“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” <3

A few of my other favorites, although I'll only do short ones: "Next to selfishness, the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory, is want of mental cultivation"

"It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak"

"The future of mankind will be gravely imperiled, if great questions are left to be fought over between ignorant change and ignorant opposition to change"

"Of what avail is the most broadly popular representative system if the electors do not care to choose the best member of Parliament, but choose him who will spend the most money to be elected"

"was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?"

okay i'll stop spamming now haha.

Good stuff to read, thanks SD

I just think of silly things like the line from the Monty Python "philosopher's song"
..John Stuart Mill drank half a pint of shandy and was particularly ill.

While Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

Is that were the dissatisfaction comes from?

SocDis, please come back and spam some more, by all means--you've been replaced with spam of a quite inferior quality.

To pass the time, a classic:
"Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." -Socrates

^I always try and remember this to keep me grounded. Works quite well.

Since SD was commenting, I thought I'd give him his due...

The wall street journal wrote an article about him and guess what? The title contains "pizza". No other food item was present Wyatt

His due? We're talking about John Stuart Mill, not Aristotle. (Although I do love reading about aristotelian justice)

Mito WHY

Ask the editor. It was probably because pizza is awesome like no other food.

Egoistic Hedonism

Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham

Yeah, Philosophy was one of my majors in college and I liked JSM.

Soren Kierkegaard was always one of my favorites.

JSM is a little bitch who didn't understand what was necessary to achieve the ends he desired:

Pure communism.

Have you read his essay on socialism? I don't agree with Mill on a lot but you can tell he's thoughtful and knows a lot

@Condi - Communism? It has been 30 years or so, but IIRC he would run more towards the stateless Utopia than a government driven one. But, it has been 30 years since I have read his works, so my memory could be off.

Eh: "Mill defended British imperialism by arguing that a fundamental distinction existed between civilized and barbarous peoples.". Racist much?

Lots of awful things to say about Mill for sure. No denying that.

I just read this: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/England_and_Ireland

He seems to most liberal and forward thinking of racists i've read. (I did not expect these two thread to cross so direclty)

Read almost any notable liberal philosopher from that time or earlier and you'll find a lot of horrendous racist things.

Well liberal then did not mean what liberal means now. So called 'classic liberals' or more like modern libertarians than modern 'social liberals' (or what not).

True, but John Stuart Mill was basically the founder of modern social liberalism.

Interesting, i will have to study more :)

1 JSM probably was the found of modern liberalism in my mind
2 You read a lot of earlier liberals and you'll find ideas that you can argue are modern liberal ideas (some readings of John Locke have him as a defender of an extensive welfare state, for instance)
3 classical liberals are more like libertarians or neoliberals, yes, but still you may find some of the racism surprising, given lots of the stuff on human rights, and various other general treatment of humans

4 A lot of other historical thinkers, that some would describe as important founders of modern liberalism, that one might associate with ideas about general mankind, such as Kant, Hume, whoever, said horribly racist things too.

5 I'm rambling and going on, but if you're interested you can read Charles Mills on "herrenvolk ethics"

herrenvolk ethics, i may add it to my reading list... which is unfortunately very very long right now. (currently only reading, beyond good and evil, the intelligent man's guide through world chaos - https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Guide-through-World-Chaos/dp/B006BAN2DU- 'Hot, Flat and Crowded', The Underground Railroad, and a pdf about Native Hawaiians and US Federal Recognition which JECE linked me on a different thread)

@Socrates: classical liberals did not, and do not, have any real interest in human rights. They like to talk about liberty a lot but it's a smokescreen for having the liberty to take as much as possible from other people.

Yet another colonial imperialist.

Another insignificant dead white guy. We need more insignificant dead liberals

@orathaic: here's a true story.

One of my roommates decidhoed to read "Beyond Good and Evil." Another roommate thought Nietzsche would be a bad influence on him, so she stole his copy of the book, saying "anyway, how can he complain?"

Thanks for the education on human rights ;-). That was me lazily speaking, although some classical liberals do seem to have notions of human rights (e.g. Locke obviously). But even if you don't speak in right language as many wouldn't have, they seem to have positions that suggest related understandings of what being human entails. Also if you read the stuff on herrenvolk ethics you'll see that. I really dislike classical liberal thoughts and agree that it's a smoke screen

@ ora. beyond good and evil is an interesting choice to read. enjoy.

@SD The cover looks really pretty...

I'm not sure what to make of Nietzsche, but i feel he's gotten a rather weird nihilistic association, when from the little i've seen of his philosophy he was predicting nihilism but warning against it... And is seen by some as a proto-existentialist. Which might gel well with my current set of beliefs.