Quotes from Thomas LIgotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race
I like this book. Its pessimistic themes make sense to me. Ligotti's writing style is a bit clunky and idiosyncratic, but sometimes he does manage a turn of phrase that drives a point home really well. Similar to Cioran, but without the poetic/aphoristic flair, he is merciless and unflinching regarding the darker aspects of life in this work. Ligotti is mainly known for his "cosmic horror" fiction, however I don't really pay attention to his fiction, and from what I've read, am not really enthralled by it. I wanted to make this thread to analyze some quotes from Conspiracy Against the Human Race and see people's thoughts on it. I'll start with this quote:
[quote=Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race]This is the great lesson the depressive learns: Nothing in the world is inherently compelling. Whatever may be really “out there” cannot project itself as an affective experience. It is all a vacuous affair with only a chemical prestige. Nothing is either good or bad, desirable or undesirable, or anything else except that it is made so by laboratories inside us producing the emotions on which we live. And to live on our emotions is to live arbitrarily, inaccurately—imparting meaning to what has none of its own. Yet what other way is there to live? Without the ever-clanking machinery of emotion, everything would come to a standstill. There would be nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be, and no one to know. The alternatives are clear: to live falsely as pawns of affect, or to live factually as depressives, or as individuals who know what is known to the depressive. How advantageous that we are not coerced into choosing one or the other, neither choice being excellent. One look at human existence is proof enough that our species will not be released from the stranglehold of emotionalism that anchors it to hallucinations. That may be no way to live, but to opt for depression would be to opt out of existence as we consciously know it.[/quote]
[quote=Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race]This is the great lesson the depressive learns: Nothing in the world is inherently compelling. Whatever may be really “out there” cannot project itself as an affective experience. It is all a vacuous affair with only a chemical prestige. Nothing is either good or bad, desirable or undesirable, or anything else except that it is made so by laboratories inside us producing the emotions on which we live. And to live on our emotions is to live arbitrarily, inaccurately—imparting meaning to what has none of its own. Yet what other way is there to live? Without the ever-clanking machinery of emotion, everything would come to a standstill. There would be nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be, and no one to know. The alternatives are clear: to live falsely as pawns of affect, or to live factually as depressives, or as individuals who know what is known to the depressive. How advantageous that we are not coerced into choosing one or the other, neither choice being excellent. One look at human existence is proof enough that our species will not be released from the stranglehold of emotionalism that anchors it to hallucinations. That may be no way to live, but to opt for depression would be to opt out of existence as we consciously know it.[/quote]
Comments (85)
Oh I could've written something like that. Well, here's my backseat critique of points I deem critique-able. Which is just about all of it.
Well of course not, "the world" its just rocks, dust, and chemicals interacting with one another in various states and mediums.
Sounds a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Whatever it may be, emotions, thoughts, etc if it's "on which we live" .. that's called life. You can call a mountain a molehill while your standing atop of it but if it really were you'd be singing a different tune.
So, he's using wisdom, thought, philosophy, all of which were largely impactful of and impacted by, emotion. So there is something predating if not validating emotion, which is logic or at least whatever he expects us to assume gives this sentence any value, purpose, or yes even coherence than if I just mashed my keyboard and posted it. Otherwise, what the heck is he even talking about? We know what he's talking about. Therefore, meaning exists.
Sure there would. Chemical processes are never static, always dynamic. Entropy and negentropy. Heat rises. Water evaporates. Without heat, vapor turns to liquid, liquid turns to solid, and with heat it's the opposite. There's no "standstill" chemically or biologically.
Nice save there on his part with the caveat "or as individuals who know what is known to the depressive". Not much to explain with 5 seconds of cross-examining his statement without this bit, really.
Again with the "nothing has meaning yet for some reason this does" paradox. I'm done :lol:
That's the end of the book, right? It would seem he'd have nothing more to say.
I think that is his point, so not sure where the disagreement.
Quoting Outlander
I think he is taking the stance of the depressive here still. So its more descriptive (of this mode of being) rather than prescriptive.
Quoting Outlander
Again, he is trying to give you the "lens" of a depressive-type. In this perspective, emotions seem arbitrary and perhaps post-facto to existence. He's trying to convey the feeling here. Its a sort of dysthymia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysthymia). But philosophically he may be alluding to depressive realism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism).
