Don't know if this is a good place for it, but I don't have much sympathy for pessimism.

Step (1): Characterise life as loss.
Step (2): Characterise loss as nobly as possible.
Step (3): Forget nobility transmitted to life by transitive property.

The best pains, and joys, take us by surprise. We suddenly find ourselves stricken or fulfilled, and we're never the same again. These transformative surprises are what inspire action, not the humdrum banality of suffering or the dull rises of fleeting happiness.

Pessimism is the intellectualisation of loss elevated to a lifestyle choice; it requires self distancing to adopt. In same sense as supporters of Che Guevara might wear a Hot Topic shirt with his face on, pessimism is a contrarian's Hot Topic, aisles full of fashionable acceptance that only help with the concept of loss, not its gritty detail. It is an exercise in vanity, forever wallowing in itself, giving itself the pretences of necessity and inevitability. Everyone has colour in their wardrobe, even black can clash with itself.

When the need is urgent, pessimism falls silent, real loss arrests us, we contemplate in its wake, not apprehending it in advance as intellectual pop art.

Step (1): Characterise life as loss.
Step (2): Characterise loss as nobly as possible.
Step (3): Forget nobility transmitted to life by transitive property. — fdrake

That is not what most Philosophical Pessismists are doing. Deprivation is the root of most ideas of structural suffering. Nobility seems to be a shifty adjective in this conception as well.

The best pains, and joys, take us by surprise. We suddenly find ourselves stricken or fulfilled, and we're never the same again. These transformative surprises are what inspire action, not the humdrum banality of suffering or the dull rises of fleeting happiness. — fdrake

This would be ignoring that PPs recognize there are inherent "goods" to life. The pursuits, hopes of attainment, and actual attainments of the goods themselves do not necessarily make life less negative. In fact, that could inform us of the fact that we are deprived already. Always overcoming or dealing with something.

When the need is urgent, pessimism falls silent, real loss arrests us, we contemplate in its wake, not apprehending it in advance as intellectual pop art. — fdrake

Then this you fail to grasp Philosophical Pessimism other than the strawman you have created in this post. I would suggest starting at something like what I describe in this thread below, rather than the strawman.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5981/schopenhauers-deprivationalism

That is not what most Philosophical Pessismists are doing. Deprivation is the root of most ideas of structural suffering. Nobility seems to be a shifty adjective in this conception as well. — schopenhauer1

Deprivation structurally in that post is potential loss. You've made a few examples of it. This is precisely what I was talking about; too much thought about dealing with potential harm intellectually, not enough about dealing with real harm practically.

Deprivation structurally in that post is potential loss. You've made a few examples of it. This is precisely what I was talking about; too much thought about dealing with potential harm intellectually, not enough about dealing with real harm practically. — fdrake

You just recognized that I gave concrete examples of it, as that post set out to do. In fact, the four examples were meant to showcase the variations of how harm plays out. It plays out in some of the most common variations in life- restless boredom, illness, survival/work, love. I've also created other posts meticulously going over how we are being forced to be challenged and overcome burdens, in various contexts, in the first place. Some would say I provide too many examples.

I also try in many of my posts to make the distinction between structural and contingent suffering which has two different avenues of proof that the PP has to set out to demonstrate. The structural suffering is "baked in" to human life. This is akin to the restlessness and constant deprivation of Buddhism or Schopenhauer's Will. It is the fact that we are never truly satisfied, otherwise we would be be metaphysically non-existent or everything-at-once. Instead, there is always an overcoming we must deal with, challenges to overcome. Baked into human existence is our desires and goals related to survival/comfort-seeking/entertainment-seeking ad nauseum. Challenges and adversities are foisted upon the new human from birth and can never be avoided altogether. Except for suicide, there is no other choices except to have to overcome burdens and adversities and our own restless will.

Contingent suffering, on the other hand, is situational and deals in probabilities. This is the "classic" view of harms seen in a utilitarian way of having "more or less" of it. So your various harms great and small like illness, accidents, tragedies, annoyances, dealings with other people, dealings with environment, discomforts, etc. are all based on a time, place, and contingent situations. Some people may have less, some more of it. But contingent harms, from the very fact that everyone deals with them in some way, is something we are forced to deal with and overcome. Even if trying to "lessen" the harms, the fact that we are forced into a stance where we have to find a path to "lessen" it, is itself a burden that was already in the equation and actually informs more of the structural suffering.

