How Dark Philosophy Makes Life Bearable - Alex O’Connor & Joe Folley

Duration: 10:55 2383 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The podcast explores the concept of dark philosophy, specifically how engaging with pessimistic thinkers can paradoxically make life more bearable rather than depressing. The hosts discuss Emil Cioran, a Romanian-born French writer known for his incredibly bleak works such as *The Trouble with Being Born* and *A Short History of Decay*. While Cioran's worldview is characterized by the belief that suffering is an inherent property of existence, he possesses a unique ability to subtly shift tone within his writing. This allows readers to experience moments of natural lightheartedness amidst profound despair, effectively lowering one's expectations for life. The hosts argue that this lowered stakes creates a form of resilience; if one expects the world to be meaningless and full of suffering, actual misfortunes feel less catastrophic, similar to Seneca's advice to imagine worst-case scenarios beforehand so they do not shock us when they occur. The conversation extends to other figures in dark philosophy, including Arthur Schopenhauer and David Benatar, highlighting how these thinkers systematize feelings that people already experience but often lack the vocabulary for. The hosts note that while some pessimistic philosophies can appear self-indulgent or merely clever branding for depressive thoughts, others offer rigorous logical frameworks. A prime example provided is anti-natalism championed by David Benatar in his book *Better Never to Have Been*. Unlike indulgent writers who simply complain about life's hardships, Benatar presents a structured argument that it is immoral to bring children into existence because non-existence avoids the inevitable suffering of birth and death. This perspective challenges traditional pro-life or pro-choice debates by introducing a third option: anti-life, suggesting that no one should be born even if their potential life contains more pleasure than pain. Benatar's approach also incorporates philosophical considerations regarding disability to illustrate universal suffering. He posits that everyone is disabled in some sense because we lack certain capabilities; for instance, the inability to climb stairs or see colors are forms of deficit relative to a hypothetical ideal state where no one lacks these functions. The hosts describe this as an interesting but somewhat dry and logical take on pessimism, contrasting it with the semi-poetic style often found among other dark philosophers like Schopenhauer, who famously wrote essays that were not jokes despite his controversial views on women. This distinction emphasizes how different philosophical approaches to suffering can range from emotional outbursts to cold, analytical arguments about the morality of existence itself. Ultimately, the discussion concludes with practical advice on approaching philosophy based on personal resonance rather than a rigid curriculum starting with Plato or Aristotle. The hosts suggest that readers should start with philosophers they have already encountered in their daily lives, such as Nietzsche through Jordan Peterson's work, because these figures will likely align better with existing worldviews and provide comfort by making individuals feel less alone in their thoughts. While acknowledging the potential for self-indulgence in lamenting life's troubles, the hosts find value in dark philosophy when it reveals a comedic absurdity to extreme suffering or offers logical clarity on difficult moral questions like anti-natalism. By reading what one has heard of before, listeners can engage with ideas that genuinely resonate, turning potentially crushing philosophical insights into tools for understanding and enduring the human condition.

