E.M. Cioran Aphorism Analysis
I'd like to start a thread analyzing various aphorisms and quotes from E.M. Cioran, the semi-famous Romanian pessimistic philosopher. His aphorisms can have various interpretations. Here is a little of his background to get some idea where he is coming from when analyzing his quotes. This first post will be about Cioran, and then I will start providing quotes to analyze and comment on.
E.M. Cioran (from Wikipedia): (8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, and frequently engages with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism. Among his best-known works are On the Heights of Despair (1934) and The Trouble with Being Born (1973). Cioran's first French book, A Short History of Decay, was awarded the prestigious Rivarol Prize in 1950. The Latin Quarter of Paris was his permanent residence and he lived much of his life in isolation with his partner Simone Boué.
Professing a lack of interest in conventional philosophy in his early youth, Cioran dismissed abstract speculation in favor of personal reflection and passionate lyricism. "I’ve invented nothing; I’ve simply been the secretary of my sensations",[citation needed] he later said.
Pessimism characterizes all of his works, which many critics trace back to events of his childhood (in 1935 his mother is reputed to have told him that if she had known he was going to be so unhappy she would have aborted him). However, Cioran's pessimism (in fact, his skepticism, even nihilism) remains both inexhaustible and, in its own particular manner, joyful; it is not the sort of pessimism which can be traced back to simple origins, single origins themselves being questionable. When Cioran's mother spoke to him of abortion, he confessed that it did not disturb him, but made an extraordinary impression which led to an insight about the nature of existence ("I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?" is what he later said in reference to the incident).[17]
His works often depict an atmosphere of torment, a state that Cioran himself experienced, and came to be dominated by lyricism and, often, the expression of intense and even violent feeling. The books he wrote in Romanian especially display this latter characteristic. Preoccupied with the problems of death and suffering, he was attracted to the idea of suicide, believing it to be an idea that could help one go on living, an idea which he fully explored in On the Heights of Despair. He revisits suicide in depth in The New Gods, which contains a section of aphorisms devoted to the subject. The theme of human alienation, the most prominent existentialist theme, presented by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, is thus formulated, in 1932, by young Cioran: "Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?" in On the Heights of Despair.
Cioran’s works encompass many other themes as well: original sin, the tragic sense of history, the end of civilization, the refusal of consolation through faith, the obsession with the absolute, life as an expression of man's metaphysical exile, etc. He was a thinker passionate about history; widely reading the writers that were associated with the period of "decadent". One of these writers was Oswald Spengler who influenced Cioran's political philosophy in that he offered Gnostic reflections on the destiny of man and civilization. According to Cioran, as long as man has kept in touch with his origins and hasn't cut himself off from himself, he has resisted decadence. Today, he is on his way to his own destruction through self-objectification, impeccable production and reproduction, excess of self-analysis and transparency, and artificial triumph.
Regarding God, Cioran has noted that "without Bach, God would be a complete second rate figure" and that "Bach's music is the only argument proving the creation of the Universe cannot be regarded as a complete failure".[18] In an interview he stated that Bach had been a "kind of religion" for him. He mentioned that Bach and Dostoyevsky were the two great obsessions of his life, but that while his passion for Dostoyevsky ended up diminishing somewhat, his obsession with Bach "remained intact".
William H. Gass called Cioran's work "a philosophical romance on the modern themes of alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease".
Cioran became most famous while writing not in Romanian but French, a language with which he had struggled since his youth. During Cioran's lifetime, Saint-John Perse called him "the greatest French writer to honor our language since the death of Paul Valéry."[19] Cioran's tone and usage in his adopted language were seldom as harsh as in Romanian (though his use of Romanian is said to be more original).[citation needed]
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran
E.M. Cioran (from Wikipedia): (8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, and frequently engages with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism. Among his best-known works are On the Heights of Despair (1934) and The Trouble with Being Born (1973). Cioran's first French book, A Short History of Decay, was awarded the prestigious Rivarol Prize in 1950. The Latin Quarter of Paris was his permanent residence and he lived much of his life in isolation with his partner Simone Boué.
