"Cioran believed that by coping directly with the horrors of this world it would strip away illusion and perhaps make life worth living."
Right now it's 2025 and murderers in white coats are still using toxic Remdesevir in hospitals. Kennedy does nothing to stop it. I never wanted to be a pessimist but until people wake the frak up and face the truth, they deserve what they get by supporting inept spoiled authority.
I’ve read just a bit of Cioran, and have one book. I have no need to comment extensively. Can’t say I agree or disagree, except in some instances. This, though, I CAN say. He is better understood when one reads his works when they are past, at least 75 years of age. I AM past that age by a few years.
I do think that had he looked at - he didn’t as far as I know, except for buddhism - the Eastern belief systems, rather than focusing on the Western, he may have been a bit more happy fellow. The Western offer lots of burdensome dogma, burdensome wrongness, control mechanisms, and little hope, and more that does not contribute to peacefulness of mind, psyche. That would be my recommendation for anyone. At least to brave a look for some time, not shutting it out completely from one’s experience.
I have been a big fan of Cioran ever since I started digging deeper into existentialism years ago. His views on failures and suicide were very striking to me and I find myself thinking of his quote “Without the idea of suicide I would have surely killed myself” because of how much it speaks to the idea that the freedom of knowing what we can do doesn’t always mean we will do it. Instead it may suddenly feel like we don’t necessarily have to.
"The abyss of two incommunicable worlds opens between the man who has the sentiment of death and the man who does not; yet both die; but one is unaware of his death, the other knows- one dies only for a moment, the other unceasingly."
There's a real bitter irony about that entire section considering he ended up going the way he did. In his dementia, he likely never truly knew he was dying, and yet was nothing but for entire years on end. This world has a way for turning hubris like this on its head in the worst of ways.
Thanks for the mention here. I’d never heard of this guy, but am definitely aligned on the failure stuff. It forces a type of self-confronting that success tends to push you away from.
But I prefer regretting excessive sharing of my views to regretting leaving any of the following unshared.
***
I have read two books of Cioran's, both many years ago: "Histoire et utopie"; "Cahiers: 1957-1972", which is the no-brainer choice if one wants to know the Author as best as possible from one single book, and the most mature Cioran.
"I felt reluctant to cover him because his writing leaves a sour taste in the mouth."
So do most medicines, usually the most curative.
"Jesus—once he wanted to triumph among men—should have been able to foresee Torquemada, ineluctable consequence of Christianity translated into history."
He didn't seek any triumph among men. He didn't need to foresee Torquemada, because he saw the Torquemada's of his time. Christianity can't be translated into "history"... "Christianity" can, and even must.
"And it is by the victims it provokes that a religious or political belief is affirmed, bestiality being the primal characteristic of any success in time."
Exactly true of all but the only right one. If you define "success" in anti-Christian terms, then you easily argue that Christianity is unsuccessful, and "Christianity," the anti-Christ's disguised operation, was successful.
"Whence we arrive at this miracle: the adversaries coexist—but precisely because they can no longer be adversaries; opposing doctrines recognize each other’s merits because none has the vigor to assert itself."
All true; all of the time; everywhere. Except for Christianity, which he seems to never have received the grace of understanding.
"A religion dies when it tolerates truths which exclude it."
Absolutely... as long as a religion is a historical, earthly phenomenon. But if a religion, or rather, a faith, is made of truth, and comes from Truth, the problem doesn't arise. No truth will exclude Truth.
"for intolerance constitutes the law of human affairs."
And the law of Christ is the opposite of the law of human, earthly, Darwinist, sword-and-fire business.
On note #5. That's a great reading of Nietzsche's philosophy... but it misses the less explicit, more hidden side of it. Besides what Cioran rightly notes about Nietzsche, Nietzsche was also a tremendously elevated philosopher (as well as writer), and a philosophy of terrible depth can be extracted from his works, winnowing out the angry outbursts and invalidity-compensating imaginations about the ubermensch. Nietzsche and Leopardi brought philosophy to its maximally coherent nihilism, they are vertices.
On note #7. Which is the cause and which the effect can be subject to doubt, though. Perhaps it's the consistency and integrity that prevent any destiny but that the world must see as a loser's, instead of winning curbing integrity. It might vary by individual.
The Inquisitor was right on all counts, and unassailably so — I realized that when in my mid 20s I "met" the fellow. That time I thought Jesus had replied with a smile and left without words because he was wrong and had no way to make any point falsifying the Inquisitor's.
But Its mercy is unbounded: so, when It knew the day had come, It showed that same wordless smile to me; and because the time had indeed came, I saw the essence of that smile... The Inquisitor was right, but within our earthly, human, 4 dimension.
