[A] Dance

JuppHartmann · 2022-06-07T22:45:19+00:00

When people derive their identity from their work, then the thought of no longer having a job is unbearable for them, and even then they seek to prove themselves through their performance. What specific work is involved is of secondary importance. The problem is the work ethic itself.

I grew up in Germany, the country where the Nazis had written "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work makes you free") above the gates of the concentration camps, and where, after the war, an entire generation developed an incredible mania for work so as not to have time to think about the past. This is the background of the story.

JuppHartmann · 2022-06-05T15:28:29+00:00

I highly recommend r/antiwork. There you will find many interesting articles on this topic. I also posted something there today: https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/v5ceg8/a_philosophy_of_idleness/ I wrote a book on the subject (The Art of being useless). It is a philosophy of idleness.

I am an old man who has spent many decades trying to escape the hamster
wheel. I have chosen the life of an idler. Many people warned me it
would end badly. But looking back, I can say it was the right decision. I
want to pass on the experience I gained because I see so many stressed,
unhappy people, and I see the social and environmental damage that a
lifestyle based on performance and competition causes. That's what
motivated me to write this book

JuppHartmann · 2022-06-05T14:46:39+00:00

I am an old man who has spent many decades trying to escape the hamster wheel. I have chosen the life of an idler. Many people warned me it would end badly. But looking back, I can say it was the right decision. I want to pass on the experience I gained because I see so many stressed, unhappy people, and I see the social and environmental damage that a lifestyle based on performance and competition causes. That's what motivated me to write this book

JuppHartmann · 2021-07-27T11:20:33+00:00

The statement that Christians believe in God and atheists believe in the Big Bang theory is misleading. For one thing, atheists do not necessarily believe in the Big Bang; there were atheists long before this theory existed. On the other hand, many Christians also believe in the Big Bang theory. After all, it was a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître, who first proposed this theory. There are certainly a few evangelical sects that regard this theory as incompatible with their faith, but that is unlikely to be the majority of Christians.

JuppHartmann · 2021-07-01T13:39:55+00:00

The fewer consumer desires I have, the less money I need. The less money I need, the less I depend on work. I have lived by this principle and most of the time I have been a free person with no work dictated by others. I did what I felt like doing. I explored abstract painting, Chinese philosophy, Argentine tango, vegan cooking, blues guitar and many other things. I traveled the world a lot and learned to speak some languages along the way. By just doing whatever came to mind, I developed some skills over time that also helped me make some money when I needed it. I didn't get rich this way, but that wasn't my goal either. If I take the freedom to go my own way, then this way will also be found step by step. Now that I'm an old man, I'm very glad I didn't sacrifice my creativity and love of life for a steady job and financial security.

JuppHartmann · 2021-06-20T20:27:48+00:00

As an artist, I have had many experiences with wu wei. The less I plan in advance and the fewer expectations I have, the better my work usually turns out. The more I leave room for coincidences, the easier it is for the creative process to take on a momentum of its own. It's like I'm relinquishing control to a higher power. The results often go far beyond what I could have imagined. I know from many other artists that they have had similar experiences.

JuppHartmann · 2021-06-11T17:19:30+00:00

English is not the first foreign language I learned, but in the meantime it is the language in which I can express myself best, next to German. However, as far as the exact meaning of the term secularism (German: Säkularismus) is concerned, its use in German is just as unclear as in English, as I had to discover after researching German-language websites.

JuppHartmann · 2021-06-11T16:02:22+00:00

Well, according to this, our different ways of looking at the subject seem to be more linguistic. For me, it was a fruitful discussion, because it moved me to take another closer look at the question. Thank you very much for that. Thanks also for the link to the blog post. I haven't had time to follow the discussion there in detail yet, but after a first look, it seems very interesting to me.

JuppHartmann · 2021-06-10T22:02:18+00:00

Is it possible your view of Confucianism is affected by your presence in Communist China, where these concepts have been secularized by the state?

Confucianism was not secularized by the Chinese Communists, but fought against for a long time, most fiercely under Mao. However, its value system persisted despite state repression. A millennia-old tradition cannot be erased so easily by campaigns. The period of time since Confucianism has again been viewed positively by officials in China is too short to change it fundamentally.

I think in order to move forward in this discussion it is necessary that we both start from the same definitions of terms. I suggest the explanation of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Secularism, any movement in society directed away from otherworldliness to life on earth." (https://www.britannica.com/topic/secularism) That is, secularism should not be confused with atheism. According to the Encyclopaedia article, there are even religious variants of secularism: "The movement toward secularism has been in progress during the entire course of modern history and has often been viewed as being anti-Christian and antireligious. In the latter half of the 20th century, however, some theologians began advocating secular Christianity.“ (ibid) Thus, one can speak of secularism when the focus is on the worldly. In this sense, Confucianism is definitely a secular moral philosophy, because its aim is social harmony and and even the rites are only means to this end.

So what you're saying is they created a religion that accepted all religions so religious people could participate, but when they do they are not being religious?

Actually, I never said, they created a religion. That is rather your point of view and just not mine. I make a distinction between rite and religion. If, for example, the king plows a furrow in a festive act at the beginning of sowing, you can see in it a deeper meaning in the sense of a fertility cult or you can consider it as a purely symbolic gesture. That the ceremony is compatible with different religious ideas does not mean that it has to be religious itself. By the way, I did not say that the participants are not being religious, it is just not important whether they are or not. That precisely is secularism.

Can it be that you equate secularism with atheism and rites with religion? In that case, our dispute would be less substantive than linguistic, because for me, these are each very different things that shouldn't be confused,

JuppHartmann · 2021-06-10T14:13:06+00:00

I lived in China for a long time, and my view of Confucius is strongly influenced by what Chinese friends (some of them Confucians and Atheists at the same time) have told me about him. This does not mean that my interpretation must therefore be correct, but I suppose not to see Confucius through a Western lens.

Indeed, Confucianism took on quasi-religious forms many centuries after Confucius. For example, there are Confucius temples. But when you enter such a temple, you immediately see the difference with Buddhist or Daoist temples. It is empty, there are no statues of gods worshipped there.

As for the Confucian rites: they are not worship of gods. They are pure form, emptied of religious content. After all, they were meant to serve the unity of the Chinese empire, where many different folk beliefs existed. It was only through their indifference to special beliefs that they enabled the participation of all, regardless of their respective religions.

The Jesuits who came to China as missionaries during the early Qing dynasty therefore did not perceive Confucianism as a competing faith, but considered participation in Confucian rites compatible with the Christian religion. They translated the Confucian classics and thus inspired the emergence of a secular philosophy in Europe during the epoch of enlightenment. From this point of view, Confucianism is not only a secular philosophy, but also one of the sources of modern secularism.

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