“Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerves give to wisdom.”
—Bernard DeVoto
“A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.”
— Schopenhauer
Unlike other animals, we humans possess a heightened sense of self-awareness, along with an uncanny ability to reflect on our own existence and mortality.
This is both a blessing and a curse.
Existential self-awareness has empowered the urge to build mighty civilizations and create art, science, and religions. These structures, unique to humans, enable us to create meaning and purpose. But this peculiar awareness also creates an acute knowledge of our own death, causing existential terror and internal conflict, leading to many of the atrocities and calamities perpetrated by the human race.
As the horror writer Thomas Ligotti put it: “Consciousness is an existential liability, as every pessimist agrees—a blunder of blind nature…that has taken humankind down a black hole of logic. To make it through this life, we must make believe that we are not what we are—contradictory beings whose continuance only worsens our plight as mutants who embody the contorted logic of a paradox.”
As thinkers like Norman O. Brown and Ernest Becker recognized, animals live harmoniously with their instinctual nature in a way that humans do not. We are estranged from our bodies and alienated from nature, living in a state of perpetual lack or dissatisfaction.
As Becker and Brown remind us, existential self-awareness can paradoxically fuel our creative impulses and also trap us in the curse of our self-consciousness, which, for many of us, leads to existential dread, repression, and alienation. As humans, we grapple with that tension: to live creatively with self-awareness while navigating the anxieties evoked by the chasm that lies directly before us.
We know that we are alive on this earth, and we know that one day in the not-so-distant future, we won't be. Every day we live is a day closer to our inevitable fate. The notion of time is what sets you and me apart in the animal kingdom. As Cioran once said, "My mission is to kill time, and time's to kill me in its turn. How comfortable one is among murderers."
The knowledge of death ultimately reveals that we’re not entirely in control of our lives or the conditions of our existence. This is where pessimism comes in, as a reminder of the limitations that define who we are. Without the acceptance of our limitations, Thomas Ligotti writes, “we cannot suffice as functionaries in the big show of conscious existence.”
We are creatures that have emerged from “timeless animality,” condemned to an earthly existence while endowed with the terrible curse of knowing our inevitable fate.
How do we cope?
Many of us cower and seek refuge in the sunny disposition of the optimistic sages (self-help gurus) and the numbing opiate of trivial amusements. We distract and amuse ourselves with endless nonsense in an attempt to evade an encounter with the gaping void that lies beneath the green pastures of life.
As writer John Calder put it, “It is the norm of the Western world to live as if in a dream, through habit and a disciplined timetable, pushing what is unpleasant outside consciousness.”
But what if a deliberate confrontation with the dark side of human existence can do more for us than all the prosaic utterances of the self-help world?
What if a rendezvous with the abyss is the ultimate remedy to the narcotic optimism that deludes the many?
Albert Caraco once wrote that “pessimism has never been in fashion because no order could stand it; it's a luxury of the mind, and thus beyond the reach of the common man.” Of course, this might come across as deeply cynical to the wild-eyed optimists, but it’s a sharp observation about both society and human psychology.
Caraco’s take on pessimism, like Schopenhauer and Emil Cioran, isn’t about wallowing in despair or adopting a nihilistic attitude in daily life. This is important to understand. It’s not about becoming a gloomy little victim to the darkness that is deeply embedded in the world we were born into.
Rather, philosophical pessimism is the hoisting of the mirror up to life’s actualities. It’s a confrontation with reality, a reality stripped of its rosy veneers, a refusal to shy away from the futility, the violence, and the sheer absurdity of much of our existence.
Caraco calls pessimism a “luxury of the mind” because it requires detachment and freedom from the day-to-day survival demands. Work, family obligations, and routine usually consume the hours of the “common man,” that is, you and I, and we typically lack the time and emotional space to reflect on life’s inherent void.
The complete immersion in daily necessities impedes most of our engagement with such existential questions and ideas. For many, Netflix and doomscrolling are a bit more digestible and serve the nerves better. As Nietzsche understood: “The strength of a person's spirit would then be measured by how much 'truth' he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.”