The ubermensch is what Nietzsche saw as a free man.
Someone who no longer needs fantasies in order to live on. It can be religion, economics, science, politics, whatever belief systems.
I didn't read him at first because I was told he was nihilistic. But it turns out he's honest about the bullshit. The people that told me he was nihilistic are ones that believe that good somehow happens from above.
Reality - which any of us can likely agree none of us can see or understand in its entirety so requires faith in its existence like any other religion.
Since our senses are known to be limited and quite limited in comparison to many animals, they will never be good enough to be trusted to experience reality in its entirety.
Predictions are continually hit or miss so unreliable again.
I think what I'm getting to is this - I agree with Gurdjieff's assessment, but it applies to all faith in whatever one chooses to put their faith in, be it God, self or reality, etc.
So the only reason to think one's faith is superior to another's faith is ego.
Which is proven to be highly unreliable.
And then thinking what one chooses to put their faith in is the superior choice is identical to all others who also believe their choice is superior.
I am a monotheist and I don't assign man's failings to God. Only children use such logic.
Actually, there are large parts of the light spectrum that we can't see and sounds we can't hear that some animals can. So it seems less likely a matter of interpretation since animals interpret as well and more likely a mechanical issue. Either way, the senses are not capable of detecting all of reality.
I'm not sure what blind perfection is? If something is perfect, blindness would render it imperfect so the phrase seems to negate itself?
For instance, the Bible is a book that was and has been repeatedly written and changed by many people throughout history, so I understand what's in the Bible is as flawed as the people who wrote it down yet I know God's truth is in there despite man's failings.
So I don't worship the book though I use it. I worship God.
I’m surprised to see no reference, in the essay or comments, to the stoics. In my understanding of the philosophy, peace (if not happiness) comes from confronting reality with unflinching courage and self-honesty. And thus is aligned with the Buddhist concept that suffering arises from the (unrealistic) expectations we impose on the world. A modern take is Oliver Burkeman’s Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.
The source of Cioran's dour outlook may possibly derive from a lifetime of striving to think and observe things from beneath far too much cranial insulation. Just some Sunday speculation.
It seems to me pessimism and optimism are like liberal and conservative, or change and tradition - necessary to each other. Society could not be purely pessimistic and build anything, but at the same time society nor civilization can be purely optimistic. I don't think one could be a good parent and be so pessimistic. I think too one can be optimistic generally without believing in eternal progress. At the same time I could not read this and think "breath of fresh air." I prefer for myself and civilization, an optimistic realism.
As the commentator notes, "The piece itself acknowledges this to some degree, recognizing that Cioran pushed pessimism to its absolute limit. The author flirts with his ideas but ultimately recoils, preferring a “healthier baseline” of pessimism rather than full immersion. I think that hesitation says a lot. If Cioran's philosophy were truly liberating, there would be no need for him to pull back."
Even as an optimist I recognize and acknowledge your critique of structural issues. I merely say, even in the midst apocalypse there is great oportunity for those who will embrace it. It is why I have been following the work of Ivan Throne on substack, because in the event of societal breakdown I have no intention of trying to hide from it or pretend progress would return in anything like what normies expect.
That is why I am so critical of decostructionists left or right. Either way it sounds to me like casual mass murder/depopulation, as if we have not have had enough of globalists. Honestly, listening to Rurik yesterday, all I could really hear is the decline of the West. That may be unavoidable, but radical deconstruction/collapse leaves us open to invasion from China and the Muslim world, and that is not any kind of future I support for America.
So to add to my original comment, I suspect the healthiest thing would be a blend of the pessimistic and optimistic.
Lol, I've never been banned from Substack, but it's neat that you think that you have even the slightest bit of Choice in what you believe or in what your outlook is. I'm a miserable pessimist who says what I say because that's the way the Dagger In My Brain stabs me.
Meh, it didn't fit. That's another thing that shows that you don't understand what I'm saying or even the thought processes behind it. You can't even mimic my style correctly.
Again: If there was any scrap of good in the cosmos, I'd have never existed. My soul wouldn't exist. I'd have never been born and the world would be different. But, it isn't. And I'm still stuck here.
That sounds like absolute Bullshittery. No, Rejected. Rejected Three Times on Three Times on Three Times. Monotheism is Jewish Poison. You worship a Jewish Volcano Demon.
Nothing Good Has Ever Happened. Love Has Never Existed. Ever.
