Author Topic: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)  (Read 3598 times)

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Nation of One

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  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Alan R. Pratt wrote

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Schopenhauer was a brooding loner whose shrewd insights have had a profound impact on modern man's sense of self-worth.  Extreme pessimism, he argued, is the only outlook from which the world can be viewed objectively.  Optimism, Schopenhauer wrote, is not merely absurdly naive, but is a "really wicked way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the unspeakable sufferings of mankind."  His stark vision of the world, stripped of romantic and idealistic pretense, is at once terrifying and fascinating. 

Imagining himself the successor of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer was convinced that he had ascertained the "thing-in-itself," the metaphysical ground which underlies all reality - and it was totally evil, reducing human life to a stupid, self-defeating struggle.  The principle from which the world is formed is the Will, a blind, rapacious energy with no ultimate purpose or design other than gratification.  All the desires and motivations of mankind, all nature, in fact, are manifestations of Will.  The human body itself is Will objectified, a tool by which the Will manipulates and destroys to satisfy its primitive cravings.  Thus, each individual is locked in mortal combat with all other particular wills, competing for the resources that permit fleeting moments of satisfaction that must end in disillusionment and boredom.

While the Will constantly strives for satisfaction, it can never gratify its desires; it is ceaseless exertion and energy expended without purpose.  Thus, "all life is suffering."  Even if all myriad evils of the world were eliminated, boredom would immediately occupy their place.  Progress is a myth; human existence is a wholly meaningless enterprise, and man is doomed to an eternal round of frustration, strife, and misery.  Suicide then?  Suicide is a futile and foolish act because it merely eliminates the individual, not the entire wretched species.
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« Last Edit: August 18, 2017, 07:38:30 pm by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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