The dirtiest and the most dangerous source of energy available

is nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy and nuclear power are filthy and dangerous spinoff technologies meant as moral whitewashes for the one and only actual use for nuclear tech, insanely destructive and filthy nuclear weapons.

And they are irrefutable proof of the absurd idiocy and viciousness of the human race.

Just saying.

A defense of optimism

Not Leibnitz's extravagance but the far more limited claim that "the good in this state of existence preponderates over the bad."

Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, 1839, chapter 6.

Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation, was published in 1819.

Schopenhauer made an extravagant case that human life, at least, was for each and every one of us a losing game, on hedonist terms.

Historically, most hedonists, though not all - Google Hegesias, "the death persuader" - , have agreed with Epicurus and Henry Sidgwick against Schopenhauer that life is generally and for most of us, for a good while, at least, choiceworthy.

It has been speculated Hegesias was influenced by Buddhism.

About Schopenhauer there is no need for speculation.

(And a very amusing attack on aristocracy in the same chapter.)

About that eternal return

There are books I am glad I have read but would not read again.

There are movies I am glad I have watched but would not want to see again.

I note these things in answer to the pessimists' challenge that no one would want to relive the same life, in endless repetition, for all eternity.

Does it matter that, ex hypothesi, you would each time have forgotten all the previous times, so that subjectively each time would be the first and only time?

Well, think again about reading that book, or seeing that movie.

Repeatedly, again and again, for all eternity.

I think the idea of eternal return of the same book, or the same movie, as disheartening as eternal reruns of the same life, even conceding that each time will seem like the first and only time.

And yet, still, I am glad I read those books and saw those movies.

And am glad to live this life.

Schopenhauer's greatest disciple

Nietzsche is Schopenhauer's greatest student.

He is a profound pessimist whose originality is to rather madly say "Yes" to the very same world from which pessimism has always urged flight.

Reading his biography by Daniel Halevy.

Nietzsche says he is a pessimist in the preface to Human, All Too Human, Part II, aphorism 2.

He says in aphorism 1 that Schopenhauer is his greatest teacher.

He is a pessimist who rejects romanticism, he says.

A pessimist who affirms rather than rejects life.

Sexual desire

It appears that men are more lustful than women and more prone to promiscuity, though, shall we say, the variance is considerable.

It also appears they are notably less engaged with or satisfied by parenthood.

And it seems that, as is appropriate for the breastless and stronger, they are much less accepting of the tasks of infant and child care.

A truly satisfied house husband, as a housewife may be, is a rare thing, even something unbelievable.

Nature has no more interest in what is politically correct than in what is moral or Godly.

Or in our individual interests, happiness, or well-being.

Not worth finishing

For now, anyway, I regret I bought it at that price.

Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy against the Human Race.

A twist on Voltaire

Shades of old Hegesias, known to the history of philosophy as "the Death Persuader."

Who, of course, did not kill himself.

To borrow from Voltaire, the pessimists are not a sect of philosophers but a sect of liars, frauds, deceitful cranks, drama queens, serial killers, and mass murderers by remote control, miniatures of Hannibal the Cannibal talking Miggs into killing himself out of sheer malignity.

Reading Thomas Ligotti, a more transparent fraud, huckster, and malign prankster than most.

The Conspiracy against the Human Race.

"Philosophers" like these are not so different from cult leaders, carnival fortune tellers, notorious spirit mediums, or other sociopaths remorselessly exploiting human weakness.

Ligotti is such a boob he really thinks people could be better or worse off for having been born.

Two questions, confused

Le mythe de Sisyphe.

Camus writes as though life is worthwhile just in case it has meaning.

But the two claims are not generally equivalent.

The shepherd's pie at my local Cheesecake Factory is very worthwhile.

(Camus to the chef, with contempt: "Your shepherd's pie is meaningless.")

Two questions. Or is it three?

Sometimes philosophy is as ridiculous as religion, and its preoccupations just as fantastic. 

There is only one truly serious philosophical problem: the problem of suicide.

To judge whether life is or is not worth the trouble of being lived, that is to respond to the fundamental question of philosophy.

