Eternalist Ploys

We return to the book "Meaningness" for the conclusion of the Eternalism chapter. I delayed this episode until now in case David Chapman wrote more, or revised them, and no longer considered them unfinished. It's worthwhile just as it is, and I have formatted all these short pages as if they were sections in one page.

 

Eternalist Ploys: Ploys—ways of thinking, feeling, talking, and acting—which stabilize eternalism; and antidotes to use against them.

 

 

Imposing fixed meanings: Forcing fixed meanings on experience always eventually results in unpleasant shocks when reality refuses to conform to your pre-determined categories.

 

 

Smearing meaning all over everything: Monist eternalism—the New Age and SBNR, for example—say everything is meaningful, but leaves vague what the meanings are.

 

 

Magical thinking: Hallucinating causal connections is powerfully synergistic with eternalism.

 

 

Hope: Hope is harmful in devaluing the present and shifting attention to imaginary futures that may never exist.

 

 

Pretending: Eternalist religions and political systems are always partly make-believe, like children playing at being pirates.

 

 

Colluding for eternalism: Because eternalist delusion is so desirable, we collude to maintain it. To save each other from nihilism, we support each other in not-seeing nebulosity.

 

 

Hiding from nebulosity: Physically avoiding ambiguous situations and information.

 

 

Kitsch and naïveté: The denial of the possibility of meaninglessness leads to willfully idiotic sentimentality.

 

 

Armed & armored eternalism: When nebulosity becomes obvious, eternalism fails to fit reality. You can armor yourself against evidence, and arm yourself to destroy it.

 

 

Faith: Privileging faith over experience is an eternalist ploy for blinding yourself to signs of nebulosity.

 

 

Thought suppression: Maintaining faith in non-existent meanings. It leads to deliberate stupidity, inability to express oneself, and inaction.

 

 

Bargaining and recommitment: When eternalism lets you down, you are tempted to make a bargain with it. Eternalism will behave itself better, and in return you renew your faith in it.

 

 

Wistful certainty: The thought that there must exist whatever it takes to make eternalism seem to work.

 

 

Faithful bafflement: Maintaining the eternalist stance that remains committed but begins to doubt.

 

 

Mystification: Using thoughts as a weapon against authentic thinking, to create glib, bogus metaphysical explanations that sweep meaninglessness under the rug.

 

 

Rehearsing the horrors of nihilism: Reminding yourself and others of how bad nihilism is can help maintain the eternalist stance. This is the hellfire and brimstone of eternalist preaching.

 

 

Purification: An obsessive focus for dualist eternalism mobilizes emotions of disgust, guilt, shame, and self-righteous anger.

 

 

Fortress eternalism: In the face of undeserved suffering, is difficult not to fall into the stance that most things are God's will, but not the horrible bits.

 

 

On next week's episode, we return to the Nihilism chapter of Meaningness: Objectivity.

 

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Original music by Kevin MacLeod.

 

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