Cultural Pessimism and Therapy
B.Contestabile admin@socrethics.com First version 2008 Last version 2012
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Table of Contents
2.1 Definition 2.2 Nihilism 2.3 Postmodernism 2.4 Social Cycle Theories 3.1 Overview 3.2 Alienation 3.3 Obsession 3.4 Fatalism 3.5 Aggression 4.1 Ethics of Reason 4.2 Types of Therapies 4.3 The Therapy of Alienation 4.4 The Therapy of Obsession 4.5 The Therapy of Fatalism 4.6 The Therapy of Aggression
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Starting point Starting point are some quotes which have reached publicity in the discussion about realistic worldviews: 1. “An optimist is a contemporary who is insufficiently informed” (author unknown). 2. “Optimism is cowardice” (Oswald Spengler). 3. “Optimism has to be condemned as not only absurd, but also as infamous thinking, indeed, as bitter mockery of the nameless sufferings of mankind” (Arthur Schopenhauer)
Type of Problem 1. What are the causes of cultural pessimism? 2. What is the pathogenic potential of pessimism? 3. What are the historical and actual remedies to overcome pessimism?
Causes of pessimism The causes of cultural pessimism are 1) the loss of religious and secular scenarios of redemption 2) the belief that history proceeds in cycles and decay is unavoidable.
Pathogenic potential Cultural pessimism causes an increased risk for depression and narcissism.
Therapies There are four conflicting types of philosophical therapies. Following a well-known exponent of each type:
1) Normative Therapies Normative therapies are directed against the kind of suffering, which is caused by passions. The interests of the individual (the struggle for love and power) are morally degraded. The pessimistic worldview is overcome by changing the perception of the world: a) Therapy of obsession: Buddha b) Therapy of aggression: Spinoza
2) Individualistic Therapies Individualistic therapies are directed against the suffering, which is caused by the suppression of passions. The interests of the individual are morally defended. The pessimistic world view is simply ignored by falling back on biological resources: a) Therapy of alienation: Freud b) Therapy of fatalism: Nietzsche
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Starting point
In the year 1755 - the ground rocked in Portugal; an event as innumerable others before. But with one peculiarity: it happened on All Saint's Day at the hour of holy mass. Alone in Lisbon 30 churches collapsed and the rubble buried the gathered faithful. The earthquake, the following great fires, and the Tsunami-waves claimed tens of thousands of casualties. Was it God's punishment for the "idolatry" of Catholic veneration of saints? In fact, there have been voices that said so or correspondingly. But not even three weeks later the earth quaked also in Boston, a centre of American Puritanism, and demolished 15.000 houses. Also the interpretation as "Allah's revenge" was pointless, since the big Al-Mansur-Mosque in Rabat had collapsed too. Now one had recourse to the "original sin". Voltaire, infuriated at the utmost, answered with his famous poem "About Lisbon's Catastrophe, or: An Examination of the Axiom 'Everything is Good' ", and triggered by it worldwide discussions, that have not stopped up to this day. Yes, at present (2005) in the commemoration year of Auschwitz, Armenia, Dresden and Hiroshima and with the last natural disasters they make for new zeniths (Structure and Dynamic of the Cosmos, Ludwig Ebersberger)
The following quotes have reached publicity in the discussion about realistic worldviews:
1. “An optimist is a contemporary who is insufficiently informed” (author unknown).
2. “Optimism is cowardice” (Oswald Spengler)
3. “Optimism has to be condemned as not only absurd, but also as infamous thinking, indeed, as bitter mockery of the nameless sufferings of mankind” (Arthur Schopenhauer).
Type of Problem
1) What are the causes of cultural pessimism?
2) What is the pathogenic potential of pessimism?
3) What are the historical and actual remedies to overcome pessimism?
2.1 Definition
The definition of optimism and pessimism didn’t change since Leibniz:
1. Those who find a purpose in our life, and an order in the universe, which conforms to this purpose, are optimists
2. Those who don’t see a purpose are pessimists
[Svevo, 155]
If life and the universe don’t have a (higher) purpose we might still be able to create such a purpose ourselves (e.g. the improvement of average life satisfaction). In this paper the term cultural pessimism is associated with the belief that it is impossible to create such a purpose because cultural evolution cannot be controlled.
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An optimist thinks it is the best possible world in which we are living – a pessimist thinks this is true
Author unknown
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Causes for cultural pessimism are:
1) The loss of religious scenarios of redemption (Kap.2.2)
2) The loss of secular scenarios of redemption (Kap.2.3)
3) The belief that history proceeds in cycles and decay is unavoidable (Kap.2.4)
2.2 Nihilism
Relation to rationalism
Most religions believe that the truth (existence of God, purpose of evolution etc.) can be found by faith and revelation. Nihilism denies this possibility.
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A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything
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Though the term nihilism was popularized by the novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), it was first introduced into philosophical discourse by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 – 1819), who used it to characterize rationalism, and in particular Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804) "critical" philosophy in order to carry out a reductio ad absurdum according to which all rationalism (philosophy as criticism) reduces to nihilism, and thus should be avoided and replaced with a return to some type of faith and revelation.
The loss of faith is tied to a loss of hope, in particular the loss of a possible paradise. There are several types of paradises:
1. The paradise in the Book of Genesis is a repetition of daily life without its painful conditions. It is the ideal of an agricultural society, i.e. a life undisturbed by crop failure, famine, illness and death [Hahn, 110]. Different concepts of paradises mirror different societies.
2. Some paradises represent better states in the here and now, i.e. they represent memories of better times or expectations of a better future. In societies with a complex structure, the concepts can even differ within the same society. The general rule is the following: Social classes in decline glorify the past and vice-versa. The belief in progress, which is typical for the age of enlightenment, mirrors the collective advancement of the bourgeoisie; the romantic glorification of the past is the swan song of the disempowered aristocracy [Hahn, 115]. Happiness is located in a place where society hasn’t arrived yet or in a place where society was long time ago.
3. The New Testament says: “No one has seen the paradise that is afforded to those who love the Lord”. This kind of paradise is abstract to an extent which makes it impossible to even attempt a falsification. On the other hand it is hardly attractive for non-philosophers and non-theologians which are deeply in sorrow about their daily life. Abstract paradises are made for religious virtuosos (Max Weber) [Hahn, 119].
All paradises have one thing in common: once they are unmasked as wishful thinking, they are lost forever.
Russian nihilism
The Nihilist movement was a 1860s Russian cultural movement which rejected existing authorities and values. After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the Nihilists were known throughout Europe as proponents of the use of violence as a tool for political change (Nihilism, Wikipedia)
Nihilism was followed by the Russian Revolution (1905) and Marxism-Leninism (1920s).
Nietzsche’s definition
1. A nihilist is a man who thinks of “the world as it is” that it ought not to be, and of “the world as it ought to be” that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of in vain is the nihilists' pathos (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, The Will to Power, section 585) (Nihilism, Wikipedia)
2. Stanley Rosen identifies Nietzsche's equation of nihilism with "the situation which obtains when everything is permitted." (…). Nietzsche asserts that this nihilism is a result of valuing "higher", "divine" or "meta-physical" things (such as God), that do not in turn value "base", "human" or "earthly" things. But a person who rejects God and the divine may still retain the belief that all "base", "earthly", or "human" ideas are still valueless because they were considered so in the previous belief system (such as a Christian who becomes a communist and believes fully in the party structure and leader). In this interpretation, any form of idealism, after being rejected by the idealist, leads to nihilism (Define nihilistic)
3. Nietzsche considered faith in the categories of reason, seeking either to overcome or ignore nature, to be the cause of such nihilism. "We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world". He saw this philosophy as present in Christianity (which he described as 'slave morality'), Buddhism, morality, asceticism and any excessively skeptical philosophy (Define nihilistic)
Existential nihilism
Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value (Nihilism, Wikipedia)
Existential nihilism corresponds to Svevo’s definition of pessimism.
Moral nihilism
Whereas Russian nihilism rejected traditional values (in anticipation of new ones) and Nietzsche promoted new values (a kind of biological fundamentalism), moral nihilism denies the existence of any moral value.
Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism or amoralism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong. Moral nihilists consider morality to be make-believe, a complex set of rules and recommendations that may give a psychological, social, or economic advantage to its adherents, but is otherwise not in accord with fact or reality (Moral Nihilism, Wikipedia)
Metaphysical nihilism
In a quantum vacuum fields fluctuate in intensity and direction as a result of quantum uncertainty and although the field strength of the fluctuations averages to zero, the energy does not. In quantum mechanics waves also have characteristics of particles, so the quantum vacuum is often depicted as a sea of short-lived particles [Davis].
