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Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering: What Philosophy Can Tell Us about the Hardest Mystery of All
It’s right there in the Book of “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the Why? Why do we suffer? Why do people die young? Is there any point to our pain, physical or emotional? Do horrors like hurricanes have meaning? In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles that hardest question of all. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, but he also attends closely to the real world we live in. While always taking the question of suffering seriously, Samuelson is just as likely to draw lessons from Bugs Bunny as from Confucius, from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners as from Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. He guides us through the arguments people have offered to answer this fundamental question, explores the many ways that we have tried to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s attempts to find ways to live with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance. Wholly accessible, and thoroughly thought-provoking, Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering is a masterpiece of philosophy, returning the field to its roots—helping us see new ways to understand, explain, and live in our world, fully alive to both its light and its darkness.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 4, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
November 5, 2018
Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering is not, on the surface, an argument for a particular way of rationalizing suffering. Samuelson clearly believes there is a purpose but is circumspect and careful not to favor one creed’s or philosopher’s belief over another. I don’t agree with that assumption, however – that suffering has meaning beyond what an individual might give it in the context of her life. Which is my beef with the book. If the author had limited himself to breaking down the thoughts seven thinkers have had about the matter, I would have enjoyed the book more.
As it is, Samuelson dismisses my point of view in an aside about Epicurus in his chapter on Epictetus and the Stoics.
I’m not being entirely fair. He does spend an admiring chapter with Confucius, for whom I have much respect, and whose view of suffering doesn’t require that it have a purpose:
Another positive about the book is that Samuelson doesn’t solely focus on philosophers and theologians. He looks at how “regular” people (his students, in this case, who come from both the college he teaches at as well as from a group of prisoners he volunteered to teach) respond to suffering.
Overall, I’d recommend the book. Samuelson’s breakdown of the philosophical/religious beliefs he looks at is good and readable. My personal quibbles with the book are just that – personal, and didn’t ultimately detract from the value I got from reading it.
Two asides:
While reading, two authors kept coming to mind. The first is Somerset Maugham, who observed that it is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive. (It’s in one of his essay collections but I can’t remember which one.)
The second author is Walter Miller. In A Canticle for Leibowitz there is a passage in the third part of the book that I Samuelson would have been nodding his head over in agreement. An atom bomb has destroyed Texarkana, near the abbey. A secular aid organization (the Green Star = the Red Cross) has set up a refugee camp. One of the things they provide is euthanasia for people too sick to live, sparing them the agonies of radiation sickness. Dom Zerchi is trying to convince a young mother who, along with her infant, is dying not to take that option:
As it is, Samuelson dismisses my point of view in an aside about Epicurus in his chapter on Epictetus and the Stoics.
I’m not being entirely fair. He does spend an admiring chapter with Confucius, for whom I have much respect, and whose view of suffering doesn’t require that it have a purpose:
Thus, Confucius regards Heaven as having an amoral quality. I’ve been trying to argue that the stubborn fact of pointless suffering is constitutive of being human. Confucius doesn’t argue the point. He simply embodies it. When pointless suffering comes, he cries out. Most fundamentally, this experience of suffering is what launches his whole philosophy: it generates the sympathetic understanding and the ritual propriety that exult human life. The very definition of humanness is our ability to rise above the amoral, if not immoral, energies of nature and create a society where power operates without oppression, where who we are emerges fully in the graceful performance of our relationships to one another. But this humanness can appear and grow only against a backdrop of suffering that overwhelms us. In a sense, Confucius is more Daoist than the Daoists, more Stoic than the Stoics. He doesn’t imaginatively transform pointless suffering into something else; he lets it be just what it presents itself to be. (pp. 200-1)
Another positive about the book is that Samuelson doesn’t solely focus on philosophers and theologians. He looks at how “regular” people (his students, in this case, who come from both the college he teaches at as well as from a group of prisoners he volunteered to teach) respond to suffering.
Overall, I’d recommend the book. Samuelson’s breakdown of the philosophical/religious beliefs he looks at is good and readable. My personal quibbles with the book are just that – personal, and didn’t ultimately detract from the value I got from reading it.
Two asides:
While reading, two authors kept coming to mind. The first is Somerset Maugham, who observed that it is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive. (It’s in one of his essay collections but I can’t remember which one.)
The second author is Walter Miller. In A Canticle for Leibowitz there is a passage in the third part of the book that I Samuelson would have been nodding his head over in agreement. An atom bomb has destroyed Texarkana, near the abbey. A secular aid organization (the Green Star = the Red Cross) has set up a refugee camp. One of the things they provide is euthanasia for people too sick to live, sparing them the agonies of radiation sickness. Dom Zerchi is trying to convince a young mother who, along with her infant, is dying not to take that option:
It is not the pain that is pleasing to God, child, it is the soul’s endurance in faith and hope and love in spite of bodily afflictions that pleases Heaven. Pain is like negative temptation, God is not pleased by temptations that afflict the flesh; He is pleased when the soul rises above the temptation and says, “Go, Satan.” It’s the same with pain, which is often a temptation to despair, anger, loss of faith….[A Canticle is one of the greatest post-Apocalypse novels ever written and you should immediately go out and read it. :-)] [You should also read Maugham!]
