Ozio

In reply to Driven5 :

You disagree? Cool. Congratulations. I'm not sure I agree with Machiavelli either. I thought it was a fun idea to play around with, but the more traditional narratives of "luxury CAN lead to corruption and decadence" may very well be more realistic than his "luxury IS corruption" idea. 

I'm not sure why this interesting idea became some sort of justice/freedom/ideological/passionate-flecks-of-spittle thing, but here we are.

If "would we be better off with X" is a "binary question," literally all questions are binary. 

Parenthood is common.

In reply to DaewooOfDeath :

We don't learn anything when we agree, only when we argue. 

Having said that, imposing necissitas is dangerous as hell for most people. And I'm talking proper life changing necissitas, whether it be climbing Everest or crushing poverty. If you KNOW the outcome, I'd argue that it's not necissitas at all, but just a game that allows you to pat yourself on the back and all others to pat you on the back when you tell the story at parties. I think that's the flaw in Machiavelli's argument, self imposing small amounts of necissitas on yourself that have no real potential consequences isn't character building at all, but is merely ego building, and THAT makes people feel superior to others, and THAT is evil. 

Editors note: this argument is made purely for the joy of discussion, it does not necessarily reflect the authors own view. 

DaewooOfDeath said:

In reply to Driven5 :

 

If "would we be better off with X" is a "binary question," literally all questions are binary. 

 

Questions are certainly binary, but arriving at the answer is not always a simple sum.

"Do you want another cookie?" is a simple yes or no question.

"If I change jobs, will my life get better?" is often impossible to answer until you have done it.  Then, portions of your life may be better, others worse.  Schrodingers job...

I'm not sure why this interesting idea became some sort of justice/freedom/ideological/passionate-flecks-of-spittle thing, but here we are.

Debate is unlikely to remain civil, or on-topic, when logical fallacies get involved.

.

If "would we be better off with X" is a "binary question," literally all questions are binary.

This is true only if the two options closely enough related that they could be reasonably thought of as mutually exclusive. Posing binary questions with completely independent options is the kind of logical fallacy that makes baby Machiavelli cry.

I've been thinking about this Ozio concept over the weekend. My initial response is that if you put the astronauts in the car traveling to a shopping spree, they wouldn't complain there either, but a 3 year old would probably still complain on Apollo 13. The example is a bit unfair. 

Seth - I like your point but I also think that every pushup you do makes you stronger, even if you find pushups easy. Not all effort/hardship is bad even if its not 'life changing'. That's the whole point behind the 16 oz = 1 lb shirts, right?

You could think of Ozio and Necessitas as 'states' like night and day, but the individual still may have strengths or weaknesses. Ie a star may be so bright it also shines in the day. Or a person's actions could be driven by day or night, or they could be despite day or night. 

I guess that's more like luxury LEADS to evil - or can lead to, at least.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

You could think of Ozio and Necessitas as 'states' like night and day...

The more I think about it, the more fault I see in fundamentally considering ozio and necessitas (and by extension, corruption and greatness) themselves as being mutually exclusive in nature. As often as not they end up being complementary, rather than contradictory, to each other. Any given outcome is determined less by which tool is used, than it is how the tool is used.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Seth - I like your point but I also think that every pushup you do makes you stronger, even if you find pushups easy. Not all effort/hardship is bad even if its not 'life changing'. That's the whole point behind the 16 oz = 1 lb shirts, right?

 

They make you better at pushups. Is that the same as being a better person? We are shaped by Necessitas and Ozio but it's how we're shaped and who we become that's the important part. I think. The whole idea of "hardship makes you better" has a LOT of fallacies in it and those stories of people overcoming suffering makes us more tolerant than we probably should be of suffering when we see it as "good" and transformative. 

Driven5 said:

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

You could think of Ozio and Necessitas as 'states' like night and day...

The more I think about it, the more fault I see in fundamentally considering ozio and necessitas (and by extension, corruption and greatness) themselves as being mutually exclusive in nature. As often as not they end up being complementary, rather than contradictory, to each other. 

Day and Night are not mutually exclusive either, I don't think I was trying to say they were.

And do pushups make me a better person? Well that depends, of course, on what I think a better person is. 

My Ozio might be someone else's Necessitas. 

To the guy floating around naked in space, being inside Apollo 13 probably feels like a luxury.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

:)

Better is one of those very not binary things. It's all context. One of my greatest challenges of parenting was to realize that some of the completely absurd behavior in my kids was them being better at being a kid (especially a Jr. High kid) and those choices were not AT ALL related to what would make them a better adult. But, they were better at what they were trying to be better at. Very frustrating. 

I don't know if pushups make you a better person but eating too much is gluttony which could be considered a form of corruption. 

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

But are the pushups for vanity? Because then you're back where you started? :)

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Editors note: this argument is made purely for the joy of discussion, it does not necessarily reflect the authors own view. 