It seems that the existence of a world without objects remains a philosophical speculation. The concept of an absolutely contingent world, however, meets increasing interest. The discovery that the gas laws are of a statistical nature inspired Alfred North Whitehead’s work in metaphysics:
Laws are observed orders of succession. This doctrine defines laws as little more than the observation of the persistence of patterns. Laws are merely ‘statistical facts. Each observed fact is a contingently new moment. There is no underlying principle of reason or a principle of causation [Dunham, 4].
The thesis that all physical laws are merely statistical facts couldn’t be confirmed so far. The law of conservation of energy e.g. is not a statistical law [Vollmer 2000, 29]. On the other hand the history of physics has shown that more and more laws that seemed to be universal and eternal are in fact contingent [Scheibe]. All known natural laws could be
▪ the result of a contingent process in the early stage of our universe
▪ the contingent characteristics of our universe within a multiverse
According to Quentin Meillassoux there is truly no reason for anything:
Meillassoux claims that mathematics is what reaches the primary qualities of things as opposed to their secondary qualities as manifested in perception. He tries to show that the agnostic scepticism of those who doubt the reality of cause and effect must be transformed into a radical certainty that there is no such thing as causal necessity at all. This leads Meillassoux to proclaim that it is absolutely necessary that the laws of nature be contingent (Quentin Meillassoux, Wikipedia).
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It takes a long time to understand nothing
Author unknown
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2.3 Postmodernism
Definition
The term "postmodernism" comes from its critique of the "modernist" scientific mentality of objectivity and the progress associated with the Enlightenment (Postmodernism, Wikipedia)
Postmodernism does not only deny a universal purpose of life – it questions any common value on the cultural level. It therefore conforms to our definition of cultural pessimism:
Postmodern and poststructuralist thought deny the very grounds on which Western cultures have based their 'truths': absolute knowledge and meaning, a 'decentralization' of authorship, the accumulation of positive knowledge, historical progress, and the ideals of humanism and the Enlightenment (…)
(Nihilism, Wikipedia)
The ambivalence of knowledge
Svevo’s remark above implies that the definition of pessimism was coined at the time of Leibniz. Pessimism is certainly much older than the scientific revolution but the demystification of the world in the 16th and 17th century suggested for the first time (with scientific authority) that the suffering in this world might be without a sense:
In the age of Enlightenment this insight was overruled by the vision of progress (with Condorcet as the most prominent example), but finally the evolution of knowledge proved to be ambivalent. Mythical gods turned (and still turn) into scientific gods who continue to humiliate people:
1) Freud said that there had been three great humiliations in human history (The Interpretation of Dreams, Paul Brians)
a) Galileo's discovery that we are not the center of the universe
b) Darwin's discovery that we are not the crown of creation
c) Freud’s discovery that we are not in control of our own minds.
2) Gerhard Vollmer describes up to nine humiliations, resulting from nine different disciplines of science [Vollmer 1994].
The philosophers of Enlightenment thought that the elimination of religious forms of guilt (sin) would be an immense relief and liberation. But knowledge soon proved to produce new forms of guilt. In a contemporary philosophical debate suffering cannot be charged to a divine creator any more, but (indirectly) to all individuals who procreate. If humans put themselves in the position of god, then the theodicy falls back on them.
The ambivalence of technology
In his 1973 book, Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins, Konrad Lorenz addresses the following paradox:
“All the advantages that man has gained from his ever-deepening understanding of the natural world that surrounds him, his technological, chemical and medical progress, all of which should seem to alleviate human suffering... tends instead to favor humanity's destruction.” (Konrad Lorenz, Wikipedia)
In his influential book, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), Herbert Butterfield made a strong case against the “Wiggish” view that history involves progressive evolution toward where we are now. This picture is often another form of ethnocentric projection, and in fact changes of many sorts occur for many reasons (Relativism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Science and technology are ambivalent, because their abuse cannot be prevented (so far). Ethical progress trails far behind technological progress. Oligarchies and nepotism are hard to control (even in socialism and communism) and conspiracy theory is still alive. One of the issues of postmodern nihilism is the manipulation of feelings (values) by medicaments, drugs and the media.
Utopias have a certain potential to replace the paradises described in chapter 2.2, but they encounter a paradox: The more a utopian society improves our living conditions, the more painful death becomes. Death is bearable
1. if it sets an end to suffering
2. if we identify ourselves with a group and the group survives
3. if we feel that we have seen whatever there is to see
All these conditions are satisfied in simple societies, but not in the current visions of individualistic high-tech societies.
A technological victory over death leads to paradoxical consequences as well [Hahn, 121-124].
For information on the ambivalence of technological progress see
▪ The Cultural Evolution of Suffering
▪ On the Perception of Risk and Benefit
Individual level
Doubts concerning the controllability of progress are not only caused by the complexity of culture, but also by the complexity and lacking controllability of each individual’s life. For information on this issue see
▪ Eine interdisziplinäre Untersuchung zur Willensfreiheit
▪ The Controllability of Life Satisfaction
2.4 Social Cycle Theories
The following theories contribute to pessimism insofar, as they suggest that cultural decay is only a matter of time.
Precursor theories
1. Interpretation of history as repeating cycles of Dark and Golden Ages was a common belief among ancient cultures.
2. The more limited cyclical view of history defined as repeating cycles of events was put forward in the academic world in the 19th century in historiosophy (a branch of historiography) and is a concept that falls under the category of sociology. However, Polybius, Ibn Khaldun, and Giambattista Vico can be seen as precursors of this analysis. The Saeculum was identified in Roman times. In recent times, Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar has used the ideal of social cycles
(Social Cycle Theory, Wikipedia)
Classical theories
1. The first sociological cycle theory was created by Italian sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) in his Trattato di Sociologia Generale (1916). He centered his theory on the concept of elite social class, which he divided into cunning 'foxes' and violent 'lions'. In his view of society, the power constantly passes from 'foxes' to 'lions' and vice versa.
2. Sociological cycle theory was developed by Pitirim A. Sorokin (1889-1968) in his Social and Cultural Dynamics (1937, 1943). He classified societies according to their 'cultural mentality', which can be ideational (reality as spiritual), sensate (reality is material), or idealistic (a synthesis of the two). He has interpreted the contemporary West as a sensate civilisation dedicated to technological progress and prophesied its fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era.
3. Among prominent historiosophers important is Russian philosopher Nikolai Danilewski (1822-1885), who in Rossiia i Europa (1869) differentiated between various smaller civilizations (Egyptian, Chinese, Persian, Greece, Roman, German, and Slav, among others). He wrote that each civilization has a life cycle, and by the end of 19th century the Roman-German civilization was in decline, while Slav civilization was approaching its Golden Age
(Social Cycle Theory, Wikipedia)
4. William James Durant (1885-1981) was an American philosopher, historian, and writer, best known for his 11-volume work The Story of Civilization.. In his extensive studies on civilization he realized that humans don’t change behavior in the course of time. In “Lessons of History” (1968) he mentions in particular the ineradicable drive to lead wars. “War is a historical constant and neither civilization nor democracy was capable eliminating it from the world. In the 3400 years of known history there were only 268 years without war.” (Fesselnde Philosophie, Deutschlandradio)
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I don’t know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
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5. Similar theory was put forward by Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) who in the Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes) (1918) also expected that the Western civilisation was about to collapse. The Decline of the West includes the idea of the Muslims being Magian, Mediterranean civilizations of the antiquity such as Ancient Greece and Rome being Apollonian, and the modern Westerners being Faustian, and according to its theories we are now living in the winter time of the Faustian civilization. His description of the Faustian civilization is where the populace constantly strives for the unattainable—making the western man a proud but tragic figure, for while he strives and creates he secretly knows the actual goal will never be reached (The Decline of the West, Wikipedia)
6. Spengler's obscure thoughts, intuitionalism and mysticism were easy targets for his critics. All attempts to find the meaning of history had been denounced by the positivists and neo-Kantians of the late nineteenth century as irresponsible metaphysical speculation. This attitude did not change but was perhaps even hardened after the rise of neo-positivism and analytic tradition. One of the exceptions was the Austrian/British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), who shared Spengler's cultural pessimism, and confessed once that he felt "intensely the terrible degeneration that had come over the human spirit in the course of only a hundred years." (Oswald Spengler)
7. Towards the end of the 20th century, cultural pessimism surfaced in a prominent way. The very title of Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present (2000) challenges the reader to be hopeful.