Professing a lack of interest in conventional philosophy in his early youth, Cioran dismissed abstract speculation in favor of personal reflection and passionate lyricism. "I’ve invented nothing; I’ve simply been the secretary of my sensations",[citation needed] he later said.
Pessimism characterizes all of his works, which many critics trace back to events of his childhood (in 1935 his mother is reputed to have told him that if she had known he was going to be so unhappy she would have aborted him). However, Cioran's pessimism (in fact, his skepticism, even nihilism) remains both inexhaustible and, in its own particular manner, joyful; it is not the sort of pessimism which can be traced back to simple origins, single origins themselves being questionable. When Cioran's mother spoke to him of abortion, he confessed that it did not disturb him, but made an extraordinary impression which led to an insight about the nature of existence ("I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?" is what he later said in reference to the incident).[17]
His works often depict an atmosphere of torment, a state that Cioran himself experienced, and came to be dominated by lyricism and, often, the expression of intense and even violent feeling. The books he wrote in Romanian especially display this latter characteristic. Preoccupied with the problems of death and suffering, he was attracted to the idea of suicide, believing it to be an idea that could help one go on living, an idea which he fully explored in On the Heights of Despair. He revisits suicide in depth in The New Gods, which contains a section of aphorisms devoted to the subject. The theme of human alienation, the most prominent existentialist theme, presented by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, is thus formulated, in 1932, by young Cioran: "Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?" in On the Heights of Despair.
Cioran’s works encompass many other themes as well: original sin, the tragic sense of history, the end of civilization, the refusal of consolation through faith, the obsession with the absolute, life as an expression of man's metaphysical exile, etc. He was a thinker passionate about history; widely reading the writers that were associated with the period of "decadent". One of these writers was Oswald Spengler who influenced Cioran's political philosophy in that he offered Gnostic reflections on the destiny of man and civilization. According to Cioran, as long as man has kept in touch with his origins and hasn't cut himself off from himself, he has resisted decadence. Today, he is on his way to his own destruction through self-objectification, impeccable production and reproduction, excess of self-analysis and transparency, and artificial triumph.
Regarding God, Cioran has noted that "without Bach, God would be a complete second rate figure" and that "Bach's music is the only argument proving the creation of the Universe cannot be regarded as a complete failure".[18] In an interview he stated that Bach had been a "kind of religion" for him. He mentioned that Bach and Dostoyevsky were the two great obsessions of his life, but that while his passion for Dostoyevsky ended up diminishing somewhat, his obsession with Bach "remained intact".
William H. Gass called Cioran's work "a philosophical romance on the modern themes of alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease".
Cioran became most famous while writing not in Romanian but French, a language with which he had struggled since his youth. During Cioran's lifetime, Saint-John Perse called him "the greatest French writer to honor our language since the death of Paul Valéry."[19] Cioran's tone and usage in his adopted language were seldom as harsh as in Romanian (though his use of Romanian is said to be more original).[citation needed]
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran
Comments (93)
“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”
? Emil Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born
If I remember correctly, that quote intended to convey the absurdity of existence. In the same manner as to how one ought to approach his philosophy.
True, has absurd elements, but what is he saying about suicide?
I can't recall where I'm getting this; but, this quote brings out the prominence of the Will with respect to the world. In that, the Will is futile and ever-changing with respect to the world, which is absolute and domineering in imposing situations/circumstances that lead one to want to commit suicide.
As far as I know, he wasn't so much a philosopher of Will like Schopenhauer, so this might not quite have to do with that. Certainly, that can be a characterization of Schopenhauer and his idea of suicide as a paradox..That being that you use the very Will that you are trying to extinguish to will your own death. Then he goes on to answer the paradox by becoming an ascetic who denies the will through slow extinction of self.