Quoting Outlander
I think you are making his point. He doesn't discount that these chemical processes are happening. He even alludes to them earlier in the quote. Rather, as a person with motivation, goals, wants, etc. it sort of becomes meaningless, laid bare, "going through the motions" such that one is playing a farce of what is "supposed" to be what people normally do.
Quoting Outlander
I actually think this is being more complete in his analysis. Either you may be a depressive or you may be someone contemplating what it is like to be a depressive in regards to these conclusions.
Quoting Outlander
Honestly, this is why I think the whole book needs to be read to put it in context. If you want to set that up, I am cool with it. But again, here I think he conveying the conclusion from the depressive type. Its not meaning per se as much as values such as good, bad, desirable, undesirable. It's more to me about motivations. The feeling that there is "nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be, and no one to know".
Not sure what you're getting at here.
Definitely an interesting positive spin on it. He mentions Buddhism and Schopenhauer as well. I'll try to get quotes on those.
I really dislike these kinds of arguments. Where people externalize parts of themselves to depress themselves for no reason. “I want to live” becomes “I am bound by the instinct of life this is so horrible”. “I enjoy playing soccer” becomes “I am a slave to the chemicals in my brain this is so horrible”.
I don’t understand why people sometimes choose to do this. When they can internalize these things as parts of their identity they choose to view them as alien impositions.
I think it’s motivated by the mistaken belief that just because something is more difficult to believe that that makes it somehow more correct. “The truth hurts” becomes “What hurts is the truth”
Ok. Not sure what to say. I think he has some interesting analysis and synthesis of an array of philosophical pessimistic and antinatalist literature and thus, if one is interested in these subjects, would be worth an analysis. I don't know where you get the impression that he is a complete "nihilist". I get the impression he is a philosophical pessimist and antinatalist, though he doesn't commit fully to anything.
I think you are taking his quote out of context. I believe him to be taking the lens of someone who is a depressive-type. He is not saying it as a prescription of what you "should" do. It is a possible illusion to depressive realism.. That if in this mindset, it seems this way, and motivation is lost. Certainly, no one has to be this way.
What is said here implies that living as a depressive is as much living as a pawn of affect as any alternative.
There's a deep irrationality in thinking that being a depressive is somehow authentic, that being happy is inauthentic.
Grow up. Move past realising it's all chemicals and gets on with being alive.
b. Whether you think consciousness to be a benefit or a horror, this is only what you think—and nothing else ... Nihilism is as dead as god.[/quote]
a. Sophistry or philosophy (i.e. satifisfied swine or sad socratics ... flattery or diagnosis ...)
b. Thinking that 'nothing matters' also does not matter.
Yep.
But "learns" here doesn't mean one must learn it.
No wonder he’s depressed. He’s trapped in a Cartesian nightmare of his own making. I’ d be depressed too if I bought into the idea of human experience as an opposition between mechanistic brain processes and an independent outside world. But human feeling is not an inner mechanism but our existential relations with a world that is anything but neutral , but instead is responsive to , and co-formed in its sense by the ways we reach out to it and make sense of it or fail to make sense of it. And depression is not an absence of meaning , but the sense of loss of a prior significance. You can’t feel depressed without having a feeling of losing something that was of value to you. That’s what the ‘de’ in depression indicates. So depression is in its own way a celebration of life in its comparison between what one had or wanted to have and what is now. But even in this feeling of loss, there is meaning, the having moved on from the loss to a strange and alien place with no familiar landmarks. This is depression , an unknown country, not vacuity but inarticulation that carries in itself its own significance.
Which seems to contradict your statement here:
Quoting Banno
But more to the point, a depressive doesn't just listen to Banno and snap out of it. And the point is, what does "snapping out of it" mean? What is one snapping into? And before you answer that, look at the whole quote and not Banno's hallucinations of it :D.
But that is what Ligotti said.. So looks like you are agreeing with Ligotti.
Interesting observations.
I was obscure.
It seemed from the quote that he had come to certain conclusions regarding which there was no more to be said that wouldn't be repetitious.
I think that is the risk of taking any quote rather than doing a thorough reading.
Interesting observations and commentary.
Oh, cool then.