(Cultural pessimism, Wikipedia)
Modern theories
1) One of the most important recent findings in the study of the long-term dynamic social processes was the discovery of the political-demographic cycles as a basic feature of complex agrarian systems' dynamics. The presence of political-demographic cycles in the pre-modern history of Europe and China, and in chiefdom level societies worldwide has been known for quite a long time and already in the 1980s more or less developed mathematical models of demographic cycles started to be produced. At the moment we have a very considerable number of such models
2) Recently the most important contributions to the development of the mathematical models of long-term ("secular") sociodemographic cycles have been made by Sergey Nefedov, Peter Turchin and Sergey Malkov. What is important is that on the basis of their models the authors have managed to demonstrate that sociodemographic cycles were a basic feature of complex agrarian systems (and not a specifically Chinese or European phenomenon). The basic logic of these models is as follows:
a) After the population reaches the ceiling of the carrying capacity of land, its growth rate declines toward near-zero values.
b) The system experiences significant stress with decline in the living standards of the common population, increasing the severity of famines, growing rebellions etc.
c) As has been shown by Nefedov, most complex agrarian systems had considerable reserves for stability, however, within 50–150 years these reserves were usually exhausted and the system experienced a demographic collapse (a Malthusian catastrophe), when increasingly severe famines, epidemics, increasing internal warfare and other disasters led to a considerable decline of population.
d) As a result of this collapse, free resources became available, per capita production and consumption considerably increased, the population growth resumed and a new sociodemographic cycle started.
3) It has become possible to model these dynamics mathematically in a rather effective way. Note that the modern theories of political-demographic cycles do not deny the presence of trend dynamics and attempt at the study of the interaction between cyclical and trend components of historical dynamics. Modern social scientists from different fields have introduced cycle theories to predict civilizational collapses in approaches that apply contemporary methods that update the approach of Spengler, such as the work of Joseph Tainter suggesting a civilizational life-cycle. In more micro-studies that follow the work of Malthus, scholars such as David Lempert have presented "alpha-helix" models of population, economics, and political response, including violence, in cyclical forms that add aspects of culture change into the model. Lempert has also modeled political violence in Russian society, suggesting that theories attributing violence in Russia to ideologies are less useful than cyclical models of population and economic productivity
(Social Cycle Theory, Wikipedia)
3.1 Overview
Risks
Svevo’s definition of pessimism (Kap.2.1) corresponds to existential nihilism.
1. Existential nihilism may lead to alienation, in particular in the context of deceived idealism. Alienation increases the risk of depression.
Ich bin voller Argwohn und Bosheit gegen das, was man „Ideal“ nennt: hier liegt mein Pessimismus, erkannt zu haben, wie die „höheren Gefühle“ eine Quelle des Unheils, d.h. der Verkleinerung und Werterniedrigung des Menschen sind [Nietzsche, 61]
2. Existential nihilism may end in moral nihilism, because it is much more difficult to justify moral values without (revealed) religions. Moral nihilism increases the risk of obsession and aggression and corresponding forms of narcissism.
3. If existential nihilism is combined with distrust in the controllability of cultural evolution, then it may lead to fatalism. Fatalism, as well as alienation, increases the risk of depression.
Link to character traits
In the following diagram
1. the character traits (ditention, dominance, compliance, affiliation) are taken from experimental social psychology [DTV, 213]
2. the above mentioned risks are linked to these traits.
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Risk of Depression
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Risk of Narcissism |
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3.2 Alienation
Mainländer (1841-1875)
1) Philipp Mainländer was a German poet and philosopher (…). In his central work Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The Philosophy of Redemption) —according to Theodor Lessing “perhaps the most radical system of pessimism known to philosophical literature” —Mainländer proclaims that there is no higher meaning in life, and that “the will, ignited by the perception that non-being is better than being, is the topmost principle of all morale.” (…)
2) Mainländer described the discovery of Arthur Schopenhauer’s central work The World as Will and Representation as a penetrating revelation.
3) In 1875 after a period of obsession with philosophical work, Mainländer declared himself exhausted, worked-out and ineffably tired and his mental collapse — which has been compared to the collapse Nietzsche would suffer only years later — became apparent. Eventually, descending into megalomania and believing himself to be a messiah of social democracy in the night on April 1st, 1875, Mainländer hanged himself in his residence in Offenbach. A pile of voucher copies of The Philosophy of Redemption, which had arrived the previous day, had served as a pedestal. He was thirty-four years old.
(Philipp Mainländer, Wikipedia)
Cioran (1911-1955)
1. Emil Cioran was a Romanian philosopher and essayist (…). Exhausting his interest for conservative philosophy early in his youth, Cioran denounced systematic thought and abstract speculation in favor of indulgence in personal reflection and passionate lyricism (…). Pessimism characterizes all of his works, which many critics trace back to events of his childhood (…).
2. His works often depict an atmosphere of torment and torture, states that Cioran experienced, and came to be dominated by lyricism often prone to expressing violent feelings (…). Preoccupied with the problem 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. 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?" (…).
3. 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.
4. 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".
(Emil Cioran, Wikipedia)
Similar authors:
3.3 Fatalism
Fatalism is the idea that everything is fated to happen, so that humans have no control over their future. Notice that fate has arbitrary power. It need not follow any causal or otherwise deterministic laws (Determinism, Wikipedia).
Fatalism is possible without determinism (e.g. if the world is ruled by chance), but determinism excludes control and therefore leads to fatalism.
Ockham (1285-1349)
Ockham may serve as an example that the concept of determinism is much older than the scientific revolution and Newtonian physics:
Theology co-operated heartily at pessimism already from the late Middle Ages. So for example the "philosopher with the razor", the Franciscan friar Wilhelm of Ockham (1285-1349) - regardless of his (as such modern) conceptions in the so-called 'universalia argument' - cut any relation of the natural human drives and primeval longings to the Ten Commandments, which had been dictated, as it were, arbitrarily by God and could have run also quite differently.
Well, the Catholic theology has never wholly accepted that opinion, but it caused nevertheless a lot of confusion, the more so, as one - especially in circles of reformed theologians - downright tried to outdo each other. From the concern one might diminish God's greatness and majesty one left to man not a single tiny thread of good in its own right. One even denied man the control of its own free will, because every event had already been predestined in God's omnipotence and prescience - a determinism which was in no way inferior to Newtons (1643-1727) mechanistic world view (Structure and Dynamic of the Cosmos, Ludwig Ebersberger)
Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Shakespeare’s tragedies may serve as an example that fatalism does not depend on determinism:
Evidence of determinism is hard to come by in Shakespeare's plays because Shakespeare the dramatist believed in free will. (Was Shakespeare a determinist? The Atlas Society)
Shakespeare’s great tragedies are dominated by a hopeless fatalism, which is far more pessimistic than the purifying agonies of Greek tragedy (…). Sometimes his tragic heroes speak of life as ruled by fate inhuman, unpredictable, and meaningless; and sometimes, more bitterly, cry out against vicious mankind which is unfit to live (The Classical Tradition, Gilbert Highet, 2009, p.207).
3.4 Obsession
Sade (1740-1814)
Biography
Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Marquis de Sade, was a French aristocrat, revolutionary and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography. He was a philosopher of extreme freedom (or at least licentiousness), unrestrained by morality, religion or law, with the pursuit of personal pleasure being the highest principle. Sade was incarcerated in various prisons and in an insane asylum for about 32 years of his life (…). Much of his writing was done during his imprisonment (Sade, Wikipedia)
Appraisal and criticism
Numerous writers and artists, especially those concerned with sexuality, have been both repelled and fascinated by de Sade.
1. Simone de Beauvoir (in her essay Must we burn Sade?, published in Les Temps modernes, December 1951 and January 1952) and other writers have attempted to locate traces of a radical philosophy of freedom in Sade's writings, preceding modern existentialism by some 150 years. He has also been seen as a precursor of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis in his focus on sexuality as a motive force. The surrealists admired him as one of their forerunners, and Guillaume Apollinaire famously called him "the freest spirit that has yet existed".
2. Pierre Klossowski, in his 1947 book Sade Mon Prochain ("Sade My Neighbor"), analyzes Sade's philosophy as a precursor of nihilism, negating both Christian values and the materialism of the Enlightenment.
3. One of the essays in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) is titled "Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality" and interprets the ruthless and calculating behavior of Juliette as the embodiment of the philosophy of enlightenment. Similarly, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan posited in his 1966 essay "Kant avec Sade" that de Sade's ethic was the complementary completion of the categorical imperative originally formulated by Immanuel Kant.
4. In his 1988 Political Theory and Modernity, William E. Connolly analyzes Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom as an argument against trend of earlier political philosophers, notably Rousseau and Hobbes, and their attempts to reconcile nature, reason and virtue as basis of ordered society.
5. In The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography (1979), Angela Carter provides a feminist reading of Sade, seeing him as a "moral pornographer" who creates spaces for women. Similarly, Susan Sontag defended both Sade and Georges Bataille's Histoire de l'oeil (Story of the Eye) in her essay, "The Pornographic Imagination" (1967) on the basis their works were transgressive texts, and argued that neither should be censored.
6. By contrast, Andrea Dworkin saw Sade as the exemplary woman-hating pornographer, supporting her theory that pornography inevitably leads to violence against women. One chapter of her book Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1979) is devoted to an analysis of Sade. Susie Bright claims that Dworkin's first novel Ice and Fire, which is rife with violence and abuse, can be seen as a modern re-telling of Sade's Juliette.
(Sade, Wikipedia)
Houellebecq (1958- )
Biography
Michel Houellebecq, born (…) on the French island of Réunion, is a controversial and award-winning French author, filmmaker and poet. To admirers he is a writer in the tradition of literary provocation that reaches back to the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire; to detractors he is a peddler of sleaze and shock. Having written poetry and a biography of the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft he brought out his first novel Extension du domaine de la lutte in 1994. Les particules élémentaires followed in 1998 and Plateforme in 2001. After a publicity tour for this book, which led to his being taken to court for inciting racial hatred, he went to Ireland to write. He lived in Ireland for many years, and now lives in Spain (Michel Houllebecq, Wikipedia)
Appraisal and criticism
1. Grand Prix National des Lettres Jeunes Talents, 1998, for work to date; Prix Novembre, 1999, for Les Particules Elémentaires; Impac international literary prize, 2002, for Les Particules Elémentaires.
2. Houellebecq, unlike Camus, is obsessed by sexuality, and the loss of it, as the key to the estrangement of modern man (…). Michel, the hero of Plateform, believes that men and women in Western society are no longer capable of getting on or getting it off. He says the only logical solution is sexual tourism, in which Western men – and increasingly women – seek the emotional and physical fulfillment that they are denied at home by travelling to less emotionally repressed countries in the Third World. This is the "ideal exchange", he says (Michael Houellebecq, The Independent)
3. Literary critics have labeled Michel Houellebecq's novels 'vulgar,' 'pamphlet literature' and 'pornography;' he has been accused of obscenity, racism, misogyny and islamophobia
(Michel Houllebecq, Wikipedia)
3.5 Aggression
Hartmann (1842-1906)
Biography
1) Eduard von Hartmann was born in Berlin, and educated with the intention of a military career. He entered the artillery of the Guards as an officer in 1860, but was forced to leave in 1865 because of a knee problem (Eduard von Hartmann, Wikipedia)
2) Because of his knee problem, Hartmann was doing most of his work in bed while suffering great pain (Eduard von Hartmann, Internet Encyclopedia)
Collective annihilation
Human life labors under three illusions:
1) that happiness is possible in this life, which came to an end with the Roman Empire
2) that life will be crowned with happiness in another world, which science is rapidly dissipating
3) that happy social well-being, although postponed, can at last be realized on earth, a dream which will also ultimately be dissolved.
Man's only hope lies in "final redemption from the misery of volition and existence into the painlessness of non-being and non-willing." No mortal may quit the task of life, but each must do his part to hasten the time when in the major portion of the human race the activity of the unconscious shall be ruled by intelligence, and this stage reached, in the simultaneous action of many persons volition will resolve upon its own non-continuance, and thus idea and will be once more reunited in the Absolute. (Eduard von Hartmann, Internet Encyclopedia)
In The Self-Destruction of Christianity and the Religion of the Future (1874), Hartman predicts that humanity will come to a collective realization of the futility of their atheistic fates, and choose to bring about their collective annihilation (Investigating Atheism, University of Cambridge)
Horstmann (*1949)
1. Ulrich Horstmann is a German literary scholar and writer.
2. In 1983 Ulrich Horstmann became known for his treatise The Beast, in which he promoted a philosophical position which was diametrically opposed to the peace movement Zeitgeist of those years: He advocated a philosophy of "escape of mankind" which aims for an early self-destruction of the human race by means of the accumulated nuclear weapons found in arsenals around the world. He pushed the pessimism and misanthropy of his mentor Schopenhauer to the extreme. Horst's work was not, as some had suspected, a particularly bitter satire, as was shown by the author's subsequent publications which were written with an attitude of nihilism and extreme distaste for the world.
3. Horstmann puts forth the theory that mankind has been pre-programmed to eliminate itself in the course of history—and also all its memory of itself—through war (thermonuclear, genetic, biological), genocide, destruction of it's sustaining environment, etc.
(Ulrich Horstmann, Wikipedia)
David Benatar (*1966)
A contemporary advocate of annihilation is David Benatar.
1. David Benatar's Better Never To Have Been challenges a deep source of status quo bias. Benatar argues that coming into being is always harm. Consequently the ideal population size is zero. Indeed the author advocates the extinction of all sentient life. He is realistic about his prospects of success.
2. Benatar's argument rests on a critical asymmetry. If someone had never existed, Benatar argues, the absence of any pleasure s/he might have experienced wouldn't be bad (…). This asymmetry underlies the widely acknowledged intuition that no one is morally obliged to have children. By contrast, Benatar argues, if the suffering undergone in someone's life hadn't existed, then the absence of suffering would be a good thing. From this fundamental asymmetry - i.e. suffering is intrinsically harmful, but there is nothing morally bad about an absence of pleasure - Benatar draws his nihilistic conclusion.
(Review of Better Never to Have Been, David Pearce)
Above authors could also be classified under the term alienation. But the project of annihilation violates the rights of those, who want to survive and procreate and is therefore an aggressive response to pessimism.
4.1 Ethics of Reason
History
In contrast to the philosophy of Enlightenment which was characterized by Condorcet’s vision of progress, postmodern philosophy questions the benefit of reason. But what is the alternative?
1. Drop science and technology because they are ambivalent and their abuse cannot be prevented?
2. Resume the animistic lifestyle of hunter-gatherers because they were (are) happier [Everett]?
3. Resume mythical world views because they are a prerequisite for happiness [Hahn 109-124])?
Even if people were happier and the world was safer in former times; it is impossible to turn back the clock and resume irrational world views. It is also premature to turn down reason, because reason does not (and will possibly never) govern the world. It may be wiser to look for philosophies that are based on reason and able to cope with cultural pessimism. There are abundant resources in the history of philosophy for such a project, if nothing else the philosophies (therapies) presented in this paper:
Examples:
1) Freud was a pessimist with regard to the future of society, but developed a therapy for depression.
2) Nietzsche denied religious scenarios of redemption, but nevertheless promoted creativity and self-confidence.
3) The late Stoics turned from cultural optimism to agnosticism, but didn’t loose their motivation for virtue and duty.
4) Buddha was a pessimist with regard to the general evolution of suffering, but nevertheless an optimist with regard to the individual potential for liberation.
Parenthesis
Was Nietzsche reasonable? Would he have signed a reasonable social contract?
Nietzsche responded to reasons, reflected interests and valuated them. It is questionable; however, that he would have supported moral universalism (human rights in particular). On the other hand we know that Nietzsche always considered several perspectives, when he was deliberate over a question. Nietzsche may have been reasonable amongst others.
Parenthesis concluded
The reality principle
Religions and utopias have a therapeutic effect but violate the reality principle. There is, however, a difficulty in the interpretation of the term realistic:
1. Our attitude influences the result, as has been shown in cases of self fulfilling prophecy. If we promote cultural pessimism, then we have a negative influence on basically optimistic people.
2. Conversely, if we promote cultural optimism, then we may produce another welcome illusion (similar to a religious belief) which increases the life satisfaction of the actual generation, but decreases the life-satisfaction of future generations (e.g. by overpopulation).