September 6, 2021
Sure took me a while to get through this book. But I think reading philosophy is definitely important. It opened my mind up to so many new ways of thinking and way of seeing the world in the light that I have never seen before.
Blog: Literatures and Movies
December 24, 2018
I’m not totally in love with every part of this book (like the chapter on blues) but it’s a lovely tour through several major thought traditions. And I found it salutary during some of the tough moments of being a new parent. Would recommend if you’re interested in this sort of thing.
September 15, 2021
I was both impressed and enriched by Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering. Put simply, Samuelson is very knowledgeable about traditional philosophical ways of thinking about suffering, and presents the material in a very approachable way (likely because he has spent a lot of his time teaching philosophy at community colleges and a prison).
This book does not seek to tell you how to think about suffering, or describe the author's favorite flavor of philosophy. Instead, Samuelson takes a broad look at both modern and perennial thought patterns that have addressed the problem of evil, ie, why bad things happen to good people. Samuelson shows that there are two basic ways of looking at suffering (if you ignore the "forget it" method, haha), either "fix it" or "face it". All paradigms then can be distilled to a rough mixture of the paradox that suffering must happen, but we ought to do our best to reduce it. From this central tenet, the seven philosophies described add shape and coloring along the edges by more heavily trying to fix or face the suffering—Utilitarianism says we should eliminate pointless suffering, the biblical book of Job shows us that suffering points us to God, Confucius says that suffering reveals our humanity, etc.
Samuelson won't tell you how to think, but he will eloquently give you the tools to think for yourself. I was entranced by his first three chapters (on Utilitarianism, Nietzsche, and Ardent), as well as the interlude on the problem of evil. I found the chapter on Job also quite interesting, bringing up points that I hadn't thought of, even after a small group study on the book. I think Samuelson lost his way a bit in the chapters on Epictetus, and I think the chapter on jazz was a bit of a stretch to include next to other heavyweight philosophies (rap could have almost as easily have been included, if the author were so inclined). I also enjoyed that Samuelson did not try to take a deep dive into Christian or Buddhist theology, both of which have a strong background with addressing suffering. Personally, I also liked that Samuelson seemed to have a bias (or at least a strong knowledge) of Christian ideals, but he saved this inclination until a bit later in the book, which was likely a good on-boarding for those who may have scurried away if they thought this was just a Bible-thumping book about suffering. He also had some funny little comments about how the US Constitution is the opposite of Christianity (eg, you can worship whoever you want v. one true God; right to bear arms v. do not murder, etc).
Profound and enlightening. 4.5/5 stars
----SPOILERS and summaries below----
Intro: suffering can be fixed or faced. In modern, Western world, we lean much more heavily towards fixing suffering (because of biomedicine etc) so we often have a tough time accepting that suffering is something that is not wrong to have.
Chapter 1: If life is best when maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, we ought to eliminate pain. Sometimes, however, there needs to be character building challenges that lead to "higher pleasures"
"true love ... is the reconciliation of two seemingly impossible tasks: our beloved must give us everything good that our parents gave, and our beloved must give us everything good our parents failed to give us. True love makes us simultaneously feel at home and on an adventure
Chapter 2: Nietzsche says that suffering is inevitable, and to avoid it would be to eliminate the character building aspects of life. Only the weak avoid suffering. We ought to use suffering to live artfully.
Chapter 3: The rebirth of the problem of evil: if God does not exist, then how can we allow for evil to exist? It is silly to take pride in labor (mindless, difficult work), but to revel in a skilled activity reveals our humanity. Ultimately, by allowing society to be anything less than perfect, we allow suffering to continue existing—yet, instead of being able to ask God, "why me?", we look at our own self-inflicted suffering; hence, we ought to make the world a better place. "In our deprivation, we've been given the opportunity to see what we most need. In our suffering we've been given the chance to renew the world" (page 98).
Interlude on the problem of evil: "If we imagine an "enlightened" use of our technologies such that we allow only so much disease for the good to be preserved and even predominate, wouldn't someone that we allowed to suffer "fairly" from the disease cry out, as once to God, "Why me?"" (page 106). You also cannot have both ultimate freedom and ultimate good. "A genuinely human existence requires a structure of death, suffering, and freedom...To have a line between necessary and unacceptable suffering...will and must appear unfair at some level, at bare minimum to someone on the suffering side..." (page 109).
Chapter 4: Pointless suffering brings us to God. "...pointless suffering makes YHWH free as God, and Job and the rest of us free as human beings...If God's task were simply to reward us for moral action, He'd be our slave, a genie in the bottle of our morality" (page 136). The point is not how to avoid suffering, but how to manage through it. Suffering strips you of all of the "useless" things in life and brings you to what is most essential, ie God (life, family, etc).
Chapter 5: seemingly bad things in life are inevitable, but it simply matters how you interpret them. Life/suffering isn't unfair; the game is set up how it is. So, play the game according to the rules, but don't quit. Stoicism isn't a pushover philosophy of simply accepting injustice in the world—you still have to play the game, part of which is trying to reduce suffering, but being okay with your own if it exists. Be courageous, embrace life and don't complain, or don't live.
