{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}} : Rage Against the Meat Grinder

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In all countries those faults and failings which are common to mankind, and universal to all human societies, are supposed to be peculiar to these particular countries. I have never been in a place where I have not heard some such sentiments as the following: -"Here the women are giddy and inconstant ; they are badly educated , and read little" -or, "Here the public is meddlesome, and full of idle curiosity about the affairs of their neighbours, given to tittle-tattle and backbiting" – or, "Here money and favouritism and baseness can effect anything" – "Here envy prevails everywhere, and friendship is hollow," and so on ; -just as if elsewhere matters were any different. The fact is, men are base by necessity, yet they are resolved to believe that they are base only by accident.
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Some young men sometimes fancy that they will make themselves interesting in the eyes of others by affecting a melancholy mood. Now it is possible that melancholy, when affected, may be pleasing enough for a time, especially to women. But when it is real, it is shunned by all mankind; and in the long run nothing is so pleasing and so successful in the commerce of society as cheerfulness; since when all is told, and with all due deference to some young men, the world, and wisely, would rather laugh than weep.
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Let no man think he knows the world, if he have not learned to regard as a mere empty form of words the generality of the offers or promises which may be made to him of sympathy or aid, no matter from whom they proceed ; and the more spontaneous they seem, and the more pressing and reiterated they may be, the less, in many cases, are they to be trusted. Be chary of accepting even the most urgent invitations to avail yourself of the good offices of others, even when supported by the warmest professions of benevolence. For if you yield to the persuasion of your professing sympathiser, or succumb through sheer weariness to his seeming importunity, and prevail on yourself to reveal to him your need, you will too often see him suddenly turn pale, change the conversation, make random replies, and leave you in the lurch ; and, for a long time after, you will be a lucky man if you see, or hear from, him.
The fact is, that most men do not desire to confer benefits on others ; for, in the first place, the bestowal of benefits involves trouble ; and besides that, the misfortunes of our friends never fail to give us a certain satisfaction. ...
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In this world nothing is more rare than a person who is habitually endurable.
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Bion, the humorous philosopher of Borysthenes, used to say that it was impossible to please the multitude except by becoming a savoury pasty, or a generous wine. And yet, while society exists, this impossibility will continue to be pursued, even by those who profess not to pursue it, and sometimes even by those who honestly believe they do not pursue it. In the same way, so long as the human race shall endure, the wisest of men will persevere in the pursuit of happiness, and in the vain hope of attaining it.
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Mr.Maughan,thank you so much for this post.I think Leopardi is one of the greatest pessimists ever.

Thanks Maughan.  I have been really enjoying the Count late into the night, going back and forth between this and Darkness at Noon.

While reading the Count, I am aware that he and Schopenhauer were alive at the same time.  Do you think either was aware of the other? 

Since the Edwardes transalation is missing the Thoughts, I am even more appreciative of the typing you have done here from that.

There is a 112 page paperback edition of "Thoughts" which I think I may treat myself to ... There is a copy available for about 5 bucks (plus shipping).

Actually, this is the same copy from across the pond in the UK: through abe books it is a little less.

I think the translator is J.G. Nichols with an introduction by a Edoardo Albinati.

It is so slim, I may be able to squeeze it between Schopenhauer and Cioran ... which would be kind of symbolic, as in "last but not least" and "dynamite comes in small packages".

Thanks again.  I do enjoy hearing the Count repeatedly state that there is no possiblility for happiness for anyone.  It is such a relief to read this, and more people should face this brute fact rather than moping about their own personal fate or believing the lies of "celebrity culture" with their shiny teeth, worshipped automobiles, and self-delusion about having "made it big"  - which I find such an insult to our collective intelligence!  Since we all know the score ... the total vanity of existence!



I was coding all day like a madman (fractions calculator in C++), but I must stop now.  I must turn off the computer and ease into the twilight with a little Leopardi and some Koestler.

I wish I could upload some of my code here, but it is problematic.

I send it to my nephew in Ecuador in hopes that he will compile it and check it out, but, alas, he may not be interested in such things anymore.

