If suffering is good because it gives life meaning, wouldn't it follow that hurting people is good?

⁨79⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨november@lemmy.vg⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

Or is this just one of those things you’re not supposed to think too hard about?

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

starlinguk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Guys, ‘suffering is good’ is literally a Christian thing. Mother Theresa used it as an excuse not to treat people because ‘suffering brings you closer to God’.

It’s bullshit, of course. It was made up as an excuse for treating people badly and (surprise!) making more money that way.

But that’s where OP gets the idea from. Religious indoctrination.

source
- ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  It’s bullshit, of course. It was made up as an excuse for treating people badly and (surprise!) making more money that way.
  
  Must be why Mother Theresa was so rich.
  
  source
  - Chronographs@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Net worth over $100m when she died according to a quick search
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Suffering isn’t good, but good can come from suffering, but certainly doesn’t always.

A harsh breakup can lead to personal growth.

A loss of a job could lead to a better job and possibly better money management strategies.

But a kid born into abject poverty in an undeveloped villiage, spends his whole life scraping by in suffering always hungry until succumbing to a slow painful death – no good, no meaning.

Mostly the idea that suffering is good is more common in religious ideologies that need an excuse to explain why their powerful god doesn’t step in and fix things.

source
- TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Throwing money on lottery can make you rich. Or it might not. Honestly, the odds are stacked against you.
  
  What doesn’t kill you, may make you stronger… unless it maims you for life. People who have survived wars aren’t necessarily stronger. Quite the contrary actually.
  
  source
- Venator@lemmy.nz ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  But a kid born into abject poverty in an undeveloped villiage, spends his whole life scraping by in suffering always hungry until succumbing to a slow painful death – no good, no meaning.
  
  But what about if they grow up to become a mob boss or billionaire or supervillian as a result? 😅
  
  source
- dysprosium@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  This is basically saying too much suffering is bad (succumbing to hunger). But a little (harsh breakup) can be good.
  
  So this doesn’t suggest suffering is bad after all. If good can come from suffering, then suffering cannot be necessary bad.
  
  source
  - naught101@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    No, it’s not. It’s saying that any amount of suffering is bad, but a tolerable amount of suffering can have good secondary effects (but this is not guaranteed, it’s circumstantial). The secondary good doesn’t mean that the bad part didn’t happen.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - DreamAccountant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Fuck you. Suffering is objectively bad, even if you 'make something good out of it".
    
    What the fuck is wrong with you to defend suffering? YOU suffer. Enjoy your own suffering. YOU learn from it. Don’t sit here and pretend suffering is good in any way, you fucking psychopath.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - TheFogan@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    This is basically saying too much suffering is bad (succumbing to hunger). But a little (harsh breakup) can be good.
    
    Not quite, first off scale isn’t quite as relevant there, beyond a certain point can leave no room for revocation.
    
    Hypothetically a brain tumor can cause suffering, but the removal might rewire your brain so you feel better.
    
    Stepping on a lego may hurt… and most likely nothing of worth is gained from it.
    
    Suffering is always bad… the events afterwards can go either way. Even say the harsh breakup, might lead to personal growth, might lead to a long depression spiral that ends in murder or suicide.
    
    Also more important to point out, suffering isn’t required for personal growth. Maybe someone becomes a better person by going to therapy, or just watching someone be kind to someone else and being inspired, or falling in love with someone that loves them back.
    
    Suffering is one of many potential change agents per say. That change can be positive or negative, and again there are millions of change agents in the world. Suffering by definition is an unpleasant agent of change.
    
    source
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I reject the premise, and I doubly reject the conclusion.

source
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
How the hell thinks suffering is good? That’s cult level thinking.

source
- onslaught545@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Some asshole tried to tell me yesterday that Palestinians think suffering is good because they believe they’ll be rewarded in the afterlife for it.
  
  What a cunt.
  
  source
- MyNamesTotallyRobert@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  A lot of evangelical conservatives think pain and suffering brings people closer to God. This is why they knowingly support harmful policies. Look at Mike Johnson for example. That fucker KNOWS he’s dragging society into the ground and thinks he’s doing the LORDS work.
  
  source
spittingimage@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Does anyone actually believe that suffering gives life meaning? I’m sceptical.

source
- jupyter_rain@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Tbh I did, in my early youth. Films and art often depict suffering that way and being happy was generally just not on my agenda as a goal, because of my career and academically fixated parents.
  
  source
rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Suffering isn’t good. The growth that can be achieved through suffering can be good. There is a very big difference. Suffering doesn’t guarantee growth. Experience gained through suffering might not always be good (we may become jaded or cynical, or worn down).

Putting that aside for now, hurting others is bad. Inflicting suffering on others is not good, and doing so to try and force “personal growth” in a direction you desire is absolutely not good. That’s strange, cruel, controlling behaviour. That’s sort of like playing god.

When people say that suffering builds character, or reference bible passages like Romans 5:3 (And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience;) (apologies, I don’t know similar teachings from other faiths although I’m sure most faiths have a similar concept to this somewhere in them), they are typically talking about a sort of impersonal “suffering”. The death of a parent, sickness, poverty, that kind of thing – and crucially this idea is often separated from “blame” and is instead a sort of “faceless” suffering. It could be set up like this so that people can focus inwards or on something spiritually, rather than getting stuck in a cycle of blame or revenge, but other times the suffering in question is literally blameless, such as a parent dying of old age.

Either way, the key part in your question is that experiencing suffering is an unfortunate but inevitable rite of passage, and hopefully a person will learn and grow as a result, but that intentionally causing suffering is a choice to hurt another human and is bad. It’s sort of two separate things, really.

source
aramova@infosec.pub ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So there are two flavors of Republicans…

Is the selfish narcissistic egomaniac who will destroy his own country to fulfill his own desires.

Are the people you described, pain is good. Hurting people makes them stronger or dead, either way it’s a good outcome.
source
DeceasedPassenger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I mean yeah, I would answer your statement as “yes”. But I would prefer to challenge a fundamental assumption within your question, “suffering is good”. Suffering is neither bad nor good, it simply is. Without the experience of suffering, experiences of non-suffering would lose some or all of their meaning. Without winter we cannot appreciate summer, and vice versa.

source
Spacehooks@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Some humans feel that it adds to life like: “It builds character” or “pain makes him a real man”. Or that Suffering could enable people to appreciate the good but no, hurting people in general is unessessary because the world does that daily. Actively harming humans is actually counter productive because too much suffering can turn them evil or into living husks/zombies due to too much loss.

Now there are select humans that would benefit from this as they seem have not been exposed to any hardships of the masses. Still the pain didnt give meaning. all it was is a catalyst to give a person empathy. Even then physical pain is not the solution it needs to be a series of emotional experiences/trials that can be overcome.

The only people I know where suffering is the meaning/point would relate to something like karma or something like a slaanesh cultist who couldn’t live without pain because without it they have no life.

source
ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Post-traumatic growth is a thing. No need to cause more suffering, it’s locally available and plentiful in most parts of the world.

source
- cymbal_king@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Agreed. There’s plenty of suffering that happens in life just because. Purposeful suffering doesn’t seem like a good thing in most cases.
  
  But there’s also the issue of the definition of suffering. Minor suffering like tolerating a colder thermostat setting in the winter, it saves money and energy, seems rather subjective on where the line could be drawn on bad vs good.
  
  source
Naich@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Schopenhauer’s Theory of Human Suffering and Lack of Meaning: cambridge.org/…/E64B94DBB5CC35F61046073595377F25

He seems like a happy chappy.

source
lovely_reader@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
In the context of the premise, absolutely not, because there is plenty of suffering to go around already.

source
Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Yes, that's what a lot of rich people think. They're helping people build character by acting like monsters.

source
glimse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Your premise is wrong but you should watch Bojack Horseman and pay attention to Diane’s arc, specifically the episode Good Damage

source
Acamon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The idea would be that the existence of suffering gives life meaning. By knowing that the risk of suffering is always there, we strive to avoid it and value our pleasures more because we can compare them to an unpleasant alternative.

How true “an existence without suffering would be meaningless” is open to debate, but there’s at least some day to day support. If you’ve ever been really hungry and demolished some fairly average meal while finding it delicious, or had the best glass of ice water after walking in the heat, you get that. And if we think of rich, entitled people, who appear to have no conception of how fortunate they are, instead getting upset about minor inconveniences, it gives you some indication of what life with less suffering might be like.

source
Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Calm down, Loviatar.

source
zxqwas@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
If and only if suffering is good. I’d argue it’s not.

Occasionally experiencing suffering will lead to character growth, but mostly in dealing with future suffering of yourself or someone else. Not ever suffering and not needing the growth would be better.

But there is suffering in the world and occasional small doses is dealt out to everyone without anyone of us actively trying.

source
Perspectivist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I disagree with the premise, but I’d wager that people who say “suffering is good” are probably talking about things like lifting heavy at the gym or working long hours - not spitting blood in a ditch.

source
razorcandy@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
“Your Honor, I was only trying to make his life more meaningful” doesn’t really hold up well in court.

I would argue that challenges are a part of what give life meaning rather than suffering because they can teach us resourcefulness, resilience, gratitude, and provide a sense of accomplishment after completion. But challenges don’t have to include suffering, and the meaning isn’t always a positive thing.

Ultimately it’s up to each individual to decide what gives their life meaning. Who’s to say everything needs to have a meaning anyway? .

source
nocteb@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Being hurt and suffering are not the same.

source
- november@lemmy.vg ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I would classify “suffering” as a particularly intense kind of “hurt”.
  
  source
  - nocteb@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    You can be hurt but are not suffering and you can suffer without being hurt.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
zeropointone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
If you’re a masochist or sadist, then yes, suffering (either your own or the suffering of others) gives your life purpose…

source
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It’s not good and doesn’t give life meaning.

It can be used as a way to see what you can let go of. Painful, but like, therapy-painful. Still hard to call it “good”, but responding that way makes it least bad and can make it go away. Face it and process it.

Piling it on, yourself or somebody else, is still dumb and always will be.

source
swordgeek@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
False premise.

There’s nothing good about suffering, we just expect it.

source
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The original (and still valid) meaning of “to suffer” is “to tolerate”.

Is it possible that whoever told you that “suffering is good” had that definition in mind?

source
crt0o@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
How does suffering give life meaning? Sure, a balance/contrast between pleasure and suffering can help create meaningful experiences, but that’s a different case

source
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Hurting people is not generally good.

It is also not as directly related to suffering as your text suggests.

source
Apytele@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Or you could go Buddhist and consider “good” sensations to also be suffering and making it your goal to escape from all of it entirely.

source