Peter Wessel Zapffe -- The Last Messiah
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- The Last Messiah by Peter Zappfe
by Free Radical Radio
Publication date 2017-10-17
Topics pessimism, zappfe, anarchist, anarchism
“Why, then, has mankind not long ago gone extinct during great epidemics of madness? Why do only a fairly minor number of individuals perish because they fail to endure the strain of living - because cognition gives them more than they can carry?” asks Peter Wessel Zapffe in his 1933 essay, “The Last Messiah.” For him, the cosmic panic he saw endemic to the capacity for meaning-making burdened his species with a perpetual psychic scramble to avoid absorption into the infinite regression which undergirds that capacity. For anarchists, the whole of the world as it is faces them with similarly unthinkable problems whose sheer magnitude, complexity, or both render them as in fact meaningless by dint of scopes in excess of the capacity for a given brain to cognize them, terminating thought into impermeably blank anagnorisis. Having achieved a state of no mind, only those with suitable religious inclinations bother remaining here for long.
“Cultural history, as well as observation of ourselves and others, allow the following answer: Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness,” continues Zapffe, marking the out of which anarchists avail themselves as often as any other simulacra raised in the image of Man the Wise. Posed with inhuman problems which are nonetheless problems both of humans and for humans, though many elect to turn away it is understandable that one would find themselves nonetheless compelled to act toward the embetterment of their world. Whichever way they turn, however, apostate and fidelitous alike find themselves already caged by the funhouse mirrors of their own failed gnosis.
“The whole of living that we see before our eyes today is from inmost to outmost enmeshed in repressional mechanisms, social and individual; they can be traced right into the tritest formulas of everyday life,” he continues, laying down modes of defense by which his species avoids the hazard at the center of their own psychic ontologies. By these same methods, anarchists, and conceivably all confronted by truly larger than life matters, find ways to ignore their problems, bury themselves in dogmatic commitment to project-hobbies, and treat whatever matter is at hand as effectively reducible to an arena in which they, preferably, already hold mastery.
Failed imaginations an oubliette for every revolution.
Voiced and Edited by Linn O Mable
Words by Jacob
Backend by rydra wrong
Profound. Finally after nearly 50 years I am vindicated. This is how I've felt for so long and felt so alone. Thank you for reading.
playonwords55 I recommend strongly "The Conspiracy Against the Human Race" by Thomas Ligotti
You're not totally alone. I'm with you.
I’m with you, but we are in the minority.
Wow, you wrote exactly what I could have written.
piggypigpig how so?
I like how he explains why we feel fear of life, uncertainty, fear of the unknown etc and doesn't give the common explanation of.... you are just depressed... It is the first time I hear someone analyse this human condition and doesn't just say... YOU ARE DEPRESSED!!!! I am sick of it, well, apparently I am not depressed. there is a huge meaning behind my feelings and my reluctance to believe that a pill will ease any of those fillings.
SOCIETY says that you are depressed - because society itself is built on lies and needs its slaves.
This is my bed time story most nights.
I naturally felt this way all my life since i was a child. I remembered that crying to my mother asking her about it but she couldn't say anything. But I never had a name for it. I made it this far because i daydreamed half of the time. Thankful for philosophers, they are the parents we deseved but never had.
I was a pessimist before I knew that it was called that. I was literally 3 years old. 50 years later people like my father are still as immature as they were back then. He would never openly admit that life is a meaningless striving.
[Urge to climb mountain intensifies.]
Not only climbing mountains, but making comedy too!
We never really have anything.
We never really know anything.
We never really mean anything.
We are nothing. This was said also by Leopardi.
Thank you for making this, facing up to what Zapffe faced up to takes a lot of guts, most people just throw themselves into any distraction they can find.
Finally I can hear this. These are the words I wish to die to. All is futile.
Ive read the book “The Case Against The Human Conspiracy” by Thomas Ligotti. And because of my personal disposition, Ill never be the same because of it. Thank you for this reading of the actual source by Peter Zapffe.
The True Detective series inspired by Zapffe and Ligotti
I have 1 thing to say , if anyone says life is ok
They havent either experienced the world yet
or are under the illsion created by yourself , as a result of our brain mechanism to forget the pain more than it forgets pleasure
The first keyword should be #antinatalism
Criminally underrated work.