This message board is some consolation and comfort.

I don't mind living isolated in my own little world, but it is cool to have Holden, Raul, and you to exchange some thoughts with ... as Holden says, we are like the prisoners in Darkness at Noon sending messages through the walls of our cells.

Peace.
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PS:  I appreciate the comparison you did so I knew to track down the missing Thoughts.   I ordered the copy from the UK (through A b e B o o k s), and it should arrive in about a month.

Two reviews from A m a z o n:

By Caraculiambroon November 29, 2009:

gloom and doom in the style of the Pensees

I discovered this long ago -- quite by accident -- deep in my college library and have always wanted to own a copy. It's the reflections of an Italian poet who lived around the time of Byron.

The dude was bleak. You thought Marcus Aurelius was bad? These are some of the most depressing little apercus you're ever gonna read.

Here's a sample of his irremediable blackness:

"Man is condemned either to consume his youth (which is the only time to store up fruit for the years to come and make provision for himself) without a purpose, or to waste it in procuring enjoyments for that part of his life in which he will no longer be capable of enjoyment." (p. 37)

In fact, this volume, consisting mainly of one such reflection after another, is so bleak it's almost comic. But, as Housman's Mithridates discovered, it can be salubrious in small doses.

The author's oft-anthologized poem, "The Broom," brings up the rear of this slim volume.

It may interest you to know that Leopardi, at least according to his blurb in "The Norton Anthology of Western Literature," is said to have studied so assiduously that he morphed into a nearly-blind hunchback (hence his gloom), eventually dying of despair.

This has long made me wonder if it really is medically possible not merely to study so much that you become a hunchback, but to actually die of despair. Sounds like his doctors were more familiar with poetry than they were with simple physiology.

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Neglected classic of pessimism now available in English

Leopardi's _Thoughts_ (Pensieri) combines the aphoristic style of Pascal and other French moralists with the pessimistic world-view that inspired Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and other 19th century readers of his work. Leopardi in Italy occupies a place equivalent to Emerson in the US: read by every schoolchild and understood by almost none of them, yet still taken as emblematic of the national spirit. His pessimism may be absolute but it is also intensely spirited and does point towards resignation but rather towards exhiliartion. Everyone should read this book, along with his other work of prose, the _Moral Essays_.

Thanks for answering my question, Holden.

"While reading the Count, I am aware that he and Schopenhauer were alive at the same time.  Do you think either was aware of the other?"

If Schopenhauer was aware of Leopardi, then surely Leopardi was aware of Schopenhauer, no? 

From the biography by Cartwright I learned about Schopenhauer's fascination with Italy.   I thought that maybe that is where he went to sow his wild oats (most likely).

By the way, I finally came across a copy of a book I had long since given to a cousin back in 1995 or so, a cousin I no longer keep in touch with.

I had missed the book.  Keep a look out for it in those used book stores out there or even on the Internet - The Dark Side: Thoughts on the futility of life from the Ancient Greeks to the present by Alan R. Pratt.

As for laughter, there is some kind of ironic twist in the Count's lamentations when he makes the point over and over again that all a human being wants is happiness, and yet this is one thing that simply is not even a remote possibility due to the inherent nature of what it means to be a living organism with consciousness.

It is not so remarkable after all that much of what he points out is echoed in the everyday saying of everyday people, such as "We're so fuucked ..." or "Life suucks and then you die ..." or "Life is a slow death from the moment we are born ...".

"Life is a biitch." 

Nietzsche even said, "Life is a woman."

So, these things are clear to all from time to time.  It has to be.

What I have enjoyed about what I have read so far of Leopardi's prose is that he is not fooled in the least by anyone's claims to be "happy."

That is where the laughter comes in.  You see, some people fool themselves by thinking they can fool others.

People will argue that they are happy.

I myself, I am surprisingly "content" - BUT ...

... what about moment to moment existence?  No fuucking way.  There is no way anyone can deny the inherent anxiety that remains beneath the surface 9 minutes out of every 10 minutes we sit here existing.