From Le mythe de Sisyphe, by Albert Camus.

The first two sentences, in fact.

My translation.

Can you believe it?

My freshman class were required to read this book the summer before we started at Holy Cross, the fall of 1967.

He writes a scant page later,

The meaning of life is the most pressing of questions.

Mon Dieu!

Freud reputedly said, "As soon as a man asks the meaning of life, he is sick."

Eros and nature

Marlowe's Faust, to Helen.

FAUSTUS.

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium—
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.—

[Kisses her.]

Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!—
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear'd to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

Eros, apart from which there is no bond, though there may well be pleasure.

All part of Nature's plan, you know.

Well, all right; that's a comforting but fraudulent metaphor attributing consciousness, intention, and even wisdom to a person altogether fictitious.

There is no plan.

There is no planner.

A famous biologist, an atheist, wrote a book called "The Blind Watchmaker," the point of which was to refute the argument from design by showing it plays no role in crafting complex living organisms.

The evolution of life is fully explained by random variation and "natural selection," itself a metaphor for the differential effects on reproduction of the challenges of life on organisms differently endowed.

The title did not measure up to the lesson.

There is no watchmaker.

Death with dignity

I recall reading somewhere that when you die your bladder and bowels void, and men get an erection.

Death with dignity?

How do you arrange that?

Reading The Locked Room, Sjowall and Wahloo, perhaps their most tediously leftist novel.

[That is to say it has more langue de bois than the others so far in the order of the series.]

Chapter 11, about Martin Beck's 82 year old mother and her terrible isolation and deterioration in an old folks' home.

Pessimists consider such things and conclude they illustrate, support, or even prove the meaninglessness and vanity of existence.

As to the first, it is true that life in general has no meaning, though in the sense of purpose some lives might, just as some deaths might, have meaning; though neither is any the worse for lacking it, which is by far the normal case.

As to the second, something is futile, unavailing, or vain only relative to a posited aim.

Life cannot be thus vain if it has no such aim to begin with.

But in fact life is what happens while you are thinking of, aiming at, or doing other things.

Or even sleeping.

Such aims, doings, thinkings, and sleepings do not testify, however, to the meaning of life, but only to the meaning, or meanings, of you.

A propos, in its own way, Henry Sidgwick said mere conscious existence is in some measure recognizably agreeable in course of rejecting Schopenhauer's hedonistic pessimism.

A pretty silly thing to say, I agree, of which only a Don would be capable.

But there's a hint, there.

Given fairly clear sailing and the right brain chemistry .  .  .  .

Death comes as a blessing when and only when life has become a curse.

When that is so it is not death but life that betrays us, that is our enemy.

When I was young I was sure I would never commit suicide.

Now that I am older I have seen and taken to heart the crappy hands life can deal us at any age, and what hands are dealt many as they become older than I now am. 

I think again.

But I also consider the impact of my decision, either way, on my wife and others who would survive me, or continue to be stuck with me.

It's not as simple as it seemed when I was 25 and in sterling health.

Weakening of the will to live? Maybe not.

Young marrieds each think secretly, regarding the other, "I hope I out-live you."

But geezers each hope to die first, and even say so.

The young are thinking of what it is to be alive and young.

The old are thinking of what it is to be old and alone.

It's nothing. A woman drowned.

Fable 3/16, La femme noyee.

First, there is the rather brutal misogyny of the saw he refuses.

But then it turns out the illustration and the moral are only more gently misogynist.

Not that I mind a dose of misogyny, now and again, unless it's overdone. 

That's thanks to feminism, by the way, much as my racism, such as it is, is a response to the race hatred of whites by other races.

Fed by liberals, of course, much like feminist man-hating.

Liberal euro-whites and liberal men.

Is misogyny a standard theme of pessimist writing, l wonder?

Think of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

Ie ne ſuis pas de ceux qui diſent,

    Ce n’eſt rien ;

C’eſt une femme qui ſe noye.

Je dis que c’eſt beaucoup ; & ce ſexe vaut bien

Que nous le regrettions, puiſqu’il fait nôtre joye.