Having an Editor is about as Ozio as it gets..  

 Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Day and Night are not mutually exclusive either, I don't think I was trying to say they were.

My apologies. Mutually exclusive was not the correct term for what I was trying to say. When most people talk about the states of day and night, they don't seem to consider them as existing simultaneously, nor that one cannot exist without the other. When viewed locally, the day/night analogy isn't sufficient to capture the full relationship between ozio and necessitas as I see it... But when viewed globally, that makes a lot more sense to me. 

So I do appreciate your considering ozio and necessitas more like states of being, but I would probably expand upon it further and describe their states in the context of the wave/particle duality of light.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

But are the pushups for vanity? Because then you're back where you started? :)

What about eating too much?

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

But are the pushups for vanity? Because then you're back where you started? :)

What about eating too much?

Eating too much for vanity is weird, but you do you? 

Context. Eating too much every day causes problems, same as exercising too much every day. Or anything too much every day. But doing a thing too much occasionally can be good. A super long day of hiking that leaves you sore on the couch the next day. Or chopping wood. Or eating a spectacular meal with friends. We have a restaurant that we go to for family celebrations and I eat until my wife has to drive me home and it's wonderful. 

Find great joy in all things, but moderation in them as well. 

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

I don't know if pushups make you a better person but eating too much is gluttony which could be considered a form of corruption. 

...I don't know what eating too much has to do with pushups, but fiber supplements keep the poo regular which could be considered a form of greatness.

What about fiber supplements?

Driven5 said:

I'm not sure why this interesting idea became some sort of justice/freedom/ideological/passionate-flecks-of-spittle thing, but here we are.

Debate is unlikely to remain civil, or on-topic, when logical fallacies get involved.

.

If "would we be better off with X" is a "binary question," literally all questions are binary.

This is true only if the two options closely enough related that they could be reasonably thought of as mutually exclusive. Posing binary questions with completely independent options is the kind of logical fallacy that makes baby Machiavelli cry.

"Would the world be better or worse without Apollo 13 but with a dozen more good fathers?"

You can answer yes or you can answer no or, if you are inclined and do as I had hoped, you might answer in one of billions of variations on the theme of "it could be better in this way but worse in this way, if we make the following assumptions ..."

Binary means "two." There are more than two answers to my "fallacious" and "binary" question. Same thing with necessitas and ozio, incidentally.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to DaewooOfDeath :

We don't learn anything when we agree, only when we argue. 

Having said that, imposing necissitas is dangerous as hell for most people. And I'm talking proper life changing necissitas, whether it be climbing Everest or crushing poverty. If you KNOW the outcome, I'd argue that it's not necissitas at all, but just a game that allows you to pat yourself on the back and all others to pat you on the back when you tell the story at parties. I think that's the flaw in Machiavelli's argument, self imposing small amounts of necissitas on yourself that have no real potential consequences isn't character building at all, but is merely ego building, and THAT makes people feel superior to others, and THAT is evil. 

Editors note: this argument is made purely for the joy of discussion, it does not necessarily reflect the authors own view. 

Hey Seth,

Interesting point of view. I think there's some merit in criticizing Machiavelli's three categories:
a) necessitas - in which state you cannot be decadent/corrupt/etc or you die.
b) ozio - in which state you are decadent but things are so safe/easy/etc that you can get away with it.
c) self-imposed necessitas - training for Everest, etc.

When Machiavelli proposed the third category he was, if I remember the Florentine Histories correctly, praising Scipio for leaving Carthage intact after the end of the Second Punic War. Scipio did this, if I remember Machiavelli's interpretation correctly, because he wanted to maintain the boogeyman that kept Rome united and "virtuous." In other words, Rome would have less chance to descend into Ozio if they were worried about a new Hannibal. Considering what happened after the Third Punic War, when the boogeyman was destroyed and people felt safe, this seems like a pretty good point.

However, I think there's a good point to be made that on an individual level, danger can be replaced by discipline. For example, jiujitsu training with the Gracie family is really hard and you might get hurt, but the Gracies are also not going to light your house on fire and carry your wife away. Thus, when someone very rich and comfortable like Ed O'Niel trains jiujitsu with the Gracies, it's more akin to self-discipline than necessitas. It's self-imposed difficulty, but not self-imposed existential danger like normal necessitas would be. 

I was also thinking about several studies I've read comparing psychological orientations people can take to the problems of suffering. They've pretty consistently found that people who prioritize "avoiding suffering" are lower achieving, less happy and less healthy than people who prioritize "accomplishing goals" or "overcoming difficulty." This has certainly been my personal observations as well - timid folks who are afraid to hurt and prioritize comfort tend to be pretty miserable in my experience.  Folks who think of pain as the price to getting/achieving cool E36 M3 tend to be happier, tougher and higher achieving - both in my anecdotes and in the literature. 