Yes. Phrases like "Future generations are perched atop a pyramid of prior generations who suffered indescribably, and the suffering of one generation is not an acceptable price to ensure the existence of the next generation, because the next generation does not yet exist and has no interest in coming into existence. It is, as Benatar has said, a procreational Ponzi scheme" and "For those of us who are already here, there is no hope. The best thing we can do is choose not to continue the chain of suffering. Don’t create new sentient beings that will suffer the torment and agony of consciousness only to die. There is no need to create need out of nothing. Just stop feeding the meat grinder. All it will cost is a slice of your ego." reminded me of the above link.
There's a lot I agreed with in your post, and some I didn't, but as you wrote, "I think the most salient question to determine whether something is desirable or has value is to ask “would I freely choose this, if I were under no duress?” Personally I think having children is a great thing, and I would have a whole lot of them if I could. You're right that this world is full of pain and suffering, that the structure of this reality is wrong, and from a pessimist perspective there's plenty of argue toward anti-natalism, but having a large family with controlled chaos is something that would give me a lot of pleasure. So it's ultimately a choice we feel and then try to intellectually justify one way or another, I think.
" having a large family with controlled chaos is something that would give me a lot of pleasure"
I know plenty of people that assumed that without the actual experience of it, and would later regret their assumption, when having to endure it.
I'll add that, out of all psychological types, I have seen that happen the most to I__J ones.
"So it's ultimately a choice we feel and then try to intellectually justify one way or another, I think."
Well, either in the post or in this comment you didn't try to intellectually justify it... did you?
If you think that the core of life is suffering (and its meaningless variety, among all!), and want to introduce new creatures into such a world (while believing no future, different world, exists) because it gives you pleasure, ...
In Cioran's case, as I see it one should judge all of his thinking and worldview as foolish and decadent, or judge his choice to have no children OK. I mean, that choice is perfectly consistent with all of his thinking, so they should be assessed the same, shouldn't they?
What a thinker would have been, if he had written what he wrote, and wanted children? Not a serious one (and there is plenty of authors who consistently behaved in their personal sphere counter to what they preached or professed in their written works, but I have never been able to take them seriously).
I think it’s proven that this world is a suffering one filled with pain where most of our desires remain unfulfilled. I don’t agree that the experience is necessarily pointless; I am open to the idea that there is purpose and intent behind it and that we are here on this plane for a reason, which I explored recently on my post about Carl Jung and the book of Job. Spasticus thinks it’s all pointless. If you combine the two (pessimism plus pointlessness) then you’re right that having children with that perspective would be masochistic.
There are plenty of serious writers who don’t practice what they preach, of course. Schopenhauer didn’t practice his ascetic withdrawal very well - he was the life of the party - and Nietzsche was a crippled invalid despite his will to power. It is better when the ideals match the behavior, of course, but people are complicated and made up of competing impulses and beliefs.
As an IJ, perhaps you’re right and that the reality of having lots of children would not match my vision of it.
"You're right that this world is full of pain and suffering, that the structure of this reality is wrong, and from a pessimist perspective there's plenty of argue toward anti-natalism, but having a large family with controlled chaos is something that would give me a lot of pleasure."
Wow. Cioran lampoons precisely this repellent sentiment in Chap. 8 of The Trouble with Being Born:
"X maintains we are at the end of a ‘cosmic cycle’ and that soon everything will fall apart. And he does not doubt this for one moment. At the same time, he is the father of a—numerous—family. With certitudes like his, what aberration has deluded him into bringing into a doomed world one child after the next? If we foresee the End, if we are sure it will be coming soon, if we even anticipate it, better to do so alone. One does not procreate on Patmos."
Thanks for that, I havn't read that one yet. However, I elaborated above that it is the combination of (1) philosophical pessimism with (2) the idea of pointlessness in life that gives rise to an understandable anti-natalism, and while I agree with the former I have not accepted the latter.
I have a draft on the laudable Amish way of life prepared - maybe I'll go with that next week...
Pessimistic thought would never understand life as art, he does. Thank you for this article, I never read his work, I am glad to receive his transmission through you.
Now, today I thought i could use some “Positive Disillusionment”, believe it or not (minds being joined and all) and I was going to watch a video of my teacher about this topic to realign my feeling. I forgot all about it through the day, and I ended up reading your essay instead.
Thought-provoking article. A few comments came to my mind when reading it.
Take suicide for instance. I believe, the more someone thinks of commiting suicide the less likely he is to kill himself. I talk out of experience. Like most reasonable people, often in my youth I used to entertain that thought, until I ditched it when realizing I'd never do it except perhaps much later on -maybe euthanasia?- when decay and illness make life extremely unsufferable. On the other hand, I am not sure only optimists kill themselves, and researches strongly suggest it is the other way around. What I do think, though, is that -contrary to what some studies show- believers, or rather spiritual/gnostic people, are perhaps likelier to commit suicide than utter sceptics or nihilists, for the latter, knowing for certain there's nothing else than bodily life, might not be as eager to abandon it regardless of its absurdity, whereas the former are, as Nietzsche put it, "millionaires in eternity". Esotericism, mysticism, gnosticism, all these are different types of belief. "L'homme absurde" alone faces total annihilation when dead, so why hurry?