Misery.

So, if we laugh, we are not so much laughing at the misfortune of having been born or unsympathetically mocking the most horrific experiences endured by all the creatures born into this slop and slime. 

It's not a happy kind of laughter.

It's more of an "enlightenment kind of laughter," like when you understand a paradox.

It is kind of funny that those who fancy themselves "good looking" suffer more from vanity than those who do not care what they look like to others.   It is also funny how one can be comfortable in an untidy room, while another frantically and neurotically cleans all the time with every statue in place ...

I think it's funny that there is no God.  That's hilarious to me.   All these people go around talking about something as if they have some inside information.  They fool the children, but they don't fool me in the least.

I find them funny - or, I should say, I find IT funny that I can know I am right about this without any fear of retribution ... Just try to avoid the fanatics, and don't go around displaying your insight into the lies people tell themselves to make each moment more bearable.

    

No doubt many fear "Nature" and worship Her as one might worship the demonic to gain their favor, but the mighty oceans and the elements do not have any such "human" concerns.  These kinds of ideas are explored in Leopardi's prose.  I found DIALOGUE BETWEEN NATURE AND AN ICELANDER gave me a this kind of "mental laughter," one which the frontal lobes in the neocortex is able to smirk at.  Most likely though, this is not going to provide the full-body gutteral laughter.

It's a relief to hear someone freely express their complaints to a personified "Nature" (the gods?) and to hear Nature say, "You seem to mistakenly think this creation was for your amusement or for your pleasure.  It has nothing to do with you."

The joke is on us.  Do we get the joke or not?

There are so many of the ironies which no power on earth can take from us as long as we are living.  The so-called rich and powerful are often the most enslaved by their own tendencies to worship authority.   

Old age is to be feared, not death; and yet every fiber of our organism resists death. 

I hear some tribes in Africa celebrate death and mourn birth.  They really get it.

I suppose there are a great many of us who feel as though we ourselves are some kind of joke, but it must be universal, don't you think?

A Leopardi of the United States from the earlier half of the 1800's?   Not that I know of.

The was HL Menken about 100 years later, but I would say he was more political than pessimistic.

"School teachers, taking them by and large, are probably the most ignorant and stupid class of men in the whole group of mental workers."  ~ HL Menken

"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth."  ~ HL Mencken

I went into my hometown to see how my dad is holding up after his surgery.  He has lost too much weight.  Normally he was over 160 pounds (nearly 6 feet tall).   He is down to my weight, which has been 135 for many years (but I am only 5 ft 7 inches).  It was tough to see his face sunken in and body becoming bony, but he seems to be adapting to whatever it is his body has been through.  It is difficult for him to eat.

I was telling him the Leopardi story, Dialogue Between Nature and the Icelander, and my sister kind of intervened at one point.   We rarely discuss anything having to do with anything too serious or philosophical since we are well aware of our complete disagreement when it comes to certain things, since we are both set in our views, and she is ultra Catholic and all too sure of herself, never even considering the possibility that I sincerely doubt she has actual conversations with or a "realtionship" with whatever it is our people call "God," where as I am quite hostile to any sanctimonious prentions.   Anyway, I forget how it came up.  I think I was explaining how long ago I figured out I would prefer giving things up than striving to "earn more money".    For instance, if one requires an automobile to keep a job, or needs a better job to afford an automobile, I figured I was better off on government relief and living without a motor vehicle.

I was better off not having any desire for children or a wife.   So, I said that, now that my (our) mother needs me, I feel obligated to remain alive, but one day, when no one needs me around, I will be free to do as old natives once did, when they would wander up the mountain to die in the snow.

She said that my life is not my own to take, and that it belongs to the Creator.   I said that the creature has the power to end the creation altogether.

Anyway, finally I stood up saying, "I don't believe in God!"

"You will see when you die."

"No I won't!" I said as I stormed away trying to compose myself.

Anyway, it helps that I am sober.  In the past such scenes would get ugly.  My emotions are more tame now.