Perhaps this is a misinterpretation, but I was equating he timid, suffering avoiding style with ozio and the bold, achievement oriented, indifferent to pain style with self-imposed necessitas (or simply self-discipline if you prefer).

I thought about this, and could only come to one conclusion. Machiavelli was wrong. Fundamentally wrong, the whole concept is wrong, and this thought experiment is doomed from the start. For the simple reason that people are different. Everyone has their own ideas about what is luxury and what is struggle. Outside forces trying to dictate (pun intended) struggle across the board fail to take this into account. In the three vehicle experiment, there would be some that would consider any of those options an improvement over what have now, while others would definitely see it as a struggle. Many would do as the first caveman did when he discoved that fire first kept him warm- they would look for ways to add more luxury to their vehicle of choice. So even when you "level" the playing field, some will still end up with more luxury than others. 

What Machiavelli failed to see was that what he labeled as a weakness is actually mankind's greatest strength. Man has always strived to better himself and mankind benefits in the process. Luxury is a constantly raising bar due to this concept. Each generation has luxuries the previous never dreamed of. The only way to make everyone equal is to make everyone equally miserable. I'd say one that seeks to hold others back is the corrupt one, not those that pursue luxury. 
 

Now, I'm not saying that luxury in and of itself should be people's primary goal. Everyone has their own definition of luxury, and their own tolerance of struggle to attain it. Happiness is a happy medium between those two points. At times I've been envious of people with less luxury- and less struggle- than I have. I've also not been envious of people with much greater luxury when I saw what they had to do to attain and maintain it. I've seen corruption in those seeking a high level of luxury and in those with very little. I've seen good in both. Enough so that it factors very little in how good or corrupt a man is, pretty much debunking the whole concept. Ironically, I've seen great evidence to support the concept as a tool of corrupt men. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

This is actually an example Machiavelli used. You can use wealth to buy face powder, lace and imported cheese or you can use it to buy ramparts, stronger breeds of horses and manufacturies. Marie Antoinnette and George Patton, for example, were both very wealthy, though the "luxury" of the latter and the luxury of the former took on very different forms. Wouldn't both be "improvements" from your definition? 

Machiavelli was not an egalitarian. He would consider Patton vastly superior to Antoinnette, for example. 

In reply to DaewooOfDeath :

I thought we were discussing Machiavelli's concept of ozio, not his other beliefs. By your initial post, both Antoinette and Patton were corrupt. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

I think I didn't explain correctly. Patton was not an ozioso because he used his "luxury," mostly, on things that were not for comfort or convenience. Instead, putting them towards harder, more "self-disciplined" aims and voluntarily embracing a life of hardship and danger. Antoinnette used wealth on her hat collection, pearls and gourmet food. 

Patton is what Machiavelli would consider the way to be prosperous without being corrupt. 

The three vehicles I mentioned were not the worst cars I could think of, far from it. They were simply the least luxurious, though of course you might think of different exemplars of "least luxurious." Enjoyment is not ozio. I would personally love to have that three car garage because a Wigo is a hell of a fun run about, a Caterham is a hell of a challenging and invigorating way to get to work and a Bongo is an incredibly useful tool. They just aren't luxurious. Physical comfort and indolence are ozio, or at least that's how I interpret it. 

"Would the world be better or worse without Apollo 13 but with a dozen more good fathers?"

1) The world would be a better AND worse place without Apollo 13 but with a dozen more good husbands/fathers.

2) The world is a better AND worse place with Apollo 13 but without a dozen more good husbands/fathers.

3) The world would be a worse place without Apollo 13 AND without a dozen more good husbands/fathers.

4) The world would be a better place with Apollo 13 AND with a dozen more good husbands/fathers.

Both numbers 1 and 2 are partially ozio, and partially necessitas, in (unnecessarily) opposing ways. Number 3 is the closest to true ozio. Number 4 is the closest to true necessitas... And therefore true greatness.

There is a good reason George Patton didn't choose between only one of ramparts, or stronger horses, or manufacturies when all 3 were independently possible. He knew better than to self-impose falsely conditional and irrational limitations by falling victim to the mental ozio of such logical fallacies... As there is far less to be gained (or learned) in doing so.

In reply to Driven5 :

Yes, there are good and bad sides to everything. How did I lead you to believe pure ozio and pure necessitas were the only two possible conditions? I clearly made a mistake for you to interpret a flexible idea about spectrums and things that happen on average as some black/white insanity thing.

"There is a good reason George Patton didn't choose between only one of ramparts, or stronger horses, or manufacturies when all 3 were independently possible. He knew better than to self-impose falsely conditional and irrational limitations by falling victim to the mental ozio of such logical fallacies... As there is far less to be gained (or learned) in doing so."

For example ^ What on earth convinced you Patton can only choose one of these things? What convinced you that any of them are ozio?