Chapter 6: do not impose on others what you yourself do not want (empathy). It is only in relationship that we discover and prove who we are. Generating order out of breakdown is easier to do by installing morals than imposing rules/punishments. Restorative justice seems cool. Power is vested in relationships rather than individuals. Studying the humanities does not eliminate suffering, but it gives us a way of interpreting, confronting, and coping with suffering. Most suffering can be eliminated if we are loyal to our role and have proper social grammar. Yet, for that which cannot be prevented, they should be lamented or dealt with however you'd like—pointless suffering just is.
Chapter 7: "The blues isn't a way of immediately coping with suffering. It's a way of integrating painful experience into the res of our psyches. It's a way of going on—...whole or mostly whole. The blues represents the basic triumph of meaning over chaos" (page 210). Don't allow suffering to disfigure who you are. "We must live with the wish to be freed from suffering and the beauty of what it means to sing out of it" (page 218). The point isn't to "win" over suffering, but instead to learn through it, as in a sparring match as opposed to a war.
Conclusion: "Insofar as we're governed by the principle of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, of eliminating suffering as much as possible, we dry up the sources of meaning. Work becomes a chore for getting money rather than a sphere of soul-making. Play becomes downtime from work rather than a challenging arena of self-delight" (page 227). Further, "it's easy to lapse into the belief that our identity is separate from suffering, separate from evil, separate from history, separate from nature. Yet by ignoring suffering, we all suffer" (page 232). This world isn't supposed to be paradise, it is a testing ground. There must necessarily be "too much" suffering, or else we wouldn't be sufficiently challenged; additionally, having "too much" suffering reminds us that there is an idyllic world beyond this one. "The concept of art, in our best artists, actualizes that mystery by converting injustice and heartbreak into genuine beauty" (page 234).
This book does not seek to tell you how to think about suffering, or describe the author's favorite flavor of philosophy. Instead, Samuelson takes a broad look at both modern and perennial thought patterns that have addressed the problem of evil, ie, why bad things happen to good people. Samuelson shows that there are two basic ways of looking at suffering (if you ignore the "forget it" method, haha), either "fix it" or "face it". All paradigms then can be distilled to a rough mixture of the paradox that suffering must happen, but we ought to do our best to reduce it. From this central tenet, the seven philosophies described add shape and coloring along the edges by more heavily trying to fix or face the suffering—Utilitarianism says we should eliminate pointless suffering, the biblical book of Job shows us that suffering points us to God, Confucius says that suffering reveals our humanity, etc.
Samuelson won't tell you how to think, but he will eloquently give you the tools to think for yourself. I was entranced by his first three chapters (on Utilitarianism, Nietzsche, and Ardent), as well as the interlude on the problem of evil. I found the chapter on Job also quite interesting, bringing up points that I hadn't thought of, even after a small group study on the book. I think Samuelson lost his way a bit in the chapters on Epictetus, and I think the chapter on jazz was a bit of a stretch to include next to other heavyweight philosophies (rap could have almost as easily have been included, if the author were so inclined). I also enjoyed that Samuelson did not try to take a deep dive into Christian or Buddhist theology, both of which have a strong background with addressing suffering. Personally, I also liked that Samuelson seemed to have a bias (or at least a strong knowledge) of Christian ideals, but he saved this inclination until a bit later in the book, which was likely a good on-boarding for those who may have scurried away if they thought this was just a Bible-thumping book about suffering. He also had some funny little comments about how the US Constitution is the opposite of Christianity (eg, you can worship whoever you want v. one true God; right to bear arms v. do not murder, etc).
Profound and enlightening. 4.5/5 stars
----SPOILERS and summaries below----
Intro: suffering can be fixed or faced. In modern, Western world, we lean much more heavily towards fixing suffering (because of biomedicine etc) so we often have a tough time accepting that suffering is something that is not wrong to have.
Chapter 1: If life is best when maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, we ought to eliminate pain. Sometimes, however, there needs to be character building challenges that lead to "higher pleasures"
"true love ... is the reconciliation of two seemingly impossible tasks: our beloved must give us everything good that our parents gave, and our beloved must give us everything good our parents failed to give us. True love makes us simultaneously feel at home and on an adventure
Chapter 2: Nietzsche says that suffering is inevitable, and to avoid it would be to eliminate the character building aspects of life. Only the weak avoid suffering. We ought to use suffering to live artfully.
Chapter 3: The rebirth of the problem of evil: if God does not exist, then how can we allow for evil to exist? It is silly to take pride in labor (mindless, difficult work), but to revel in a skilled activity reveals our humanity. Ultimately, by allowing society to be anything less than perfect, we allow suffering to continue existing—yet, instead of being able to ask God, "why me?", we look at our own self-inflicted suffering; hence, we ought to make the world a better place. "In our deprivation, we've been given the opportunity to see what we most need. In our suffering we've been given the chance to renew the world" (page 98).
Interlude on the problem of evil: "If we imagine an "enlightened" use of our technologies such that we allow only so much disease for the good to be preserved and even predominate, wouldn't someone that we allowed to suffer "fairly" from the disease cry out, as once to God, "Why me?"" (page 106). You also cannot have both ultimate freedom and ultimate good. "A genuinely human existence requires a structure of death, suffering, and freedom...To have a line between necessary and unacceptable suffering...will and must appear unfair at some level, at bare minimum to someone on the suffering side..." (page 109).