So, I intend to get my father some comfortable shoes, some "Skechers."

I feel a little bad that my sister and I argued in fromt of him.  He depends on her now for everything, and I do appreciate that she is caring for him.

It's just hard for me to keep quiet about how I feel about the religious nonsense.   I don't think people who believe in God are on the moral high ground.   To be honest, I despize their faith.  I find it kind of insulting that believers fancy that they have something that I might benefit from if only I would believe as they do.

I was not upset or even angry.  I just felt the need to speak my mind at the moment.

For so many years she has had this ultra-judgemental atitude, as though she were some kind of religious authority - the Soul Police.

In moments when we disagree, she likes to accuse me of having no "love" within me.

What is this word?   Is it another empty word like the word God?

It is best to isolate if you have lost the ability to humor the religiously deluded.

I do not want to hurt her feelings, so I feel a little bad when I stand up and protest sanctimonious bullshiit.   I wish I had even more self-restraint than I do.  This is very tricky ground, really.  That's why I prefer thinking about mathematics and pregramming.  I don't like to think about certain things like religious sanctimoniousness since it tends to make me angry.  I would prefer not to be angry or mean-spirited.  You know, I kind of feel bad, but then, I do not want to be affected by this long term divide that exists. 

I repect Schopenhauer for his unapologetic atheism, and I suspect that Leopardi was also one who just had a natural tendency to see through the tricky lies that pass for holiness.  It can be very frustrating.  Perhaps, were I born into a different culture, I might have been decapitated by now for not submitting to parrot the praises ...

There's no use in my losing any sleep over it.

The thing is, in an actual prison there tends to be even more religiosity than in "free solciety," so one has to be even more careful not to cause offence.  Remember the booldy fist fight Raskolnikov gets into in Crime and Punishment when the other prsioners hate him for being some kind of "atheist"?

I wonder if the religious can fathom just how liberating it is to say aloud, "I don't believe in God."

Meanwhile my father is not doing well but has already lived longer than any male in our family before.  My grandfather passed at 70 and his father committed suicide at around 55.

I wish I could make everything alright, but, as you know, Raul, things are never "alright".

My sister is taking care of my father.  This is commendable.   I wish I could learn to just keep quiet.
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"I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking."  ~ H. L. Mencken

"A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents."   ~ H. L. Mencken

"It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry."   ~  H. L. Mencken

From A Letter to Will Durant:

    As for religion, I am quite devoid of it. Never in my adult life have I experienced anything that could be plausibly called a religious impulse. My father and grandfather were agnostics before me, and though I was sent to Sunday-school as a boy and exposed to the Christian theology I was never taught to believe it. My father thought that I should learn what it was, but it apparently never occurred to him that I would accept it. He was a good psychologist. What I got in Sunday-school—beside a wide acquaintance with Christian hymnology—was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and the Christian God preposterous. Since that time I have read a great deal in theology—perhaps much more than the average clergyman—but I have never discovered any reason to change my mind.

    The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling. It involves grovelling before a Being who, if He really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected. I see little evidence in this world of the so-called goodness of God. On the contrary, it seems to me that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down a most cruel, stupid and villainous fellow. I can say this with a clear conscience, for He has treated me very well—in fact, with vast politeness. But I can’t help thinking of his barbaric torture of most of the rest of humanity. I simply can’t imagine revering the God of war and politics, theology and cancer.

    I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it. The belief in it issues from the puerile egos of inferior men. In its Christian form it is little more than a device for getting revenge upon those who are having a better time on this earth. What the meaning of human life may be I don’t know: I incline to suspect that it has none. All I know about it is that, to me at least, it is very amusing while it lasts. Even its troubles, indeed, can be amusing. Moreover, they tend to foster the human qualities that I admire most—courage and its analogues. The noblest man, I think, is that one who fights God, and triumphs over Him. I have had little of this to do. When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness. No show, however good, could conceivably be good for ever.