I think that he means to highlight the absurdity of suicide. The torment that a person has suffered has already subsided by the time that they decide to do so. You don't actually end any suffering as you have already been through whatever it is that drives a person to commit suicide in the first place. It seems to be a bleak and somewhat capricious dismissal of that a person should commit suicide from a pessimistic perspective. It's funny. He is coping with his worldview through a somewhat odd, but, ultimately positive black humor.

I like this quote. Thanks for introducing me to this author.

Cioran is one of my favorite philosophers, but if you want to understand his aphorisms it is more appropriate to understand them within 1) the context of the work in which it appears, since they are often thematic, and 2) within his overall anti-systemic philosophy, which only really goes through a major change from his very early work (viz. his Romanian works) and later works (French works). Quite of few of the aphorisms presented here, while seemingly incoherent or contradictory on their own are easily understandable within the context of his overall thought, which remained consistent from A Short History of Decay and beyond.

I think that he means to highlight the absurdity of suicide. The torment that a person has suffered has already subsided by the time that they decide to do so. You don't actually end any suffering as you have already been through whatever it is that drives a person to commit suicide in the first place. It seems to be a bleak and somewhat capricious dismissal of that a person should commit suicide from a pessimistic perspective. It's funny. He is coping with his worldview through a somewhat odd, but, ultimately positive black humor. — thewonder

Yes, there is an ironic twist that suicide is not even enough to do anything for you- the damage is done. This is definitely playing with dark humor. It takes away even the hope of hope :lol:.

I like this quote. Thanks for introducing me to this author. — thewonder

I'm glad you are learning more about this great aphorist and essayist on the tragedy of existence.

Cioran is one of my favorite philosophers, but if you want to understand his aphorisms it is more appropriate to understand them within 1) the context of the work in which it appears, since they are often thematic, and 2) within his overall anti-systemic philosophy, which only really goes through a major change from his very early work (viz. his Romanian works) and later works (French works). Quite of few of the aphorisms presented here, while seemingly incoherent or contradictory on their own are easily understandable within the context of his overall thought, which remained consistent from A Short History of Decay and beyond. — Maw

Yes, I agree that it should be sequential and in light of other essays but I do not have any access to his books online and I am not keen on hand-typing words from book form into electronic form. If you know of any repository that I can copy of books like The Fall into Time, The Temptation to Exist, or The Trouble, with Being Born, I'd be happy to go over each quote sequentially.

I think I'm on the same page as both @Baden & @fdrake. I liked the gills/cruise ship metaphor. I think its right to focus on its function rather than its content. Pessimism, a coping device, is meant to preserve something. And it seeks to preserve that something so insistently that, like fdrake said, it precludes transformation.

There's an element of control in all the pessimists. Schopenhauer had a system, Cioran had a perfectly manicured literary persona, and Beckett was obsessed with exhausting all permutations of a severely limited set of elements in a limited space. They're all incredible writers, and great fun to read, but there's a limit to them (tho Beckett is much harder to reduce, ...I do really like him.)

@schopenhauer1 you differentiate between structural accounts that focus on the necessity of suffering and weaker 'contingent' accounts that focus on particular harms. Both views take as given a static reference point where anything can be considered a plus-stroke or a minus-stroke situated along [bad] and [good] axes. Echoing fdrake, I have a sense that transformation happens when you don't judge things as good or bad, you take them as they are, and figure out how to work through them/with them.* The only way to work through anything is to is let go of the grid of concepts that lets you organize everything from without. Which puts the 'something' in danger of no longer being preserved - but really that shouldn't matter, because whatever is preserved is preserved too late.

If you shut yourself in, it goes without saying everything will seem to repeat futilely. Ecclesiastes ,so the legend goes, was written by a King - those guys are famous for being trapped in a world of artifice. Movie pitch : King Midas only everything he touches turns to an illustration of structurally necessary suffering.