Ce que j’avance icy n’eſt point hors de propos ;

    Puiſqu’il s’agit dans cette Fable

    D’une femme qui dans les flots

Avoit fini ſes jours par un ſort déplorable,

    Son Epoux en cherchoit le corps,

    Pour luy rendre en cette avanture

    Les honneurs de la ſepulture.

    Il arriva que ſur les bords

    Du fleuve auteur de ſa diſgrace

Des gens ſe promenoient, ignorans l’accident.

    Ce mary donc leur demandant

S’ils n’avoient de ſa femme apperçu nulle trace ;

Nulle, reprit l’un d’eux ; mais cherchez-la plus bas ;

    Suivez le fil de la riviere.

Un autre repartit : Non, ne le ſuivez pas ;

    Rebrouſſez plutoſt en arriere.

Quelle que ſoit la pente & l’inclination

    Dont l’eau par ſa courſe l’emporte,

    L’eſprit de contradiction

    L’aura fait floter d’autre ſorte.

Cet homme ſe railloit aſſez hors de ſaiſon.

    Quant à l’humeur contrediſante,

    Je ne ſçay s’il avoit raiſon.

    Mais que cette humeur ſoit, ou non,

    Le défaut du ſexe & ſa pente,

    Quiconque avec elle naiſtra,

    Sans faute avec elle mourra,

    Et juſqu’au bout contredira,

    Et, s’il peut, encor par-delà.

In Praise of King Log

La Fontaine, 3/4.

LES GRENOUILLES QUI DEMANDENT UN ROI

            Les Grenouilles, se lassant

            De l'état démocratique,

            Par leurs clameurs firent tant

Que Jupin les soumit au pouvoir monarchique.

Il leur tomba du ciel un Roi tout pacifique :

Ce roi fit toutefois un tel bruit en tombant,

            Que la gent marécageuse,

            Gent fort sotte et fort peureuse,

            S'alla cacher sous les eaux,

            Dans les joncs, dans les roseaux,

            Dans les trous du marécage,

Sans oser de longtemps regarder au visage

Celui qu'elles croyaient être un géant nouveau ;

            Or c'était un Soliveau,

De qui la gravité fit peur à la première

            Qui, de le voir s'aventurant 

            Osa bien quitter sa tanière.

            Elle approcha, mais en tremblant.

Une autre la suivit, une autre en fit autant,

            Il en vint une fourmilière ;

Et leur troupe à la fin se rendit familière,

       Jusqu'à sauter sur l'épaule du Roi.

Le bon Sire le souffre et se tient toujours coi.

Jupin en a bientôt la cervelle rompue :

Donnez-nous, dit ce peuple, un Roi qui se remue.

Le Monarque des Dieux leur envoie une Grue,

            Qui les croque, qui les tue,

            Qui les gobe à son plaisir,

            Et Grenouilles de se plaindre ;

Et Jupin de leur dire : Eh quoi ! votre désir

        À ses lois croit-il nous astreindre ?

        Vous avez dû premièrement

        Garder votre gouvernement  ;

Mais ne l'ayant pas fait, il vous devait suffire

Que votre premier Roi fut débonnaire et doux :

            De celui-ci contentez-vous,

            De peur d'en rencontrer un pire.

The translator, Christopher Wood, remarks that the moral of the fable condemns monarchy, representing the utter inactivity of the utmost indifference as the best that can be hoped for from a king.

That is true.

But the pessimism runs deeper than that.

The direct target, after all, is the folly of the many who, forsaking democracy, demand to be ruled by an autocrat.

In any case, though La Fontaine has made it his own, the fable originates with Aesop.

Google "King Log."

True Detective

Finally saw the last two episodes last night.

My judgment on the series?

Wonderful television for 7.9 hours.

The last few minutes, when Cohle gets religion, are a bitter let-down.

And probably, to be frank, one or both of our heroes should have been killed.

The last word needed to be the vindication of Cohle’s pessimism.

That’s what noir, especially this sort of cosmic noir, is all about.

No happy endings, my friends.