[quote=Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race]Within the hierarchy of fabrications that compose our lives—families, countries, gods—the self incontestably ranks highest. Just below the self is the family, which has proven itself more durable than national or ethnic affiliations, with these in turn outranking god-figures for their staying power. So any progress toward the salvation of humankind will probably begin from the bottom—when our gods have been devalued to the status of refrigerator magnets or lawn ornaments. Following the death rattle of deities, it would appear that nations or ethnic communities are next in line for the boneyard. Only after fealty to countries, gods, and families has been shucked off can we even think about coming to grips with the least endangered of fabrications—the self.[/quote]
Thanks, but it looks like you made much the same argument before I did - so it's like you're saying your own observations are interesting. A little self serving, n'est pas?!
What I find interesting are the comments of those who almost certainly haven't experienced depression, and have less than no sympathy for it.
Is Banno incapable of the literary analysis necessary to an appreciation that the writer is writing from the perspective of someone with depression? I don't know. But depression angers people. They don't understand that it becomes the suffers' truth - more, the suffers' very identity. Variations upon the 'snap out of it' theme are ubiquitous - and not at all helpful.
Well shit, no one can give a compliment anymore! :wink:.
Quoting counterpunch
Agreed full-heartedly. You would have to ask Banno. People get a kick out of feeling superior I guess. The "well-adjusted" just "have" to let the complainers know their place. If they know what's good for them! Pick yourself up by the bootstrap! Get out of your bubble! All the rest and contemptuous mumblings ayayada.blahblah
No-one can take a compliment anymore either!
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't know him all that well, and I'm not particularly diplomatic at the best of times. I don't know how I'd ask if a need to express a lack of sympathy overrode an ability to parse the passage - or if he's actually intellectually incapable, without it coming across as an insult.
You are afraid of insulting someone on this forum? Insult is basically second nature here.
I've pretty much managed to alienate everyone already, so in practice I would have to say, no! But I would rather it were not so. Me, I value a diversity of opinion - even stupid opinions are useful for contrast!!
Alienating everyone is also second nature here :lol:.
I liken it to porcupines around a fire.. We keep coming back to huddle but prick each other in our mutual gathering. A lot of pricks going on here.
I don't buy into the whole political correctness thing, or equality as a virtue. And there's a very strong left wing contingent here - who only seem interested in confirming their beliefs.
Oh shit, now you're alienating me :lol:. I don't know man.. What are you saying?
Three Cubans were just rescued by the US coastguard - having fled Cuba on a tiny raft that sank, and cast them ashore on some desolate island.
That's what I mean by equality is not a virtue. Communism has failed every country that ever adopted it, and frequently, it runs to genocide.
Then there's political correctness; in my view, an utterly disingenuous dogma that uses identity politics in reverse, in pursuit of the very same authoritarian power a command economy affords.
Oh, I can get on board with that (no pun intended).
No, I was just not on this website for a while. Nothing to do with your response.
Next quote
[quote=Ligotti/CAHR]Within the hierarchy of fabrications that compose our lives—families, countries, gods—the self incontestably ranks highest. Just below the self is the family, which has proven itself more durable than national or ethnic affiliations, with these in turn outranking god-figures for their staying power. So any progress toward the salvation of humankind will probably begin from the bottom—when our gods have been devalued to the status of refrigerator magnets or lawn ornaments. Following the death rattle of deities, it would appear that nations or ethnic communities are next in line for the boneyard. Only after fealty to countries, gods, and families has been shucked off can we even think about coming to grips with the least endangered of fabrications—the self.[/quote]
Depression is an affect, obviously. And what is expressed here is something like disgust, abhorrence, even hatred of affect itself that parallels the feelings of the anorexic for their body. It is sustained individually by the sense of superiority of privileged access to "the truth". But it is also promoted socially by, ahem, emotional correctness gone mad. Expressions of dislike, disgust, hatred, are not permitted except directed at official scapegoats. Tediously, Freud was about right about this effect of civilisation on the discontent of the individual. And the ideology of scientism supports this denigration of emotion - the primary insult against woman - and worship of the great god, Rationality.
So interesting points. However, I think it isn't so much against emotions qua emotions, but emotions that illicit a positive affiliation with this or that "anchoring". The anchoring of "hard work". The anchoring of "family". The anchoring of "good citizen". The anchoring of "creative artistic type". Or alternatively, he is questioning how it is we attach ourselves to certain motivational forces that makes it seem "There's something to do, There's someone to know, There's something to be, There' to know". It seems like he is saying that the depressive doesn't see an attachment to any of these via some emotional value from it. Hence his main point is this:
He admits that human life on a whole cannot give up emotion without coming to a standstill.
This means that he doesn't expect nor encourage anyone to take the view of the depressive. He is pulling a "meta meta" here. He is apathetic to both options of emotional attachment and the dysthymia of emotion of the depressive. Neither choice is excellent he says.
That all being said, I think his main insight here is that at the end of the day, if one somehow was able to strip their emotions from their "anchorings" and unquestioning motivations (like family, work, hobbies, things to do, people to see, places to go), we would be cast upon a sort of "bare bones" of what existence "is" without these hallucinations. "What's the point" would be constantly on people's mind. Hence, I think the quote that conveys his point most here is:
I don't get this passage in the way I got the last. I can comprehend the idea of the evolutionary organism, inventing god, nation and socio-economic class status, and wearing this ideological armour to hide his shameful, animal self. But beneath this disguise there remains a kinship tribal creature with parents and siblings, and the self - a moral being, existing in a state of nature. So I don't understand what he's deconstructing the world toward here - or how he dismisses the family or the self. I can only suppose he's driving toward nihilism, but that so, there are easier and more certain ways to get there. And in the midst of this, he speaks of salvation beginning from the bottom, but from what? What is left?
So this may tie into the previous quote, loosely. Just as one thinks that one has attachments to motivating factors ("People to know, things to do..etc.).. People think they have a self. This concept itself is a construction that we hold dear and its taken for granted so much we don't realize it is just a construct (one we have more engrained), just as the concept of family, country, religion, or any identity we attach ourselves with. You can think of it similar to Buddhist meditative practices where one is always questioning who is the "I" that one thinks one is. "Is this me?" "No." It is the slow unlayering of what one attaches to. He discusses ego-death in detail (and then writes about his skepticism, showing his agnosticism to these concepts right after he presents them). He discusses Buddhist ideas of non-identity too, if I remember correctly. I can probably find a quote regarding these to help elucidate this quote. He also delves a bit into neurosicence and analytic philosophy with ideas from Thomas Metzinger regarding no true "self" in the brain.
Quite the opposite. He presents certain aspects from Buddhism but then essentially casts it as yet another religion trying to do X, Y, Z. He is agnostic though sympathetic to some parts of what he focuses on. He never fully "leans in" to philosophers he mentions. For example he says:
Buddhism's ways and means to illumination are full of shortcomings and vexations...
The good news for Buddhism as a for-profit religion is that..[sarcastic derision to be taken here]
Like many faiths and philosophies that go against the Western grain, Buddhism has baited legions of those in the cognitive vanguard. This religion is to be praised both for its lack of an almighty god-figure and for its gateway teaching of the Four Noble Truths...Noble Eightfold Path, a list of things-to-do and things-not-to-do much like the Old Testament Decalogue, except not a s plainly spoken or easygoing.
All religions must have allowance conditions or they would implode upon themselves by pressure of thier own doctrines [speaking negatively about Buddhism here].
His quote on Western religions is pretty interesting too...
Because humans are ill-equipped for cold conditions. You have to layer up which can be tedious.. runny noses whipped by the winds, the stinging cold on exposed skin. etc. Animals more equipped for it don't mind a bit and probably get overheated otherwise.
My guess is that we feel most contented at 65-85 degrees, as that is the environment in Eastern Africa our bodies evolved in. Sure, we can survive in extreme cold and heat, but its always a mediation with tools. There would be no need to mediate if our bodies truly didn't mind it without any preparations to withstand the conditions.
Yes, I accounted for this idea in that we mitigate through behavior and culture. Our bodies naturally shiver, and the natural reaction is to get warmer. But, on our own, our bodies are not equipped for that without modification.
Quoting counterpunch
Don't know. It's like exercising to lose weight.. That will work, but the motivation sometimes is lacking. There is an inertia in starting any activity which you have to overcome. That inertia is usually a tendency to conserve energy, even if not doing so is of some loftier benefit.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I hope you mean elicit not illicit. :grimace: Depression is an anchor too. One cannot write a book without a strong attachment to the topic.What he does is contrive to negate positive emotions as 'false', 'arbitrary', 'inaccurate', etc, but his own feelings are exempted from this because they are already negative, and thus their negation makes them positive - honest, realistic, intelligent. Thus he is positively attached to depression. And again, he negates the character of life in a very 19th century scientific traditional way here: "the ever-clanking machinery of emotion". The thing about machinery - even quite sophisticated machinery, is that it is devoid of emotion, but with a sleight of mind and a turn of phrase, Ligotti contrives the mechanisation of emotion itself, and even complains of the noise! The age of clanking machinery has long gone!
