Cosmic Pessimism

by Eugene Thacker

“We’re doomed.” So begins the work of the philosopher whose unabashed and aphoristic indictments of the human condition have been cropping up recently in popular culture. Today we find ourselves in an increasingly inhospitable world that is, at the same time, starkly indifferent to our species-specific hopes, desires, and disappointments. In the Anthropocene, pessimism is felt everywhere but rarely given its proper place. Though pessimism may be, as Eugene Thacker says, the lowest form of philosophy, it may also contain an enigma central to understanding the horizon of the human. Written in a series of fragments, aphorisms, and prose poems, Thacker’s Cosmic Pessimism explores the varieties of pessimism and its often-conflicted relation to philosophy. “Crying, laughing, sleeping—what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent?”

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Essays, Horror, Religion, Ebooks

55 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2015

About the author

Eugene Thacker is an American philosopher, poet and author. He is Professor of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. His writing is often associated with the philosophy of nihilism and pessimism. Thacker's books include In the Dust of This Planet and Infinite Resignation.

Reviews

[Ty · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lyrical, hypnotizing gem of a book. A dissection of philosophical pessimism featuring the usual suspects: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Cioran, for me this book somehow turns the negation of life into a rather comforting elegy in favor of life.

Maybe it's just the optimist in me...
"Perhaps this is why optimists are often the most severe pessimists — they are optimists that have run out of options."

Perhaps it's the stubborn urge to negate the negation...
"In saying “no” to the world it must eventually negate itself — it is a form of thought that constantly undermines itself."

Or I'm simply at peace with the ever-present juxtaposition in our humanly nature.
"How should one balance the stark, cynical critique of the human condition with explosions of sincerity?"

I have never felt so invigorated reading something that's so depressing. It's like listening to metal; pure catharsis to have my qualms and anxieties materialized in a medium, I absorb it and let it melt the worries in my mind, allowing for a temporary, pleasant blankness to take over, where things are calm and quiet even for just a little while. And now I feel better.

"Nothing you do makes a difference because everything you do makes a difference. Hence, the effects of your actions are hidden from you, even as you deceive yourself into thinking that this time you will outwit the order of things. By having a goal, planning ahead, and thinking things through carefully, we attempt, in a daily Phometheanism, to turn fatality to our advantage, to gain a glimpse of an order that seems buried deeper and deeper in the fabric of the universe."

[d]

The impact of music on a person compels them to put their experience into words. When this fails, the result is a faltering of thought and language that is itself a kind of music. Cioran writes: “Music is everything. God himself is nothing more than an acoustic hallucination.”

Elegante y frío, que no es poco. No me sorprende, las fuentes de este texto son continentales y de otros siglos: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche y Cioran. La forma de elección es el aforismo y el fragmento, que está casi siempre relacionado con el pensamiento a-sistémico, o mejor: imposible. Escribe sobre mis pasiones actuales o futuras: la posibilidad de una vuelta objetiva sobre el universo, el sueño (o su falta), la risa, la dukkha budista y la música. La música, brevemente en esos tres autores, y la música como organizador del cosmos. Estamos hablando de ideas griegas muy antiguas. Sobre la flauta de Schopenhauer:

... But what Nietzsche forgets is the role that the flute has historically played in Greek tragedy. In tragedy, the flute (aulos) is not an instrument of levity and joy, but of solitude and sorrow. The Greek aulos not only expresses the grief of tragic loss, but it does so in a way that renders weeping and singing inseparable from each other. The classicist Nicole Loraux calls this 'the mourning voice'. Set apart from the more official civic rituals of funerary mourning, the mourning voice of Greek tragedy constantly threatens to dissolve song into wailing, music into moaning, and the voice into a primordial, disarticulate anti-music. The mourning voice delineates all the forms of suffering—tears, weeping, sobbing, wailing, moaning, and the convulsions of thought reduced to an elemental unintelligibility.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Gloom is not simply the anxiety that precedes doom. Gloom is atmospheric, climate as much as impression, and if people are also gloomy, this is simply the by-product of an anodyne atmosphere that only incidentally involves human beings. More climatological than psychological, gloom is the
stuff of dim, hazy, overcast skies, of ruins and overgrown tombs, of a misty, lethargic fog that moves with the same languorousness as our own crouched and sullen listening to a disinterested world. In a sense, gloom is the counterpoint to doom — what futility is to the former, fatality is to the latter. Doom is marked by temporality — all things precariously drawn to their end — whereas gloom is the austerity of stillness, all things sad, static, and suspended, hovering over cold lichen stones and damp fir trees. If doom is the terror of temporality and death, then gloom is the horror of a hovering stasis that is life."

