Ramble on "Existentialism is a Humanism" (1940s) by St. Jean-Paul Sartre.
"We get a "dopamine rush" - like we do, for example, when eating chocolate - when we also get information that supports what we believe."
Source : the "stunning" new book "Eyes Wide Open" by (the stunning) Noreena Hertz.
[This is itself supposed "information" from "Nerve Science".
I got a "dopamine rush" - I think - when I realized how much bullshit it was!
Anyway - note the appropriation by so-called "scientists"
of so-called "recreational" drug culture slang "rush". Dopey fuckers!
What can go by the name of "Neuroscience" is some of the most
pathetic rubbish that humans have ever considered to be scientific
knowledge. ]
If only Jean-Paul Sartre had known this in the 1940s when "Existentialism is a Humanism" was published!
He would have perhaps changed the thrust of the whole work. It would have helped him give better advice to the anguished war-scarred youth of France. They had a desperate desire for guidance in making the right decisions at that horrifically difficult period of European history.
Peeple found "Existentialism" - which is concerned in some way with decision-making by the way - irrational, unhelpful, illogical and inhuman. If they understood it at all. Sartre's intention with this piece mentioned above was to answer such accusations. I would say that I find the current tendency towards Nerve Science and things like it to be illogical nonsense UNLIKE Sartre's work. And worse than unhelpful - significantly damaging as well!
The ideology of Nerve Science is an attack on human freedom. It allows us to say "It's the dopamine, darling. That's why I need another whisky." Whereas Jean-Paul would say something like : "I like whisky, therefore I drink whisky."
To further defend Existentialism, it unambiguously maintains the existence of human freedom.
People had something to live and die for in the 1940s. Now - people find it harder to have things to feel they can live and die for - as even basic human relationships are annihilated by capitalism. In this sense, the 1940s were a picnic.