Chapter 4: Pointless suffering brings us to God. "...pointless suffering makes YHWH free as God, and Job and the rest of us free as human beings...If God's task were simply to reward us for moral action, He'd be our slave, a genie in the bottle of our morality" (page 136). The point is not how to avoid suffering, but how to manage through it. Suffering strips you of all of the "useless" things in life and brings you to what is most essential, ie God (life, family, etc).
Chapter 5: seemingly bad things in life are inevitable, but it simply matters how you interpret them. Life/suffering isn't unfair; the game is set up how it is. So, play the game according to the rules, but don't quit. Stoicism isn't a pushover philosophy of simply accepting injustice in the world—you still have to play the game, part of which is trying to reduce suffering, but being okay with your own if it exists. Be courageous, embrace life and don't complain, or don't live.
Chapter 6: do not impose on others what you yourself do not want (empathy). It is only in relationship that we discover and prove who we are. Generating order out of breakdown is easier to do by installing morals than imposing rules/punishments. Restorative justice seems cool. Power is vested in relationships rather than individuals. Studying the humanities does not eliminate suffering, but it gives us a way of interpreting, confronting, and coping with suffering. Most suffering can be eliminated if we are loyal to our role and have proper social grammar. Yet, for that which cannot be prevented, they should be lamented or dealt with however you'd like—pointless suffering just is.
Chapter 7: "The blues isn't a way of immediately coping with suffering. It's a way of integrating painful experience into the res of our psyches. It's a way of going on—...whole or mostly whole. The blues represents the basic triumph of meaning over chaos" (page 210). Don't allow suffering to disfigure who you are. "We must live with the wish to be freed from suffering and the beauty of what it means to sing out of it" (page 218). The point isn't to "win" over suffering, but instead to learn through it, as in a sparring match as opposed to a war.
Conclusion: "Insofar as we're governed by the principle of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, of eliminating suffering as much as possible, we dry up the sources of meaning. Work becomes a chore for getting money rather than a sphere of soul-making. Play becomes downtime from work rather than a challenging arena of self-delight" (page 227). Further, "it's easy to lapse into the belief that our identity is separate from suffering, separate from evil, separate from history, separate from nature. Yet by ignoring suffering, we all suffer" (page 232). This world isn't supposed to be paradise, it is a testing ground. There must necessarily be "too much" suffering, or else we wouldn't be sufficiently challenged; additionally, having "too much" suffering reminds us that there is an idyllic world beyond this one. "The concept of art, in our best artists, actualizes that mystery by converting injustice and heartbreak into genuine beauty" (page 234).
August 22, 2018
i started reading this as kind of a joke; or, at least, i wanted to read it mostly because i thought the title was really, really funny.
i found a copy of it at one of the college libraries in my town, and i checked it out, but i was hesitant. it's a philosophy book, and i was concerned i wasn't smart enough to read it. i don't have a ton of experience with 'philosophy' as a subject, outside of the few college classes i took on it a number of years ago, all of which i did kind of poorly in.
well, it turns out i was. you don't have to be a genius, or, like, really into philosophy, to read it. at first i was kind of into it, but as the book continued, i found myself growing more and more frustrated with a number of aspects about it- specifically the tone that scott samuelson takes. he breaks the fourth wall quite a bit, reminding you that you are reading his book, and seems to maybe pull a muscle or two while patting himself on the back for having written this book. these self-aware moments are awkward and clunky, and really take away from any kind of cohesion the narrative may have had.
near the end, i found this had become a chore to read, and it was harder to decipher what, if anything, i was supposed to take away from this book about pointless suffering. there's no real right or wrong answer, but any kind of through-line, or organization, that there may have been is erased as the book itself buckles under samelson's haughtiness and unearned grandeur.
a great way to avoid additional pointless suffering is to not read this book.
i found a copy of it at one of the college libraries in my town, and i checked it out, but i was hesitant. it's a philosophy book, and i was concerned i wasn't smart enough to read it. i don't have a ton of experience with 'philosophy' as a subject, outside of the few college classes i took on it a number of years ago, all of which i did kind of poorly in.
well, it turns out i was. you don't have to be a genius, or, like, really into philosophy, to read it. at first i was kind of into it, but as the book continued, i found myself growing more and more frustrated with a number of aspects about it- specifically the tone that scott samuelson takes. he breaks the fourth wall quite a bit, reminding you that you are reading his book, and seems to maybe pull a muscle or two while patting himself on the back for having written this book. these self-aware moments are awkward and clunky, and really take away from any kind of cohesion the narrative may have had.
near the end, i found this had become a chore to read, and it was harder to decipher what, if anything, i was supposed to take away from this book about pointless suffering. there's no real right or wrong answer, but any kind of through-line, or organization, that there may have been is erased as the book itself buckles under samelson's haughtiness and unearned grandeur.
a great way to avoid additional pointless suffering is to not read this book.
July 2, 2022
Mr. Samuelson is Brilliant in synthesizing a big problem of our age .
"Rather than think about ignorance, Pain, and Wretchedness; man has chosen to forget about them " Pascal
"Have we forgotten what it means to be long suffering humans ? "
Like his other fantastic work "The Deepest Human Life " , he does not force feed you a cookbook answer. He Socratically asks you to examine different points of view, and define the use of Suffering.