I'd like to focus on the idea of always killing yourself "too late".
I think it's most akin to learning that the free will is an illusion, according to Cioran, and, the only response to such a realization is the absurdity of one's fatalistic existence.
Okay.. maybe keep going with that. I wasn't thinking along those lines but it could raise some interesting points.
"Il est impossible d'être jugé par quelqu'un qui a moins souffert que nous. Et comme chacun se croît un Job méconnu..." (De l'inconvénient d'être né"]
"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..."
Excellent quote.. but we are jumping ahead.. What do you think this first one means about always killing yourself too late?
Here's my take. I think he is saying that suicide doesn't take away the fact that we have existed in the first place. By the very fact we have gotten to the point where we want to end our existence, we have already endured that very existence that has lead us here. Ending our experience after our birth is not the same as wanting to never have experienced experience in the first place. It is a longing for a nothingness that never was. In another quote he says:
“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.”
? Emil Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born
Further, to bring in Schopenhauer.. To commit suicide is really to ask the universe a question that can never be answered.
:lol:
I have never read a Buddha sermon or a page of Schopenhauer without grinding rose?
Oh I think it's something like grinding pink or growing pink??
I read/listen (interviews) a fair bit of Cioran, and I gave up analysis of his thoughts few years ago: he said that there was nothing more funny than a man who tries to do some analysis... of his thoughts!
If you can read some French, here is the thesis of Nicolas Cavaillès, a specialist of Cioran's works, in which he compiles in the beginning all the "kind words" that Cioran had against his analyzers. ...
For example, etc.:
Oh, I have no doubt that Cioran himself would hate what I'm doing. His aphorisms are meant to be their own analysis and probably should be read in the context of his essays. However, I'm gonna do it anyways :D. I'll mine the absurd, absurdly and corrupt the words into concrete reifications. But I am using him as a start to a series of pessimist philosophers and analyzing their thoughts. His quotes happen to be short enough and accessible enough that it is a good starting place.
As for that quote, I think it is perfect. I don't know what it is, but some of the most glee comes from the pessimistic turn of phrases from these authors. That someone can have such perceptive insight into what is the case, is fun to read.
Little bit toxic? Ha, I think their point is that life is more than a little bit toxic :p. Cioran's charm is his sense of irony in the glee he gets from constantly discovering this in various aspects of history, identity, consciousness.
“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?”
? Emil Cioran
I think this quote explains the first one.
Not sure I understood this one. Can you explain that?
“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.”
I think he's trying to be humorous meaning that you should have done it yesterday. Its a pessimistic expression. He says life isn't worth living/beginning/starting but we can only ever experience already having existed. You always kill yourself too late because you should have never been born.
Yes, I agree with this assessment. Being born has already been inflicted. If Schopenhauer is correct, suicide thwarts the very feeling of relief that was trying to be satisfied. You're stuck because you were and are.
“A zoologist who observed gorillas in their native habitat was amazed by the uniformity of their life and their vast idleness. Hours and hours without doing anything. Was boredom unknown to them? This is indeed a question raised by a human, a busy ape. Far from fleeing monotony, animals crave it, and what they most dread is to see it end. For it ends, only to be replaced by fear, the cause of all activity. Inaction is divine; yet it is against inaction that man has rebelled. Man alone, in nature, is incapable of enduring monotony, man alone wants something to happen at all costs — something, anything.... Thereby he shows himself unworthy of his ancestor: the need for novelty is the characteristic of an alienated gorilla.”
