#OOO this is right up my fuckin alley hell yes

[applestorms]

OOO this is right up my alley. i definitely need to read more beauvoir to get more up to date on the figure of the adventurer, but it's interesting that op specifically associates dirk with the passionate person since to my understanding the passionate person is specifically associated w/ nietzsche, and in turn beauvoir's criticism of nietzsche.

quick background on western existentialist philosophy: iirc, you kinda have two different main generations of philosophers from the 19th/20th century. in the first generation, you begin with kierkegaard, but then also have nietzsche and (though yes he's more of a fiction author) dostoevsky, with none of them really being aware of the others minus nietzsche learning about dostoevsky for like a year before he went crazy and kicked it. in the second generation though, you have beauvoir, sartre, and camus, all of which are french and therefore aware of not only the works of the previous generation, but each other.

what i really like about beauvoir is that a lot of her existentialism that i've read is built off of crticisms she has of the other existentialists. in particular, she is very critical of the individualism of kierkegaard and especially nietzsche.

it's important to note two things here:

1. as nietzsche outlines it, there are really two main flavors of nihilism. the first is that there is no absolute meaning, or that there is no greater (christian) meaning that governs/explains our lives, and the second is that there is absolutely no meaning, or that there is never any chance we could find any meaning, anywhere. nietzsche and beauvoir both actually seem to agree that the second is terrible since it basically just saps your life of all substance and just sucks ass in general, and instead go for the first, where you can create meaning in your life (really all of the existentialists i've read thus far have some iteration of this idea THOUGH ALSO i haven't read basically any camus and it seems maybe his idea of the stranger goes more for total nihilism??). where beauvoir differs though is that beauvoir doesn't think you can let go of people in the same way that nietzsche does, arguing against his strong individualism with a more socially conscious view that eventually leads to her theories on oppression and social justice, especially with regards to feminism.

2. the guiding line of basically all existentialism is this idea that people are constantly dealing with a conflict between two opposing halves with the ultimate conclusion that the two sides must be synthesized together instead of denying either side. for beauvoir this is a conflict of body/soul, but also a conflict of object vs. subject, which is particularly potent when it comes to dirk and all of his goddamn puppets. this is the "ambiguity" in the ethics of ambiguity, basically. but also it relates to the idea of projects, which is where beauvoir thinks that meaning is created. to beauvoir, all human projects are basically destined to never be finished within a single lifetime, maybe not even more than that, but she still thinks that it's important to pursue them regardless of that inherent absurdity (this is what the whole pyrrhus/cineas thing is about). i think it's a twisting of these projects into something more absolute that is a big part of beauvoir's criticisms of both nietzsche's idea of the passionate person/artist and kierkegaard's knight of faith.

anyways, i mention all of this just to point out that beauvoir's criticism of the passionate person is largely a response to nietzsche's ideal, which specifically comes out of beauvoir thinking that nietzsche is too individualistic in his pursuit of his passions, ignoring the social structure that surrounds him to the detriment of both himself and everyone around him. the passionate person as nietzsche outlines it is basically inclined to pursue their goals at the cost of all else w/ no regards for other pre-existing moral standards, which sounds real great until you realize that hitler fits into that structure quite nicely, to the point that the nazis explicitly took a lot of nietzsche's philosophy and used it for themselves, regardless of nietzsche's original (perhaps still a bit questionable?) intentions.

i was actually just talking about this the other day, and this is in part what motivated my astronaut ramble about agency in homestuck as well as undertale/deltarune. undertale is actually a very beauvoirean game w/ how it treats relationships, in particular the idea of choosing to continue to keep up relations ("If I cry over him, he is no longer a stranger to me. It’s my tears that decide." from the ethics of ambiguity, god that quote is fucking good) and i think homestuck has a lot of the same ideas! like take caliborn's session for instance- the entire point of it is basically the most cruel punishment sburb could give him for refusing to collaborate and thus form a meaningful relationship with his sister. even more so than dirk, i think that caliborn is a fantastic example of nietzsche's passionate artist (because yes, he says that everyone should be an artist; an additional layer to caliborn as the flawed creator god w/ the yaldabaoth stuff) gone wrong, the individualism and fanatic chasing of his passions to the point of fucking over multiple goddamn universes.

i don't think it's a coincidence either that the alphas main issue comes down to not only miscommunication, but also a kind of social and physical isolation. dirk and jake have by far the closest relationship with caliborn and therefore lord english out of everyone in the entire cast, humans and trolls both, and in turn they both have a very particular relationship with isolation. as i was talking about w/ borzoi the other day (in response to a question about who would distance themself from their friends for the sake of doing the "mature" thing):

for jake, i think he would absolutely use the excuse of “it’s better for them if i leave” to try and justify his need for distance. jake is just introverted in general and needs a lot of space but he’s also got his social anxiety going, so his instinct is gonna be to try and come up with some kind of explanation to get what he wants. from that post-trickster conversation it’s actually kinda clear that both jake AND dirk feel guilty for all of the bad shit that happened, regardless if it was actually their fault, and since jake is smart enough at least unconsciously to pick up on the fact that he genuinely hurt jane and kind of knew about it the entire time he’s gonna be feeling extra guilty and avoidant. TLDR jake is avoidant as fuck and being able to justify running away with “it’s the good mature thing to do” would be incredibly appealing to him.

FOR DIRK. it’s a little more complicated imo, i generally read dirk as a lot more In Need of people than jake is, but he also has a major control problem, especially when it comes to himself. dirk has a low view of himself generally so yeah no shit he’s gonna take on more responsibility than he maybe should’ve, and he’s just as likely as jake imo to be able to logic himself into thinking that distance is the only acceptable answer. honestly though i think their approach to that distance would still be kinda different: jake would distance himself from EVERYONE because that’s kind of what he truly wants, he’s not ready to deal with a whole bunch of awkward social shit, and definitely not all at once by the end of the game. dirk though, i think he’d be the most likely to distance himself from jake, but figure out more specific boundaries for everyone else. like he didn’t shy away from that awkward as fuck conversation with dave, right? it kinda came outta nowhere cause he didn’t know the history but dirk to me seems more like the type to be hyper aware of other people and beat himself up for making them even slightly uncomfortable later, but still wouldn’t be able to avoid those interactions regardless, if only cause then his old material for self deprecation would go stale. dirk might emotionally distance himself by locking himself away but he still feels the need to deal with everyone else’s problems, at least in a practical sense if not emotionally, so there’s only so far he could run before that itch for micromanaging comes back

anyways. very messy thoughts here i may come back and edit these more later when i'm not ten minutes away from running out the door but YES, fantastic analysis, i just wanted to add more of that stuff on nietzsche since now that i think about it his particular flavor of existentialism is hells of relevant to not only beauvoir but homestuck as a whole (and imo caliborn in particular too). i suppose this response is more focused on the ways that social isolation plays a role in all of this, but everyone should definitely read op's essay for a more formal/clean take on jake and dirk lol.

DirkJake & Beauvoir: An Existential Analysis

posting this here again because i am insufferable and this is currently my magnum opus 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTIEpH7wYe9_PWNu7sqk_HlmjpEnNMkDzA9S2QdaJp4rXi6_O2fovQ3RB0fJ6y0aTjNgQDU9E76Bbem/pub

jk i’m working on something about the kid guardians right now!! not all the ideas are there but it’s rotating in my brain very often so it’ll come at some point