"What is Suffering ? " Can it be eliminated entirely ? Is all suffering Evil ?
What is Evil ? Is there a use for Suffering, or are we trying to reason away a miserable existence ?
"Why do Good things happen to bad people, and why do bad things happen to good people ?
"I had Ready from the Enchiridion when I ejected from my A-4 Aircraft over Vietnam; that the Disciple of Epictetus keeps categories in his mind for (a) Those things that are up to him, and (b)those things that are not up to him, or those things that are within his power (a) and (b)those things that are beyond his power, 0r those things that are (a) within the grasp of his intelligent free and (B) those things that are beyond the grasp of intelligent free will
all in Category (B) are ultimately beyond the grasp of my free will, dooming me to Anxiety and Slavery if I covet them " Admiral James Stockdale "Master of My Fate # 1 "
"Rather than think about ignorance, Pain, and Wretchedness; man has chosen to forget about them " Pascal
"Have we forgotten what it means to be long suffering humans ? "
Like his other fantastic work "The Deepest Human Life " , he does not force feed you a cookbook answer. He Socratically asks you to examine different points of view, and define the use of Suffering.
"What is Suffering ? " Can it be eliminated entirely ? Is all suffering Evil ?
What is Evil ? Is there a use for Suffering, or are we trying to reason away a miserable existence ?
"Why do Good things happen to bad people, and why do bad things happen to good people ?
"I had Ready from the Enchiridion when I ejected from my A-4 Aircraft over Vietnam; that the Disciple of Epictetus keeps categories in his mind for (a) Those things that are up to him, and (b)those things that are not up to him, or those things that are within his power (a) and (b)those things that are beyond his power, 0r those things that are (a) within the grasp of his intelligent free and (B) those things that are beyond the grasp of intelligent free will
all in Category (B) are ultimately beyond the grasp of my free will, dooming me to Anxiety and Slavery if I covet them " Admiral James Stockdale "Master of My Fate # 1 "
August 26, 2018
Odd as it may sound, I spend a lot of time thinking about suffering and happiness and meaning and all that sort of thing, so I enjoyed reading this book and contemplating this topic even though ultimately I thought the book could’ve been a lot stronger.
The main argument is that we should simultaneously be more accepting of the seemingly pointless suffering we experience in life, and also work to lessen the amount of pointless suffering that the human race experiences in general. I thought I agreed with this, but by the time I’d finished reading I actually felt less convinced.
I just don’t think you can lump things like grief and illness together with cruel acts like rape and torture and oppression and try to make a sweeping statement about all of it as though it were all the same kind of suffering. I believe that there are certain kinds of suffering that we should willingly endure and lean into and learn to accept as part of life, and there are other kinds that we should fight against tooth and nail. To say that we should savor our mild depression while less-privileged people “choose” to suffer under the abhorrent circumstances they were born under is just myopic and unreasonable. We should give the Utilitarians a little bit of credit and do what we can to fix our broken systems in order to help our fellow man. The author kind of realizes this, but he thinks of it as a sort of doublethink and never really examines why it clashes with the philosophy of embracing suffering. I think the problem here is that he is a Christian and therefore views a lot of different types of suffering as falling under a broad category of “but why did God create this?” If he wasn’t so vehemently dismissive of the secular point of view, perhaps he’d be able to see that not all pointless suffering is comparable.
I do agree that humans as a collective do tend to try to fix every little discomfort in our lives and very frequently cause more problems than we solve with our solutions. But that’s a different book altogether. That, in my opinion, is largely a nasty fact of Capitalism and doesn’t deserve to be viewed as a reason not to even try to solve problems like disease, overpopulation, global warming, corruption, etc.
The author’s discussion of the blues to me felt uncomfortable. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Part of it was the fact that the author is a white man who enjoys what he views as the product of slavery in America. Even though he’s careful to spell out that no, he does not believe that blues music justifies slavery, his way of looking at it feels somehow wrong. Maybe it’s the mindset that art is like a juice that flows from people when they’re made to suffer. If that were true, wouldn’t there be great works of art associated with the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, hurricane Katrina, the potato famine, and so on and so forth? Just because sorrowful music exists does not mean that we should embrace suffering for the promise of beautiful works of art. That’s not how art happens. That’s not art’s purpose. And another part of the blues discussion that I disliked was the implied valuation of art in terms of human suffering. If a museum were on fire, you would rescue the patrons before the paintings. Art comes from us and in a way it’s a part of what we are and it’s important, but what’s really important is human life. You wouldn’t lock Steven King in a cabin and force him to write you a new novel, and there’s a very important reason for that.
This book is a great conversation starter, but I don’t think it’s a great work of philosophy. It’s a damn shame that the author was banned from teaching his philosophy class in the local prison, because a book that focused on that experience would’ve been something really interesting.
The main argument is that we should simultaneously be more accepting of the seemingly pointless suffering we experience in life, and also work to lessen the amount of pointless suffering that the human race experiences in general. I thought I agreed with this, but by the time I’d finished reading I actually felt less convinced.