The pursuits, hopes of attainment, and actual attainments of the goods themselves do not necessarily make life less negative. In fact, that could inform us of the fact that we are deprived already. Always overcoming or dealing with something. — schopenhauer1

_______
*canonical TV-pessimist Rust Cohle is misread as truth-speaking hero when the show telegraphs, frequently, that his Pessimism is a defense against working through his guilt over his daughter's death. 'Our planet's a gutter in the abbatoir of the slums of the ghetto of the universe' is way less meaningful than 'I was responsible for my daughter's death. But it's easier to deal with.

Both views take as given a static reference point where anything can be considered a plus-stroke or a minus-stroke situated along [bad] and [good] axes. — csalisbury

I see this plus-stroke or minus-stroke more characteristic of contingent harms. Structural harm would be a constant in the equation.

Echoing fdrake, I have a sense that transformation happens when you don't judge things as good or bad, you take them as they are, and figure out how to work through them/with them.* The only way to work through anything is to is let go of the grid of concepts that lets you organize everything from without. Which puts the 'something' in danger of no longer being preserved - but really that shouldn't matter, because whatever is preserved is preserved too late. — csalisbury

Well, that is a default. We are always working through them. In that sense, philosophy is always preserved too late- or anything that is descriptive of the situation rather than the primary situation discussed. Philosophy is mainly looking at things through analysis and description, so in that way, all that can be done is to describe the world through words, and then to analyze what is the case from that secondary response. Otherwise, there is just silence. However, if philosophy is any form of therapy for the pessimist, this secondary world would suffice, if not just for catharsis and to understand better what is going on.

If you shut yourself in, it goes without saying everything will seem to repeat futilely. Ecclesiastes ,so the legend goes, was written by a King - those guys are famous for being trapped in a world of artifice. Movie pitch : King Midas only everything he touches turns to an illustration of structurally necessary suffering. — csalisbury

Perhaps the king sees better what is the case? Same with Buddha, who was a prince, right? The assumption then is something along the lines of, "Cultivate your flowers". We are certainly put in abusive situations and then have the need to justify them. But if you "step up" and "get er done" perhaps it will all work out, right? Comply, comply, do not deny. Life is a struggle, but the struggle brings meaning, right? Everything is what it is, right?

*canonical TV-pessimist Rust Cohle is misread as truth-speaking hero when the show telegraphs, frequently, that his Pessimism is a defense against working through his guilt over his daughter's death. 'Our planet's a gutter in the abbatoir of the slums of the ghetto of the universe' is way less meaningful than 'I was responsible for my daughter's death. But it's easier to deal with. — csalisbury

No, the screenwriter didn't want to leave the viewer with a Sunday night/Monday morning feeling (metaphorically speaking), but rather a Friday night/Saturday morning feeling.

Can you elaborate on that? — schopenhauer1

May have been answered in the meantime by others, but anyway:

“This is the way things (in the most general sense) are” + “evaluative (or partially so) statement X” is more of an expression of identity, or more accurately, the outline of a framework on which identity is constructed, than anything else. And the proper response is not a converse positioning, which tends to direct both parties to their trenches, but an examination instead of the inner logic of the framework, how it functions as a psychological support etc.

but an examination instead of the inner logic of the framework, how it functions as a psychological support etc. — Baden

What I think Cioran does well, is he already anticipates the "average position" or "optimist" response and then completely demolishes it. Thus, an optimist might argue that a suicide is simply an optimist who has lost hope. He then sees this move and says, correct, the pessimist would not commit suicide as he never had hope. Or perhaps one might say, suicide is the optimism of relief. He would jump over this and say, suicide provides no relief for anyone (literally), and besides the fact, the damage has been done to cause this anyways. There's a few interpretations here.

So in a way, Cioran is dissolving the problem before it becomes an argument perhaps?

It would appear so although I'd be a bit hesitant drawing a firm conclusion without reading more of him. Maybe @Maw has more to add?