It is not written for our generation - we are too dumb to grasp our situation. Sooner or later a last generation of conscious beings will decide to escape this cosmic trap forever.
Zapffe's points are now more unbelievably relevant and concise than ever given the current state of humanity.
Hmm... I wonder what the reason is for how he is still so criminally obscure considering how on point he was?
I S O L A T I O N
That's what we humans do. DISTRACTION
There is not one thin dime to be made through the spread of pessimism. In fact quite the opposite.
@@lucioh1575 Allow me to reply to your comment humourously in a good old rousing round of S U B L I M A T I O N .
@@Firespectrum122 Is memeing around sublimation a form of isolation in itself, or is it yet another form of sublimation?
The tragedy of sentience, perhaps in a sort of perverse way, actually provides me some comfort.
It takes admitting the problem in order to "solve" it. Of course, there's no actual, ultimate solution for suffering-our sentience is predicated upon the lash of suffering and the perceived possibility of somehow obtaining joy... a carrot on a stick. Yet there's no alternative. There's no other game to play but this one, absurd and agonizing as it may be.
Yet, to be without suffering is to be without joy. Hear me out: imagine the best possible form of consciousness you can imagine: say an eternal, unrelenting infusion of the best heroin the cosmos can offer into every particle that makes up one's body and brain, though as if one were coterminous with the universe and so the universe could somehow experience this itself and in its entirety, through all of existence, as if one were oneself that very existence and every particle of the totality of things sang in unison with rapturous bliss forever and ever.
What, really, is the difference between this state of being and that of a stone or a puddle or any other inanimate object? Joy without suffering has no meaning, no value, no real existence, because, just as all things only perceptibly exist in relation to other things-relative, even, to **all** other things-joy only exists in the context of suffering. And so suffering, of course, only exists relative to joy. And we know of no sentience that exists without this spectrum of experience, without this awareness and, ultimately, **need**, for bother suffering and joy.
Consciousness is consciousness of **something** "beyond" oneself as the observer. (Or so it's perceived.) We place into phenomena the values we conjure on the basis of the experience of suffering and joy. We derive purpose from meaning, meaning from value, value from suffering and joy, suffering and joy from desire, desire from sentience, sentience from consciousness, consciousness from awareness, and awareness from the perception of duality-of there being some gulf between the observer and the phenomenon observed.
Call this what I've called it: joy the carrot on the stick dangling forever in front of us, always just out of reach, and suffering the whip bidding us on to obtain the carrot. It seems indisputable that this is a tragic-**the** tragic, the ***supremely*** tragic-state of affairs, especially so given that, in the fullness of time and space and the vastness of the cosmos, humanity is guaranteed to at some point go extinct. and moreover for its "legacy", any memory of it, to be destroyed by the force of entropy that will assuredly destroy humanity itself in the first place.
But what other way ***could*** it be, or have been, or can it be in the future, or in any world or under any circumstance? Perhaps for some other form of consciousness, but certainly not for ours.
There are more stars in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in ***any*** philosophy, absolutely, and for as much as we know, or think we know, there's an infinity that we do not and can never actually know, if knowledge is even possible and not merely an illusion or approximation. We can't possibly fathom the fullness of reality, or even what reality actually is.
Yet all of this unknowing, uncaring, bewildering blinding inconceivability that we find ourselves in, all of this inevitable decay and pain and death, is all that we have or will ever have, and so what can I do but face it square on, stare "the Devil" in his eyes, and step around him to continue on my way? Yet if I did not know the Devil how would I ever know God?
I'm of course not speaking of a literal Devil or God-simply that the vastness of my pain, even the vicarious pain I experience learning the history of endless agony experienced by sentient beings upon this planet (and so I surmise throughout the universe), is what fuels my appreciation for the joys I ***can*** obtain, and presses me on ***to*** obtain them to the best of my ability. It's only in the context of this horror that I can actually affirm my life. It's only when I'm at the very peak of the highest mountain of joy that I can actually feel that bliss because I can see from above how deep the vale of pain and suffering goes.