I just don’t think you can lump things like grief and illness together with cruel acts like rape and torture and oppression and try to make a sweeping statement about all of it as though it were all the same kind of suffering. I believe that there are certain kinds of suffering that we should willingly endure and lean into and learn to accept as part of life, and there are other kinds that we should fight against tooth and nail. To say that we should savor our mild depression while less-privileged people “choose” to suffer under the abhorrent circumstances they were born under is just myopic and unreasonable. We should give the Utilitarians a little bit of credit and do what we can to fix our broken systems in order to help our fellow man. The author kind of realizes this, but he thinks of it as a sort of doublethink and never really examines why it clashes with the philosophy of embracing suffering. I think the problem here is that he is a Christian and therefore views a lot of different types of suffering as falling under a broad category of “but why did God create this?” If he wasn’t so vehemently dismissive of the secular point of view, perhaps he’d be able to see that not all pointless suffering is comparable.
I do agree that humans as a collective do tend to try to fix every little discomfort in our lives and very frequently cause more problems than we solve with our solutions. But that’s a different book altogether. That, in my opinion, is largely a nasty fact of Capitalism and doesn’t deserve to be viewed as a reason not to even try to solve problems like disease, overpopulation, global warming, corruption, etc.
The author’s discussion of the blues to me felt uncomfortable. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Part of it was the fact that the author is a white man who enjoys what he views as the product of slavery in America. Even though he’s careful to spell out that no, he does not believe that blues music justifies slavery, his way of looking at it feels somehow wrong. Maybe it’s the mindset that art is like a juice that flows from people when they’re made to suffer. If that were true, wouldn’t there be great works of art associated with the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, hurricane Katrina, the potato famine, and so on and so forth? Just because sorrowful music exists does not mean that we should embrace suffering for the promise of beautiful works of art. That’s not how art happens. That’s not art’s purpose. And another part of the blues discussion that I disliked was the implied valuation of art in terms of human suffering. If a museum were on fire, you would rescue the patrons before the paintings. Art comes from us and in a way it’s a part of what we are and it’s important, but what’s really important is human life. You wouldn’t lock Steven King in a cabin and force him to write you a new novel, and there’s a very important reason for that.
This book is a great conversation starter, but I don’t think it’s a great work of philosophy. It’s a damn shame that the author was banned from teaching his philosophy class in the local prison, because a book that focused on that experience would’ve been something really interesting.
October 7, 2018
A little too much of philosophy, but otherwise, some very valuable insights on suffering as an inevitable and integral part of life. Read my full review at: https://bookswehaveread.com/2018/10/0...
October 4, 2025
I’m beginning to realize that every modern philosophy book involves the author, at some point in his life, teaching a group of student-prisoners to show how hip and liberal the author is. And there’s always a few lines sprinkled throughout about how these prisoners understand things more than current philosophy professors do, or that they are easier students to teach than PHD students. It’s not that far away from when Will Smith’s son said that babies were the smartest creatures on earth; it sounds really deep if you’re 13 years old. Oh, and if we ever need an example of someone misunderstanding our charitable author, we can conveniently use the eavesdropping prison guard reluctantly stuck “learning” against his will; a stereotypical caricature of ignorance and over-policing if I ever read one.
These new-age philosophy books generally reek with “If da prisoners cood jus b exposed 2 philosophy!”
The author constantly refers to one intuitive prisoner who is “unfairly serving a life sentence” for his role in a murder. But other than saying Simon didn’t actually kill the victim, we don’t learn any of the case details. And without his real name, we can’t discover this ourselves. I have no idea if Simon deserves his sentence or not, but I’m expected to take the author at face value and believe that he doesn’t.
The book itself was good, but not great. Early on, I could already tell which of the seven viewpoints he was going to favor (the final one - suffering inspires great art). He couldn’t resist mentioning the wonder and beauty of blues music and would even tease us with hints of what was to come in that chapter.
Overall, it was a fine book, but not one I’d recommend unless the title and subject strongly interest you.
These new-age philosophy books generally reek with “If da prisoners cood jus b exposed 2 philosophy!”
The author constantly refers to one intuitive prisoner who is “unfairly serving a life sentence” for his role in a murder. But other than saying Simon didn’t actually kill the victim, we don’t learn any of the case details. And without his real name, we can’t discover this ourselves. I have no idea if Simon deserves his sentence or not, but I’m expected to take the author at face value and believe that he doesn’t.
The book itself was good, but not great. Early on, I could already tell which of the seven viewpoints he was going to favor (the final one - suffering inspires great art). He couldn’t resist mentioning the wonder and beauty of blues music and would even tease us with hints of what was to come in that chapter.
Overall, it was a fine book, but not one I’d recommend unless the title and subject strongly interest you.
July 4, 2018
A challenging, deserving subject receives a close examination
Engaging, insightful, lyrical, inspiring. Not utterly free of platitudes but utterly deserving of your time and considered attention. Strong recommendation for those who have any interest in philosophy or reflecting on the life we live within.
Engaging, insightful, lyrical, inspiring. Not utterly free of platitudes but utterly deserving of your time and considered attention. Strong recommendation for those who have any interest in philosophy or reflecting on the life we live within.
April 11, 2019
Author Scott Samuelson makes no false promises. The title of his book informs the reader that he is not offering an explanation or justification of pointless suffering, but rather merely seven ways of considering it. One could hardly expect more. After all, the whole point of pointlessness is....well, you get the idea.