It is unreasonable to claim that the global situation cannot change for the better; but it is a matter of intellectual honesty to admit, that it can also turn for the worse. The future is simply unpredictable.
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History doesn’t repeat itself…… historians merely repeat each other.
Author unknown
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An ethics of reason which accounts for this uncertainty has the following characteristics:
1. The vision of a global government of reason may have to be replaced by the vision of a sub-culture (network) of reasonable people, an island within a sea of irrationality. The motivation to engage for reason has to come out of (local) step by step improvements [Popper, 158], rather than (global) final victory.
2. An ethics of reason contains an element of retreat (respectively contraction) which accounts for the possibility of failure (see The Controllability of Life Satisfaction). It cannot be that an ethics of reason accepts the status quo or even a qualitative increase of suffering in the world.
Authenticity
Is authenticity in conflict with an ethics of reason? The answer depends on the definition of authenticity. If we consider the biological goal to be authentic then the conflict is inevitable. Freud’s cultural pessimism results from the conflict between biological and cultural demands. In this paper we use the term authenticity for the individual solution to the conflict between biological and cultural demands (see Moralischer Perfektionismus und Gerechtigkeit).
An individual may turn down both biological and cultural demands and call moral nihilism his/her authentic solution. But reason suggests that moral nihilism is a high-risk enterprise with a considerable pathogenic potential. It excludes a predictable way of living in groups and leads to emotional isolation. Moral nihilists are candidates for an examination of motives. A possible method to improve self-awareness was proposed by Socrates. His combination of emotional openness with rational analysis is a precursor model for philosophical therapy and discourse ethics.
4.2 Types of Therapies
Following a table which shows the relation between pathogenic forms of nihilism (chapter 5.2) and philosophical therapies:
1) Alienation can be seen as an undesirable form of social disengagement, obsession as an undesirable form of social engagement.
a) The therapy of obsession requires disengagement
b) The therapy of alienation requires (social) engagement
2) Aggression can be seen as an expression of power, fatalism as an expression of powerlessness.
a) The therapy of fatalism requires a gain in power
b) The therapy of aggression requires a renouncement to power
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Normative therapies
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Individualistic therapies |
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Alienation Mainländer Cioran
Therapy of Obsession Buddha Insight meditation
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Aggression Hartmann Horstmann
Therapy of Fatalism Nietzsche Existential therapy |
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Fatalism Ockham Shakespeare
Therapy of Aggression Spinoza Rational emotive therapy
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Obsession Sade Houellebecq
Therapy of Alienation Freud Psychoanalysis
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Types of philosophers
The different types of therapies correlate with different types of philosophers (see Propheten, Richter, Narren, Ärzte) and map the conflicts between them
1. The zany type is related to ditention. He/she considers society from a distance.
2. The judge type is related to compliance. The law stands above the individual.
3. The prophet type is related to dominance. The knowledge about the future makes the prophet a natural leader.
4. The medic type is related to affiliation. His/her interest is care.
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zany ditention Buddha |
prophet dominance Nietzsche
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judge compliance Spinoza
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medic affiliation Freud |
4.3 The Therapy of Alienation
Freud (1856-1939)
Works
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian physician who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for curing psychopathology through a particular form of dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. He is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life which is directed toward a wide variety of objects, as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires (Freud, Wikipedia)
Cultural pessimism
Sigmund Freud could be described as a pessimist who shared many of Schopenhauer's ideas. He saw human existence as being under constant attack from both within the self, from the forces of nature and from relations with others. The following quote, from Civilization and its Discontents, is perhaps the best example of his pessimism:
We can cite many such benefits that we owe to the much despised era of scientific and technical advances. At this point, however, the voice of pessimistic criticism makes itself heard, reminding us that most of these pleasures follow the pattern of the "cheap pleasure" recommended in a certain joke, a pleasure that one can enjoy by sticking a bare leg out from under the covers on a cold winter's night, then pulling it back in..... What good is a long life to us if it is hard, joyless and so full of suffering that we can only welcome death as a deliverer? (Pessimism, Wikipedia)
Therapeutic concept
Freud’s well known slogan “We can change neurotic misery into real misery” makes clear that he had no intention to solve psychic problems by means of positive outlooks. Happiness should be attained by reverting to the biological resources and not by utopias. The unconscious simply ignores the future. Freud’s biography illustrates that it is possible to be an optimist in personal matters and a pessimist with regard to the future of society.
Individualist anarchism (19th century)
Definition
Individualist anarchism comprises several traditions which hold that "individual conscience and the pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority." Individualist anarchism is supportive of property being held privately, unlike the social/socialist/collectivist/communitarian wing which advocates common ownership. Individualist anarchism has been espoused by individuals such as William Godwin, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Josiah Warren, and Murray Rothbard (Individualist Anarchism, Wikipedia)
The goal of individual anarchism is to get free from oppressive institutions, traditions, habits and technology. Individual anarchism is the therapy of individual resistance and revolt. It is a predecessor of the hippie movement and doesn’t count on technological redemption. Individual anarchism promotes decentralized structures, flat hierarchies and a manageable environment. Cultural pessimism is seen as a result of oppression and not as a result of social and cosmological forecasts.
Influences
1. The major goal of individualist anarchism consists in not being controlled and dominated by others, a priority which was strongly promoted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The idea was also associated with Karl Marx (1818-1883) until Marxism-Leninism created a new form of totalitarian oppression.
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) the founder of Transcendentalism encouraged David Thoreau’s talent and early career
(Emerson, Wikipedia)
3. The fact that technology creates new hierarchies and dependencies was analyzed by the philosophers of the Frankfurt School (Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno u.a.), the founders of the Critical Theory in the 1930s. The Critical Theory attempted to integrate Freud’s idea of man with Marx’ critique of capitalism.
Karl Popper believed that the school did not live up Marx's promise of a better future:
"Marx's own condemnation of our society makes sense. For Marx's theory contains the promise of a better future. But the theory becomes vacuous and irresponsible if this promise is withdrawn, as it is by Adorno and Horkheimer."
(Frankfurt School, Wikipedia)
The Frankfurt school wasn’t interested in Marx’ philosophy of history. It concentrated on the analysis of existing mechanisms and didn’t count on utopias.
4. Haffman’s Rabe united a group of writers and cartoonist known under the name Neue Frankfurter Schule (1981). Some of them thought of changing society and produced political caricatures, others tended towards cynicism and retreat. Cynicism is a hostile philosophy compared to individualist anarchism, but the two groups united in a coalition against the common enemy (which they saw in actual and upcoming forms of oppression).
5. The Frankfurt school is presently rediscovered by the techno-negative adherents of Green anarchism. These groups refuse the incapacitation of ordinary people by specialists. They also refuse utopias like transhumanism.
Cavell (*1926)
Works
1) Stanley Cavell is an American philosopher. He is the Walter M. Cabot Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University.
2) Although trained in the Anglo-American analytic tradition, Cavell often engages in dialogue with the continental tradition. He is well known for his inclusion of film and literary study into philosophical inquiry.
3) Cavell has written extensively on Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and Martin Heidegger, as well as on the American Transcendentalists Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He has been associated with an approach toward interpreting Wittgenstein sometimes known as the New Wittgenstein.
(Cavell, Wikipedia)
Therapeutic concept
1) Cavell’s concept can be associated with the terms philosophical psychoanalysis and perfectionism.
a) Philosophical psychoanalysis works without a specific expert language and without being fixed on Freudian concepts like the Oedipus complex.
b) For a definition of Cavell’s perfectionism see Moralischer Perfektionismus und Gerechtigkeit.
2) Cavell promotes in terms of philosophy what Dylan expressed in terms of music: liberate emotions, find your own voice and communicate with others. He believes that cultural pessimism can be overcome by active participation in the political process.
3) Cavell is the inventor of cinematherapy or movie therapy.
4.4 The Therapy of Obsession
Buddha (ca. 5th century B.C.)
There are some common threads to almost all Buddhist branches:
1. All accept the Buddha as their teacher.
2. All accept the Middle Way, Dependent origination, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, in theory, though in practice these have little or no importance in some traditions.
3. All accept that both the members of the laity and of the Sangha can pursue the path toward enlightenment (bodhi).
4. All consider Buddhahood to be the highest attainment (…). According to Theravada, a Buddha is someone that had discovered the path all by himself and taught it to others.