This isn't a commentary on antinatalism, on whether it's right or wrong to bring life into being in the first place-merely to say that for me, in my own life, as much as I wish for happiness and freedom for all beings, bearing the cross of my own suffering and witnessing the crosses all other creatures bear in life has actually allowed me to find a "higher" joy manifested in the ascent from the bottom of hell to the pinnacle of heaven. If I did not begin at the very bottom then how could I appreciate the very top?
This suffering comes from the perception of One being Two, the observer and the observed. Yet to be One is to be the stone or the puddle, and as much as I've faced down the noose in life I've always turned away because I'd rather have my pain, the very fuel for my joy, than nothing at all.
I can't speak for others or how they should live their lives or think about life or its worth or lack thereof. This is simply my own contention, and certainly there have been times, especially when I've had that noose in my hand, when I felt that this is worth nothing at all. I suppose I'm just saying that the very worthlessness of life is what provides me a reason to find a worth in it, and whether I do or don't find it is immaterial anyway because it's the journey itself that has meaning, not a destination in some paradise which does not, and can never, exist.
I love you all and I sincerely wish you the very best in all things.
Thank you for taking the time for making this video.
Congrats. This summarizes the birth of consciousness
Explaining the purposelessness and meaninglessness is interesting
_Distraction_
Nicely read...not enough Zapffe content around.
Nice work, whoever you are.
Hello. I'm searching for someone. We talked about a whole lot of things and you recommended this to me on the day of Valborg. Are you still there?
Yes, I am here
@@ОбичанЧовек-ч9г i didn't remember this, it's nice to see it again one year later, thanks!
What is the significance of the painting in the thumbnail? Did the author paint this?
Really great clip. Found Zapffe really insightful, such a shame you can’t find any material in book form .
@timoseckas3044 I hope it releases early this year! Thanks for taking the time to tell us this!
It's available now
Oh that's how you pronounce Zapffe
Yeah, sounds about right. Although, in our mother tongue it's a bit different
It's a German name, but the z is (usually) pronounced like an s in the Nordic languages.
Sometimes I wonder if there is some kind of subconscious force awake in man trying to advance civilization enough for a weapon to cause a chain reaction explosion that destroys ALL matter, every dimension, time, all possible things that exist outside of "nothing". While also ensuring the explosion doesnt create another big bang
Subject of Ulrich Horstmann's The Beast
lmaoo on acid trip i saw the soul of humanity at the end of time waiting for something other than itself to kill it or reach it so it could end its eternal loneliness and doesn't have to dream cause all it does is fragment itself within itself into different worlds realities forms and shit and just sees and plays with itself
@@aeon49_xx Splendid.
I love this. I love this. I love this.
664th like. We just need two more!
Thank you for this reading.
what good is this knowledge? it doesn't help me to live or die, especially die. i am as helpless and i was before but before at least i was unaware. now i am aware and more miserable. i wonder what would have happened if i never came across pessimistic literature. i am outside life and this lucidity is not compatible with life. you reads these things and they leave a permanent scar on you yet there is life to be lived, you have a family you live in a country so there are many obligation big and small. the desire for ignorance is just another desire like any other. i understand why tolstoy envied the peasants. a desire to be some one else but you, a desire for the nonreality of health, a desire for nonbeing, a desire for a time before time. life is so wretched.
Pessimist literature doesn't tell you anything you didn't already intuitively know from your experience of being. It may have crystalized those feelings into a more concrete form but it cannot curse you, it is not a cognito-hazard. The resonance of this assessment of life from person to person is directly correlated to their ability to recognize it as an accurate description of their own experience.
@@DeuceRumbo Schopenhauer, Cioran, Zapffe, Ligotti etc. can afford pessimism due to their wealthy backgrounds. And live a long life full of achievements.
@@DeuceRumbo there is something e(v)il about giving those d(a)rk experiences a structure, it wounds the reader. i would have been better off ignorant and in the company of my own illusions. most pessimists were/are from upper class backgrounds. they can afford this speculation and pessimism and not starve and still move on with their lives. vast majority cannot afford to be pessimistic. i was born in a f*iling country, odd are against me, i have so many e*emies and they are moving ahead because they still have their illusions. i can't take my r*venge. i am always torn between pessimistic lucidity and ambition which puts me into p*nic and p*ralysis. Zapffe, Cioran, Ligotti, Schopenhauer etc. all of them achieved so much and lived long lives. here their upper class backgrounds protected them, money is power and freedom. what about wretched w*rms like me? this philosophy has made me unfit for my ambitions by damaging my will.
pessimists are c*uel. after pessimistic literature there's still life to be lived...