The seven ways which Samuelson presents are certainly not comprehensive. The only biblical viewpoint he brings is a discussion of Job. That is hardly worthless, but, with the exception of Confucianism, neither does it encompass the various approaches to the question brought by the great religions of the world.
Samuelson's emphasis, even in chapters not so designated, seems to be stoicism. That's more a response to than an understanding of pointless suffering. Perhaps, to be fair, that is the best that can be hoped for. The author does present some useful discussion of the impossibility of human freedom without suffering. (I think that C.S. Lewis addresses the same question in "The Problem of Pain" with more thoroughness and success.)
Samuelson writes extensively of his experience in conducting philosophy classes for men incarcerated in prison. That brings a nice reality check to a discussion which might otherwise drift into a navel-gazing level of abstraction.
The author also liberally sprinkles his discussion with gratuitous politically correct asides such as one might expect to hear in a college faculty lounge. Some readers, I suppose, will appreciate that.
Finally, Samuelson includes a long discussion of the philosophy embedded in the blues, especially as characterized by the music of Sidney Bechet. I had not heard of that jazz musician before, so after reading the book I made a point to listen to several of his recordings. Unlike Samuelson, I find no profound insight reflected in Bechet's music, no calling from one soul to another. It's good dixieland jazz, to be sure, but Bechet is no Bach.
Despite the heavy topic, the book is not soul-wearying, and I can recommend it to intrigued readers. However, for readers who feel they must choose between C.S. Lewis and Scott Samuelson, I recommend Lewis.
The seven ways which Samuelson presents are certainly not comprehensive. The only biblical viewpoint he brings is a discussion of Job. That is hardly worthless, but, with the exception of Confucianism, neither does it encompass the various approaches to the question brought by the great religions of the world.
Samuelson's emphasis, even in chapters not so designated, seems to be stoicism. That's more a response to than an understanding of pointless suffering. Perhaps, to be fair, that is the best that can be hoped for. The author does present some useful discussion of the impossibility of human freedom without suffering. (I think that C.S. Lewis addresses the same question in "The Problem of Pain" with more thoroughness and success.)
Samuelson writes extensively of his experience in conducting philosophy classes for men incarcerated in prison. That brings a nice reality check to a discussion which might otherwise drift into a navel-gazing level of abstraction.
The author also liberally sprinkles his discussion with gratuitous politically correct asides such as one might expect to hear in a college faculty lounge. Some readers, I suppose, will appreciate that.
Finally, Samuelson includes a long discussion of the philosophy embedded in the blues, especially as characterized by the music of Sidney Bechet. I had not heard of that jazz musician before, so after reading the book I made a point to listen to several of his recordings. Unlike Samuelson, I find no profound insight reflected in Bechet's music, no calling from one soul to another. It's good dixieland jazz, to be sure, but Bechet is no Bach.
Despite the heavy topic, the book is not soul-wearying, and I can recommend it to intrigued readers. However, for readers who feel they must choose between C.S. Lewis and Scott Samuelson, I recommend Lewis.
September 18, 2024
第一部分 看待痛苦的三种现代方式
第一堂 根除痛苦 ：约翰·穆勒及其功利主义悖论
第二堂 拥抱痛苦 ：尼采与永恒轮回
第三堂 为痛苦负责 ：汉娜·阿伦特与平庸之恶
插曲 ：罪恶问题
第二部分 看待痛苦的四种古典方式
第四堂 痛苦展露无知 ：论《约伯记》与自由的意义
第五堂 痛苦用自然弥补我们 ：爱比克泰德与感恩存在
插曲 ：天堂与地狱
第六堂 痛苦唤醒我们的人性 ：孔子的仁与礼
第七堂 痛苦激发艺术灵感 ：悉尼·贝谢和蓝调音乐
我们越来越多地把精力投入到寻求解决痛苦的办法中，这让许多人难以接受宗教等制度直面痛苦的理由，而这些制度曾经几乎是我们用来对抗苦难无情袭击的唯一手段。现在，如果宗教的社交和礼拜活动超出一周一小时，就往往被视为科技进步的绊脚石。
我们的社会与苦难的关系常常是不健康的。
我们倾向于将悲伤、衰老、糟糕的记忆乃至死亡，看作我们灵魂的外来入侵者，因而，我们倾向于用药物麻醉所有疼痛，让自己保持年轻，甚至延迟死亡，直至我们的生命失去意义。