(Buddhism, Wikipedia)
Buddhism and intellectualism
1. According to the scriptures, in his lifetime, the Buddha refused to answer several metaphysical questions. On issues such as whether the world is eternal or non-eternal, finite or infinite, unity or separation of the body and the self, complete inexistence of a person after nirvana and then death etc, the Buddha had remained silent. One explanation for this is that such questions distract from practical activity for realizing enlightenment. Another is that such questions assume the reality of world/self/person.
2. In the Pali Canon and numerous Mahayana sutras and Tantras, the Buddha stresses that Dharma (Truth) cannot truly be understood with the ordinary rational mind or logic: Reality transcends all worldly concepts. The "prajna-paramita" sutras have this as one of their major themes. What is urged is study, mental and moral self-cultivation, faith in and veneration of the sutras, which are as fingers pointing to the moon of Truth, but then to let go of ratiocination and to experience direct entry into liberation itself.
(Buddhism, Wikipedia)
Comparison with nihilism
From the Buddhist point of view we cannot create the world “as it should be” by means of power. The will to power (as defined by Nietzsche) is rather a biological concept which legitimizes and perpetuates suffering. The belief in a spiritual world doesn’t have a scientific basis but, in the case of Buddhism, evidentially reduces suffering. Buddhism is far from moral nihilism:
1. The teachings of the Buddha are seen as a secure foundation of knowledge
2. Buddhism maintains a highly developed system of values similar to virtue ethics.
3. Buddhism emerged out of the Hindu tradition where the meaning of Brahman is quite different from the Western understanding of an empty world. A Buddhist’s life is embedded in a religious context which is hardly accessible to Western atheists. In popular forms of Buddhism the Nirvana is rather associated with an abstract interpretation of heaven, than with a cold and empty world.
Therapeutic concept
1. Buddhism obviously found a way how to cope with pessimistic models of history. The physical world of Buddhism develops in a cyclic manner but individual redemption doesn’t depend on these cycles. The individual overcomes pessimism by changing the perception of the world and moving to a different (mystic) state of consciousness.
2. The everyday life of a Buddhist is characterized by the Middle Way. It could be called risk-averse but doesn’t ask for self-destructive asceticism.
Cynicism (ca. 4th century B.C.)
Origin
1. Various philosophers, such as the Pythagoreans, had advocated simple living in the centuries preceding the Cynics (…).
2. Perhaps of importance were tales of Indian philosophers, known to later Greeks as the Gymnosophists, who had adopted a strict asceticism together with disrespect for established laws and customs.
3. However, the most immediate influence for the Cynic school was Socrates (470-399 B.C.) Although he was not an ascetic, he did profess a love of virtue and an indifference to wealth, together with a disdain for general opinion (…)
4. The story of Cynicism traditionally begins with Antisthenes, (445-365) who was an older contemporary of Plato and a pupil of Socrates (…)
5. Diogenes of Sinope (412-323 B.C.) adopted Antisthenes teachings and embraced the ascetic way of life, adopting a lifestyle of self-sufficiency (autarkeia), austerity (askēsis), and shamelessness (anaideia). He became known as "the Dog" which is the likeliest derivation of the word "Cynic." (Cynic, Wikipedia)
Modern cynicism
1. Nearly 2000 years after certain Greek philosophers first embraced classical cynicism, 17th and 18th century writers such as Shakespeare, Swift, and Voltaire, following in the traditions of Geoffrey Chaucer and François Rabelais, used irony, sarcasm, and satire (which had never gone out of fashion) to ridicule human conduct and revive cynicism. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century literary and cinema figures such as Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, H.L. Mencken, and W.C. Fields used cynicism as way of communicating their low opinions of certain manifestations of human nature.
2. By 1930, Bertrand Russell — in the essay On Youthful Cynicism — could describe the extent to which (in his view) cynicism had penetrated parts of Western mass consciousness, and could note particular areas partially deserving of cynicism: religion, country (patriotism), progress, beauty, truth.
(Cynic, Wikipedia)
A Cynic doesn’t depend on optimism because he doesn’t take part in the struggle for survival and procreation. Radical cynics undermine all attempts to create sense and promote a kind of humor which lives on the liberation from attachments.
Example: Historically, the transition from the geocentric model to the heliocentric model was associated with the loss of a preferential position and created a sense of humiliation [Vollmer, 1994]. The cynic’s view on the heliocentric model is quite different:
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Living on earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the sun
Author unknown
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Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Works
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher best known for his work The World as Will and Representation. Schopenhauer responded to and expanded upon Immanuel Kant's philosophy concerning the way in which we experience the world. His critique of Kant, his creative solutions to the problems of human experience and his explication of the limits of human knowledge are among his most important achievements. His metaphysical theory is the foundation of his influential writings on psychology, aesthetics, ethics, and politics which influenced Friedrich Nietzsche, Wagner, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud and others (Schopenhauer, Wikipedia)
Pessimism
After the earthquake of Lisbon 1755 also the faithful who were loyal to the church began to wonder whether not only nature but also fate was blind, if there too not any spirit or god had a leading function. There arose a pessimism that was eloquently expressed by Schopenhauer: "Look at this world of poor beings under the respect that they only exist for some time by devouring each other - and you will admit that a god who got the idea to change itself into such a world must really have been troubled by Satan." As the work of a demon it were "the worst of all possible worlds", hence any form of optimism had to be condemned as "not only absurd, but also as infamous thinking, indeed", as "bitter mockery of the nameless sufferings of mankind" (Structure and Dynamic of the Cosmos, Ludwig Ebersberger)
The influence of Indian philosophy
1) Schopenhauer read the Latin translation of the Upanishads (…). He was so impressed by their philosophy that he called them 'The production of the highest human wisdom', and considered them to contain superhuman conceptions.
2) A key aspect of Schopenhauer's thought is the investigation of what makes man less than reasonable. This force he calls "Wille zum Leben" or Will (lit. will-to-life), by which he means the forces driving man, to remain alive and to reproduce, a drive intertwined with desire. This Will is the inner content and the driving force of the world. For Schopenhauer, Will had ontological primacy over the intellect; in other words, desire is understood to be prior to thought (…). Schopenhauer felt this was similar to notions of purushartha or goals of life in Vedanta Hinduism.
3) In attempting to solve or alleviate the fundamental problems of life, Schopenhauer was a rare philosopher who considered philosophy and logic less important (or less effective) than art, certain charitable practices ("loving kindness", in his terms), and certain forms of religious discipline. Schopenhauer concluded that discursive thought (such as philosophy and logic) could neither touch nor transcend the nature of desire — i.e., Will. In The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer proposed that humans living in the realm of objects are living in the realm of desire, and thus are eternally tormented by that desire. The role of desire in Schopenhauer is similar to the role of Kāma, sensual gratification, which is treated as one of the goals of life relating to the second stage of life in the Hindu tradition.
4) Many Europeans, in the 1830s and 1840s, including Schopenhauer himself, found a correspondence between Schopenhauerian thought and the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Similarities centered on the principles that life involves suffering, that suffering is caused by desire, and that the extinction of desire leads to salvation. Thus three of the four "truths of the Buddha" correspond to Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will. In Schoepenhauer's philosophy, denial of the will is attained by either:
a) Personal experience of an extremely great suffering that leads to loss of the will to live; or
b) Knowledge of the essential nature of life in the world through observation of the suffering of other people.
However, Buddhist Nirvana is not equivalent to the condition that Schopenhauer described as denial of the will.
5) The identification of compassion as the true moral incentive was a central aspect of Schopenhauer's mission, a aspect which also points to Buddhism
(Schopenhauer, Wikipedia)
Metaphysics
1. For Schopenhauer, the aesthetic viewpoint is more objective than the scientific viewpoint precisely because it separates the intellect from the will in the form of art (…). The intellect allows man to suffer because it brings the suffering or pain of the world into a more vivid consciousness. Logically speaking then, the more intellectually-inclined person suffers most (…)
2. Aesthetic contemplation for Schopenhauer translates into an immediate objectification of the will. He employs a Platonic allegory to demonstrate that all existence is ultimately futile since it can be fundamentally characterized by a want of satisfaction that can never be attained. This want is otherwise known as happiness (…)
3. Moreover, philosophy is not necessarily a pursuit of wisdom but, rather, it can be viewed as a means for interpreting the personal experiences of one's own life. Schopenhauer maintained that desire produces suffering and, thus, one ought to be wary of the torturous effects of hedonism.