Yep.
Quoting unenlightened
Again, I don't think he "leans in" to any particular philosophy with too much conviction. He presents certain cases and critiques each one, though piecing together a mosaic that reveals something. Thus he says "both" (depression and the attachment to other emotions that elicit motivation) are not excellent.
As I said:
Quoting schopenhauer1
What about that part?
I already critiqued the ever-"clanking machinery of emotion", and having mechanised emotion and so deprived life of all its liveliness, he declares it vacuous. Emotion is the relationship of a life to the world, and without relationship to the world life would indeed come to a standstill. So what? So treasure your emotions, even the negative ones.
So I think he gets more to the point at what he's getting at here:
Have you ever felt that there was nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be, no one to know? I am not asking for self-help or anything or to "snap out of it", just curious if that feeling ever came upon you where no motivation or significance had impetus.
Yes. I call it 'peace'.
[quote=John Milton]
ALL is best, though we oft doubt,
What th' unsearchable dispose
Of highest wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft he seems to hide his face,
But unexpectedly returns
And to his faithful Champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns
And all that band them to resist
His uncontroulable intent.
His servants he with new acquist
Of true experience from this great event
With peace and consolation hath dismist,
And calm of mind all passion spent. [/quote]
The disagreement is that "nothing in this world" implies the entirety of existence as opposed to the environment in which we dwell in. I suppose, notwithstanding, the freedom, time, and ability to complain and be heard about "there being nothing" is a world of difference from an earlier world where such liberties were not to be found.
Quoting schopenhauer1
He conveys the depressive mindset well, I see. Does he not make any attempt to bring good to what he himself deems as "bad" ie. depressive? There is always something to do, someone to be, and someone to know, if one's wants and expectations are realistic, or even adamant enough.
I think it's pretty impressive.
The quote or the universe? :lol: .
I think he is trying to make a rebuttal for science writers like Richard Dawkins, or anyone of a "scientism" bent to think that the knowledge of science somehow creates significance. I read someone describe CATHR as like being in an elevator and having nowhere to go. You must remember he's a horror writer and even this non-fiction is written as a cosmic horror of sorts. He is trying to leave no room for air, so to speak.
Not sure where you are responding but you bring up a good Ligotti quote:
What could possibly be meant by 'justified' here. Justification is a human activity embedded in our relationship with our desires. Absent of that it seems a nonsensical throw-away word devoid of meaning.
He's just saying a king can't be 'castled' outside of chess. Well duh!
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yzNhNvGDdLrtDsjyK/the-conspiracy-against-the-human-race-by-thomas-ligotti
If there are other ones I think are useful in helping understand the book. I will add them.
You made a stupid, immodest mistake in defence of your own power and privilege you can't blame on the run-away train of civilisation. The continued existence of the human species is at stake, and you're responsible. You made science a heresy, and rendered it a whore to industrial and military power. In 400 years you have never revisited that arrangement - even as science has surrounded you with technological miracles, you continue to believe the superstitious myths that so unjustly order society, and so now, here we are, looking extinction in the eye.
All you need to do is accept that science describes reality best, and act accordingly. Tap into the limitless heat energy of the molten interior of the earth, and use that energy to secure a sustainable future. I'm not asking you to start over or turn back - but secure the future, now, before it's too late. Extract carbon from the air and bury it. Desalinate water to irrigate land, and farm it, rather than burning the forests and bleeding rivers dry. Produce hydrogen fuel, recycle, farm fish. Give us the hope of a future, and maybe - just maybe, we won't have so much not to complain about.
It was a joke. thought better of a post and deleted it.
I'm trying to decide whether this is an oxymoron or a contradiction. It seems to depend on one's point of view.
If malignantly, then it seems to follow that it ought not be useless. But moral realism is an anathema.
Or ...
If useless, then malignancy can have no use.
Or is this another rhetorical flourish, not to be taken seriously?
Here is more complete quote from the book:
So how does the story apply to the quote to you?
