Schopenhauer

Another passage from Nihilism before Nietzsche, that I found pretty amusing in its despair. (Is there something wrong with me since I read these words with a barely contained glee?) Anyway, not completely on topic, but it's good stuff nonetheless.

The world in Schopenhauer's view has a demonic heart of darkness at odds with human happiness. At eighteen, Schopenhauer asked himself if God created the world and concluded that the world was in fact the work of the devil. This opinion was tempered in his later thought but still reflects a profound moment of his fundamental insight. Eichenwal, a Russian Schopenhauerian, described this element of Schopenhauer's thought in 1910: "Something meaningless and lawless lurks in the world's foundation--hence, the world cannot but lie in evil." Will is not the magic word that unlocks the world, but the name of the enemy of truth and happiness. The will constantly tortures itself without rhyme or reason. It is a monstrous inhuman force that through its blind and aimless activity makes this world into a hell. And even more monstrous is the fact that we ourselves are nothing other than this self-torturing will, that we ourselves in our heart of hearts are this dark, malevolent god.

Standing atop the various objectifications of the will as the most fully individual being, we are the masters and possessors of nature. We live on other beings; their existence is sacrificed to our comfort and enjoyment. However, we are not the happiest but the most miserable of beings. As the most individual being, we are the greatest enemies of our own happiness. Knowledge which shows us so clearly how to attain what we desire shows us as well the infinity of other desirable things that are concealed from beings who live only by their instincts. Each individual seeks only his own aggrandizement and is willing to sacrifice not merely all of nature but all of his fellow human beings to this end. Man, the master of nature, cannot master himself and thus repeatedly inflicts the most terrible suffering upon himself and his fellows.

Human beings have tried to solve this problem. The formation of the state, as Hobbes pointed out, is an attempt to harmonize all interests and wills in the interest of human happiness and prosperity. In Schopenhauer's view, however, there is no political solution, since politics itself is always employed as an instrument of torture by egoistical individuals striving to aggrandize themselves. Moreover, even if a political solution in this conflict were possible, it would not produce happiness, for peace and prosperity lead only to a "life-destroying boredom, a lifeless longing without a definite object, a deadening languor." Life, as Schopenhauer sees it, is thus a constantly prevented dying, and the alertness of man a constantly postponed boredom. There is no way out; the life of every man is a tragedy.

Now I had something to say about all that, but I forgot. I will hope it comes back to me later, and if so, I will post it.