Paul Grieg  wrote:

> On 1 Dec, 06:21, "Peter H.M.Brooks"  wrote:
> > Peter Ashby wrote:
> >
> > > How do you relax properly in that sort of atmosphere? My wife said I
> > > became much more relaxed after moving up here, I can't imagine what I
> > > would have been like now...
> >
> > It is a good thing that people like living in big cities - otherwise
> > everywhere else would be too crowded instead.
> >
> > I think that the idea is that you can relax because it is all being done
> > to make you safe. I'm sure that, with the right application of
> > self-delusion, a prisoner could come to the same conclusion and feel
> > relaxed in prison.
> 
> How is it self delusion? Was Alexander Solzhenytsyn self deluded? Or
> Viktor Frankl? Seneca? Epictetus? Or were these men perhaps (surely
> not :-)

Where does Solzhenytsyn say that the Gulag was safe and relaxing? I read
the whole lot of The Gulag Archipelago when I was 17 and I don't
remember any such statement without it being so heavily qualified your
use of it would be meaningless.

Peter


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Paul Grieg wrote:
> On 2 Dec, 08:15, Peter Brooks  wrote:
>> On Dec 2, 9:49 am, pas...@blueyonder.co.ruk (Peter Ashby) wrote:
>>
>>>> How is it self delusion? Was Alexander Solzhenytsyn self deluded? Or
>>>> Viktor Frankl? Seneca? Epictetus? Or were these men perhaps (surely
>>>> not :-)
>>> Where does Solzhenytsyn say that the Gulag was safe and relaxing? I read
>>> the whole lot of The Gulag Archipelago when I was 17 and I don't
>>> remember any such statement without it being so heavily qualified your
>>> use of it would be meaningless.
>> That's a good point. I wasn't able to finish reading the Gulag
>> Archipelago, it was too slow and long for me. I preferred Cancer Ward
>> that also had the advantage of being funny.
>>
>> I don't think that Viktor Frankl was deluded, and I certainly don't
>> think that there is any evidence for his having found life in a
>> concentration camp relaxing.
>>
>> Wikipaedia quotes Epictetus as saying 'We are disturbed not by events,
>> but by the views which we take of them.' which is, perhaps, another
>> way of saying what I was saying. If you don't describe viewing your
>> time in prison as relaxing as self-delusion, then it is a little
>> difficult to think of what you would be able to call self-delusion.
>>
>> I'm not sure which Seneca is intended, nor what was said that is
>> relevant to this.
> 
> The Seneca who was put under house arrest and ordered to kill himself
> by Nero. He was, by most accounts, quite relaxed about this, and it
> was the whole point of stoicism to be relaxed about such a situation.
 >
Fair enough - but stoicism doesn't require self-delusion.

I think your confusion is between 'if then' and 'if and only if then'. I 
argued that self-delusion could allow you to find a prison a relaxing 
place, that does not mean that I was arguing that finding a prison a 
relaxing place is only possible if you use self-delusion.

I agree that there are a number of routes possible to make a prison seem 
pleasant, but self-deception is one.

Peter Brooks  wrote:

> On Dec 2, 9:49 am, pas...@blueyonder.co.ruk (Peter Ashby) wrote:
> >
> > > How is it self delusion? Was Alexander Solzhenytsyn self deluded? Or
> > > Viktor Frankl? Seneca? Epictetus? Or were these men perhaps (surely
> > > not :-)
> >
> > Where does Solzhenytsyn say that the Gulag was safe and relaxing? I read
> > the whole lot of The Gulag Archipelago when I was 17 and I don't
> > remember any such statement without it being so heavily qualified your
> > use of it would be meaningless.
> >
> That's a good point. I wasn't able to finish reading the Gulag
> Archipelago, it was too slow and long for me. I preferred Cancer Ward
> that also had the advantage of being funny.

i have a very well thumbed copy of Cancer Ward which iirc I bought when
I was 17/18 around the time I was reading Gulag. I read it about every
2-3 years. 

I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich just after I had finished
Gulag (we did it in English at school) and my first thought was 'well he
had a good day, didn't he'. My classmates were all horrified. But they
had not idea of how bad it could have been, and I was only too well
aware.

Peter
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Peter Ashby wrote:
> Peter Brooks  wrote:
> 
>> On Dec 2, 9:49 am, pas...@blueyonder.co.ruk (Peter Ashby) wrote:
>>>> How is it self delusion? Was Alexander Solzhenytsyn self deluded? Or
>>>> Viktor Frankl? Seneca? Epictetus? Or were these men perhaps (surely
>>>> not :-)
>>> Where does Solzhenytsyn say that the Gulag was safe and relaxing? I read
>>> the whole lot of The Gulag Archipelago when I was 17 and I don't
>>> remember any such statement without it being so heavily qualified your
>>> use of it would be meaningless.
>>>
>> That's a good point. I wasn't able to finish reading the Gulag
>> Archipelago, it was too slow and long for me. I preferred Cancer Ward
>> that also had the advantage of being funny.
> 
> i have a very well thumbed copy of Cancer Ward which iirc I bought when
> I was 17/18 around the time I was reading Gulag. I read it about every
> 2-3 years. 
 >
I should read it again too.
> 
> I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich just after I had finished
> Gulag (we did it in English at school) and my first thought was 'well he
> had a good day, didn't he'. My classmates were all horrified. But they
> had not idea of how bad it could have been, and I was only too well
> aware.
> 
LOL!

On 2007-12-03, Peter H.M.Brooks  wrote:
>> i have a very well thumbed copy of Cancer Ward which iirc I bought when
>> I was 17/18 around the time I was reading Gulag. I read it about every
>> 2-3 years. 
> >
> I should read it again too.
>> 
>> I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich just after I had finished
>> Gulag (we did it in English at school) and my first thought was 'well he
>> had a good day, didn't he'. My classmates were all horrified. But they
>> had not idea of how bad it could have been, and I was only too well
>> aware.
>> 
> LOL!

It's interesting to see that the text is online. I'll have to have a
closer look. We didn't get anything like that in our literature lessons.

From the synopsis on Wikipedia these sound the kinds of books that would
have quite an influence on world view.

Thanks

 - Richard

-- 
   _/_/_/  _/_/_/  _/_/_/     Richard Corfield 
  _/  _/    _/    _/          
 _/_/      _/    _/                Time is a one way street,               
_/  _/  _/_/    _/_/_/                     except in the Twilight Zone

Richard Corfield  wrote:

> On 2007-12-03, Peter H.M.Brooks  wrote:
> >> i have a very well thumbed copy of Cancer Ward which iirc I bought when
> >> I was 17/18 around the time I was reading Gulag. I read it about every
> >> 2-3 years. 
> > >
> > I should read it again too.
> >> 
> >> I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich just after I had finished
> >> Gulag (we did it in English at school) and my first thought was 'well he
> >> had a good day, didn't he'. My classmates were all horrified. But they
> >> had not idea of how bad it could have been, and I was only too well
> >> aware.
> >> 
> > LOL!
> 
> It's interesting to see that the text is online. I'll have to have a
> closer look. We didn't get anything like that in our literature lessons.
> 
> From the synopsis on Wikipedia these sound the kinds of books that would
> have quite an influence on world view.
> 
We also did 1984 and A Clockwork Orange. The former was obvious, it was
1983!

Peter
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