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There's a lot of memes about philosophy making people depressed. Yeah. The the more that you learn the worse that you see the world. What's the darkest philosophies that you guys have been exposed to? Cioran. I I I mean I I love Cioran. I think that Cioran is Cioran is an incredibly underrated kind of Romanian stroke French. Wrote lots of his work in French but was Romanian kind of adopted France um in his in his later years. >> will make you depressed straight off the bat. >> Well, and and Cioran um comma Emil Emil Cioran. Yes, Emil Cioran. Um writes he's incredibly pessimistic tracks of philosophy. Now, one's called The Trouble with Being Born and others called A Short History of Decay. And he he does kind of incredibly >> Love him already. His first book Sure he's not British. Where is it's it's it's I don't know if it's just because I'm British that it kind of I like it so much. You know, on his first book is called On the Heights of Despair. It's you know, truly melodramatic. Sanguine yeah. One of the things that I find very interesting about about philosophies that are supposedly dark and I'm specifically thinking of the pessimistic philosophies here. People like Schopenhauer and Cioran. Maybe to a lesser extent someone like Philip Mainländer. It's I don't I I don't know. This is this is something I think Cioran is so good at is that oftentimes when you're reading him, he's very good at subtly shifting the scope so that you're reading him and you know, he's he's complaining about about life. You know, his his view on life is is far more pessimistic than my view on life is. It's kind of the characteristic property of life is suffering for a variety of reasons. But he occasionally just this this kind of dark pessimistic outlook breaks through into a kind of natural lightheartedness that I think is is is absolutely amazing. So, one of the things that um one of the things that is interesting I'd say about about reading a pessimistic philosopher is that is that if and I think that nihilism to a certain extent shares this partly that it's kind of framed in in a certain way is that if you know, you don't you're not expecting things to go very well and if you think the characteristic property of the of the world is meaningless suffering well, then to a certain extent like the stakes are kind of lowered. It is sort of it's it's very similar I suppose to that advice that Seneca gave in one of his letters which is to kind of imagine how things are going to go horribly wrong. So that you feel much better when it when it comes to it. >> Low expectations. >> Yes, yeah, yeah. And um I think that on a on a kind of existential level some reading a an incredibly darkly pessimistic philosopher sort of as I say there's there there there is sometimes a moment where it breaks through. I suppose the only way I could kind of try and contextualize this is like have you ever had a like an astonishingly bad day? Just like a comedically bad day. And I do mean like comedic, you know, um you get to like 5:00 and you know, you've been mugged seven times and a car drives by and it kicks up a puddle of dog over your nice suit or whatever. And you can't help but just laugh. Because at that point it's like oh wow, like this is this has become funny. And I think that's that's something that Cioran is very very good at. And that's why you know, I often often talk about him as one of the darkest philosophers of all time. He's also one of the funniest. One of the few philosophers where you can read him and laugh out loud. >> It is hilarious that suffering is dose dependent in that way. Like your response to it U-shaped curve. Too little everything's probably okay. A bit oh god, this sucks. And then too much and you're like ah, it's okay again. It almost leads to frivolity, right? And and that makes it makes it livable. I do think sometimes the more pessimistic philosophers can be a little bit self-indulgent. It's a bit sort of you know, woe is me oh like because you know, I don't know how sophisticated my thoughts are, how deep my engagement with the world is. >> And actually you you just like you you know, you got dumped by your girlfriend and now you're writing about how terrible life is. >> I asked Joe this the last time that we sat down. I often think philosophy is just clever branding for depressive thoughts. It often is but it's it's also often just clever branding for for like any kind of thought. I think it's like you literally just have a thought and you try to systematize it, right? This is why the greatest philosophers, another thing we said before we started, tell you something you already know. If you open Wittgenstein's Tractatus, the first line of the introduction is something like I don't think this book will be useful except to anybody who's already like in agreement with the things that it says. It's just supposed to be sort of elucidating an idea. And so yeah, a lot of the time it is just sort of uh feeling out a vibe, finding someone who puts it into good words and saying oh, I think that person's very >> actually me. I feel less alone. By the way, is why when people ask me for like a recommendation of what philosophy to read or something. If if someone says, you know, where should I start with philosophy? You might be tempted to say okay, well, let's start with Plato, read about Socrates and Aristotle then do a bit of existentialist I just tell people just just literally read what you've heard of. And the reason for that is because these people will have come up in contexts that are relevant to you or of interest to you. Right? So, if you've heard Nietzsche mentioned a bunch of times cuz you're a big Jordan Peterson fan. Like if you like Jordan Peterson and Jordan Peterson obviously likes Nietzsche quite a lot and finds a lot of use in him, you're probably going to find some use in him. Whereas if