Regarding wisdom and age, maybe it is true that "one doesn't become better on the moral plane with old age", but this does not imply its opposite; i.e., maybe one doesn't become morally worse, either. In principle, I would not link morality with age neither way. But when it comes to wisdom, I would say there is no denying that we become wiser (even if only a little) with age, for life experience teaches us a number of things we cannot learn by any other means. One might argue you can learn a lot by reading, studying or listening to others, and that is true; but then again, those activities take time, so the more we learn in order to become wiser, the older we get, and thus, after all, we become wiser with age.
On the other hand, I like Cioran's criticism of success in a way. I agree with his saying that “there is something of the charlatan in anyone who triumphs in any realm whatever”. Indeed, authenticity is at odds with success because when you are really and truly yourself, hardly a few people will understand and applaud what you say or do. Perhaps only posterity may do you some justice. Thus, in order to succeed, you need some degree of charlatanerie. However, although Rolo's statement that "one has to sell out to the powers that be" might be true for mainstream (in the sense of massive) triumph, it is not necessarily so for more modest success. And how do we define "success" anyway? Where is the dividing line? It all depends on one's expectations. At the same time, though, paraphrasing Cioran, I would say that there is something of the impostor in anyone who turns down awards or refuses interviews, for while doing so, that person's innermost self still thanks being awarded or asked to be interviewed. How can he talk about failure? And what is failure? Receiving negative, unfavorable, adverse criticism is one thing, and being totally ignored (i.e., sheer failure) is quite another. Setting failure above ANY success might be just a delusion, a soothing mechanism of self-comfort. Sure, I understand that the greater a success, the more we get distanced "from what is most inward in ourselves", but someone who constantly fails at everything he does will soon stop trying to do anything at all. Like everything in life, there is a golden middle. Occasional or even frequent failure may indeed be something "constructive", but thorough, sheer failure is annihilating, I believe.
This is also the reason why I think one never writes just for himself. That's also imposture. I agree with Cioran in that "a book should be written without THINKING of others", but that does not mean the book is not written FOR others to read. The very act of writing, the very existence of script, entails the goal of communicating ideas or concepts, and how can you communicate if there is none at the other end of the line to receive those ideas? That is why written language evolved. Would Cioran, or anyone else for that matter, have written anything if he was the only man on Earth? On the other hand, while I do think that one does not NEED TO know everything about what one speaks of, I am not so sure that one SHOULD not know. I do not see why one should not be objective, or try to. But I admit I might not be understanding Cioran correctly.
"andyet no one sees that you are living your funeral in advance and that your death can add nothing to your irremediably established condition"
I call them cognitive zombies. Ian McGilchrist and others touched on this subject.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/alphabet-vs-the-goddess
And this is the basis of what they planned COVID to do.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/covid
"Cioran believed that by coping directly with the horrors of this world it would strip away illusion and perhaps make life worth living."
Right now it's 2025 and murderers in white coats are still using toxic Remdesevir in hospitals. Kennedy does nothing to stop it. I never wanted to be a pessimist but until people wake the frak up and face the truth, they deserve what they get by supporting inept spoiled authority.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/allergic-to-bullshit
George Carlin is one of my favorite philosophers. Others like Bill Hicks and Robert Anton Wilson also got it.
Without acknowledging the absurdity, we live in positive and negative delusions.
Thanks for the links
I’ve read just a bit of Cioran, and have one book. I have no need to comment extensively. Can’t say I agree or disagree, except in some instances. This, though, I CAN say. He is better understood when one reads his works when they are past, at least 75 years of age. I AM past that age by a few years.
I do think that had he looked at - he didn’t as far as I know, except for buddhism - the Eastern belief systems, rather than focusing on the Western, he may have been a bit more happy fellow. The Western offer lots of burdensome dogma, burdensome wrongness, control mechanisms, and little hope, and more that does not contribute to peacefulness of mind, psyche. That would be my recommendation for anyone. At least to brave a look for some time, not shutting it out completely from one’s experience.
Thanks for the essay. Nicely covered!
Here, here.
Or, hear, hear. (Both comments are applicable.)
Yes, they are.
I have been a big fan of Cioran ever since I started digging deeper into existentialism years ago. His views on failures and suicide were very striking to me and I find myself thinking of his quote “Without the idea of suicide I would have surely killed myself” because of how much it speaks to the idea that the freedom of knowing what we can do doesn’t always mean we will do it. Instead it may suddenly feel like we don’t necessarily have to.
