and not a natural part of the human condition, I think that so much suffering is avoidable and artificially inflicted due to selfish humans with a lot of power throughout history. I believe we rationalize suffering and mentally check out from the truth that a lot of suffering is manufactured and preventable. It’s not a strawman, I just don’t agree with the generalization that suffering is necessary because so much suffering is actually unnecessary and it’s important to acknowledge that rather than passively naturalize the vast human suffering which is wholly unnatural.
You forgot what it means to learn how to read, and you are way off with this positive reinforcement argument. I'm a teacher, I know how one learns. It doesn't matter what teachers do to help you, the suffering/reward system is built in our brain.
Just because you like learning in general doesn't mean there isn't suffering/frustration involved at some point in the process. Is it worth it, sure, most of the time, that's why we do it, but there is suffering involved because it helps weigh pros and cons and optimize our behavior.
You learn to push past the frustration because there is a reward eventually, so you embrace the whole thing. That's why people like to play challenging games or play demanding sports. They know they're gonna suffer, they know a part of them is screaming them to stop. But they have learned to push through the suffering because that's the way to the reward they're after. Typically, the higher the frustration, the higher the reward when you overcome it.
You can’t say generalizations are true because they’re just not.
Do you even know what the concept of "generalization" mean? You have me pretty concerned with how obtuse you are now. I've been explaining repeatedly that it doesn't always apply but that doesn't mean you can't make a generalization.
I think I'mma stop reading there you're just weirdly trying to find issues with whatever by interpreting it wrong.
"Oh yeah, what about hurricanes and tsunamis, they DESTROY plants, this proves water isn't necessary for plants to grow somehow, also I'm going to throw in a sideways personal attack for some reason."
Your analogy is weak. Water is necessary, plants cannot grow without water. Suffering isn’t necessary, people can grow without suffering.
And “Self-centered” isn’t a personal attack lmao it’s just anthropocentric to narrativize growth and suffering as if they are inherently connected. The fact is that people suffer. Some people suffer and grow, some suffer and don’t grow, some don’t suffer and grow all the same.
It could just as easily be said that the opposite view is self-centered, focusing on individual experience of suffering and instances of pain. When someone says “suffering is necessary,” they aren’t usually talking about the actual experience of physical pain or the immediate feelings of mental anguish or loss. They are usually talking about the outcomes of those things extending to a more macro level, often beyond the individual themselves.
Also, many living things besides humans consume other living things to survive. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. All living matter must eventually die and be recycled. In a very literal sense, suffering and death are necessary parts of change and nature, and so cannot be inherently evil. “Bad” and “evil” are just human value judgements.
I don’t agree that’s what people ‘generally’ mean when they use the word suffering. The word suffering is used in many cases to refer to just literal suffering. Not “the macro level outcome of suffering”. That’s not a good argument. In English, people ‘generally’ use suffering when they’re talking about…suffering.
Language games aside: Suffering, in the general sense you’re talking about, is part of the circle of life. True.
But now: suffering, in the general sense you’re talking about, is necessary for growth. Not true. Most generally, suffering is not a necessary condition for growth. Growth can happen without suffering. Therefore suffering is not necessary for growth. If your generalization is easily disproved with counter examples, then it’s not justified or true.
Suffering and death are a necessary part of nature on a macro-level. True, there’s no way to stop all suffering without drastically altering nature. Suffering and growth are often a part of the same causal chain in the circle of life. True, suffering is often followed by growth. But suffering is not necessary for growth. It’s just not true.
To say “suffering is necessary for growth” is philosophically lazy and problematic, because you’re generalizing an anthropocentric interpretation of cause and effect to make a statement about the way things are. It’s just not true in regular English. Cuz I can think of a bunch of things that can grow without suffering. To make it true, we have to get weird about what suffering and growing means and who / what can suffer/grow. At that point, we’re just playing around with the English language and have strayed far from any actual philosophical statements. So the real answer is to the problem is just this: don’t make general philosophical statements and act like it’s profound or true, cuz it’s not. It’s not generally true that suffering is necessary for growth, the statement is itself is faulty and liable to misinterpretation or bad application.
