Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.
I think you again, strongly discount what Ligotti lays out here. — schopenhauer1
I know this Schopenhauer quote well. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Is there an evidential basis for it? A priori I would have thought it more likely that the opposite holds: that intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects. Over the centuries, many generals and industrialists have justified the sufferings of their soldiery and workforces with this sort of view - as humans have in inflicting pain on the animals they kill for food and pleasure. — mcdoodle
But the notion that humans face a special kind of suffering leaves me cold. People eat another chicken for dinner that has been, out of sight, tortured throughout its short helpless life and, between chews, talk to each other about their profound suffering. They exchange messages on phones made by forced labour that they don't worry about, using rare metals whose mining causes great individual suffering and political strife where it is mined. They talk about wars in other places that their leaders are financing and arming where children die daily. If there is a calculus of suffering, the older I've got, the less I've come to count a generalised human anguish as important - though I still, myself, feel it - paradox remains. — mcdoodle
I know this Schopenhauer quote well. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Is there an evidential basis for it? A priori I would have thought it more likely that the opposite holds: that intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects — mcdoodle
intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects — mcdoodle
Among the unpleasantries of human existence is the abashment we
suffer when we feel our lives to be destitute of meaning with respect to
who we are, what we do, and the general way
39
we believe things to be in the universe. If one doubts that felt meanings
are imperative to our developing or maintaining a state of good feeling,
just lay your eyes on the staggering number of books and therapies for a
market of individuals who suffer from a deficiency of meaning, either in
a limited and localized variant (“I am satisfied that my life has meaning
because I received an ‘A’ on my calculus exam”) or one that is
macrocosmic in scope (“I am satisfied that my life has meaning because
God loves me”). Few are the readers of Norman Vincent Peale’s The
Power of Positive Thinking (1952) who do not feel dissatisfied with who
they are, what they do, and the general way they believe things to be in
the universe. Millions of copies of Peale’s book and its imitations have
been sold; and they are not purchased by readers well satisfied with the
number or intensity of felt meanings in their lives and thus with their
place on the ladder of “subjective well being,” in the vernacular of
positive psychology, a movement that came into its own in the early
years of the twenty-first century with a spate of books about how almost
anyone could lead happily meaningful lives.6 Martin Seligman, the
architect of positive psychology, defines his brainchild as “the science of
what makes life worth living” and synopsized its principles in Authentic
Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your
Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (2002).
There is nothing new, of course, about people searching for a happily
meaningful life in a book. With the exception of sacred texts, possibly
the most successful self-help manual of all time is Emile Coué’s Self
Mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion (1922). Coué was an
advocate of self-hypnosis, and there is little doubt that he had an
authentically philanthropic desire to help others lead more salutary lives.
On his lecture tours, he was greeted by celebrities and dignitaries around
the world. Hordes turned out for his funeral in 1926.
40
Coué is best known for urging believers in his method to repeat the
following sentence: “Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and
better.” How could his readers not feel that their lives had meaning, or
were proceeding toward meaningfulness, by hypnotizing themselves
with these words day by day? While being alive is all right for the
world’s general population, some of us need to get it in writing that this
is so.
Every other creature in the world is insensate to meaning. But those of
us on the high ground of evolution are replete with this unnatural need
which any comprehensive encyclopedia of philosophy treats under the
heading LIFE, THE MEANING OF.In its quest for a sense of meaning,
humanity has given countless answers to questions that were never
posed to it. But though our appetite for meaning may be appeased for a
time, we are deceived if we think it is ever gone for good. Years may
pass during which we are unmolested by LIFE, THE MEANING OF.
Some days we wake up and innocently say, “It’s good to be alive.”
Broken down, this exclamation means that we are experiencing an acute
sense of well-being. If everyone were in such elevated spirits all the
time, the topic of LIFE, THE MEANING OF would never enter our
minds or our philosophical reference books. But an ungrounded
jubilation—or even a neutral reading on the monitor of our moods—
must lapse, either intermittently or for the rest of our natural lives. Our
consciousness, having snoozed awhile in the garden of incuriosity, is
pricked by some thorn or other, perhaps DEATH, THE MEANING OF,
or spontaneously modulates to a minor key due to the vagaries of our
brain chemistry, the weather, or for causes not confirmable.Then the
hunger returns for LIFE, THE MEANING OF, the emptiness must be
filled again, the pursuit resumed. (There is more on meaning in the
section Unpersons contained in the next chapter, “Who Goes There?”)
41
Perhaps we might gain some perspective on our earthly term if we
stopped thinking of ourselves as beings who enact a “life.” This word is
loaded with connotations to which it has no right. Instead, we should
substitute “existence” for “life” and forget about how well or badly we
enact it. None of us “has a life” in the narrative-biographical way we
think of these words. What we have are so many years of existence. It
would not occur to us to say that any man or woman is in the “prime of
existence.” Speaking of “existence” rather than “life” unclothes the latter
word of its mystique. Who would ever claim that “existence is all right,
especially when you consider the alternative”? — CATR- Ligotti
Pessimism I
Along with every other tendentious mindset, pessimism may be
construed as a fluke of temperament, a shifty word that will just have to
do until a better one comes along. Without the temperament that was
given to them in large portion, pessimists would not see existence as
basically undesirable. Optimists may have fugitive doubts about the
basic desirability of existence, but pessimists never doubt that existence
is basically undesirable. If you interrupted them in the middle of an
ecstatic moment, which pessimists do have, and asked if existence is
basically undesirable, they would reply “Of course” before returning to
their ecstasy. Why they should answer in this way is a closed book. The
conclusions to which temperament lead an individual, whether or not
they are conclusions refractory to those of world society, are simply not
subject to analysis.
Composed of the same dross as all mortals, the pessimist cleaves to
whatever seems to validate his thoughts and emotions. Scarce among us
are those who not only want to think they are right, but also expect
others to affirm their least notion as unassailable. Pessimists are no
exception. But they are few and do not show up on the radar of our race.
Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and
everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the
limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and the media.
Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive
delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood
for a cause.
Identical with religions that ask of their believers more than they can
possibly make good on, pessimism is a set of ideals that none can follow
to the letter. Those who indict a pessimist of either pathology or
intellectual recalcitrance are only faking their competence to explain
what cannot be explained: the mystery of
44
why individuals are the way they are. To some extent, however, why
some individuals are the way they are is not a full-fledged mystery.
There are traits that run in families—legacies lurking in the genes of one
generation that may profit or impair those of another. Philosophical
pessimism has been called a maladaptation by those who are concerned
with such things. This call seems indisputably correct. The possibility
must be considered, then, that there is a genetic marker for philosophical
pessimism that nature has all but deselected from our race so that we
may keep on living as we have all these years. Allowing for the theory
that pessimism is weakly hereditary, and is getting weaker all the time
because it is maladaptive, the genes that make up the fiber of ordinary
folk may someday celebrate an everlasting triumph over those of the
congenitally pessimistic, ridding nature of all worry that its protocol of
survival and reproduction for its most conscious species will be
challenged—unless Zapffe is right and consciousness itself is
maladaptive, making philosophical pessimism the correct call despite its
unpopularity among those who think, or say they think, that being alive
is all right. But psycho-biographers do not often take what is adaptive or
maladaptive for our species into account when writing of a chosen
member of the questionably dying breed of pessimists. To them, their
subject’s temperament has a twofold inception: (1) life stories of
tribulation, even though the pessimistic caste has no sorrows exclusive to
it; (2) intractable wrongheadedness, a charge that pessimists could turn
against optimists if the argumentum ad populum were not the world’s
favorite fallacy.
The major part of our species seems able to undergo any trauma without
significantly re-examining its household mantras, including “everything
happens for a reason,” “the show must go on,” “accept the things you
cannot change,” and any other adage that gets people to keep their chins
up. But pess-
45
imists cannot give themselves over to this program, and its catchwords
stick in their throats. To them, the Creation is objectionable and useless
on principle—the worst possible dispatch of bad news.It seems so bad,
so wrong, that, should such authority be unwisely placed into their
hands, they would make it a prosecutable malfeasance to produce a
being who might turn out to be a pessimist.
Disenfranchised by nature, pessimists feel that they have been
impressed into this world by the reproductive liberty of positive thinkers
who are ever-thoughtful of the future. At whatever point in time one is
situated, the future always looks better than the present, just as the
present looks better than the past. No one today would write, as did the
British essayist Thomas De Quincey in the early nineteenth century: “A
quarter of man’s misery is toothache.” Knowing what we know of the
progress toward the alleviation of human misery throughout history, who
would damn their children to have a piteous toothache in the early
nineteenth century, or in times before it, back to the days when Homo
sapiens with toothaches scrounged to feed themselves and shivered in
the cold? To the regret of pessimists, our primitive ancestors could not
see that theirs was not a time in which to produce children.
So at what time was it that people knew enough to say, “This is the
time in which to produce children”? When did we think that enough
progress had been made toward the alleviation of human misery that
children could be produced without our being torn by a crisis of
conscience? The easy years of the Pharaohs and Western antiquity? The
lazy days of the Dark Ages? The palmy decades of the Industrial
Revolution as well as the other industry-driven periods that followed?
The breakthrough era in which advancements in dentistry allayed
humanity of one-quarter of its misery?
But few or none have ever had a crisis of conscience about
46
producing children, because all children have been born at the
best possible time in human history, or at least the one in which the most
progress toward the alleviation of human misery has been made, which
is always the time in which we live and have lived. While we have
always looked back on previous times and thought that their progress
toward the alleviation of human misery was not enough for us to want to
live then, we do not know any better than the earliest Homo
sapiens about what progress toward the alleviation of human misery will
be made in the future, reasonably presuming that such progress will be
made. And even though we may speculate about that progress, we feel
no resentment about not being able to take advantage of it, or not many
of us do. Nor will those of the future resent not living in the world of
their future because even greater progress toward the alleviation of
human misery will by then have been made in medicine, social
conditions, political arrangements, and other areas that are almost
universally regarded as domains in which human life could be better.
Will there ever be an end of the line in our progress toward the
alleviation of human misery when people can honestly say, “This is
without doubt the time produce children”? And will that really be the
time? No one would say, or even want to think that theirs is a time in
which people will look back on them from the future and thank their
stars that they did not live in such a barbaric age that had made so little
progress toward the alleviation of human misery and still produced
children. As if anyone ever cared or will ever care, this is what the
pessimist would say: “There has never been and never will be a time in
which to produce children. Now will forever be a bad time for doing
that.” Moreover, the pessimist would advise each of us not to look too
far into the future or we will see the reproachful faces of the unborn
looking back at us from the radiant mist of their nonexistence. — Ligotti- CATHR
Optimists may have fugitive doubts about the
basic desirability of existence, but pessimists never doubt that existence
is basically undesirable. — Ligotti- CATHR
It's not something which constitutes a view of the greater world. I'm not "pessimistic" regarding the world; I don't think it will act in its own self-interest, or is lazy, or malicious, or inclined to act badly--those are human attributes. — Ciceronianus
I don't see any more reason to think that there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of existence, than there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of anchovy pizza. — wonderer1
FWIW, I took a look at my Kindle copy of CATHR and saw that I got 26% of the way before losing interest. — wonderer1
That said, I love the fiction, not all of the broader philosophy. It seems to me like it all hinges on the claim that the world is indeed meaningless, and even more the claim that freedom is illusory. I don't think there are good reasons to believe these claims. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Without these claims the rest of the pessimismtic claims collapse. — Count Timothy von Icarus
If we lived for 10,000 years? If we were the ruler of a galactic empire for five million years? If the entire universe only contained our solar system? If the entire universe consisted of one small town and we were one of its 80 residents? If our body grew to the size of a billion galaxies?
People often bring up the scale of the universe when they say life "obviously lacks meaning," but why exactly should fudging around the length of our lives or our size relative to everything else that exists have anything to do with meaning? It's a weird idea when you think about it. — Count Timothy von Icarus
People often bring up the scale of the universe when they say life "obviously lacks meaning," but why exactly should fudging around the length of our lives or our size relative to everything else that exists have anything to do with meaning? It's a weird idea when you think about it. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Surely if you can make a judgement on anchovy pizza, you can make a judgement about life. — schopenhauer1
Sure, I place positive or negative values on things routinely, but I also recognize that the way I do so is idiosyncratic aspect of the way I am and not some fact about about human existence. I don't see how you think it can be justified to generalize about the subject as you seem to. — wonderer1
Like I said, I might not be very helpful :rofl: . The whole scale thing is just something I've seen thrown out in favor of pessimism quite often. I used to think it had a great deal of merit and use it myself. And then one day it struck me that it is actually one of the sillier philosophical arguments out there. — Count Timothy von Icarus
What do you think of Ligotti's analysis of the pessimist? I actually think this is more a critique of the optimist, but indirectly. — schopenhauer1
Will there ever be an end of the line in our progress toward the
alleviation of human misery when people can honestly say, “This is
without doubt the time produce children”? — Ligotti- CATHR
Can't find much to disagree with. I think a lot of folk are afraid of pessimism and work hard to deny their own tendencies in this area just in case it makes things even worse. Whistling in the dark is a popular human reaction. — Tom Storm
This raises another question for me. Is life worth living even if suffering is almost eliminated? Let's say there are no wars and there is economic and political equality and medicine can cure most diseases. What then? I think one still has to face the question is living worth all the work and effort? All the psychological exertion. I've had a fortunate life (so far) with minimal suffering, but if I had the choice would I want to do it all again or not be born at all? I suspect I would choose the latter. I think this may well be dispositional as Ligotti suggests. I have always been reluctant to universalise my own tendencies and acknowledge how many people who have suffered intensely still 'love life' and cherish their time. — Tom Storm
I'll provide some more quotes to this effect, but I think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is the closest to a "model" for the modern man's (supposed) antidote to such generalized ideas on "EXISTENCE". That is to say, whatever your beliefs this way or that, it is about peak experiences that make it worth it.. One must provide safety, security, social bonds, physical needs, and then at the top is supposedly "self-actualization", which I gather to be "peak experiences". One is being true to one's values (Nietzschean-esque).. I imagine the world-travelling, hobbyist, sports-enthusiast, mountain-climbing, civic duty participating, citizen, supposedly reveling in the balance between skill, challenge, preference, and aptitude.. The perfect balancer of personal interests and social interests.. Flow states are had readily and easily. One is able to express one's talents, etc. — schopenhauer1
I have no interest in setting challenges and consider the vulgar Nietzschean-esquee pretentions to be the opposite of my own inclinations. — Tom Storm
I am quite happy to loiter around the foothills of Maslow and avoid the peaks. — Tom Storm
I think hobbies and sport and travel are all distractions from meaninglessness. We used to have religion for this and now it's Instagram and TikTok. I don't think it makes much difference. — Tom Storm
and then at the top is supposedly "self-actualization", which I gather to be "peak experiences". One is being true to one's values (Nietzschean-esque).. I imagine the world-travelling, hobbyist, sports-enthusiast, mountain-climbing, civic duty participating, citizen, supposedly reveling in the balance between skill, challenge, preference, and aptitude.. The perfect balancer of personal interests and social interests.. Flow states are had readily and easily. One is able to express one's talents, etc. — schopenhauer1
As adumbrated above, Zapffe arrived at two central determinations
regarding humanity’s “biological predicament.” The first was that
consciousness had overreached the point of being a sufferable property
of our species, and to minimize this problem we must minimize our
consciousness. From the many and various ways this may be done [schop1 note: acknowledgement this is simply a model, not exhaustive],
Zapffe chose to hone in on four principal strategies.
31
(1) ISOLATION. So that we may live without going into a free-fall of
trepidation, we isolate the dire facts of being alive by relegating them to a
remote compartment of our minds. They are the lunatic family members in the
attic whose existence we deny in a conspiracy of silence.
(2) ANCHORING. To stabilize our lives in the tempestuous waters of chaos,
we conspire to anchor them in metaphysical and institutional “verities”—God,
Morality, Natural Law, Country, Family—that inebriate us with a sense of
being official, authentic, and safe in our beds.
(3) DISTRACTION. To keep our minds unreflective of a world of horrors,
we distract them with a world of trifling or momentous trash. The most operant
method for furthering the conspiracy, it is in continuous employ and demands
only that people keep their eyes on the ball—or their television sets,
their government’s foreign policy, their science projects, their careers, their
place in society or the universe, etc.
(4) SUBLIMATION. That we might annul a paralyzing stage fright at what
may happen to even the soundest bodies and minds, we sublimate our fears by
making an open display of them. In the Zapffean sense, sublimation is the
rarest technique utilized for conspiring against the human race. Putting into
play both deviousness and skill, this is what thinkers and artistic types do when
they recycle the most demoralizing and unnerving aspects of life as works in
which the worst fortunes of humanity are presented in a stylized and removed
manner as entertainment. In so many words, these thinkers and artistic types
confect products that provide an escape from our suffering by a bogus
simulation of it—a tragic drama or philosophical woolgathering, for instance.
Zapffe uses “The Last Messiah” to showcase how a literary-philosophical
composition cannot perturb its creator or anyone else with the severity of trueto-life horrors but only provide a pale representation of these horrors, just as a
King Lear’s weep-
32
ing for his dead daughter Cordelia cannot rend its audience with the throes of
the real thing.
By watchful practice of the above connivances, we may keep ourselves
from scrutinizing too assiduously the startling and dreadful mishaps that
may befall us. — Ligotti- CATHR
but if I had the choice would I want to do it all again or not be born at all? I suspect I would choose the latter. — Tom Storm
It seems to me that this difference of disposition speaks to there being no fact of the matter as to whether life is worth living. — Janus
To mix the two up would be intentional for rhetorical purposes in a debate to deny Pessimism its proper place in philosophy, or it is simply ignorance of the difference. Which is it for you? Or am I missing what you have done here in your mixing the two? — schopenhauer1
I found this fascinating and immediately understood. — Tom Storm
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