[Michael Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful little book which encapsulates the others views of the great pessimists of philosophy; Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Cioran, among others. This is done with brief essays and clever aphorisms dedicated to the "night side of thought", that perpetual "no-saying" to the world, the pessimistic outlook. I found this work, for all the negativity held within it, to be a breath of fresh air. There is something completely new and vital to author Eugene Thacker's approach to philosophy. The language is succinct, never too ornamental, intelligent, but never obfuscating, and wholly engrossing. I would recommend this book to anyone who ever, like me, finds themselves wholly at odds with the world; the doubters, the dour, and the depressives, here is solace and succor for your black hearts and bleak moods.

[Andy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This very brief book contains some interesting commentaries on philosophers, primarily Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Cioran, but I suppose I was hoping for a bit more focus on the cosmic element of cosmic pessimism. The book is full of little aphorisms that purposefully contradict themselves and many brief, evocative prose poems which are interesting but not especially memorable. Probably the best thing about the book was the mentioning of other books along similar ideological lines which might be of interest to the reader.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"WE'RE DOOMED."
That's the starting point of Thacker's 'Cosmic Pessimism'. I didn't expect much except it being a non-fiction work on pessimism. It's Tuesday night and I was partially stressed out because I expected it to be a philosophical text that would need way more time and nerves to fully comprehend but it got unexpectedly enjoyable. I am so glad that I loved it within seconds. It's full of beautiful and well thought out poetic expressions and imagery. It's probably a bit more enjoyable if you're already familiar with the key philosophers he talks about (especially Schopenhauer and Nietzsche) but even if you don't, Thacker does a great job in intoducing their views in an accessible way.

[final muzak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is ideology, philosophy, politics, all just one grandiose way of coping? Probably. I’d go so far as to say yes. Is that what this book is? Maybe. That doesn’t mean it won’t hold up, though, as it has some valuable things to say. While I didn’t think this was one of Thacker’s best, I still think he’s a phenomenal author that is absolutely worth reading. One way to look at this book is to see it as a half-baked pamphlet full of flimsy ideas, attempting to analyze the tragic core of the universe. Another way, which I prefer, is to realize it as a beautifully done journal with Thacker’s musings that ultimately build up the quintessence of his other works, but almost more personal. This agglomeration of cynical nihilism is quite simple as well, in a manner that is succinct and accessible.

If anything, this is a wonderful add to your collection (as the physical copy is simply gorgeous), or a great introduction for somebody who is just beginning to explore ideas of nihilism or abstract pessimism.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Philosophers are often book lovers, though not all book lovers are alike. The distance that separates the bibliophile from the bibliomaniac is the same distance that separates the optimist from the pessimist.”

A book of aphorisms is always risky because the nature of the format encourages the publishing of some eye roll-worthy shitters, which this book definitely contains. Luckily, Thacker also has some bangers like the above to make up for it.

Entertaining and brief read. Recommended for the 2am bouts of insomnia you have no choice but to sink into.

[Chaunceton Bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is quite a short book—it just took me about an hour and a half to read through it at a leisurely pace. The text structure is as if Mr. Thacker compiled notes of pessimism he jotted down while he rode the train to work. Instead of providing an exegesis on fundamental pessimism, this book(let?) contains the musings of a pessimist. If you're looking for mind-numbing philosophical profundity, this may not be the book for you. If, however, you're a pessimist interested in the poetic perspective of another pessimist, buy this book.

[tout · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feeling pessimistic about pessimism, no-saying no-saying. Why not abandon the sad passions?

[Miguel Lupián · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este ensayo nos demuestra que la brevedad puede ser más impactante que el largo aliento. Aunque en este trabajo Thacker no utiliza ejemplos de libros y películas como en su trilogía del horror de la filosofía, se vale de una síntesis asombrosa para exponer y confrontar a varios filósofos pesimistas, intercalando sus propios conceptos y deslumbrándonos con aforismos poéticos: «A tu alrededor esta noche mil millones de anatomías luciérnagas respiran y exhalan en su litúrgico resplandor que se consume lentamente.» «Desde un horizonte borroso, piscinas mansas de negro basalto perforan las rocas y nuestros propios huesos que se marchitan con suma paciencia. Flujos adormecidos de amnesia salada fluyen a través de nuestras fibrosas extremidades. Nuestros poros todos secretan una salmuera calcinada y errante.» Además, su formato permite llevarlo a todos lados y sumergirse en la oscuridad.

[Ivan Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pessimism's two major keys are moral and metaphysical pessimism....For moral pessimism, it is better to not have been born at all; for metaphysical pessimism, this is the worst of all possible worlds."

"For the pessimist, "the worst" is the propensity for suffering that gradually occludes each living moment, until it is eclipsed entirely, overlaping perfectly in death....which, for the pessimist, is no longer "the worst"."

[Germán · Rating 3 out of 5]

"De haber tenido más seguridad en sí mismo y habilidades sociales más aptas, el pesimismo hubiera tornado su desencanto en una religión, posiblemente autodenominándose El Gran Rechazo. Pero hay una negación en el pesimismo que rechaza incluso ese Rechazo, una conciencia de que, desde el principio, ya ha fracasado y de que la culminación de todo ello es que todo es en balde." (pág. 13)

*

"Yo suelo volver a Kant, pero por las razones opuestas. Cada vez que leo, y soy testigo de la construcción austera y brillante de un sistema, no puedo evitar sentir una cierta tristeza; el propio edificio es en cierto sentido deprimente." (pág. 40)

*

" El abismo de un libro. Empleando las metáforas de la astronomía, Schopenhauer observó una vez que había tres tipos de escritores: meteoros (el fogonazo de las modas y tendencias), planetas (la rotación fiel a la tradición) y las estrellas fijas (impertérritas y firmes). Pero en los propios escritos de Schopenhauer— aforismos, fragmentos, pensamientos deshilachados—, uno se da demasiada cuenta de que, al cabo, todo escrito se niega a sí mismo, bien para ser olvidado bien por ser tan preciso que su resultado es el silencio.
¿Se daba cuenta Schopenhauer de que él mismo era un cuarto tipo de escritor: el agujero negro?" (pág. 49)

*

"Todas las personas tienen un punto a partir del cual ya no vale la pena vivir la vida. En este sentido, todos somos pesimistas encubiertos." (pág. 69)

[Christian Molenaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book so focused on darkness, Thacker’s delivery is surprisingly cutesy, at times even approaching precious about his downer outlook. Occasional glimpses of his characteristic black humor enliven what would otherwise be a slog through a series of glumly repetitive oxymorons—except for when that backfires and the aphorisms shift their focus to overly clever wordplay. A mixed bag overall, burying some of Thacker’s most impactful, direct statements inside pages of grim bloviating.

[Roadie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like some of Thackers other work, but this collection of random thoughts was not on par with that. Some of his thoughts are interesting but most of this (btw NOT a book, a large pamphlet really) is just fleeting thoughts that never really come to a conclusion or come together at all. Skip this.

[Diego Sánchez Pérez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este libro es como una recopilación sobre el tema del pesimismo como algo muy importante dentro de la forma de redactar filosofía. Directo hasta la medula.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pessimistic Americans are an oxymoron claims the author but still Thacker proceeds. After diminishing pessimism as the lowest form of philosophy and remarking on how unpopular downer sentiments are he touches on such topics as metaphysical and moral pessimism, fatality and futility, gloom and doom, and spite.

Three key pairings of pessimistic philosophy are identified; Schopenhauer and tears, Nietzsche and laughter, and Cioran and sleep.

He can be a little convoluted in his writing but a scholarly appraisal of these themes is welcome. Plus his books have cool titles.*

*Review written while wearing an In The Dust of This Planet T-shirt.

[baby · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is very northwest, cute and comforting for those who love to complain, makes me miss the rain, etc. "what is philosophy if not just a bad mood."

[Diego Noriega · Rating 2 out of 5]

No sé si es el pesimismo en sí o el estilo del autor, pero este tipo de libros ya no son para mí.

[Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tengo que leer más de Thacker, lo único malo de este libro es que es demasiado corto.

[Emma Nebelung · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a rather short and doleful book. The author remarked on some important figures in pessimistic philosophy and their thinking with utter emotions and passion. 


I do love the poetic attitude of the author, but no amount of poems can save a philosopher who's lacking logicality. I could not call this an essay on "Cosmic Pessimism", because the idea of this philosophy was merely mentioned at the beginning, and then the author quickly digressed from this subject. The rest of the book feels like a college essay written by someone who's still indecisive about the topic. It is a missed opportunity for Eugene Thacker to not establish his theory on Cosmic Pessimism, since he is the inventor of this word.


Nevertheless, there are still many interesting remarks in this book that are worth your time.

[Jack · Rating 1 out of 5]

"People lost in thought resemble corpses."

Not sure if this guy has seen much of either.

[chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crying, laughing, sleeping -- what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent?

Doom is not just the sense that all things will turn out badly, but that all things inevitably come to an end, irrespective of whether or not they really do come to an end. What emerges from doom is a sense of the unhuman as an attractor, a horizon towards which the human is fatally drawn. Doom is humanity given over to unhumanity in an act of crystalline self-abnegation.
Gloom is not simply the anxiety that precedes doom. Gloom is atmospheric, climate as much as impression, and if people are also gloomy, this is simply the by-product of an anodyne atmosphere that only incidentally involves human beings. More climatological than psychological, gloom is the stuff of dim, hazy, overcast skies, of ruins and overgrown tombs, of a misty, lethargic fog that moves with the same languorousness as our own crouched and sullen listening to a disinterested world.

There is an intolerance in pessimism that knows no bounds. In pessimism spite begins by fixing on a particular object of spite -- someone one hardly knows, or someone one knows too well; a spite for this person or a spite for all of humanity; a spectacular or a banal spite; a spite for a noisy neighbor, a yapping dog, a battalion of strollers, the meandering idiot walking in front of you on their smart phone, large loud celebrations, traumatic injustices anywhere in the world regurgitated as media blitz, spite for the self-absorbed and overly performative people talking way too loud at the table next to you, technical difficulties and troubleshooting, the reduction of everything to branding, spite of the refusal to admit one's own errors, of self-help books, of people who know absolutely everything and make sure to tell you, of all people, all living beings, all things, the world, the spiteful planet, the inanity of existence...

Spite is the motor of pessimism because it is so egalitarian, so expansive, it runs amok, stumbling across intuitions that can only half-heartedly be called philosophical. Spite lacks the confidence and the clarity of hatred, but it also lacks the almost cordial judgment of dislike. For the pessimist, the smallest detail can be an indication of a metaphysical futility so vast and funereal that it eclipses pessimism itself -- a spite that pessimism carefully places beyond the horizon of intelligibility, like the experience of dusk, or like the phrase "it is raining jewels and daggers."

The texts of the Pali Canon also contain lists of the different types of happiness -- including the happiness of renunciation and the rather strange happiness of detachment. But Buddhism considers even the different types of happiness as part of dukkha, in this final sense of nothingness or emptiness. Perhaps Schopenhauer understood Buddhism better than he is usually given credit for. Empty sorrow, a lyricism of indifference. The result is a strange, and ultimately untenable, nocturnal form of Buddhism.

Everything dissipates into ether and weightless rains. In the submerged quiet kelp-like crystals wordlessly emerge. Seas of indifference.

Human beings deep in thought look like corpses.

There's a ghost that grows inside of us, damaged in the making, and there's a hunt sprung from necessity, elliptical and drowned. Where the moving quiet of our insomnia offers up each thought, there's a luminous field of grey inertia, and obsidian dreams burnt all the way down.

Impersonal sadness. To become overgrown, like a ruin.

Plankton-fed, sleep-drugged eyes cast down in the direction of the sacred.

In distant stellar mornings, lush, verdantique shapes hover noiselessly on the slightest sound. Entire forests levitate.

Rosary of stars, seaweed skins, the once-warmed, opaque gems of night. Every thought an ember. Sleep descends, sleep ascends.

A sigh is the final stage of lyricism.

The luminous point where logic becomes contemplation. Lost in thought. Dreamless sleep. Adrift in deep space.

A black glow in the deepest sleepwalking seas, invisible like our crystalline joints and our fibrous limbs and as tangible as our tenebrous theaters of doubt.

[VII · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It immediately reminded me of Cioran's work, although as a slightly less lyrical version. This means that my attempt to distill it to the few ideas that I appreciated the most can't be anything other than misleading. This kind of writing is philosophical mostly in the sense that it engages with philosophers or philosophy itself and its lyrical part is constitutive of its meaning. To not over-complicate things, this work gives us, the fellow commuters who think that they can see aspects of Thacker's thinking in ourselves, a certain warmth in our hearts, maybe the same warmth that he got from reading Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Cioran and the rest of the pessimistic writers. Even the drawings are a fitting addition.

There are many wonderful pessimistic quotes, lyrical and unsystematic, but this is what anyone would expect, given the title. What's more interesting is that it is also about books, reading and writing. It starts and ends with something like an apology or a justification for being written. Strictly logically, pessimistic philosophy is self-defeating because it sees everything, thus herself too, as futile. As he says: “it fails to live up to the most basic tenet of philosophy — the “as if.” Think as if it will be helpful, act as if it will make a difference, speak as if there is something to say”. “We didn’t really think we could figure it out, did we? It was just passing time, something to do, a bold gesture put forth in all its fragility, according to rules that we have agreed to forget that we made up in the first place.” It is not surprising then that many pessimistic books are -by design- just fragments. Who knows how many more books of this type were written and lost throughout the ages. But books are all that we have. I was surprised to see him mentioning bibliomania (as opposed to bibliophilia) and tying it with pessimism as it is something that I clearly have. I suppose that by reading, at least you convince yourself you gave it an honest try, even though, obviously, you were looking at the wrong place.

[Minā · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We’re Doomed"
Melancholy of Anatomy. There is a logic of pessimism that is fundamental to its suspicion of philosophical system. pessimism involves a statement about a condition. In pessimism each statement boils down to an affirmation or a negation, just as any condition boils down to the best or the worst.
With Schopenhauer, that arch-pessimist, the thinker for whom the philosopher and the curmudgeon perfectly overlap, we see a no-saying to the worst, a no-saying that secretly covets a yes-saying (through asceticism, mysticism, quietism), even if this hidden yes-saying is a horizon at the limits of comprehension. With Nietzsche comes the pronouncement of a Dionysian pessimism, a pessimism of strength or joy, a yes-saying to the worst, a yes-saying to this world as it is. And with Cioran yet another variation, unavailing yet lyrical, a no-saying to the worst, and a further no-saying to the possibility of any other word, in here or out there. With these one approaches, but never reaches, a studied abandonment of pessimism itself.
The logic of pessimism moves through three refusals: a no-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-for-us, or Schopenhauer’s tears); a yes-saying to the worst (refusal of the world-in-itself or Nietzsche’s laughter); and a no-saying to the for-us and the in-itself (a double refusal, or Cioran’s sleep).
Cosmic Pessimism, Both moral and metaphysical pessimism point to another kind, a pessimism that is neither subjective nor objective, neither for-us nor in-itself, and instead a pessimism of the world-without-us.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unfortunately it’s been a long while since I’ve read anything to completion. I’ve been on a kind of book reading hiatus due to the usual reasons one stops (work, personal life, etc.). In order to start again I wanted something short, familiar, and that I would most likely enjoy. What better way to jump back in than to dive directly into the void with another comforting text on Philosophical Pessimism.

Eugene Thacker’s Cosmic Pessimism is poetic and addictive as it gives the reader a small taste of pessimistic thinking. It’s so small and enjoyable that I finished it in one sitting. I don’t have a lot to say about this one other than it was pleasant haha. It doesn’t really explore cosmic pessimism so much as it discusses different aspects of philosophical pessimism and provide some finely worded aphorisms. I think one page only really mentioned cosmic pessimism at all.

This books feels more like a precursor to Thacker’s later work Infinite Resignation which I finished reading earlier this year. I would recommend going straight to Infinite Resignation unless you are someone new to Thacker and/or philosophical pessimism. I still really enjoyed it as a nice welcome back.

[Dyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded up to 3. I'm feeling generous with my ratings lately.

The style of this wasn't for me. It starts off mostly in long-form text, before dissolving into fragmentations; evidently an attempted homage to Pascal's Pensees. There are several overly try-hard attempts at ~lyrical prose~ fragments - Thackers attempts at manifesting the atmospheric gloom of the phrase "doom and gloom" - however they felt out of place and incommensurate with the rest of the text. As a result it all just fell flat for me.

I also, admittedly, don't feel as if I know enough about either Schopenhauer or Nietzsche to really engage with certain passages of the text. The blurb hadn't specified that a reading of those authors would be required. I got by with my existing (meagre) understanding, but I imagine further reading would have done me better. With that in mind, I'll probably hang on to this, with the intention of picking it up again in the future. Perhaps my frustration at try-hard lyricism will have lessened by then. Or perhaps not. We shall have to see.

[Neen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since my first bout of depression as a teen, I have sought comfort in philosophy. Absurdism with a twinge of pessimism. It brings me internal piece to contemplate life like that, and then keep going. I do not feel depressed when I read pessimist philosophy. My self help is achieved by looking at how pointless it is and deciding not to waste my time being miserable.

I want to buy a physical copy of this book, because I am interested in re-reading it well and truly. The format lends itself to consultation and company.

"There’s a ghost that grows inside of us, damaged in the making, and there’s a hunt sprung from necessity, elliptical and drowned. Where the moving quiet of our insomnia offers up each thought, there’s a luminous field of grey inertia, and obsidian dreams burnt all the way down."

[Philemon - · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kierkegaard: life is a tightrope.
Nietzsche: life is a jump rope.
Kafka: life is a trip rope.
Schopenhauer: life is a noose.
Cioran: life is a noose, improperly tied.

This slim book misses the mark on pessimism, taking it for futility, failure, and spite. Pessimism might better be seen as merely a way of adjusting ones sights in an uncooperative world. Expecting the worst need not imply defeatism; it may be a way of keeping an eye on things, and it may set the stage for enjoying non-horrible things more deeply. We in the West (and the whole world is now the West), live under a capitalist dictate that we all maintain unvarying faith in its heaven on earth in the form of goods and services. Let us shed externally imposed habits of optimism and see what happens.

[Alexander Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes poetry of futility to outline a schema of cosmic pessimism. It isn't a complete thought. Not quite journal entries of incomplete thoughts, not quite manifesto, not quite poetry, and within the aesthetics of the book, this incompleteness and uncertainty is the point.

This is the beginnings of something that will neither complete nor go away and should stand as a warning against the toxic positivity of the contemporary neoliberal / late capitalistic academic theory. A healthy skepticism about the futility and failures of the world is in itself a radical act of awareness. There is an eternal need for something better, and yet the understanding that even in trying things can get much worse. We must attend to our pessimisms.