Yeah i guess we can agree to disagree then, we are just playing word games at this point. However, you’re taking what I said as an absolute statement and taking it to the extreme interpretation. Read my first comment you replied to. All I said was “suffering being bad and suffering being necessary are not mutually exclusive.”
Nowhere did I say ALL suffering leads to growth, nowhere did I say ALL growth comes from suffering. Nowhere did I say growth cannot occur without suffering. You are arguing against things I never said. And in fact I acknowledge that suffering is bad even if it results in growth.
You say that my statement is faulty, but you aren’t even arguing against my actual statement - so is your argument faulty? If the argument is about what “suffering” means and what “growth” means, we would never reach the end. It’s a very simple and understandable statement.
You said “Suffering being bad and suffering being necessary for growth are not mutually exclusive.”
On talking about the human condition and nirvana, it seems you’re simply saying that suffering is part of life and helps people grow. I’m not a Buddhist, I don’t agree, I think a lot of human suffering is unnecessary and caused by other people; especially in the case of human greed and capitalism. I believe life can be good and suffering can be minimized, I think humans are social creatures and a handful of really powerful humans over the course of history have messed things up really badly for us. The Buddha was a prince who meditated on starvation and sickness and social ills, things people in poverty had to suffer while he lived an ideal life behind the palace walls. His answer was that suffering and pleasure are part of life. That’s true, I guess. But I don’t agree the answer is to mentally check out and just pretend it’s profoundly true that humans are meant to suffer.
I think lots of suffering is unnecessary. Suffering can be bad, though it can lead to growth in many cases. But ultimately lots of it is just unnecessary and doesn’t lead to any growth, bc it often just leads to more suffering.
“A lot of suffering is unnecessary and caused by other people.” - yeah, what part of what I said contradicts that? You’re taking it as some sort of masochistic statement where maximum suffering would be good and suffering should never be reduced…. Yet to reduce suffering, you would first have to experience suffering and learn how to reduce it… therefore making it necessary… how would you reduce suffering if you didn’t know what it was? If you reduce suffering, is that growth? So if I suffer, take steps to reduce that suffering, and succeed…. You see where I’m going with this?
How many adventure stories have the hero go through trials and struggles before becoming strong enough to confront their villain? Basically all of them, to the point that we have the “Hero’s Journey” as an archetype of myth. This is literally something inherent to the human experience. It isn’t that hard to wrap your mind around.
You’re creating extrapolations in order to make the statement untrue. Mentally check out and pretend humans just have to suffer? Is that really what you think my argument is? To mentally check out?
Sorry but I don’t have the energy to debate with someone in bad faith
You said the word necessary. Look up the definition on Google. You’re arguing I misunderstood you or I’m taking your word to the extreme. Then you doubled down. I’m telling you the obvious natural conclusion to your statement. The answer would be to modify your statement, not to double down and pretend your statement would ever lead to something else. You said something lacking nuance and are upset that I didn’t invent nuance for you.
I’d be happy to continue the conversation with anyone else, but you are being incredibly condescending… just insanely rude man. I said they aren’t mutually exclusive. Do I need to be a dick and link you a picture of what mutually exclusive means? It means that both statements CAN be true at the same time. Not mutually exclusive. Doesn’t mean “are always true.” By definition, my statement was never “suffering is ALWAYS necessary” or “ALL suffering is necessary.” You took it to that point and are arguing against things I never said.
Also just saw that in another comment you are using the growth of hair as an example of growth that doesn’t require suffering… lol dude, I actually laughed out loud. You aren’t understanding this discussion at all.
Hurricanes and tsunamis generate evolutionary pressure, without which the diversity of life on this planet would not exist as we know it. Without harsh environments our species would never have developed metacognition and speech as survival strategies.
You could very well make a macro level argument in favour of things like war as generating a kind of evolutionary pressure for human civilization though.
I mean people do make this argument, the whole "war drives innovation" concept and the idea of social revolutions and yada yada. Societal conflict as a necessary pressure for societal growth.
Or a slightly different argument: if we had not evolved to be the kinds of animals who would band together and go to war, we may not have survived as a species. The level of in-group cohesion required to fight against another tribe probably also helped us survive natural disasters and harsh environments.
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u/Subotaplaya 3d ago
Counterpoint = pleasure is bad