I see this plus-stroke or minus-stroke more characteristic of contingent harms. Structural harm would be a constant in the equation. — schopenhauer1

But, with the structural perspective, you still have minus-strokes. Only now you have a conceptual apparatus that allows you to see them as contingent instances of a general harm. Both perspectives (contingent harm/necessary-structural) bring with them a certain way of looking at things - as though you had a cartesian grid with an 'origin' of neutrality from which you could determine the positivity or negativity of a state by seeing where it is in relation to that origin

Well, that is a default. We are always working through them. In that sense, philosophy is always preserved too late- or anything that is descriptive of the situation rather than the primary situation discussed. Philosophy is mainly looking at things through analysis and description, so in that way, all that can be done is to describe the world through words, and then to analyze what is the case from that secondary response. Otherwise, there is just silence. However, if philosophy is any form of therapy for the pessimist, this secondary world would suffice, if not just for catharsis and to understand better what is going on. — schopenhauer1

Ok, but two points. The first I've made before.

(1) It may be cathartic the first time around, but then its diminishing returns. Catharsis becomes addiction very quickly. Catharsis is freeing. Addiction looks like a compulsion to repeat.

(2) I don't mean to say that philosophy should be the thing itself, rather than a delayed reflection. I'm trying to suggest that this particular philosophy is trying to 'freeze' the thing itself in a certain way, to have control over it. Good philosophy ought to change in accordance with life. Pessimism isn't like that. It installs itself, sets down roots, and then translates everything that passes by into revalidations of itself.

Perhaps the king sees better what is the case? Same with Buddha, who was a prince, right? The assumption then is something along the lines of, "Cultivate your flowers". We are certainly put in abusive situations and then have the need to justify them. But if you "step up" and "get er done" perhaps it will all work out, right? Comply, comply, do not deny. Life is a struggle, but the struggle brings meaning, right? Everything is what it is, right? — schopenhauer1

But what if there was a way of living which was neither compliance nor defiance? Besides, if you're worried about giving the abuser too much satisfaction - the victim's defiance is the spice par excellence for the abuser. If you define yourself against something, you still define yourself through it.

No, the screenwriter didn't want to leave the viewer with a Sunday night/Monday morning feeling (metaphorically speaking), but rather a Friday night/Saturday morning feeling. — schopenhauer1

Do you mean that friday night/saturday morning is gritty and real and sunday night/monday morning is fluffy and false? If so, I'm trying to say that Cohle's pessimism is wayyy less gritty than the thing he's avoiding.

But, with the structural perspective, you still have minus-strokes. Only now you have a conceptual apparatus that allows you to see them as contingent instances of a general harm. Both perspectives (contingent harm/necessary-structural) bring with them a certain way of looking at things - as though you had a cartesian grid with an 'origin' of neutrality from which you could determine the positivity or negativity of a state by seeing where it is in relation to that origin — csalisbury

But I would still say this isn't quite right in regards to structural suffering. Structural suffering means that the there are no countable minus-strokes, as the phenomena is just always in the background. Examples would include deprivation, and challenges to overcome. These are always in play once born, by definition.

Ok, but two points. The first I've made before.

(1) It may be cathartic the first time around, but then its diminishing returns. Catharsis becomes addiction very quickly. Catharsis is freeing. Addiction looks like a compulsion to repeat.

(2) I don't mean to say that philosophy should be the thing itself, rather than a delayed reflection. I'm trying to suggest that this particular philosophy is trying to 'freeze' the thing itself in a certain way, to have control over it. Good philosophy ought to change in accordance with life. Pessimism isn't like that. It installs itself, sets down roots, and then translates everything that passes by into revalidations of itself. — csalisbury

That is the thing though, Philosophical Pessimism, understanding the structural suffering, sees it as a sort of root. The fluxes of various emotional states do not have as much to do with this aesthetic understanding of life. Simply being in a state of deprivation and challenges to overcome would itself be enough to qualify as negative, as there is a deficit that is foisted on the human, once born.

Do you mean that friday night/saturday morning is gritty and real and sunday night/monday morning is fluffy and false? If so, I'm trying to say that Cohle's pessimism is wayyy less gritty than the thing he's avoiding. — csalisbury

No, the exact opposite. In most countries, Friday night/Saturday morning is the start of the weekend, so seemingly hopeful. Sunday nigh/Monday morning is the dread again of more work. That would be more gritty and gloomy. The show wanted to provide the opiate of hope. Audiences do not like complete despair. They can handle it up until a point. Also, it is simply a writing trope to sublimate an existential problem with the character's deep psychological issue from some trauma. Nick Pizzolatto was the screenwriter. His inspiration was Thomas Ligotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race. That book is a non-fiction book on Pessimism that is unrelenting in its gloom, but he knew that this would be too much to maintain it to the very end on a mini-series.