Loved the article! Subscribed!
"The abyss of two incommunicable worlds opens between the man who has the sentiment of death and the man who does not; yet both die; but one is unaware of his death, the other knows- one dies only for a moment, the other unceasingly."
There's a real bitter irony about that entire section considering he ended up going the way he did. In his dementia, he likely never truly knew he was dying, and yet was nothing but for entire years on end. This world has a way for turning hubris like this on its head in the worst of ways.
Nice quote. It resonates a bit -though in a different aspect- with my thesis that "brave men only die once, while cowards die every day".
You wouldn't really expect a chronic insomniac to be especially optimistic, would you
Thanks for the mention here. I’d never heard of this guy, but am definitely aligned on the failure stuff. It forces a type of self-confronting that success tends to push you away from.
A long, perhaps even lengthy, comment perhaps.
But I prefer regretting excessive sharing of my views to regretting leaving any of the following unshared.
***
I have read two books of Cioran's, both many years ago: "Histoire et utopie"; "Cahiers: 1957-1972", which is the no-brainer choice if one wants to know the Author as best as possible from one single book, and the most mature Cioran.
"I felt reluctant to cover him because his writing leaves a sour taste in the mouth."
So do most medicines, usually the most curative.
"Jesus—once he wanted to triumph among men—should have been able to foresee Torquemada, ineluctable consequence of Christianity translated into history."
He didn't seek any triumph among men. He didn't need to foresee Torquemada, because he saw the Torquemada's of his time. Christianity can't be translated into "history"... "Christianity" can, and even must.
"And it is by the victims it provokes that a religious or political belief is affirmed, bestiality being the primal characteristic of any success in time."
Exactly true of all but the only right one. If you define "success" in anti-Christian terms, then you easily argue that Christianity is unsuccessful, and "Christianity," the anti-Christ's disguised operation, was successful.
"Whence we arrive at this miracle: the adversaries coexist—but precisely because they can no longer be adversaries; opposing doctrines recognize each other’s merits because none has the vigor to assert itself."
All true; all of the time; everywhere. Except for Christianity, which he seems to never have received the grace of understanding.
"A religion dies when it tolerates truths which exclude it."
Absolutely... as long as a religion is a historical, earthly phenomenon. But if a religion, or rather, a faith, is made of truth, and comes from Truth, the problem doesn't arise. No truth will exclude Truth.
"for intolerance constitutes the law of human affairs."
And the law of Christ is the opposite of the law of human, earthly, Darwinist, sword-and-fire business.
On note #5. That's a great reading of Nietzsche's philosophy... but it misses the less explicit, more hidden side of it. Besides what Cioran rightly notes about Nietzsche, Nietzsche was also a tremendously elevated philosopher (as well as writer), and a philosophy of terrible depth can be extracted from his works, winnowing out the angry outbursts and invalidity-compensating imaginations about the ubermensch. Nietzsche and Leopardi brought philosophy to its maximally coherent nihilism, they are vertices.
On note #7. Which is the cause and which the effect can be subject to doubt, though. Perhaps it's the consistency and integrity that prevent any destiny but that the world must see as a loser's, instead of winning curbing integrity. It might vary by individual.
Your comments echo Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor - have you read it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Inquisitor
The Inquisitor was right on all counts, and unassailably so — I realized that when in my mid 20s I "met" the fellow. That time I thought Jesus had replied with a smile and left without words because he was wrong and had no way to make any point falsifying the Inquisitor's.
But Its mercy is unbounded: so, when It knew the day had come, It showed that same wordless smile to me; and because the time had indeed came, I saw the essence of that smile... The Inquisitor was right, but within our earthly, human, 4 dimension.
Jesus is right in the absolute and unbounded.
The ubermensch is what Nietzsche saw as a free man.
Someone who no longer needs fantasies in order to live on. It can be religion, economics, science, politics, whatever belief systems.
I didn't read him at first because I was told he was nihilistic. But it turns out he's honest about the bullshit. The people that told me he was nihilistic are ones that believe that good somehow happens from above.
Sorry but the only true religion is REALITY.
Reality - which any of us can likely agree none of us can see or understand in its entirety so requires faith in its existence like any other religion.
Any thought form requires faith.
Yes, reality is there but we are only as good as our senses and predictions.
Faith in self or faith in an established narrative?
"Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness."
Gurdjieff
Since our senses are known to be limited and quite limited in comparison to many animals, they will never be good enough to be trusted to experience reality in its entirety.
Predictions are continually hit or miss so unreliable again.