? E. M. Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/295
Quoting schopenhauer1
You always kill yourself too late because you are so alienated from your own identify by the time you want to destroy it that there is nothing left to destroy. Like insisting on incinerating the skin of a piece of fruit that's already been eaten. It's too late to do any damage worthwhile. If life is what you despise, your life such as it had any substance has been drained from you by the time you wish to end it. I think Cioran points to his game here, which is the same game played by most extreme pessimists, and that is to productively externalise their negativity as a process of catharsis in order precisely to make life worth living, or feel so, so long as said orientation is always presented as its obverse. Cioran's pessimism is itself the cloak of identity which refutes its central premise. He lived a long, productive and creative life not despite, but because of, his professed disgust for existence, which professed disgust he milked for every psychic drop of energy it could provide. And this secret life-affirming joy of pessimism is something we should all share in with a wry backward smile. It's the optimists who will kill you with their obvious lies, or you yourself if you cleave yourself to/with their words. Better to be at the bottom of the sea and realize you have gills than on a cruise ship heading for an ice-berg.
Suicide destroys that which could be better or worse off by the act. You are already living, and therefore any improvement to your welfare, or the conditions of your existence, can only occur whilst you continue to live. Why bother killing yourself, if you can't benefit from the act?
Its not possible to suicide prior to coming into existence, but now that you exist, it is too late. Having coming into existence as a being afflicted by welfare states, the harm has already been done. It now makes no sense to suicide as a way to improve your state of welfare, as you will destroy that which could be worse or better off by the act of lethally harming yourself.
Excellent point! I like the fruit analogy too. There is nothing to even give to death at that point.
Quoting Baden
More great stuff. I think you nailed it with the ironic life affirming joy of pessimism as well as catharsis. In other words, we must recognize the what is the case of the world first before anything else. The case is that it was better never to have been, but that we are here nonetheless. Now we are stuck with the inertia of nothing to do about it but mine and opine. The catharsis is in recognition of all aspects of the tragedy both in the everyday and extraordinary varieties, overturning the rocks of optimism which incompetently try to hide "what is the case". The rebellion is in the very understanding of the absurdity and the ever futile attempts to try to share this information, perhaps most effectively in glimpses of aphoristic poems and phrases.
Yes, good point. This is what Schopenhauer meant I believe, when he said:
"Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer"
-Schopenhuaer- On Suicide
Kind of... Here's how I would put it with some more self-indulgent ramblings :p So, I think it's good to look at how pessimism functions rather than argue over the contents directly (as we have done many times before). And this involves recognizing both that an optimism built on fear dressed up as "positive thinking" or some other avoidance mechanism will always find ways to undermine itself and that a pessimism which embraces the logical underpinnings of that fear will functionally defy its apparent conclusions—reflecting the psychological principle that what we chase runs away from us due to the act of chasing creating as much as confirming the absence of that chased (as what we run away from chases us in similar fashion but from the opposing direction).
I think we all understand this at some level but that understanding tends to be instantiated indirectly through a fascination with the macabre, the horrific and the disturbing as presented and marketed to us by the media who've essentially appropriated almost exclusive access to this facet of human psychology—with this form of access serving to extenuate the issue rather than offer any real solution (in our relatively peaceful and secure western bubble at least).
A sort of ironic distance from the self and its emotional proclivities then, as achieved by daring them to do their worst while maintaining as open as possible an intellectual stance, is likely a better bet for the more infatigably sensitive souls among us than the contrary faithful overidentification. So, the obscene joys of nightmares win out over the sterile plateaus of dreams or each becomes the other when looked at obtusely, the crux being that we shouldn't cling to a central stable point of identity which then has to be positively grounded in order to justify its continued existence but instead embrace a kind of permanent free-fall without any hope of flying (while we're effectively doing just that).
So, you're basically saying that identity formation is motivated by optimistic thought or wishful thinking? And, those who look past the dissonance of pessimism are more fit to live?
It very often is in an ungroundable way but the main point is to focus on what pessimism, in its philosophic sense, does rather than says.
Quoting Wallows
More like those who can rhyme themselves with that dissonance may find its threats expended so the bottom is never reached.
That's my impression of it psychologically at least (said with awareness that there are plenty around here more knowledgeable about the details of the subject and its major proponents).