But I would still say this isn't quite right in regards to structural suffering. Structural suffering means that the there are no countable minus-strokes, as the phenomena is just always in the background. Examples would include deprivation, and challenges to overcome. These are always in play once born, by definition. — schopenhauer1

Right but this transcendental root of suffering, if you like, says that there are guaranteed to be minus strokes. What makes these minus strokes minus strokes minus strokes? The same view, the same grid, that the mere seer of contingent harm, uses to evaluate a stroke's bad/good valence. Structural suffering still retains the view where any given moment can be treated in isolation as bad or good. It just goes a step further and explains why there will always be bad moments and how they'll far outweigh the good.

The fluxes of various emotional states do not have as much to do with this aesthetic understanding of life. — schopenhauer1

If you're implying that the aesthetic is above flux, that strikes me as clearly false. If you have a certain rainbow over a waterfall metaphor for the aesthetic, that could *sound* true, but the pull of that metaphor is itself is due to a flux in emotional state.

Nick Pizzolatto was the screenwriter. His inspiration was Thomas Ligotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race. That book is a non-fiction book on Pessimism that is unrelenting in its gloom, but he knew that this would be too much to maintain it to the very end on a mini-series. — schopenhauer1

But people are inspired all the time by things, and that doesn't mean they accept it wholesale, with no personal qualifications or hangups. I knew Pizzolatto was into Ligotti et al - had he states somewhere that he fully accepts the pessimist viewpoint? It seems equally plausible to me that there's a mix of genuine enthusiasm and a popular artist's sense for what could be cool.

Right but this transcendental root of suffering, if you like, says that there are guaranteed to be minus strokes. What makes these minus strokes minus strokes minus strokes? The same view, the same grid, that the mere seer of contingent harm, uses to evaluate a stroke's bad/good valence. Structural suffering still retains the view where any given moment can be treated in isolation as bad or good. It just goes a step further and explains why there will always be bad moments and how they'll far outweigh the good. — csalisbury

Let's suppose I grant you this argument. I don't necessarily, but just for the sake of argument- what does this prove or not prove? I can always say the grid is simply the background that is always there once born and thus itself is part of the structure.

If you're implying that the aesthetic is above flux, that strikes me as clearly false. If you have a certain rainbow over a waterfall metaphor for the aesthetic, that could *sound* true, but the pull of that metaphor is itself is due to a flux in emotional state. — csalisbury

Not sure what you mean. Rather, there is always deprivation and challenges to overcome, no matter what your emotional stance is towards them. These are negative as they are defined by what is not already had, and are forced onto a person. There is no choice in the matter. Of course people will take on the only attitude that is easy to go along with this scenario- happy compliance.

Let's suppose I grant you this argument. I don't necessarily, but just for the sake of argument- what does this prove or not prove? I can always say the grid is simply the background that is always there once born and thus itself is part of the structure. — schopenhauer1

Snarkily : there are ways of looking at one's life that aren't centered, like room service, around how comfortable you are. Use it the wrong way and @Baden gills (which I am in favor of) can simply become a demand for air-conditioning plus an awareness of inevitable outages, and the Final Outage.

Can you speak more about 'compliance' ?

Not sure what you mean. — schopenhauer1

The rainbow metaphor is Schop. I'm saying he had recourse to the fluctuating emotional states of his readers when he deployed it. It works, its a good image, but it works because he knew how to use words to modulate affective states.

Snarkily : there are ways of looking at one's life that aren't centered, like room service, around how comfortable you are. Use it the wrong way and Baden gills (which I am in favor of) can simply become a demand for air-conditioning plus an awareness of inevitable outages, and the Final Outage. — csalisbury

C'mon you know that structural suffering is more than that. You move it to the contingent there. I don't know what "Baden gills" is.

Can you speak more about 'compliance' ? — csalisbury

In it to win it. Go with the flow. Work hard, play hard. The meaning is in the struggle. No pain, no gain. Insert self-help coping mechanism here. It's the attitude towards the foisted challenges and harms. It is like Stockholm syndrome. It's easier to embrace the thing that is foisted upon you.

