Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/) was scornful of those who could not look at the fundamentals of the human situation squarely. By this he meant the pervasive presence of dissatisfactoriness, suffering and death. Instead, humans manufacture a myriad of avoidance techniques. His view was that if we dare to peer over the perimeter fence of our own tiny private lives we perceive an existence whose defining character is endless and pointless suffering unredeemed by any providence.
Schopenhauer’s devastating pessimism was delivered in The World as Will and Representation (1819) (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38427/38427-pdf.pdf ) 200 years before the development of Terror Management Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory) which supports his insights with empirical research from the psychological and social sciences.
Thomas Ligotti (https://www.ligotti.net/) does not claim to be a philosopher. His principal success has been in horror fiction but his pessimism about the human condition is as deep and unyielding as that of Schopenhauer whom he cites as an influence. He argues that suffering outweighs pleasure, and that the existence of consciousness entails tragedy. The more conscious one is of the horrifying nature of the world (which he refers to as being “malignantly useless”), the more one wishes not to be aware of this fact. The reaction is that acutely conscious humans engage in exercises which limit their awareness of the negative aspects of existence, either intentionally or instinctively.
This makes consciousness a burden, and humanity’s attempts at either coping with, ignoring, or actively suppressing the fact drive many behaviours. Examples are the quest for healthy living (despite the fact that everyone dies regardless), art and horror (as acts of sublimation), procreation (as a futile attempt at a form of immortality).
Ligotti argues that the only complete escape from the predicament of consciousness is either to achieve ego death, as advocated in Buddhism, or for humanity to cease existing, preferably through voluntary human extinction.
Ligotti’s arguments run against the grain of the majority outlook, and are no doubt dismissed out of hand by most. Others will find the honesty refreshing.
272 pages in Penguin
First published 2010
ISBN 978-0143133148
