It's not necessarily that its not built on happiness, though that is certainly the case. — schopenhauer1

Well I picked that specifically because it's so central to our western societies. That if you're not successful and happy you're either doing something wrong or somethings missing. And since you don't want to be wrong you better buy something.

And against this it's helpful to remind oneself that evolution doesn't select for happiness.

As if this argument is about animal intelligence and not about existential differences in animal modes of life is the relevant issue. — schopenhauer1

Well I do also feel the "separation from nature" bit is the weakest part of the metaphor, largely because I see no reason to suppose other animals are somehow "in tune" with nature. They're also each separate, existing as their own little system.

Perhaps self consciousness, as being aware of your own awareness adds an extra filter that makes our experience of the outside world especially remote.

An interesting thought experiment, at some point some ancestor of ours, possibly not even a human, was presumably the first to be aware. But, being the first, they'd have no words to express this, nor anyone to mirror it back to them. So was awareness a group thing, that arose when a sufficient number of our ancestors, together, happend to have the brain capacity and just communally became aware of themselves and each other?

I'm sorry, but what you're doing is mischaracterizing objections to paint them in a certain light. A particularly dismissive, and condescending light.

I can't say that flies with me. There's no bad faith whatsoever - but comparing questions and requests for elucidation as

equivalent of the peasants in a Monty Python sketch hearing the wrong things and giving their misinterpretations in an exaggerated cockney accent — schopenhauer1

is is much closer to that category than the questions you've been receiving.

I'm sorry, but what you're doing is mischaracterizing objections to paint them in a certain light. A particularly dismissive, and condescending light. — AmadeusD

But that is exactly what is being done to the OP :lol: or turn it into a straw man/red herring to debate another point.

I can't say that flies with me. There's no bad faith whatsoever - but comparing questions and requests for elucidation as
equivalent of the peasants in a Monty Python sketch hearing the wrong things and giving their misinterpretations in an exaggerated cockney accent — AmadeusD

See your fellow OP-bashers to and see for yourself..

Clearly, you said I claimed "humans are special". Okay, let's assume that is what I'm saying. From the OP's own imagery, what do you think that means? Again, post is getting closer to it, if that helps.

Well I do also feel the "separation from nature" bit is the weakest part of the metaphor, largely because I see no reason to suppose other animals are somehow "in tune" with nature. They're also each separate, existing as their own little system. — Echarmion

"In tune" puts an axiological spin on it. Can that be put another way though?

Perhaps self consciousness, as being aware of your own awareness adds an extra filter that makes our experience of the outside world especially remote. — Echarmion

Can you explain?

An interesting thought experiment, at some point some ancestor of ours, possibly not even a human, was presumably the first to be aware. But, being the first, they'd have no words to express this, nor anyone to mirror it back to them. So was awareness a group thing, that arose when a sufficient number of our ancestors, together, happend to have the brain capacity and just communally became aware of themselves and each other? — Echarmion

It probably arose with the mechanism of language-use. It also touches on questions of whether language was external first and then internalized, or was language meant for internal cognitive capacities first and then externalized as communication? Most people say the former nowadays, though you do have staunch nativists like Chomsky, who relies on less empirical data.. But this then diverges from the point of the OP, which is not about the "how" but the implications of self-aware beings, and how that differentiates from the rest of nature.

But that is exactly what is being done to the OP :lol: or turn it into a straw man/red herring to debate another point. — schopenhauer1

I guess, I just do not see that. It is a poetical outline and as such is open to criticisms in that light. Can you note something you see to be bad-faith in here? Im just plum not seeing how you're interpreting...

See your fellow OP-bashers to and see for yourself.. — schopenhauer1

You might be right, but I do not see it. I wouldn't have interpreted the thread that way, had i started it.

From the OP's own imagery, what do you think that means? — schopenhauer1

I was trying to figure out what you mean. I have no real opinion, because i can only respond to the passage itself - which I have done, in good faith. Seems to make sweeping statements that indicate the above (directly, in one case) - and i can't work out what it means by that.