I think what I'm getting to is this - I agree with Gurdjieff's assessment, but it applies to all faith in whatever one chooses to put their faith in, be it God, self or reality, etc.
So the only reason to think one's faith is superior to another's faith is ego.
Which is proven to be highly unreliable.
And then thinking what one chooses to put their faith in is the superior choice is identical to all others who also believe their choice is superior.
Yes, senses are easily corrupted because they have to be interpreted. We not only feel things, we color them and fit them into our map of reality.
Prediction is the problem.
Monkeys can think 5 minutes ahead, humans think to their old age and death.
A belief in an afterlife is a cheap hack to avoid facing the mystery of death.
Animals have less interpretation and more direct action. They don't have "time" to need faith.
So now it reminds me of this:
"you will know them by their fruits"
This I also apply to my own beliefs.
If it's not working, try something else.
And let's apply it to everything.... If an expert or guru has a shitty track record, why continue to give them that status?
God in major religions has the worst track record, bringing complication and confusion to everything.
Meanwhile previous polytheist religions were more honest. They had multiple gods that each had their faults instead of blind perfection.
But even that is limited to the narratives provided.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/alphabet-vs-the-goddess
I am a monotheist and I don't assign man's failings to God. Only children use such logic.
Actually, there are large parts of the light spectrum that we can't see and sounds we can't hear that some animals can. So it seems less likely a matter of interpretation since animals interpret as well and more likely a mechanical issue. Either way, the senses are not capable of detecting all of reality.
I'm not sure what blind perfection is? If something is perfect, blindness would render it imperfect so the phrase seems to negate itself?
For instance, the Bible is a book that was and has been repeatedly written and changed by many people throughout history, so I understand what's in the Bible is as flawed as the people who wrote it down yet I know God's truth is in there despite man's failings.
So I don't worship the book though I use it. I worship God.
I can especially relate to the insomnia aspect.
Great! Very inspiring. NLF knocks it out of the park again. And the links! The links! THE LYNX!
Meanwhile... one of the aphorisms reminded me of...
And this hero was a strange man
"Those flowers, take them away" he said
"They're only funeral decorations
And oh this is a drudge nation
A nation of no imagination
A stupid man is their ideal
They shun me and think me unclean
Unclean"
I’m surprised to see no reference, in the essay or comments, to the stoics. In my understanding of the philosophy, peace (if not happiness) comes from confronting reality with unflinching courage and self-honesty. And thus is aligned with the Buddhist concept that suffering arises from the (unrealistic) expectations we impose on the world. A modern take is Oliver Burkeman’s Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.
The source of Cioran's dour outlook may possibly derive from a lifetime of striving to think and observe things from beneath far too much cranial insulation. Just some Sunday speculation.
It seems to me pessimism and optimism are like liberal and conservative, or change and tradition - necessary to each other. Society could not be purely pessimistic and build anything, but at the same time society nor civilization can be purely optimistic. I don't think one could be a good parent and be so pessimistic. I think too one can be optimistic generally without believing in eternal progress. At the same time I could not read this and think "breath of fresh air." I prefer for myself and civilization, an optimistic realism.
Hi William, I think you would appreciate this critique, which is mostly critical of Cioran and somewhat so (although less, I think) of the piece itself: https://www.reddit.com/r/Existentialism/comments/1jbx35p/comment/mhzdi2v/
As the commentator notes, "The piece itself acknowledges this to some degree, recognizing that Cioran pushed pessimism to its absolute limit. The author flirts with his ideas but ultimately recoils, preferring a “healthier baseline” of pessimism rather than full immersion. I think that hesitation says a lot. If Cioran's philosophy were truly liberating, there would be no need for him to pull back."
I thought it a solid, honest critique of Cioran.
Even as an optimist I recognize and acknowledge your critique of structural issues. I merely say, even in the midst apocalypse there is great oportunity for those who will embrace it. It is why I have been following the work of Ivan Throne on substack, because in the event of societal breakdown I have no intention of trying to hide from it or pretend progress would return in anything like what normies expect.
That is why I am so critical of decostructionists left or right. Either way it sounds to me like casual mass murder/depopulation, as if we have not have had enough of globalists. Honestly, listening to Rurik yesterday, all I could really hear is the decline of the West. That may be unavoidable, but radical deconstruction/collapse leaves us open to invasion from China and the Muslim world, and that is not any kind of future I support for America.
So to add to my original comment, I suspect the healthiest thing would be a blend of the pessimistic and optimistic.
Lol, I've never been banned from Substack, but it's neat that you think that you have even the slightest bit of Choice in what you believe or in what your outlook is. I'm a miserable pessimist who says what I say because that's the way the Dagger In My Brain stabs me.