Useful and useless are judgements from a point of view. From one's own point of view, to be useless to a ruthless exploiter is a positive. The malignancy is the frustrated complaint of the ruthless exploiter. There are plenty of them, always complaining about how hard they have to work to satisfy their own greed.
Doesn't he actually address that here??
Related to this but not the same.. I was just thinking:
When someone is put into existence, they are not given any choice about the choices presented to them in the first place. There are more-or-less natural consequences for those who choose certain choices. There are also elements of "using" and "abusing" the system which one can follow but then would be either objectively found lacking or subjectively feel guilty. Either way, that is another choice one cannot have been able to prevent in the first place. There is no escape from the givens of life. Even the choice of suicide falls into this paradox.
Even in its own terms, life is a losing game. One tries to survive; always, one fails eventually. Kind of like the high jump - the bar gets raised until eventually no one can jump it. We're all for the high jump sometime or other, and even the anti-natalist will get his heart's desire eventually. Happy days. :love:
I know you don't exactly agree with this sentiment, but I think Ligotti does pretty much a "slam dunk" answer to optimistic annoyance with pessimists. There is something delightful in his more-or-less accurate depiction here.
Must be pretty bad friends.
But regardless all that quote establishes is that pessimistic attitudes will be "phased out" by natural selection so to speak. The pessimists are put at a disadvantage so there will eventually be fewer and fewer of them. It does not establish that the pessimistic attitude is more genuine or more correct, only that it is more oppressed.
It's the reason I dropped the book after a few chapters. Ligotti pretends to always take a neutral position. "Oh I am a pessimist but that is by no means the objective or correct way to view life, that would be ridiculous!" then spends a whole book framing existing as a dystopia. I don't understand what the purpose of the book is if he doesn't want to claim objectivity.
And he does everything just short of that. For example, making fun of optimists, liking his situation to being oppressed by Big Brother, etc. What really is the purpose of the book?
God forbid! Ligotti is not pushing for any particular agenda. How dare you! Are you implying that being a pessimist is in any way more genuine or “grown up” than an optimist!?!? He would NEEEVER say that!
Anyways, so as I was saying.... life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
The book is basically the above on repeat.
Ok.. I would say that pessimists aren't so much oppressed as suppressed.
Quoting khaled
He is putting pessimism in the spotlight but not fully committing to the conclusions. He entertains the notions and presents the case but is apathetic about it. I almost want to say he is an apathetic or agnostic pessimist, if that makes sense.
About being objective.. the name of the book is The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. I'm not sure he's objective here. Rather he is presenting the case for this conspiracy, but is not fully committed or enthusiastic about pessimism even. Kind of clever actually. Being too enthusiastic would almost negate the pessimism and make him an optimist for pessimism as if someone has found salvation in one's beliefs. He's keeping with the theme.
Quoting khaled
I think the book itself is trying to be a non-fictional horror of sorts. He is showcasing pessimistic themes in philosophy, metaphysics, religion, and literature.
Yeah, not a bad summary. I would hesitate to call this "pop" philosophy or self help. It's uses way too many primary and secondary sources to be just some whimsical extemporaneous surfacey book. There is clearly much research here. He doesn't rehash the ideas as if it was his own, he takes it directly from sources before giving his own spin on it. As for being a self help book.. I think it is an anti-self-help book. As as if you inverted self-help as self-help is almost always with an optimistic goal.
One can say life itself is a certain set of things on repeat.
From my reading, he seemed to be fully committing to the conclusions while claiming he is not.
But if he is not fully committing to the conclusions then who would read the book? If the conclusions are not objective or more genuine or anything like that, then why would anyone want to be a pessimist? That's just self harm at that point.
Pessimists usually either cannot see what is so great about life or believe their pessimism is somehow more "genuine" and so hold onto it. If he is of the former disposition, then he should be looking for ways out. Pessimists who are pessimists simply because they cannot bring themselves to cheer up try to look for ways to cheer up, be it antidepressants or therapy as nobody has any reason to be a pessimist if they believe that the alternative is just as genuine. But only pessimists of the latter disposition, who think that there is some "self deception" involved in our common view of the world, would write a book making a case for their beliefs by showing these "deceptions".
Ligotti pretends to be of the former disposition but I think is demonstrably from the latter. If he truly didn't think there was anything more genuine about a pessimistic attitude he wouldn't argue for it. Or if he did argue for it then we should treat his book with the same seriousness as someone who writes a whole book about why chocolate ice cream is superior to vanilla ice cream. But it seems to me he wants his work to be taken a bit more seriously than that.