... the assumption that we humans are special. We're not. We're instead just another kind of creature in a vast universe, not special but different from others in some respects. I don't see this recognition as a defense mechanism; it's merely what is the case. — Ciceronianus

:fire:

(à la atoms swirling in void ... modes of substance ... the mediocrity principle ... descent with modifications by natural selection ... entropy ...)

If I wasn't interested in this thread I wouldn't be posting in it.

Whether it's claimed we're different, special, abnormal, whatever word you prefer, because unlike other animals (that we know of) we can deliberate, reflect (again, whatever word you prefer), I don't accept that the result is we necessarily feel the way about ourselves and our lives that you, Brassier and Zigotti seem to think we do.

More significantly, I think that the claims being made by you and them (if I understand them correctly, and I think I do) are unsupported. I'm sure that there are those who feel the way it appears they do, and you do. One may say we have the capacity to feel that way due to our "specialness" and other animals lack that capacity if we like. It doesn't follow that we do, or must. But I don't think you achieve anything towards establishing the claims made by maintaining that any statement that someone doesn't accept the dreary perspective set forth in this thread does so in bad faith--as if someone like me is really miserable because condemned to live but pretending not to be.

I don't accept that the result is we necessarily feel the way about ourselves and our lives that you, Brassier and Zigotti seem to think we do. — Ciceronianus

Why are we even deliberating this kind of evaluation? This isn't part of the rest of nature.. Yet here we are- displaying the very thing that Ligotti et al. are explaining... :chin:

It doesn't follow that we do, or must. But I don't think you achieve anything towards establishing the claims made by maintaining that any statement that someone doesn't accept the dreary perspective set forth in this thread does so in bad faith--as if someone like me is really miserable because condemned to live but pretending not to be. — Ciceronianus

No, it's not claiming you are, or must be miserable. And I'm not saying you have to agree with that. Rather, the "excess" of consciousness brings with it a set of issues that humans uniquely must face.

(à la atoms swirling in void ... modes of substance ... the mediocrity principle ... descent with modifications by natural selection ... entropy ...) — 180 Proof

No one is claiming the mechanisms of our evolution are different than other animal. And we can probably agree humans, as with other animals, have unique features. They simply bring with it a set of issues that he discusses.

Yeah, and in the grand scheme of things those "issues" seem quite trivial.

Yeah, and in the grand scheme of things those "issues" seem quite trivial. — 180 Proof

They are the very circumstances of how we live, so no.

Nonetheless, we are not "special" just animals with different defects and capabilities.

Why are we even deliberating this kind of evaluation? — schopenhauer1

A good question. Why indeed bother? But I dislike being told what I must think or feel by virtue of the fact I'm human.

Rather, the "excess" of consciousness brings with it a set of issues that humans uniquely must face. — schopenhauer1

You see the "must" in that sentence, don't you?

You see the "must" in that sentence, don't you? — Ciceronianus

No, it's not about morality, it's about the facts of the matter. You cannot escape the issues of being humans, hence you MUST face them. Like, if you don't do X, Y, Z, or avoid 123, you will die.

If I said, in order to pull the handle you must break the glass... and you said, "I don't have to do anything! You can't make me!" You wildly misinterpreted what I meant.

No, it's not about morality, it's about the facts of the matter. — schopenhauer1

Yes, if it was about morality "should" would be used, not "must." But while I face the issues of being human every day, they don't involve

a certain sense of angst, existential dread, isolation, loneliness, ennui, and meaninglessness. — schopenhauer1

. Sorry.

It's more than that. It's a mode of life. Ok, so in your daily life, do you go through it in mostly non-self-reflective modes? In other words, you could decide not to get a job, go to work, do this or that. Why do you do such things? What goes through your mind? In fact, why do you have to have something "go through your mind". It is a certain existential mode of living. "A bad day" for a human and a "bad day for another animal" would I would claim, not even be in the same category. I'm not even sure we can apply that phrase to the animal other than our attitude towards that animal.