You should have ended this with “Nothing Good Has Ever Happened”!
Meh, it didn't fit. That's another thing that shows that you don't understand what I'm saying or even the thought processes behind it. You can't even mimic my style correctly.
Again: If there was any scrap of good in the cosmos, I'd have never existed. My soul wouldn't exist. I'd have never been born and the world would be different. But, it isn't. And I'm still stuck here.
So what the fuck else is there?
The Good God is also there, and its unthinkable love of you, as well as of all its creatures.
That sounds like absolute Bullshittery. No, Rejected. Rejected Three Times on Three Times on Three Times. Monotheism is Jewish Poison. You worship a Jewish Volcano Demon.
Nothing Good Has Ever Happened. Love Has Never Existed. Ever.
There it is!
It is hard to stay a pessimist when no hope remains to sustain the idea of a future.
There's always a future, it's just never a good one. Things can always get worse forever. Loss is Infinite.
Must be reassuring to be so certain. Me, I don’t fucking know what any of this amounts to.
You should read my essay An Indictment of Life.
Your anti-natalism reminds me of this old Autoadmit post: https://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3180134&mc=221&forum_id=2#30164352
With that said, I’m decidedly pro-natalist so long as one can support oneself without relying on handouts…
Did you read it?
Yes. Phrases like "Future generations are perched atop a pyramid of prior generations who suffered indescribably, and the suffering of one generation is not an acceptable price to ensure the existence of the next generation, because the next generation does not yet exist and has no interest in coming into existence. It is, as Benatar has said, a procreational Ponzi scheme" and "For those of us who are already here, there is no hope. The best thing we can do is choose not to continue the chain of suffering. Don’t create new sentient beings that will suffer the torment and agony of consciousness only to die. There is no need to create need out of nothing. Just stop feeding the meat grinder. All it will cost is a slice of your ego." reminded me of the above link.
There's a lot I agreed with in your post, and some I didn't, but as you wrote, "I think the most salient question to determine whether something is desirable or has value is to ask “would I freely choose this, if I were under no duress?” Personally I think having children is a great thing, and I would have a whole lot of them if I could. You're right that this world is full of pain and suffering, that the structure of this reality is wrong, and from a pessimist perspective there's plenty of argue toward anti-natalism, but having a large family with controlled chaos is something that would give me a lot of pleasure. So it's ultimately a choice we feel and then try to intellectually justify one way or another, I think.
" having a large family with controlled chaos is something that would give me a lot of pleasure"
I know plenty of people that assumed that without the actual experience of it, and would later regret their assumption, when having to endure it.
I'll add that, out of all psychological types, I have seen that happen the most to I__J ones.
"So it's ultimately a choice we feel and then try to intellectually justify one way or another, I think."
Well, either in the post or in this comment you didn't try to intellectually justify it... did you?
If you think that the core of life is suffering (and its meaningless variety, among all!), and want to introduce new creatures into such a world (while believing no future, different world, exists) because it gives you pleasure, ...
In Cioran's case, as I see it one should judge all of his thinking and worldview as foolish and decadent, or judge his choice to have no children OK. I mean, that choice is perfectly consistent with all of his thinking, so they should be assessed the same, shouldn't they?
What a thinker would have been, if he had written what he wrote, and wanted children? Not a serious one (and there is plenty of authors who consistently behaved in their personal sphere counter to what they preached or professed in their written works, but I have never been able to take them seriously).
Nice comment and questions, ikaruga.
I think it’s proven that this world is a suffering one filled with pain where most of our desires remain unfulfilled. I don’t agree that the experience is necessarily pointless; I am open to the idea that there is purpose and intent behind it and that we are here on this plane for a reason, which I explored recently on my post about Carl Jung and the book of Job. Spasticus thinks it’s all pointless. If you combine the two (pessimism plus pointlessness) then you’re right that having children with that perspective would be masochistic.
There are plenty of serious writers who don’t practice what they preach, of course. Schopenhauer didn’t practice his ascetic withdrawal very well - he was the life of the party - and Nietzsche was a crippled invalid despite his will to power. It is better when the ideals match the behavior, of course, but people are complicated and made up of competing impulses and beliefs.
As an IJ, perhaps you’re right and that the reality of having lots of children would not match my vision of it.
What is an IJ?
I agree, his reply does very much read like “I acknowledge that you are mostly correct, but… fuck it, I'll do what I want.”
"You're right that this world is full of pain and suffering, that the structure of this reality is wrong, and from a pessimist perspective there's plenty of argue toward anti-natalism, but having a large family with controlled chaos is something that would give me a lot of pleasure."