I think I see what you're saying. Joy in the absurd gets us through. Cioran's ironic musings is a kind of intertia of grounding. Best to keep a distance so as to look at it from the outside than to be thrown about by its emotional waves. More to the point, suicide would be taking the optimism too seriously, as it is a failed optimism. Really there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. There is a sort of existential paralysis with being born, that suicide does not undo.
Yes, that's the root of the relevant quote I think.
It's hard to know how literally to take that one but the following two I dug up after a quick look certainly strengthen my conviction concerning how Cioran's pessimism functioned for him and how I suspect it does for others too:
"The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one."
"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."
(And by extension my attitude (now) that it's much more productive to focus on the function than argue over the content.)
Can you elaborate on that?
Quoting schopenhauer1
This makes me think of my childhood (that time in my existence features the most genuinely happy moments I've experienced, which is saying something, since in general, my childhood wasn't that great, but my adolescence and adulthood have been worse without at least affording me the rare moment of escaped bliss). To me, this quote speaks of the time we all wonder if we'll ever know happiness before reaching the point where you wonder if you'll ever find it in yourself to even be hopeful enough to feel like before.
In my case, I think having died of my appendicitis at seven would have been a beautiful, fitting end to my life. Sure, I would've just been a random child who died, but my life ending now means I would be a great resource sapping, tumor of a failure who finally died.
The former would have been more dignified and kind.
You have to have already experienced/done/noticed in yourself the cruelty that makes going on even more torturous. That's why it's too late to kill yourself -- dying before would have already spared you that realization.
Wow, powerful and sad anecdote to exemplify the point. I think his main idea here is that every point you are to kill yourself was always too late. One cannot take back the very thing causing the anguish, and extinguishing the self would take away the very thing that would get the relief. It is a paralysis of action, the resignation that once one is here, one is stuck with existence, that it is futile to try any action. Any action, even suicide is a positive one, as one is acting at all. The only thing then is to reflect on all the contradictions and see the irony in it. This brought a subversive sense of joy to Cioran.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I resonate with this. The reason one can feel existential is because there was a point in which we saw/were/were told/experienced something elusive and cherishable... something that in whatever recourse is snuffed from us or is made tantalizing. That cruelty restructures our existence irrevocably. If we had died a few seconds before, we would've been spared that painful adulteration of loss or corruption.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm glad I expressed something that is a testament to Cioran (I meant to state).
I find this to be profound, a in plain sight kind of truth. Language dictates what we talk about and how we talk about it. If I were to learn an old tribal language, I might find that 40% of the terminology is related to weather, war or Gods. A language is very telling of it's natives -- it's speakers.
I don't much like this Cioran quote. I think it really is amplified apathy; it seems to reify that and approve of it, and I see it differently.
Nope, it's always better to have less of something bad. This looks like black and white thinking to me.
I don't get this at all. I used to, then I stopped getting it. I understand that we're always changing, and we're a composite of subconscious processes, genetically-determined characteristics, memories, etc. But "I" exists in some form, even if it's just as a symbol which we all understand. That has physical presence in our neurons. People deploy this notion when it suits them, to wave away some issue. If "everything is an illusion" whatever that would mean, then it wouldn't conveniently only apply to suffering.
The stigma of failure and despair has to be removed from suicide and from those individuals who choose it. The bottom line is, their choice should be respected since it’s their life. I think everyone probably has a breaking point, even the people who swear they would never take their own life under any circumstances.
I've felt this way before, like having a macabre romance with pessimism. I've tried to turn from it, but I find nothing is candid and sincere than the intricacy of my own melancholy. Trying to futilly think otherwise has caused me pain and disappointment. There's a seemingly contradictory contentment in submerging oneself into their unhappiness.
Yes, this quote also makes me think of what the feeling is when someone is speaking a language you do not understand. Our mind's architecture is built very much on our primary language, and thus when there are other humans speaking a language we do not understand, we are alienated. We know there is sense being communicated, but we cannot make it out. We inhabit our own language's sphere of sense, and are cut off from others we do not know. It's like two trains passing in the night. We are right next to them, but we are not aware of their cognitive world.