"When you realize the ineffable, it is neither suffering nor bliss.

When there is nothing to meditate upon, wisdom itself is bliss.

Likewise, though thunder may evoke fear,
The falling of rain makes harvests ripen."

https://buddhanature.tsadra.org/index.php/Articles/Mind_Is_Empty_and_Lucid,_Its_Nature_Is_Great_Bliss

Sometimes, the vantage point makes all the difference in the world.

I face the issues of being human every day, they don't involve

'a certain sense of angst, existential dread, isolation, loneliness, ennui, and meaninglessness."
— schopenhauer1

Sorry. — Ciceronianus

:fire:

Amor fati.

While a modicum of consciousness may have had survivalist
properties during an immemorial chapter of our evolution—so one
theory goes—this faculty soon enough became a seditious agent working
against us. As Zapffe concluded, we need to hamper our consciousness
for all we are worth or it will impose upon us a too clear vision of what
we do not want to see, which, as the Norwegian philosopher saw it,
along with every other pessimist, is “the brotherhood of suffering
between everything alive.” Whether or not one agrees that there is a
“brotherhood of suffering between everything alive,” we can all agree
that human beings are the only organisms that can have such a
conception of existence, or any conception period. That we can conceive
of the phenomenon of suffering, our own as well as that of other
organisms, is a property unique to us as a dangerously conscious species.
We know there is suffering, and we do take action against it, which
includes downplaying it by “artificially limiting the content of
consciousness.” Between taking action against and downplaying
suffering, mainly the latter, most of us do not worry that it has overly
sullied our existence.
As a fact, we cannot give suffering precedence in either our individual
or collective lives. We have to get on with things, and those who give
precedence to suffering will be left behind. [ pace @Ciceronianus et al comments :) )
28
They fetter us with their sniveling. We have someplace to go and must
believe we can get there, wherever that may be. And to conceive that
there is a “brotherhood of suffering between everything alive” would
disable us from getting anywhere. We are preoccupied with the good
life, and step by step are working toward a better life. What we do, as a
conscious species, is set markers for ourselves. Once we reach one
marker, we advance to the next—as if we were playing a board game we
think will never end, despite the fact that it will, like it or not. And if you
are too conscious of not liking it, then you may conceive of yourself as a
biological paradox that cannot live with its consciousness and cannot
live without it. And in so living and not living, you take your place with
the undead and the human puppet. — Ligotti- CATHR

You must read Ligotti's optimistic interlocutor with a heavy dose of sarcasm of course.

They fetter us with their sniveling. — Ligotti- CATHR

Wow. Even I wouldn't go that far. But I must find a way to use this sentence in court. It's marvelous.

Wow. Even I wouldn't go that far. But I must find a way to use this sentence in court. It's marvelous. — Ciceronianus

He does have a way with words and cutting turn of phrase!

Zombification
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. These must come as a surprise, for if we expected them
then the conspiracy could not work its magic. Naturally, conspiracy
theories seldom pique the curiosity of “right-minded” individuals and are
met with disbelief and denial when they do. Best to immunize your
consciousness from any thoughts that are startling and dreadful so that
we can all go on conspiring to survive and reproduce as paradoxical
beings—puppets that can walk and talk all by themselves. At worst keep
your startling and dreadful thoughts to yourself. Hearken well: “None of
us wants to hear spoken the exact anxieties we keep locked up inside
ourselves. Smother that urge to go spreading news of your pain and
nightmares around town. Bury your dead but don’t leave a trace. And be
sure to get on with things Zombification [ schop1 note: This is Ligotti playing the optimistic interlocutor again.. to be read with heavy dose of cynicism of course ] — Ligotti, commenting on and summarizing Zapffe - CATHR