我们倾向于把幸福想象成买东西的能力以及与之相关的身份认同，因而，工作被视为一种“恶"，一种为了消费而进行的单调且重复的劳动，一种最好让机器人完成的苦工。我们倾向于认为技术能解决所有问题，因而，在我们眼中，自然不过是我们增强力量的一种资源，或是一只我们关在公园里的宠物。我们倾向于认为，政治就是保证人们的安全，确保经济稳健发展，因而，我们越来越愿意放弃民主的权利，与政府达成霍布斯式的交易，换取安全与繁荣。我们倾向于认为，教育不过是对将来可以赚钱的技能以及解决问题的知识的装载，因而，人文艺术中直面痛苦的学科，只要不能高效解决问题，我们就不愿意学习（事实上，有人担心这些科目太过残酷，会唤起创伤性经历，或者，我们会将这些学科，这些人类生命的瑰宝，变成解决社会问题的工具。
有趣的是，我们越是将我们的生活看作有待解开的一团苦难的乱麻，我们的娱乐中就越发充斥着梦幻般壮观的死亡和暴力场面，例如，僵尸和《格斗之王》（ Mortal Kombat）我们正逐渐忘却存在的意义。
引自 引言 无意义痛苦的悖论
第一堂 根除痛苦 ：约翰·穆勒及其功利主义悖论
第二堂 拥抱痛苦 ：尼采与永恒轮回
第三堂 为痛苦负责 ：汉娜·阿伦特与平庸之恶
插曲 ：罪恶问题
第二部分 看待痛苦的四种古典方式
第四堂 痛苦展露无知 ：论《约伯记》与自由的意义
第五堂 痛苦用自然弥补我们 ：爱比克泰德与感恩存在
插曲 ：天堂与地狱
第六堂 痛苦唤醒我们的人性 ：孔子的仁与礼
第七堂 痛苦激发艺术灵感 ：悉尼·贝谢和蓝调音乐
我们越来越多地把精力投入到寻求解决痛苦的办法中，这让许多人难以接受宗教等制度直面痛苦的理由，而这些制度曾经几乎是我们用来对抗苦难无情袭击的唯一手段。现在，如果宗教的社交和礼拜活动超出一周一小时，就往往被视为科技进步的绊脚石。
我们的社会与苦难的关系常常是不健康的。
我们倾向于将悲伤、衰老、糟糕的记忆乃至死亡，看作我们灵魂的外来入侵者，因而，我们倾向于用药物麻醉所有疼痛，让自己保持年轻，甚至延迟死亡，直至我们的生命失去意义。
我们倾向于把幸福想象成买东西的能力以及与之相关的身份认同，因而，工作被视为一种“恶"，一种为了消费而进行的单调且重复的劳动，一种最好让机器人完成的苦工。我们倾向于认为技术能解决所有问题，因而，在我们眼中，自然不过是我们增强力量的一种资源，或是一只我们关在公园里的宠物。我们倾向于认为，政治就是保证人们的安全，确保经济稳健发展，因而，我们越来越愿意放弃民主的权利，与政府达成霍布斯式的交易，换取安全与繁荣。我们倾向于认为，教育不过是对将来可以赚钱的技能以及解决问题的知识的装载，因而，人文艺术中直面痛苦的学科，只要不能高效解决问题，我们就不愿意学习（事实上，有人担心这些科目太过残酷，会唤起创伤性经历，或者，我们会将这些学科，这些人类生命的瑰宝，变成解决社会问题的工具。
有趣的是，我们越是将我们的生活看作有待解开的一团苦难的乱麻，我们的娱乐中就越发充斥着梦幻般壮观的死亡和暴力场面，例如，僵尸和《格斗之王》（ Mortal Kombat）我们正逐渐忘却存在的意义。
引自 引言 无意义痛苦的悖论
October 13, 2024
What an amazing book. This is not philosophy that tries to explain things through theory, but philosophy that tries to enrich our understanding of the human condition. It succeeds wonderfully well at that. The way in which Samuelson uses his experiences with prison inmates who he taught philosophy courses, really enriches the book.
If I could level one criticism, it'd be that Samuelson sometimes belabors a point a bit too long. It's not a huge issue, but the book could be around 50 pages shorter, I think.
If I could level one criticism, it'd be that Samuelson sometimes belabors a point a bit too long. It's not a huge issue, but the book could be around 50 pages shorter, I think.
December 18, 2021
An accessible but thorough deep dive into the problem of evil. Samuelson doesn't try to sell the reader on any particular philosophy, instead, he smartly summarizes and explores great philosophers attempts to wrangle this thorny issue.
August 18, 2023
The title sounds seriously depressing, but that's misleading because this is, on the whole, a life-affirming book. Samuelson doesn't quite manage to stick the landing (suffering and Blues music), but there's plenty of good stuff here.
November 30, 2018
An engaging philosophical investigation into the paradox of life: to accept suffering/to end suffering.
December 9, 2018
I read the book. He decided to not include Buddha. Says everyone knows the Buddha's views. Mistake. Worth reading anyway.
January 22, 2019
Wraps you in a journey of philosophy and what to do with our humanity.
March 15, 2021
Some interesting ideas but a LOT of meandering... I could not stay with it.
July 31, 2024
read as a source for a paper on suffering,, was helpful for the paper but apparently I referenced it too much
October 23, 2024
This was absolutely fascinating. It gave me so much to think about!
April 21, 2023
Samuelson's book is a valuable resource, as he combs through the different perspectives related to pointless suffering (also known as "the problem of evil" and "the human condition"). In saying that, I found various parts of the book to crawl, causing me to wonder what he was even arguing and how it related to the book's grounding theses: that suffering endows life with a degree of meaning; that abandoning (pointless) suffering—through biotechnology and political regimes—strips us of our humanity; that suffering is inseparable from life.
In sum, I recommend this book—but only as a starter. It is wise to use it as a resource: one can start from it and return to it, especially when exploring the primary sources Samuelson references.
In sum, I recommend this book—but only as a starter. It is wise to use it as a resource: one can start from it and return to it, especially when exploring the primary sources Samuelson references.
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