Apathy yes, but more like inertia. There is no use killing yourself, it seems to convey, so in an odd way anti-suicide.
Quoting Chisholm
It's actually the opposite of black and white thinking. The compulsion to end your life is very black and white, but the reality is that it is the wrong target. We are already born in the first place.. this is a target we can never do anything about.
Quoting Chisholm
I didn't say this so you may want to address that person. Do you know how to quote? You drag and highlight the passage and a "quote" button will display next to the highlighted text. You can click that button and it will automatically quote the passage in the text editor field below.
Yes, this might be my theme all along with pessimism. There is actually an odd therapeutic joy in knowing it and sharing it with others. To be deny the pessimism, or to be "optimistic" one has to be in habits and routines that will keep the darkness out...until some event forces its way in. Rather, it is better to incorporate the dark, so as to understand it, and allow us to properly align ourselves with the situation. I think Cioran is closer to Schopenhauer and the metaphysical pessimists than @Baden might give credit. Our very consciousness is like a dagger- that is the metaphysical statement. The "knowing" of this truth is the epistemic one. So what Cioran is doing is saying "Hey, this is metaphysically negative, but the fact that I know that this is metaphysically negative, brings a joy of its own". It is the knowing of our own situation that enthralls Cioran, and who is perhaps showing the way of living with pessimism on a daily basis, by simply understanding the very ironic ways it instantiates itself.
Anyone want to unpack those?
Quoting schopenhauer1
I feel that like optimism, pessimism isn't something people can just give into. I haven't looked into E.M. Cioran's Pessimistic philosophy (other than the Google search I made of him a few hours ago), but, I am very well acquainted with the authentic pessimism that's been in my own life. I'm not talking a "boo-hoo" slandering of everything considered ideal or standard out of some disallowed denial -- for most people whom do this, these are temporary rants of resentment anyhow. I mean a sustained, persisting feeling of accumulative deepening sadness that envelopes your thoughts and alters your senses. Pessimism gives you the sense that it's something that has chosen you -- like you've mentioned, by some event that forces it's way in.
I believe this is also the case for intense Optimism. It "chooses" it's vessels. I don't mean this in any supernatural way btw, more that I know when I say something poetically pessimistic and someone is able to channel and in turn state something which shares an affinity to what I've said -- as opposed to looking at me like I have three heads and bluntly blurting out "Deriving happiness from sadness is an oxy-moron, moron. Makes no sense" -- then, I know they are attuned to this kind of relentless pessimism, as must be the case for Optimists.
Do you see it that way too, that Pessimism isn't so much applicable to everyone but that it is a dynamic that is pertinant and significant?
I don't see it as a disposition or a mood but what is the case. In other words, metaphysically, life is structurally and contingently suffering. A little while back, I had a thread no one responded to which pretty much laid out some examples of Philosophical Pessimism. See here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5981/schopenhauers-deprivationalism
Quoting schopenhauer1
But not all Humans translate this universal need into how they philosophize the world. I guess my take on Pessimism isn't so encompassing. It seems to me many people are good at dodging the consequences of Pessimism if this dynamic is held. In your view, only more unfortunate individuals become attuned to this characterization?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, sure (I read all the other points you point out btw). I still don't think Pessimism (nor existentialism) is universal enough to be applicable this way. People overcome sadness all the time, unless it's just a sham and their refusal to express their unhappiness is assuaged by distractions in which there are lapses of not unhappiness, but that are otherwise a fabrication of hollow happiness. I also never believe a sense of purpose necessarily (not even often) entails happiness, only meaningfulness that might happen to bring either happiness or sadness.