you just randomly pick one of the great philosophers like if you just pick up Sartre as I did the other day. I told you this and read Existentialism is Existentialism is a Humanism and think this is complete nonsense, that was a complete waste of time. Because you're not going to resonate with it. It's it's not going to strictly speaking convince you unless I think you've already got sort of one one foot in the boat. I did think on the pessimistic philosophers or you said the darkest philosophers which doesn't necessarily Cioran doesn't mean pessimistic, right? Dark philosophy, pessimistic philosophy, what do you mean? I think Schopenhauer comes to mind. He's writing his On the Sufferings of the World. That's that's your sort of indulgent pessimist. I think he had trouble with women for some of his life and he's got this infamous essay on women which would read like a comedy. In fact, one version of his essays I have in the introduction or the preface, the translator says by the way, the essay on women isn't a joke. He's not being sarcastic. This is what he actually thought. Um he comes to mind. >> irony disclaimer. Yeah. So, in but in order to sort of avoid that, I think that a good example of a potentially non-self-indulgent pessimistic philosophy that seems genuinely just philosophical might be something like anti-natalism. The view that it is immoral to have children. David Benatar is the sort of superstar of anti-natalism. Um he wrote a book called Better Never to Have Been which sounds like one of these sort of you know, I'm about to write about how terrible how terrible life is, you know, I wish I was never born. But it's not. It's like philosophically speaking, he tries to make a case that it's just better for no one to be born even if their life is filled with more pleasure than suffering. He thinks that it's still immoral to bring them into existence. Um it's an interesting it's an interesting take. We had a debate about this five years ago in the Barbican. That sounds about right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, when we first met. Uh like canteen at the Barbican and we were having the conversation and people came tried to be social listened for five minutes and then left. And there was just this sort of steady cycle of people coming and going going I I don't this doesn't sound very nice at all. So yeah, Benatar actually probably does fit. A good example of why you might find it dark. I mean, I I I call it dark if you like. I mean, for an anti-natalist, they'll say no, that that I mean the the darkness is that you're you know, unconsensually bringing people into suffering, you know, that's the that's the dark representation of But in terms of how it's perceived, I think that as far as pessimism goes, the idea that it's immoral to have children. I mean, you've heard of like the pro-life and the the pro-choice crowd. Benatar and his crew are like anti-life, you know? Like it's like this sort of third option that everybody forgets about. He he's got some wonderful sort of little tidbits in there. He he takes a divergence into the into the philosophy of disability for a time sort of making a case that in principle we are all disabled in some philosophical sense. >> How are we all disabled? >> It's been a while since I've read it but I think he's sort of imagined so so one way of thinking about this would be like imagine if everybody whose legs worked suddenly just died and the only people left on planet Earth like don't have functioning legs. Maybe not instantly cuz people would have memory but after not very long, it just wouldn't be considered a disability to not have legs because that's just how everybody is. And Benatar sort of imagines in principle the things that we could have that we don't which means that in principle we are disabled in the same way. We just can't So, there are exactly. So, there are all kinds of sufferings that come about in our life like having to climb the stairs which we don't even notice as sufferings. And if you add all of these up, they become pretty significant. It's a it's a bit of a trip um but really interesting. And and I think probably probably dark. The other thing that's that's quite nice about Benatar, I said it was sort of dry earlier and I did mean that as a compliment, sorry. I realize that it's it's that It's nice to like freely and Yes, yeah, yeah. It's it's that Benatar is is very he gives a very logical argument. As in you know, there are there are I would say there are problems with the argument but you know, there's in like it's very clearly laid out in a way that quite a lot of pessimistic philosophers write in sort of semi-poetry. Um Benatar if you're if you're a hardcore analytic fan he's probably probably the pessimist you're going to enjoy. Seems that way I suppose. He also He spoke to him, right? I did. I had him on my show. He doesn't show his face. Yeah, he he doesn't I I I actually don't know if he uses his real name but he doesn't show his face. So, there is also that added element that you you he doesn't want to be seen. Oh, so he's the Sleep Token of the philosophy world. Oh, are they the they mask-wearing Slipknot? Joe, don't make that face. No, no, no, sorry. No, it's I don't I don't know what it is. Very very cool, very popular but this you know, like you know, when you guys start telling me about you know, anesthetists of ancient city and I go oh, yeah, yeah, yeah and I need to nod along like this. This is your turn. Oh, yes. Okay. There we are. Thank you. What's the philosophy of Sleep Token? Um if you go on the Reddit, really deep. Really really really deep. The lore goes hard. I the lore goes hard on on many subreddits. I have a subreddit too which which has some interesting lores of its own. Yeah, yeah. I've seen them. Yeah, you're you've got canon. Yeah, apparently apparently apparently so. 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