Is fate our driving force?

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These people seem to think it is... What about you?

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it. ~Jean de La Fontaine

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. ~Kin Hubbard

Fate laughs at probabilities. ~Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton

"Love Your Fate," which is in fact your life. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

“Fate leads him who follows it, drags him who resists.” Plutarch

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Type: Question • Score: 0 • Views: 714 • Replies: 18

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@Rickoshay75,

Yet, our entire criminal justice system presupposes free will

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@Rickoshay75,

Some good quotes there, Rick. Let me add another:

"RESPONSIBILITY, n: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.” (Ambrose Bierce)

Fate is a great concept for those who want to avoid responsibility.

1 Reply

@Rickoshay75,

Quote:

These people seem to think it is...

I don't think this person thinks that way: "Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny." That seems more in line with the thinking of Bierce.

1 Reply

@Rickoshay75,

Quote:

"Love Your Fate," which is in fact your life. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Actually, Nietzsche does not think it is. Read the quote carefully and you will see he is saying something quite different. You have to think as an existentialist here.

"Which is your like" Your life is in your hands.

1 Reply

@argome321,

Quote:

Actually, Nietzsche does not think it is.

Yeah, I basically agree, Arg. Although Fred threw out, as a rhetorical device, a "deterministic" hypothesis which he called the "eternal return," it was little more than that (a rhetorical device). His basic point was that one should wholly affirm one's existence, including all it's disappointment and sorrows. He should welcome, rather than shun, the prospect of "going through it all over again, many times."

But, on it's face, you can certainly read that quote as being "fatalistic."

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@layman,

But, on it's face, you can certainly read that quote as being "fatalistic."

I can see where many interpret such a statement as fatalistic and probably see many Existentialist as nihilist and probably most have done so.
But I like the take Sartre has on
this topic.

I read this years ago, I don't know if you are familiar with Sartre "Existentialism is Humanism."

www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm

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@argome321,

Quote:

I don't know if you are familiar with Sartre "Existentialism is Humanism."

Yeah, but like you, I haven't looked at it for years. I haven't re-read it completely, but just came across this fragment:

Quote:

For at bottom, what is alarming in the doctrine that I am about to try to explain to you is – is it not? – that it confronts man with a possibility of choice. (Sartre)

Again, this seems to echo the Bierce line that choice (which entails responsibility) is a burden that most people think they can easily discard by attributing all outcomes to "fate."

0 Replies

@Rickoshay75,

One of my faves:

Quote:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star! My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.

King Lear Act I Scene 2

1 Reply

@neologist,

Quote:

One of my faves:

Indeed, Neo, very entertaining and insightful prose from Will there.

Maybe Bierce stole his thoughts from Will, and just reduced it to a more pithy (but less elaborate) form when he defined "responsibility" as:

Quote:

"A detachable burden easily shifted to [another]...In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.”

1 Reply

@layman,

We don't use the word 'foppery' enough. It's a shame. It applies so well in our time.

1 Reply

@neologist,

Quote:

We don't use the word 'foppery' enough.

Agreed, ya fop, ya.

0 Replies

@neologist,

Quote:

Yet, our entire criminal justice system presupposes free will

Are you implying that it shouldn't, Neo?

1 Reply

@layman,

Free will is what makes us human

1 Reply

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Free will is what makes us human

You may have free will, but not me. I can only respond to stimuli? Your post, for example, stimulated my response.

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is WHAT WE DO.” John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Yet, our entire criminal justice system presupposes free will

Not really, brainwashed juries make the final decisions.

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is WHAT WE DO.” John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

0 Replies

@layman,

layman wrote:

Some good quotes there, Rick. Let me add another:

"RESPONSIBILITY, n: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.” (Ambrose Bierce)

Fate is a great concept for those who want to avoid responsibility.

Fate is a driving force., go along, or get dragged.

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is WHAT WE DO.” John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

0 Replies

@layman,

layman wrote:

Quote:
These people seem to think it is...

I don't think this person thinks that way: "Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny." That seems more in line with the thinking of Bierce.

Everything we do or say is fate driven, including bad management

“What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is WHAT WE DO.” John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

1 Reply

@Rickoshay75,

Quote:

Everything we do or say is fate driven, including bad management

How does one prove such an assertion?

0 Replies

Is fate our driving force?

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