4. The wild and powerful drive to reproduce causes suffering or pain in the world. For Schopenhauer, one way to escape the suffering inherent in a world of Will was through art. Through art, Schopenhauer thought, the thinking subject could be jarred out of their limited, individual perspective to feel a sense of the universal directly—the "universal" in question, of course, was the will (…)
5. According to Daniel Albright "Schopenhauer thought that music was the only art that did not merely copy ideas, but actually embodied the will itself."
6. While Schopenhauer's philosophy may sound rather mystical in such a summary, his methodology was resolutely empirical (…)
(Schopenhauer, Wikipedia)
Psychology
Schopenhauer was perhaps even more influential in his treatment of man's psychology than he was in the realm of philosophy (…).
He gave a name to a force within man which he felt had invariably precedence over reason: the Will to Live (Wille zum Leben), defined as an inherent drive within human beings, and indeed all creatures, to stay alive and to reproduce.
Schopenhauer refused to conceive of love as either trifling or accidental, but rather understood it to be an immensely powerful force lying unseen within man's psyche and dramatically shaping the world:
"The ultimate aim of all love affairs ... is more important than all other aims in man's life; and therefore it is quite worthy of the profound seriousness with which everyone pursues it. What is decided by it is nothing less than the composition of the next generation ..."
These ideas foreshadowed and laid the groundwork for Darwin's theory of evolution and Freud's concepts of the libido and the unconscious mind (Schopenhauer, Wikipedia)
Therapeutic concept
1) For Schopenhauer, the way to escape suffering is (in analogy to Indian philosophy) by moving to a different state of consciousness. But in contrast to Indian philosophers, Schopenhauer doesn’t attempt to reach the Buddhist Nirwana or the Hindu Brahman. The goal is to identify with the life force, represented in specific forms of art, especially music (see Arthur Schopenhauser’s aesthethics). Consequently Schopenhauer can be associated with approaches like music therapy and art therapy.
2) The occupation with art is more risky than meditation (because it creates a dependency) but it allows active behavior. The passive consumption of art is related to the Bhakti path of liberation insofar, as it uses an outside object of devotion.
3) The everyday life of Schopenhauer is characterized by risk-aversion (similar to the life of a Buddhist) but not by self-destructive asceticism.
4.5 The Therapy of Fatalism
Nietzsche (1844-1900)
God is dead
A major cause of Nietzsche's continued association with nihilism is his famous proclamation that "God is dead." Nietzsche believed that, without God humanity is left with no epistemological or moral base from which we can derive absolute beliefs.
But, according to Nietzsche, the denial of absolute values doesn’t imply the devaluation of human life and the denial of the world as it is. The value of life is more profound than the values assigned by reason and idealism:
Any philosophy that devalues the world around us by privileging some ideal or utopian world necessarily devalues human life and is a threat for humanity's future. This warning can also be taken as a polemic against 19th and 20th century scientism (Nihilism, Wikipedia)
Nietzsche is not a moral nihilist. Similar to the Russian nihilists, Nietzsche advocates destruction only as a means to establish a new order. The new order promotes a Darwinian kind of cultural evolution, driven by (unconscious) biological forces and therefore closer to nature than Buddhism or Christianity.
The Overman
Nietzsche advocated a remedy for nihilism's destructive effects and a hope for humanity's future in the form of the Übermensch (English: overman), a position especially apparent in his works Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Antichrist. The Übermensch is an exercise of action and life: one must give value to existence by behaving as if one's very existence were a work of art. Nietzsche believed that the Übermensch "exercise" would be a necessity for human survival in the post-religious era (…)
Master morality
Another part of Nietzsche's remedy for nihilism is a revaluation of morals — he hoped that we are able to discard the old morality of equality and servitude and adopt a new code, turning Judeo-Christian morality on its head (…). The only true sin to Nietzsche is that which is aimed at the expression of one's power over oneself. Virtue, likewise, is not to act according to what has been commanded, but to contribute to all that betters a human soul. Nietzsche attempts to reintroduce what he calls a master morality, which values personal excellence over forced compassion and creative acts of will over the herd instinct, a moral outlook he attributes to the ancient Greeks. The Christian moral ideals developed in opposition to this master morality, he says, as the reversal of the value system of the (Roman) elite social class (Nihilism, Wikipedia)
The truth
Nietzsche's philosophy shares with nihilism a rejection of any perfect source of absolute, universal and transcendent values (…). However, recognizing the chaos of nihilism, he advocated a philosophy that willfully transcends it. Furthermore, his positive attitude towards truth as a vehicle of faith and belief distinguishes him from the extreme pessimism that nihilism is often associated with (Nihilism, Wikipedia)
Therapeutic concept
1. Competition plays an important role in Nietzsche’s concept of psychic health. He refers to the agonal nature of the Hellenistic culture, where events like the Ancient Olympic Games had a religious dimension. Although Nietzsche counts on the unconscious as a driving force, he strives to transform the biological competition into a cultural one. Master morality is the principle that allows succeeding in the cultural competition.
2. A different interpretation of master morality is simply the secular worldview. According to Nietzsche the fight for truth (and for the dominance of truth) has a therapeutic effect in all areas of life, because it makes the individual stronger. The denial of utopias relates Nietzsche to Existential therapy
4.6 The Therapy of Aggression
Stoicism (4th century B.C. – 2th century A.D.)
History
1. Zenon the Stoic (340-260 B.C.), originally a cynic, founded a school of philosophy in the Stoa of Athens and combined the cynical doctrine with concepts of Heraklit and Aristoteles. Because of this historical development there are many relations between Stoicism and Nicomachean ethics.
2. Stoicism was influenced by Buddhist and Jain thoughts [Kolm, 1982].
Ethics
Stoicism can be interpreted as a twofold strategy to deal with a superior combatant (nature)
1. Reorient aggression against the self (asceticism)
2. Identify with the combatant (declare nature to be divine)
Asceticism is an attempt to gain power over the fate, by becoming independent from inner disturbances (passions) and independent from the outside world.
1. Inner world
The Stoics looked upon the passions as essentially irrational, and demanded their complete extirpation. They envisaged life as a battle against the passions, in which the latter had to be completely annihilated. Hence their ethical views end in a rigorous and unbalanced asceticism (Stoicism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
As far as passions are a part of the self, i.e. a part of the personality and uniqueness of an individual, one can say that their extirpation has a destructive trait.
2. Outside world
Asceticism can be interpreted as a fictitious adaptation to a scarce environment, a kind of exercise for times of privation or war, as demonstrated by the Spartans.
The Stoic Eudaimonia corresponds to the Hindu Moksha but differs in its spiritual dimension. The accordance with the world as it is and the emphasis on asceticism makes Stoicism strong with respect to survival value.
Pantheism
The cornerstone of Stoicism is a positive interpretation of the world. The natural laws (the Stoic logos) are associated with divine intentions and moral value. Because of the equation of nature and god, whatever happens in this world is good and just. If nature is just, then adaptation is the rational answer. Late Stoicism demonstrated the weak point of this concept:
1. The Stoics’ dilemma is that apatheia and its cognitive basis would seem to be at odds with the sort of risk-taking loyalty and courage a Stoic hero is said to possess. Stoic friends and spouses must live in such a way that the death or departure of the other will not cause grief [Nussbaum, 500]
Stoicism encourages people to bear the most horrible wars and environments. The horror is not questioned but the individual who can’t endure it.
2. The concept collapses as soon as the optimistic worldview cannot be maintained. Discipline and sacrifices loose their sense. It is difficult to maintain a worldview where suffering is considered to be a misinterpretation of the data. The Stoic view increases suffering in the long run (because it is risk-tolerant) and then requires an even stronger effort to positively interpret the data
The Stoics (and later Spinoza) comply with the interpretative power of biology (which presents itself disguised as pantheism). They remove the core problem of theodicy and the implied psychic conflict, but they also remove the corresponding freedom of action. If the world is divine, then there is no escape.
Therapeutic concept
If Stoicism is freed from its pantheistic background it is still a valuable concept. Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) uses Stoic ideas without declaring natural laws to be morally good and without declaring all events in this world to be right. The therapy consists in confronting people with reality. Perception has to be adapted in such a way, that it doesn’t prevent finding solutions.