    Sincerely yours,

    H. L. Mencken

Thanks for clearing that up for me, Holden.  Yes, I understand that Leopardi would have been long dead before the word became aware of Schopenhauer.  Hell, even in our lifetime, as a teen I knew of Nietzsche somewhat, but I learned of Schopenhauer quite by accident.  I guess I was about 24 or so when I first discovered his writings.  When I inquired at the library headquarters, they had to retrieve World as Will and Idea (the old version) from their basement and I could only keep it for two weeks.

Back then, in 1991, books were not as easy to get ahold of.  My uncle was working in New York City at the time, and he was able to get volumes one and two of the Payne translation of The World as Will and Representation for me.  Even though we do not keep in touch these days, I am still indebted to him.  He knew the Payne edition was superior, especially with the index in volume 2.

It is Schopenhauer who saved me from what I find so maddening about "religion".

I am amazed now, with the Internet, to witness that he has a following.

There is just something so conspiratorial about the way certain believers go about restricting and condeming the thoughts of free thinkers.

Do you know much about Leopardi?  Did he openly renounce any faith in God or was he a more subtle kind of heretic?

Thanks for your thoughtful and insightful post, Holden.

I especially like your final statement, "The question is not :whether one is an atheist or not,but rather, supposing one is an atheist - then of what kind? Dawkins kind or Leopardi kind."

I would like to add, the Buddhist kind.  Hence, atheism and the religious impulse are not mutually exclusive.  Like book smarts and street smarts, one is not necessarily either one or the other but could be both.  A Buddhist is at once religious and atheistic.

I am neither a Buddhist nor a member of any "Atheist (with a capital A) organization", and yet I am the Buddhistic kind of atheist. 

I would like to draw attention to what HL Mecken had written so you will appreciate the source of what I am to type as "paraphrasing Mecken" :

    The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling. It involves grovelling before a Being who, if He really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected.   I see little evidence in this world of the so-called goodness of God.   On the contrary, it seems to me that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down a most cruel, stupid and villainous fellow. I can say this with a clear conscience, for He has treated me very well—in fact, with vast politeness. But I can’t help thinking of his barbaric torture of most of the rest of humanity. I simply can’t imagine revering the God of war and politics, theology and cancer.

The act of worship, as carried on by New Age Nature Worshippers, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling.   It involves grovelling before a Being who, if She really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected.   I see little evidence in this world of the so-called goodness of Nature.   On the contrary, it seems to me that, on the strength of Her daily acts, She must be set down a most cruel, stupid and villainous biitch.   I can say this with a clear conscience, for She has treated me very well — in fact, with vast politeness.  But I can’t help thinking of Her barbaric torture of most of the rest of humanity.   I simply can’t imagine revering the author of slime, mucus, sperm, feces, blood, hunger, fear, or even the very head on my shoulders.

How did I feel while writing that?  I felt like a creature in a botched experiment who was at long last calling Dr Frankenstein, his Creator, a blind demon responsible for the existence which has become a burden to him, rather than revering him as some kind of "Master".

There are three words I would like to utter as an act of blasphemy in response to the sanctimonious uttering of "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," which is the title of a chapter from Christianity: The Devil's Greatest Trick (The Anti-Christian Series Book 4) :  In the name of Sex, Death, and Shiit.

This is not to say I am not grateful for tobacco, coffee, eggs, chickens, fish, blankets and pillows, math books, computers, notebooks, pencils, etc ... (not to mention canned prune juice).   I am utterly grateful for all I have been blessed with.  It's just, on a whole, I generally want to "keep it real."

While I appreciate your (Holden) respect for the understanding Schopenhauer had for the kernel of truth hiding at the core of what we call Christianity, I just find something wicked in the way one is thrown into this world and then judged a sinner for possessing attributes that were supposedly designed by the very Being who is credited with having created these attributes in the first place.  It just too much of a mind fuuck!

Oh, Heavenly Father, please forgive ME for YOUR sins ...

(I use the word sin here with it's original meaning, as in when an archer shooting an arrow at a target missing the target altogether) - unless of course, the purpose was that all the creatures in the Creation live in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety.