SOC 3701 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16 and 18: Sui Generis, Collective Consciousness, Altruistic Suicide
Document Summary
Most of (cid:373)a(cid:374)"s (cid:374)eeds a(cid:396)e (cid:374)ot depe(cid:374)de(cid:374)t o(cid:374) his (cid:271)od(cid:455) (o(cid:396) (cid:374)ot to the sa(cid:373)e deg(cid:396)ee as animals) Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss: unlimited desires are insatiable by definition and insatiability is rightly considered a sign of morbidity. To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to state of perpetual unhappiness. The more one has, the more one wants. Humans define their ambitions to be satisfied with what they have. Humans can never truly be equal (natural talents) Man is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience superior to his own, the superiority of which he feels. Poverty protects against suicide because it is restraint in itself: the less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely.