The pithy wisdom of insanity, or animal and human nature compared, with a view to understanding virtue, happiness, and the just or good state, in relation to poverty and wealth

Is it fair to say that, empirically, only the most severely damaged humans choose homelessness?

Alcoholics, drug addicts, the most viciously abused of children, and the mad?

In the ancient world, anyway as far as Hellenistic times, the relation of mentor to pupil was particularly intense and personal, sometimes almost cult-like.

And, as we know, among the common perquisites of cult leadership are these two, that the women - and the men and the children - are yours for the taking and the followers give you all their money.

These thoughts in mind, what are we to make of the Dog Philosopher?

On the other hand, do the homeless write books or compose tragedies?

Might that whole poverty-schtick have been no more than one of his stunts, enduring no more than a few days, weeks, or years?

Or might it have been a regular phase in the Cynic training or career? - an idea that seems not to have occurred to Robin Hard, editor of the Oxford paperback, Diogenes the Cynic, Sayings and Anecdotes.

See his remark that Antisthenes would have had no use for the Cynic robe and backpack and could not himself have taught Cynicism to Diogenes because he was married and owned a house.

But, to be fair, that impoverished dog's life was regarded by the later tradition as at once the whole of the Cynics' life of virtue and happiness and, according to RH, a "short cut" to the very same virtue and happiness advocated by the Stoics, without the trouble of scholarship or the demands of theoretical reflection.

Anyway, the stories of Diogenes cast an odd light on the figure of Socrates and the City of Pigs in Republic, Bk. II, don't they?

Perhaps more sardonically even on Plato's dog-guardians, also in Bk. II.

But also and more significantly on the dichotomies that preoccupied Greek ethics from first to last like those between nature and custom, convention, or culture, between internal and external goods, and between natural and vain desires.

And (thus?) perhaps also on the conventional dichotomy between classical (Hellenic) and post-classical (Hellenistic) philosophy.

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."

The Hellenic/Hellenistic wisdom of Janice Joplin.

And then there are echoes in philosophical pessimism right through the 19th Century.

And there is this.

Anslo Garrick

In episode 9 of Blacklist, Red tells us why he doesn't want to die.

Not a word about fear of death, nothingness, or Hell.

It's all about things he wants to do that, of course, he can't do if he's dead.

That he would not regret missing out on those things if he were dead, while true, is not a reason not to want those things, and wanting them remains reason to stay alive.

In case, having taken Camus too seriously, you were wondering.

Or in case, having read Schopenhauer, you were thinking people live out of fear of death, and find ways to keep busy so as not to be bored by the emptiness and fatuity of existence.

The secret fate of all life

Episode 5 of True Detective.

It's Nietzsche's eternal return of the same or, as Reggie Ledoux puts it to Cohle, "Time is a flat circle."

But of course if there is an eternal succession of repetitions of the same sequence of events time is as linear as you please while events form a circle.

Cohle says we have no recollection of past lives, so it is a secret.

Drama queen that he is, like all pessimists, absurdists, and existentialists, he says bitterly that we are trapped.

Others seem to feel that way about logical determinism, a doctrine Nietzsche ties to the eternal return of the same, revaluing both with his vaunted, "life-affirming" amor fati.

Cohle is not Nietzsche.

And Cohle is not the killer of Dora Lange.

In 2002, the drugstore killer convinces him the true killer of Dora Lange - if it is only one - is still out there and he goes to check out the ruined school he and Hart got distracted from by the hunt for Ledoux in 95.

In 2002, he is trying to finish that unfinished business.

And maybe he still is in 2012, when others think he is that killer.

Contra Nietzsche, bombastic drama queen

It's the assaults of malevolent fortune that don't kill you that can ruin your life and destroy your happiness.

What merely kills you saves you from all further harm.

Against all pessimisms

Death has nothing to teach to life.

It is death that has no meaning.

As for life, it has plenty of affairs of its own to attend to.

It is they that must concern us.

Those beautiful granddaughters on whom you dote will some day be dust in the wind, yes, of course, as will you.

But they are not now dust in the wind.

Now, they are beautiful little girls.

And you are still alive to rejoice in them.

Dote, by all means.