The rainbow metaphor is Schop. I'm saying he had recourse to the fluctuating emotional states of his readers when he deployed it. It works, its a good image, but it works because he knew how to use words to modulate affective states. — csalisbury

One thing about Schop is he would move from the structural to the contingent and sometimes conflate the two. That is why I try to make the distinction more apparent.

Due to our wills, our need "to do", we are always put in a stance of overcoming something. The existentialist understanding is that this overcoming is always deliberate and we have choices, even of suicide. The psychological-structural understanding would know that the deliberation tends towards certain types of goals (e.g. survival, comfort, entertainment related). The societal-structural understanding would understand that these survival, comfort, and entertainment related goals would always take place in a society with a historical development of ideas, economy, technology, culture, and institutions. These institutions would in turn have need to perpetuate itself through enculturation and habituation. Thus the hope is the individual takes on the values of the culture, to comply more easily with the dictates of survival within that culture's context. This in turn, keeps the individual working in the society, and helps society to perpetuate in perpetuity by each individual complying with its dictates for its own perpetuation.

What I would say is that Cioran doesn't really provide any arguments for or against suicide, but that, like existential absurdity itself, life as a problem isn't something to be solved, but simply to be endured. In that sense, Cioran would view a suicide as an optimist who has attempted to "solve" the problem of life.

life as a problem isn't something to be solved, but simply to be endured — Maw

I think that is key with Cioran. We didn't ask for this, but here we are stuck.

“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” — schopenhauer1

This means that to try to finish projects on deadline is a losing proposition, as you will always miss your deadline.

"It is impossible to be judged by someone who has suffered less than we have. And as each one believes himself to be an unrecognized Job..." — Matias

Version 1.0.
1. God cannot judge us. He suffers none.
2. Second part is a sentence fragment... meaningless.

Version 2.0.
1. All judges appointed to courts must have undergone painful electrical torture, water-boarding, sitting in solitary confinement with a glass of water every day for seventy-seven days, and be flogged by cruel jail keepers; they also must be raped by some very well-endowed horny inmates.
2. Some people are so lucky as to believe in themselves.

Version 3.0.
1. Judges are incompetent fools who should be replaced by hardened, crack-cocaine dependent, bank robbers and rapists.
2. Each has an identity crisis, because they believe they are carpentry, lion-taming, electical repairs, telephone line installing, etc. In other words, people don't recognize themselves any more, they each think they are a job.

“Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on.

Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.” — schopenhauer1

Version 1.0.
But best of all, best to be a woman. (I, God Must Be Atheist, did not say this. Cicorian did.)

Version 2.0.
The Kingdom of Consciousness is one below the Kingdom of animals, which is lead by the Lion King; which is below the kingdom of insects, lead by the tapeworm; which is below the Kingdom of Plants, which is lead by the Freesbee.

Toute exégèse est profanation. — Cioran

I assume this means, "All juicy sex is profanity."

Version 1.0.
"I wish I had some... I wouldn't be so pessimistic any more."

Version 2.0.
"I wish my wife had some... I woudn't be so pessimistic any more."

“Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?” — schopenhauer1

On top of that, they'd be too late in doing it, so it's all gone to pieces. Best is to be blessed with an infectious sense of pessimism... spread the good cheer of doom, defeat and despair around.

"I don't need any support, advice, or compassion, because even if I am the most ruinous man, I still feel so powerful, so strong and fierce. For I am the only one that lives without hope."
—Cioran — Baden

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. So I protect my nothing with fierce resilience to reason, happiness and gladness of life.

If we could sleep twenty-four hours a day, we would soon return to the primordial slime, the beatitude of that perfect torpor before Genesis-the dream of every consciousness sick of itself.

He is actually right. I slept, in my twenties, 16 hours three or four times, and I'm telling you, I was halfway to returning to the primordial slime, the beatitude of that perfect torpor before Genesis-the dream of every consciousness sick of itself. To the last letter. Ah, the power of this man's insight... he reads me as if I were a book.


Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh.
Explanation: too much sexual connotation sewn onto consciousness. I have my opinion, but it can't be printed.