Quoting schopenhauer1
"Conspiracy" implies that the actual case is being hidden by from a us in a veil of lies. Which is to imply that the "truth of things" is expressed in a pessimistic attitude and that the optimists are deluding themselves. Even in the title, he has an agenda.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't know about you but I don't see how reading this:
Quoting khaled
on repeat is not a waste of time. The whole book read like a shitpost to me. Even back when I was AN.
Again, I think it is not being optimistic about the assuredness of pessimism. Maybe he just wants to give it a fair shake, being that it is often derided. I can accept any of these and still read the book.
Quoting khaled
I think this is a bit too simplistic, making a binary here where there isn't necessarily one. It may be overlooking these aspects of life, not seeing the bigger picture, etc. I like philosophical pessimism to an aesthetic understanding of the world. The philosophical pessimist puts forth this aesthetic understanding to convey the aesthetic to those who may not see it (yet). You can (I am sure derisively) liken it to the Platonic philosopher-king seeing the forms. The pessimist see it, and are trying to convey it. Thus the non-pessimist doesn't perhaps see this integration of understanding yet.
However, I can see this genuine and deception thing being useful. If the pessimist is more accurate to what is the case (especially how we suffer), then not acknowledging this suffering and working through its implications and how it characterizes life, would be a sort of ignorance, deception, or other strategy to keep away from the conclusions from pessimism. But most "modern" people at some point have these notions.. It's just that how it is put together, in the aesthetic understanding isn't there. If pessimism is the framework.. Then the traditional view of the world is also a framework.
Quoting khaled
I think you are caught up in concrete arguments. Sometimes people just present their views, even if that also means their vacillating apathy towards them. Another way to take his style is that he knows what people will say, so he simply takes the move before other people can make them. By acknowledging the standard responses to his ideas, he has provided an understanding that he has thought of that part too.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
Which is to imply that the pessimists got the "right of it". That they see the forms accurately. And that the rest of us are deluding ourselves or just haven't seen these facts yet.
That is precisely being optimistic about the assuredness of pessimism. But you want to argue that that's not what he is doing. So he must NOT think that he is like a platonic philosopher-king seeing the forms. In which case, why is he arguing for the view?
Who would want to be a pessimist unless it was more genuine somehow? It is clearly the less enjoyable state to be in. And so you would need some special reason to adopt it such as it being "more genuine". You and Ligotti supposedly think it is not any more genuine. So why argue for it? Instead of trying to find a way out of a bad state why try to pull people into it? Unless, again, Ligotti thinks there is some reason we should be pessimists.
If truly there was no reason to adopt pessimism over optimism then Ligotti would be doing something equivalent to spreading a virus. He would be trying to promote a bad state, for no reason at all. As he supposedly doesn't think there is any more genuinity behind his view.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But to do so they must think those view are NOT a problem. In other words, that there are genuine reasons to be a pessimist.
You don't see people writing books about how addicted they are to meth for example.
I'd like to clarify that I don't mind if someone writes a book about why you should be a pessimist. What I mind is when they do so and yet pretend they are not doing so. Like what's happening here. Because pretending to be an impartial commentator makes your interpretation seem factual when it isn't so, making it way more convincing than it actually should be to the uncritical reader. Also because it's dishonest.
Right.
Quoting khaled
I said here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting khaled
I think Ligotti does believe it but is pessimistic about people's reaction to it.
Quoting khaled
Well, if you think about it, pessimists are saying the world has much suffering, and so is trying to provide this aesthetic insight. So perhaps he is presenting the view but giving people an out at the last minute so people at least see the viewpoint without succumbing to complete despair.
I personally think there should be communities of catharsis for likeminded pessimists. Being born i to the world means de facto choices and natural consequences. Even suicude is part of this. Yet dont bother anyone with it right?
The problem is everything is frameworks- even the normative more optimist view of things. Its just the pessimist puts things like suffering and forced de facto negative choices as what is most important to keep in mind. They dont put other considerations above this, or rather, as a justification for this.
Altbough tbis makes me think many people dont even adopt a framework, and go through the motions of other peoes frameworks. At least think of the bigger picture.
Youd honestly have to read interviews with the author to get the answer. I gave you my ideas.