@@low3242 True, Schopenhauer had a wealthy background and Zapffe/Cioran were both on state pensions at one point. Not sure about Ligotti having a wealthy background? I would concede that having money helps to reduce inconvenience and secure necessities, and in Ligotti’s case identifying as socialist under the assertion that we should endeavor to reduce suffering as much as possible given the masses reject anti-natalism. But do you think if you had wealth you would feel differently about pessimism? Or would you just be able to better nurture the coping mechanisms of distraction from it?
@@low3242 also achievement for a pessimist is just sublimation
Thank You
Very good
Where is the artwork from?
Thomas Kinkade, "Boulevard Lights, Paris"
True detective series drew on this work
Listen at x.75. this guy talks too fast!
09:27 - Anchoring
I think living within the Arctic Circle frames his perspective, barren and absurdly cold. I appreciate many of his observations but not where he takes them. That's also how I regard Nietzsche although Zapffe's work doesn't come close to the 'mad genius'. But who possibly could?
Joseph Conrad wrote about not finding meaning in the Congo jungle, but it was to do with civilisation molding those men.
There are pessimist philosophers in Colombia and Brazil too. Many pessimist and antinatalist youtubers are Africans, like The Prison called Life and Benedictines the Truth.
this video is a devils trap. Get out. Go no furthur. I escaped from pure dumb luck.
It's over
Zapffe's position amounts to "Life does not meet _my_ criteria for acceptability, therefore _everyone_ should stop procreating." It's a position fit only for the chronically ill and the melodramatic.
"The True Man of ancient times knew nothing of loving life, knew nothing of hating death. He emerged without delight; he went back in without a fuss. He came briskly, he went briskly, and that was all. He didn't forget where he began; he didn't try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again. This is what I call not using the mind to repel the Way, not using man to help out Heaven. This is what I call the True Man."
--Chuangtzu--
Was it his "position"? I think we take his writings too literal. Zappfe was interesting to me at first, but upon testing his ideas, i find them to be self fulfilling and solely perspective based. Zapffes projections onto the world. His isolation might be my creativity. His sublimation might be my catharsis. Given his sublimation was writing, I find it a little ironic that he is so highly regarded by academics. I guess it was a solipsism?
Conan The Barbarian You can’t deny the pointlessness of life. Being conscious of that fact seems enough reason to despise life for some.
No, it proves his point. "Not using the mind..." is a betrayal of your own nature. Lowering your consciousness of the nature of reality doesn't change reality. Ancient man had fairy tales to lean on... Seriously did you even listen to the essay?
@@lukaskaltenmaier3808 doesn't it though? If reality is but the subjective truth that we agree on who could claim altering your subjective view wouldn't change reality? Is there a real objective world? I don't think so, or atleast we're unable to observe it.
Your "true ancient man" is a robot.
16:20 right after the words fatal depression there is this sentence "Women, in general less cognition-prone
and hence more secure in their living than men, preferably use distraction."
why didn't you read it? you trying to be politically correct?
that would be extremely disappointing, if so... to imagine being brave enough to embrace such a severe taboo-that one's parents, along with all other parents, were essentially sinners-yet chicken out on the "men and women are not equal" point. lame.
I don't recall that line, but if it is there, it should be included.
It's certainly the case when we look at suicide figures.
I am female, and very much alone in this view of life.
This particular despair does not normally haunt a being that nurtures new life.
You did a great job in highlight something is missing, whatever it is. Thank you for that. And about your suicidal thoughts, don't try to keep them away: stay with them, embrace them, they aren't alien, they're yours and part of your nature. But please, don't try to commit suicide: do it properly or don't do it at all💪
@@hatemf23 Observation only, is Key. Borris Mouravieff explains the separation best.
True, it invalidates the sincerity of the reading altogether, a shame, the irony of such a classic falling victim to a "woke" reading.