Superdeterminist
Enlightened
- Apr 5, 2020
- 1,877
I recently stumbled upon the Youtube Channel Pessimism Daily which regularly posts pessimistic quotes. It's really a catalogue of excerpts from the writings and sayings of various authors, thinkers, and philosophers of the past as well as present, speaking to the abundance of suffering in our world, the profound asymmetry of pain and pleasure, and questioning the 'goodness' which many allege life to possess. Many if not all of the individuals featured were or would have probably been sympathetic to suicide as an act. I think that many or most of you will find so much resonance with these quotes, as I have. I take heart in them because they're a reminder that I'm not alone in suspecting that perhaps life when viewed in the aggregate, isn't so beautiful after all.
Here's one of my favourites taken from the channel - an excerpt from the essay The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life, by American philosopher William James (1842 - 1910):
"If the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which [...] millions [were] kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, [...] even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?"
Here's one of my favourites taken from the channel - an excerpt from the essay The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life, by American philosopher William James (1842 - 1910):
"If the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which [...] millions [were] kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, [...] even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?"
I would love to hear your favourite pessimistic sayings as well.
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