If read correctly, I believe there’s a hard-won vitality in the words of the profound pessimistic prophets. They emanate a potent energy that cuts through the illusions and misconceived notions of reality. They convey an honest assessment of the world, and I think more people would benefit from having the courage and the patience to confront these uncomfortable truths head-on, rather than avoiding them out of habit or fear.
During World War II, Aleksander Wat — the Polish-Jewish poet and intellectual — was arrested by Soviet authorities in 1940. First accused of being a Zionist, then labeled a Trotskyite, he was shuttled between various Soviet prisons. During his long stretches of confinement, he had this to say about the necessity of reading the great pessimistic thinkers:
“I had a great desire to live because I found Nietzsche’s amor fati (love your fate) in every trifle in every book, even the pessimistic ones. The more pessimistic the book, the more pulsating energy, life energy, I felt beneath its surface — as if all of literature were only the praise of life’s beauty, of all of life, as if nature’s many charms were insufficient to dissuade us from suicide, from Ecclesiastes, and from Seneca’s ‘better not to have been born at all but, if born, better to die at once.’”
Mimicking this sentiment, Joshua Foa Dienstag writes, “In the right hands, pessimism can be—and has been—an energizing and even a liberating philosophy. While it does indeed ask us to limit and eliminate some of our hopes and expectations, it can also provide us with the means to better navigate the bounded universe it describes.”
In truth, as I’ve pointed out, we’re all human beings endowed with a unique awareness of our own mortality. This knowledge stirs a deep-seated terror that we tend to manage by constructing elaborate systems—religions, ideologies, nationalisms, even careers and family legacies—that give us the illusion of meaning, permanence, and significance. These are what Ernest Becker calls "immortality projects," and they function to distract us from the terror of our finite existence.
It’s a hard pill to swallow to realize that the stories of progress and purpose we rely on might be mere illusions, albeit necessary illusions, that serve our need for significance. Cioran understood this when he wrote that “we last only as long as our fictions.” Or, as Ernest Becker bluntly put it, “life is possible only with illusions.”
If we let ourselves truly sit with the idea that life might lack any grand meaning and that suffering is just part of the deal, it shakes the foundations of everything we’re told to hope for. It’s unsettling. But there’s something liberating in facing that crack in the facade head-on. The consequence of turning a blind eye to the more disturbing aspects of the human condition not only breeds lifelessness but also a superficial awareness of the world.
As Ernest Becker well understood:
"The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive."
That’s why it’s essential to read the great pessimistic thinkers. In a world filled with chaos, lunacy, and disenchantment, it’s the pessimists who offer us ideas on how to grapple with the uncomfortable truths that lie beyond the utopian dreams of progress.
Their aim is not to depress us or throw us into despair, but rather to “fortify us for the life that lies ahead.” They help temper excessive optimism and encourage a more balanced worldview, as well as a preparedness for life’s challenges without dismissing the possibility of joy or fulfillment.
Philosophical pessimism is not born of sorrow and despair. It cleanses the lens through which we look at the world. It challenges the optimistic trappings of our social existence. Provides clarity. And acts, more or less, as “a philosophy of personal conduct adapted to an unresponsive world.”
To most people, pessimism is thought of as an agonizing cry of the defeated. But it’s not. It’s a philosophical calling for us to accept the inherent contradictions of temporal life. It’s a life practice designed to meet the challenges in a world of chaos, uncertainty, and mayhem.
In the words of Joshua Foa Dienstag, “Pessimism fortifies us, not against the effects of time itself (death, change, suffering), but against the possible dispiriting that can come from facing time and its effects in pessimism’s absence. It looks toward the future, not with the expectation that better things are foreordained, but with a hope founded only on taking joy in the constant processes of transformation and destruction that mark out the human condition.”
Below is a curated list of some profound works by a few of my favorite pessimistic thinkers and writers. I hope you have the time to explore a few of them.
Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit by Joshua Foa Dienstag
The Conspiracy against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals by John Gray
The Trouble with Being Born by Emil Cioran
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
The Philosophy of Redemption by Philipp Mainländer
Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer
The Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno
Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering by Mara van der Lugt
The Philosophy of Samuel Beckett by John Calder