In another orbit from the theologies of either Gnosticism or Catholicism,
the nineteenth-century German philosopher Philipp Mainländer (born
Phillip Batz) also envisaged non-coital existence as the surest path to
redemption for the sin of being congregants of this world. Our
extinction, however, would not be the outcome of an unnatural chastity,
but would be a naturally occurring phenomenon once we had evolved far
enough to apprehend our existence as so hopelessly pointless and
unsatisfactory that we would no longer be subject to generative
promptings. Paradoxically, this evolution toward life-sickness
35
would be promoted by a mounting happiness among us. This happiness
would be quickened by our following Mainländer’s evangelical
guidelines for achieving such things as universal justice and charity.
Only by securing every good that could be gotten in life, Mainländer
figured, could we know that they were not as good as nonexistence.
While the abolishment of human life would be sufficient for the
average pessimist, the terminal stage of Mainländer’s wishful thought
was the full summoning of a “Will-to-die” that by his deduction resided
in all matter across the universe. Mainländer diagrammed this
brainstorm, along with others as riveting, in a treatise whose title has
been translated into English as The Philosophy of Redemption(1876).
Unsurprisingly, the work never set the philosophical world ablaze.
Perhaps the author might have garnered greater celebrity if, like the
Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger in his infamous study translated
as Sex and Character (1903), he had devoted himself to gripping
ruminations on male and female matters rather than the redemptive
disappearance of everyone regardless of gender.4
As one who had a special plan for the human race, Mainländer was not
a modest thinker. “We are not everyday people,” he once wrote in the
royal third-person, “and must pay dearly for dining at the table of the
gods.” To top it off, suicide ran in his family. On the day his Philosophy
of Redemption was published, Mainländer killed himself, possibly in a
fit of megalomania but just as possibly in surrender to the extinction that
for him was so attractive and that he avouched for a most esoteric
reason—Deicide.
Mainländer was confident that the Will-to-die he believed would well
up in humanity had been spiritually grafted into us by a God who, in the
beginning, masterminded His own quietus. It seems that existence was a
horror to God. Unfortunately, God was impervious to the depredations
of time. This being so,
36
His only means to get free of Himself was by a divine form of suicide.
God’s plan to suicide himself could not work, though, as long as He
existed as a unified entity outside of space-time and matter. Seeking to
nullify His oneness so that He could be delivered into nothingness, he
shattered Himself—Big Bang-like—into the time-bound fragments of
the universe, that is, all those objects and organisms that have been
accumulating here and there for billions of years. In Mainländer’s
philosophy, “God knew that he could change from a state of superreality into non-being only through the development of a real world of
multiformity.” Employing this strategy, He excluded Himself from
being. “God is dead,” wrote Mainländer, “and His death was the life of
the world.” Once the great individuation had been initiated, the
momentum of its creator’s self-annihilation would continue until
everything became exhausted by its own existence, which for human
beings meant that the faster they learned that happiness was not as good
as they thought it would be, the happier they would be to die out.
So: The Will-to-live that Schopenhauer argued activates the world to
its torment was revised by his disciple Mainländer not only as evidence
of a tortured life within living beings,but also as a cover for a
clandestine will in all things to burn themselves out as hastily as possible
in the fires of becoming. In this light, human progress is shown to be an
ironic symptom that our downfall into extinction has been progressing
nicely, because the more things change for the better, the more they
progress toward a reliable end. And those who committed suicide, as did
Mainländer, would only be forwarding God’s blueprint for bringing an
end to His Creation. Naturally, those who replaced themselves by
procreation were of no help: “Death is succeeded by the absolute
nothing; it is the perfect annihilation of each individual in appearance
and being, supposing that by him no
37
child has been begotten or born; for otherwise the individual would live
on in that.” Mainländer’s argument that in the long run nonexistence is
superior to existence was cobbled together from his unorthodox
interpretation of Christian doctrines and from Buddhism as he
understood it. — Ligotti-CATR