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Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
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Spinoza (1632-1677)
Works
Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death. Today, he is considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy, laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is also considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists (Spinoza, Wikipedia)
Metaphysics
Spinoza created an interesting example of a deterministic theory which doesn’t lead to fatalism. His concept may be considered as a predecessor of compatibilism [Hampe, 21]
Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way. By forming more "adequate" ideas about what we do and our emotions or affections, we become the adequate cause of our effects (internal or external), which entails an increase in activity (versus passivity). This means that we become both more free and more like God (Spinoza, Wikipedia)
Ethics
1) Some of Spinoza's philosophical positions are:
a) Good and evil are related to human pleasure and pain.
b) Everything done by humans and animals is excellent and divine.
c) All rights are derived from the State.
d) Animals can be used in any way by people for the benefit of the human race, according to a rational consideration of the benefit as well as the animal's status in nature.
2) Encapsulated at the start in his Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding (Tractatus de intellectus emendatione) is the core of Spinoza's ethical philosophy, what he held to be the true and final good. Spinoza held a relativist's position that nothing is intrinsically good or bad, except to the extent that it is subjectively perceived to be by the individual. Things are only good or evil in respect that humanity sees it desirable to apply these conceptions to matters. Instead, Spinoza believes in his deterministic universe that, "All things in nature proceed from certain necessity and with the utmost perfection." Therefore, nothing happens by chance in Spinoza's world, and reason does not work in terms of contingency.
3) In the universe anything that happens comes from the essential nature of objects, or of God/Nature. According to Spinoza, reality is perfection. If circumstances are seen as unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate conception of reality. While elements of the chain of cause and effect are not beyond the understanding of human reason, our grasp of the infinitely complex whole is limited because of the limits of science to empirically take account of the whole sequence. Spinoza also asserted that sense perception, though practical and useful for rhetoric, is inadequate for discovering universal truth; Spinoza's mathematical and logical approach to metaphysics, and therefore ethics, concluded that emotion is formed from inadequate understanding. His concept of "conatus" states that human beings' natural inclination is to strive toward preserving an essential being and an assertion that virtue/human power is defined by success in this preservation of being by the guidance of reason as one's central ethical doctrine. According to Spinoza, the highest virtue is the intellectual love or knowledge of God/Nature/Universe.
4) In the final part of the "Ethics" his concern with the meaning of "true blessedness" and his unique approach to and explanation of how emotions must be detached from external cause in order to master them presages 20th-century psychological techniques. His concept of three types of knowledge - opinion, reason, intuition - and assertion that intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind, leads to his proposition that the more we are conscious of ourselves and Nature/Universe, the more perfect and blessed we are (in reality) and that only intuitive knowledge is eternal. His unique contribution to understanding the workings of mind is extraordinary, even during this time of radical philosophical developments, in that his views provide a bridge between religions' mystical past and psychology of the present day.
5) Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good and Evil have no absolute meaning. Human catastrophes, social injustices, etc. are merely apparent. The world as it exists looks imperfect only because of our limited perception.
(Spinoza, Wikipedia)
The influence of Indian philosophy
1. Possibly the deductive method in Spinoza’s Ethics was influenced by the four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The Noble Truths contain the core idea of a step by step derivation of right behavior from psychological insights. The idea to change the perception of the world instead of the world itself is at the core of Buddhism.
2. Spinoza's philosophy also seems to have some traits in common with that of Advaita Vedanta, a sampradhya or school of thought in Hinduism, especially as expounded by Adi Shankara. These Indian philosophers from the 8th and 11th centuries respectively emphasize the notion of one reality (substance here), Brahman and the notion of attributes (which could be construed as an interpretation that is similar to that of Spinoza). Although Schopenhauer was the first European to have access to Hindu scripture, the question arises as to whether Spinoza may have had access to Indian philosophical texts (Spinoza, Wikipedia)
An Indian influence is plausible insofar as cultural exchange took place in the centers of trade. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands and his father was a successful importer/merchant. It is also known, that Baruch was of a critical, curious nature.
The influence of Stoicism
1. Spinoza's philosophy has much in common with Stoicism insofar as both philosophies sought to fulfill a therapeutic role by instructing people how to attain happiness (or eudaimonia, for the Stoics). However, Spinoza differed sharply from the Stoics in one important respect: he utterly rejected their contention that reason could defeat emotion. On the contrary, he contended, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion. For him, the crucial distinction was between active and passive emotions, the former being those that are rationally understood and the latter those that are not. He also held that knowledge of true causes of passive emotion can transform it to an active emotion, thus anticipating one of the key ideas of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.
(Spinoza, Wikipedia)
Therapeutic concept
1) With respect to the elimination of irrational (in the terminology of Spinoza inadequate) preferences Spinoza takes a similar position like Stoicism. He tends to declare risky preferences like hatred and aggression as inadequate. The (low-risk) insight into mathematical and physical laws is related to divine emotions. Aggression and war can be avoided, if everybody gets insight into the rationality of peaceful cooperation.
2) A detailed description of the therapeutic concept can be found in
a) Hampe Michael (2004), Rationale Selbstbefreiung, in Klassiker der Philosophie heute, Reclam
b) Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (1677), German translation
Causes of pessimism
The causes of cultural pessimism are
1) the loss of religious and secular scenarios of redemption
2) the belief that history proceeds in cycles and decay is unavoidable
Pathogenic potential
Cultural pessimism causes an increased risk for depression and narcissism.
Therapies
There are four conflicting types of philosophical therapies. Following a well-known exponent of each type:
1) Normative Therapies
Normative therapies are directed against the kind of suffering, which is caused by passions. The interests of the individual (the struggle for love and power) are morally degraded. The pessimistic worldview is overcome by changing the perception of the world:
a) Therapy of obsession: Buddha
b) Therapy of aggression: Spinoza
2) Individualistic Therapies
Individualistic therapies are directed against the suffering, which is caused by the suppression of passions. The interests of the individual are morally defended. The pessimistic world view is simply ignored by falling back on biological resources:
a) Therapy of alienation: Freud
b) Therapy of fatalism: Nietzsche
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1. Davis Paul (2011), Out of the ether, New Scientist, 19.Nov, p.51-52 2. DTV-Atlas zur Psychologie, 4.Aufl.(1994), Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, München 3. Dunham Jeremy (2011), Beyond Dogmatic Finality: Whitehead and the Laws of Nature, University of the West of England 4. Edmunds Stahrl W. (1978), Alternative U.S.Futures, University of California, Goodyear Publishing Company Inc. 5. Everett, Daniel L. (2008), Don't Sleep, there are Snakes, Pantheon Books 6. Hampe Michael (2007), Eine kleine Geschichte des Naturgesetzbegriffs, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main 7. Hahn Alois (2002), Paradiesisches Glück, in Glücksforschung - eine Bestandesaufnahme von Alfred Bellebaum (Ed.), UVK Verlag, Konstanz 8. Horstmann Ulrich (1983), Das Untier, Suhrkamp 9. Leslie John (1996), The End of the World. 10. Nietzsche Friedrich (ab 1885), Der Wille zur Macht, Albert Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart, 1964 11. Nussbaum Martha (1994), The Therapy of Desire, Princeton University Press, New Jersey 12. Kolm, Serge-Christoph (1982), Le bonheur-liberté, Buddhism profond et modernité, Presses universitaires de France 13. Kolm, Serge-Christoph. (2005), Review of F. Rosen, Classical utilitarianism from Hume to Mill. Journal of Economics 14. Popper Karl R.(1945) The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume I, London, Fifth Edition (revised), Routledge, UK, 1966 15. Rosen, Frederick.(2005), Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill 16. Scheibe Erhard (1985), Die Zunahme des Kontingenten in der Wissenschaft, in: Neue Hefte für Philosophie, Bd.24/25, Göttingen 17. Svevo Italo (1989), Optimismus und Pessimismus, in Der Rabe, Nr.23, Haffmans Verlag AG Zürich 18. Vollmer Gerhard (1994), Die vierte bis siebte Kränkung des Menschen, in Aufklärung und Kritik 1, p.81 ff. 19. Vollmer Gerhard (2000), Was sind und warum gelten Naturgesetze? in Philosophia Naturalis, Band 37, Heft 1, p.205-240, Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 20. Vukomanovic Milan, Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein, Assessing the Buddhist Influences
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Further Reading
1. Freud Sigmund (1930), Civilization and Its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur) 2. Hell Daniel (1996), Gesund sein ist gar nicht so normal 3. Hell Daniel (2006), Welchen Sinn macht Depression, Rowohlt
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