Wow. Cioran lampoons precisely this repellent sentiment in Chap. 8 of The Trouble with Being Born:
"X maintains we are at the end of a ‘cosmic cycle’ and that soon everything will fall apart. And he does not doubt this for one moment. At the same time, he is the father of a—numerous—family. With certitudes like his, what aberration has deluded him into bringing into a doomed world one child after the next? If we foresee the End, if we are sure it will be coming soon, if we even anticipate it, better to do so alone. One does not procreate on Patmos."
Thanks for that, I havn't read that one yet. However, I elaborated above that it is the combination of (1) philosophical pessimism with (2) the idea of pointlessness in life that gives rise to an understandable anti-natalism, and while I agree with the former I have not accepted the latter.
I have a draft on the laudable Amish way of life prepared - maybe I'll go with that next week...
If you have no idea what the “point” might be, that’s a pretty good indication that there isn’t one.
Pessimistic thought would never understand life as art, he does. Thank you for this article, I never read his work, I am glad to receive his transmission through you.
Now, today I thought i could use some “Positive Disillusionment”, believe it or not (minds being joined and all) and I was going to watch a video of my teacher about this topic to realign my feeling. I forgot all about it through the day, and I ended up reading your essay instead.
Thank you
Thought-provoking article. A few comments came to my mind when reading it.
Take suicide for instance. I believe, the more someone thinks of commiting suicide the less likely he is to kill himself. I talk out of experience. Like most reasonable people, often in my youth I used to entertain that thought, until I ditched it when realizing I'd never do it except perhaps much later on -maybe euthanasia?- when decay and illness make life extremely unsufferable. On the other hand, I am not sure only optimists kill themselves, and researches strongly suggest it is the other way around. What I do think, though, is that -contrary to what some studies show- believers, or rather spiritual/gnostic people, are perhaps likelier to commit suicide than utter sceptics or nihilists, for the latter, knowing for certain there's nothing else than bodily life, might not be as eager to abandon it regardless of its absurdity, whereas the former are, as Nietzsche put it, "millionaires in eternity". Esotericism, mysticism, gnosticism, all these are different types of belief. "L'homme absurde" alone faces total annihilation when dead, so why hurry?
Regarding wisdom and age, maybe it is true that "one doesn't become better on the moral plane with old age", but this does not imply its opposite; i.e., maybe one doesn't become morally worse, either. In principle, I would not link morality with age neither way. But when it comes to wisdom, I would say there is no denying that we become wiser (even if only a little) with age, for life experience teaches us a number of things we cannot learn by any other means. One might argue you can learn a lot by reading, studying or listening to others, and that is true; but then again, those activities take time, so the more we learn in order to become wiser, the older we get, and thus, after all, we become wiser with age.
On the other hand, I like Cioran's criticism of success in a way. I agree with his saying that “there is something of the charlatan in anyone who triumphs in any realm whatever”. Indeed, authenticity is at odds with success because when you are really and truly yourself, hardly a few people will understand and applaud what you say or do. Perhaps only posterity may do you some justice. Thus, in order to succeed, you need some degree of charlatanerie. However, although Rolo's statement that "one has to sell out to the powers that be" might be true for mainstream (in the sense of massive) triumph, it is not necessarily so for more modest success. And how do we define "success" anyway? Where is the dividing line? It all depends on one's expectations. At the same time, though, paraphrasing Cioran, I would say that there is something of the impostor in anyone who turns down awards or refuses interviews, for while doing so, that person's innermost self still thanks being awarded or asked to be interviewed. How can he talk about failure? And what is failure? Receiving negative, unfavorable, adverse criticism is one thing, and being totally ignored (i.e., sheer failure) is quite another. Setting failure above ANY success might be just a delusion, a soothing mechanism of self-comfort. Sure, I understand that the greater a success, the more we get distanced "from what is most inward in ourselves", but someone who constantly fails at everything he does will soon stop trying to do anything at all. Like everything in life, there is a golden middle. Occasional or even frequent failure may indeed be something "constructive", but thorough, sheer failure is annihilating, I believe.
This is also the reason why I think one never writes just for himself. That's also imposture. I agree with Cioran in that "a book should be written without THINKING of others", but that does not mean the book is not written FOR others to read. The very act of writing, the very existence of script, entails the goal of communicating ideas or concepts, and how can you communicate if there is none at the other end of the line to receive those ideas? That is why written language evolved. Would Cioran, or anyone else for that matter, have written anything if he was the only man on Earth? On the other hand, while I do think that one does not NEED TO know everything about what one speaks of, I am not so sure that one SHOULD not know. I do not see why one should not be objective, or try to. But I admit I might not be understanding Cioran correctly.