As the average conscious mortal knows, Christianity and Buddhism
are all for leaving this world behind, with their leave-taking being for
destinations unknown and impossible to conceive. For Mainländer, these
destinations did not exist. His forecast was that one day our will to
survive in this life or any other will be universally extinguished by a
conscious will to die and stay dead, after the example of the Creator.
From the standpoint of Mainländer’s philosophy, Zapffe’s Last Messiah
would not be an unwelcome sage but a crowning force of the post-divine
era.Rather than resist our end, as Mainländer concludes, we will come
to see that “the knowledge that life is worthless is the flower of all
human wisdom.” Elsewhere the philosopher states, “Life is hell, and the
sweet still night of absolute death is the annihilation of hell.”
Inhospitable to rationality as Mainländer’s cosmic scenario may seem,
it should nonetheless give pause to anyone who is keen to make sense of
the universe. Consider this: If something like God exists, or once
existed, what would He not be capable of doing, or undoing? Why
should God not want to be done with Himself because, unbeknownst to
us, suffering was the essence of His being? Why should He not have
brought forth a universe that is one great puppet show destined by Him
to be crunched or scattered until an absolute nothingness had been
established? Why should He fail to see the benefits of nonexistence, as
many of His lesser beings have? Revealed scripture there may be that
tells a different story. But that does not mean it was revealed by a
reliable narrator. Just because He asserted it was all good does not mean
he meant what He said. — CATHR- Ligotti

@Ciceronianus

Meant to include @Wayfarer, cause why not! We can argue the "redemption" of the nihilist (Wayfarer's phrasing, which to me seems biased), versus Buddha's positive blissful repose :smile:.

I'd like to also conjure, @BC and @Tom Storm and to wax brightly in the dim night of the black Locrian stage of madness.

After reading these passages, and your reflex to say, "That's just your opinion, man" bubbles up to the black miasmic surface of your thought-forms, what is value and axiology in light of pain, suffering, and the awareness thereof?

Ligotti and by extension you seem to me to be yearning for Grand Meanings. Why would there be such things? For a lifelong atheist like me these sound like the mere negation of a belief in a single god, or 'the unity of science' - some craving for an over-arching sense-making whojameflip, and a sense of grievous disappointment that it isn't to be found.

Perhaps there are only small meanings, built from small things: empirical discoveries in science that suggest bigger theories, striking works of art that suggest broader ways of thinking and feeling, profound personal experiences that seem to have big ramifications.

Out of such things it turns out that humans have a propensity to suffer, yes, and also a propensity to enjoy, and a propensity to understand and to investigate, and to know, love and hate, like and be indifferent to one another. These all emerge in the small scale and create a larger picture, often clearer to me in a Shakespeare play, say, or Beethoven, or children's art about a city, or a night of folk song, than in anything 'about' philosophy. Here I find value.

Ligotti and by extension you seem to me to be yearning for Grand Meanings. Why would there be such things? For a lifelong atheist like me these sound like the mere negation of a belief in a single god, or 'the unity of science' - some craving for an over-arching sense-making whojameflip, and a sense of grievous disappointment that it isn't to be found. — mcdoodle

I think you are WAAAY oversimplifying and too easily dismissing Ligotti here, which is a shame. It's also hard here because you don't get the whole extremely cynical way he writes. He critiques his own pessimism, yet lays into optimists/indifferentists (as you are representing the indifferent side perhaps), and yet still seems to come out with a lot of interesting ideas regarding Pessimism, despite his own understanding of your critique(s) that he has long-before predicted and has written in interlocutor form.