You do not have to be aware of your own state of suffering. There is the primary lived experience, and the self-awareness of it. The deprivation is part of the structural suffering. That is to say, if we were completely content we would be completely full or completely nothing. The fact that we have any needs, wants, goals, aspirations, restlessness, angst, means there is a deprivation in the equation in the first place. This angst underlies all human endeavors. I usually formulate the three basic categories of this deprivation: Survival, Comfort-Seeking/Maintenance, and Entertainment-Seeking. All three are manifested via a cultural context. They may have different contents, but all of the same basic form of these three categories.
Philosophical Pessimism is not the common word "pessimism" (the glass is always half empty). You can be "happy" or "contented" at any particular time, and still understand the world as a Philosophical Pessimism.
This sounds similar to viewing consciousness and existence much like the Buddhist concept of dukkha, the clinging of impermanent states of happiness being ultimately unsatisfactory and something one should strive to release themselves from.
I am pessimistic, I don't think I can say that I'm in complete agreement with everything Pessimism school of thought proposes.
I guess true Pessimists view sadness as a sort of ever present gravity, while happiness in contrast is the work against being weighed down by this gravity.
Pessimism more seems like an attitude to me. Not everyone is able to be happy, but are all certainly eligible to have tragedy hurl them in the rabbit hole of perpetual unhappiness, or to in effect take away the full potency of the happiness once derived from fulfilment.
It does.
Quoting THX1138
This is precisely the definition of pessimism which is misconstrued with Philosophical Pessimism. As I see it, PP is more about a metaphysical characterization of daily normative-functioning human life. It focuses on two aspects of suffering- the contingent AND the structural. It is the PP's job then to argue HOW the human life is structurally suffering. The Buddhist notion of deprivation correlates with this structural aspect. But in the West there is of course Schopenhauer's Will, Kierkegaard's angst, etc. They are all roughly correlating the same principle- the deprived nature of humans at any given time. I have further broken down what I see to be three basic categories of how this angst manifests in daily human life- survival/comfort-seeking/entertainment-seeking. Our goals are a combination of these three categories punctuated with the desires for the various inherent "goods" I mentioned before. All of this, however (whether goods are in the equation or not), is still very much a deprivational world of want, need, desire, goals.
Now, add to this the CONTINGENT forms of suffering. This is not "necessarily" built into the system, but probabilistically occur nonetheless and is situational. In other words, you falling and breaking your knee is probable, but may not happen at all to you. It is also situational in that it depended on the circumstances of that time and place. It was not guaranteed to happen to all humans. However, there is much contingent suffering in life. Many situational things small and large effect/affect us. In fact, we even have psychological mechanisms like the Pollyanna principle which allow us to project better outcomes in the future, and look at past harmful events with rose-tinted glasses.
— E.M. Cioran, Trouble with being born
What do you think that is conveying @Bitter Crank?
All these aphorisms assume i own my life.
If I was that uncertain about what it is for, I would not also assume I knew what was going on.
It all seems to be a language game set up where the speaker loses in the end.
Like the dreams we all have.
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.
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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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
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.
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 like this quote. Thanks for introducing me to this author.
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:.
Quoting thewonder
I'm glad you are learning more about this great aphorist and essayist on the tragedy of existence.
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.
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.
Quoting 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.
I see this plus-stroke or minus-stroke more characteristic of contingent harms. Structural harm would be a constant in the equation.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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?
Quoting 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.
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.
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?
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
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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 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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
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.
Quoting 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.
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' ?
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.
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.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
I think that is key with Cioran. We didn't ask for this, but here we are stuck.
This means that to try to finish projects on deadline is a losing proposition, as you will always miss your deadline.
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.
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.
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."
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.
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. So I protect my nothing with fierce resilience to reason, happiness and gladness of life.
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.
I am fluent in two languages. Does it mean I've got two fathers? What about a mother? any mother? This is a genetic nightmare. Little wonder I can't communicate with my own species.
Jeez. Having two Y chromosomes and no X.
I think we all have an element of control. (Cn, seventy-fourth element in the Periodic Table.) And those who truly don't, wish they had it.