Perhaps there are only small meanings, built from small things: empirical discoveries in science that suggest bigger theories, striking works of art that suggest broader ways of thinking and feeling, profound personal experiences that seem to have big ramifications. — mcdoodle

Indeed his notions of sublimation discuss much to this effect (by way of Zapffe's view of it).. I quoted it up more here:

(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 — Ligotti, commenting on and summarizing Zapffe - CATHR

Out of such things it turns out that humans have a propensity to suffer, yes, and also a propensity to enjoy, and a propensity to understand and to investigate, and to know, love and hate, like and be indifferent to one another. These all emerge in the small scale and create a larger picture, often clearer to me in a Shakespeare play, say, or Beethoven, or children's art about a city, or a night of folk song, than in anything 'about' philosophy. Here I find value. — mcdoodle

I think you again, strongly discount what Ligotti lays out here. Again, hard to outline in hodgepodge posts.

I'd like to also conjure, BC and @Tom Storm and to wax brightly in the dim night of the black Locrian stage of madness.

After reading these passages, and your reflex to say, "That's just your opinion, man" bubbles up to the black miasmic surface of your thought-forms, what is value and axiology in light of pain, suffering, and the awareness thereof? — schopenhauer1

Sorry?

I haven't been following this thread. But I agree that life is a bucket of shit and that there's a menu of distractions or tools we can use to try to override the void and the suffering.

It is this idea of something wholly different in the human evolution, something "uncanny", that I would like to explore. The main philosopher he draws parallels to is Zapffe. Zapffe's themes are similar in that he thinks that humans have an "excess" of self-consciousness, that though allows us to survive in the ways we do, brings with it the existential excess of being too aware. And that over-abundance of awareness is really what separates humans from the rest of nature in the sense that we are existentially divided and torn asunder from the rest of nature in our awareness. Unlike other animals, even clever ones like certain corvids, or domestic animals, or even elephants, dolphins, and apes, we seem to have something totally different in our existential orientation. Whereas Schopenhauer's dissatisfaction personified as "will-to-live" is much more in the "now" and "immediate" and the "being", we are much more in the self-reflected now, the analysis, the planning of the future, the angst, the anxiety, the what ifs and what did I dos, the regret, the isolation, the inability to "turn off" for large portions of time unless dead asleep. We have exited Eden, and to gain some sanity we provide for ourselves stories and narratives, mainly to soothe ourselves that this situation is not so bad, but those are just salves, protective hedging. — schopenhauer1

Sounds reasonable to me. Our reflective speculations and ruminations bring with them additional forms of suffering and dread. Many people accept that that our preference for narratives of transcendent meaning are all attempts to deal with anxiety. Our capacity for metacognitive experince enhances the pain. This observation by Schopenhauer has often resonated with me (is it from The Wisdom of Life?):

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 agree that life is a bucket of shit and that there's a menu of distractions or tools we can use to try to override the void and the suffering. — Tom Storm

And I think Zapffe lays out a wide set of them in this model here:

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. These must come as a surprise, for if we expected them
then the conspiracy could not work its magic. Naturally, conspiracy
theories seldom pique the curiosity of “right-minded” individuals and are
met with disbelief and denial when they do. Best to immunize your
consciousness from any thoughts that are startling and dreadful so that
we can all go on conspiring to survive and reproduce as paradoxical
beings—puppets that can walk and talk all by themselves. At worst keep
your startling and dreadful thoughts to yourself. Hearken well: “None of
us wants to hear spoken the exact anxieties we keep locked up inside
ourselves. Smother that urge to go spreading news of your pain and
nightmares around town. Bury your dead but don’t leave a trace. And be
sure to get on with things Zombification [ schop1 note: This is Ligotti playing the optimistic interlocutor again.. to be read with heavy dose of cynicism of course ] — Ligotti, commenting on and summarizing Zapffe - CATHR

Sounds reasonable to me. Our reflective speculations and ruminations bring with them additional forms of suffering and dread. Many people accept that that our preference for narratives of transcendent meaning are all attempts to deal with anxiety. Our capacity for metacognitive experince enhances the pain. This observation by Schopenhauer has often resonated with me (is it from The Wisdom of Life?):

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. — Tom Storm

I believe it is, yes.