Eugene Thacker Quotes

A new ignorance is on the horizon, an ignorance borne not of a lack of knowledge but of too much knowledge, too much data, too many theories, too little time.

Our own era is one haunted by the shadow of futurity, precisely because there is no future.

We have to entertain the possibility that there is no reason for something existing; or that the split between subject and object is only our name for something equally accidental we call knowledge; or, an even more difficult thought, that while there may be some order to the self and the cosmos, to the microcosm and macrocosm, it is an order that is absolutely indifferent to our existence, and of which we can have only a negative awareness.

Even though there is something out there that is not the world-for-us, and even though we can name it the world-in-itself, this latter constitutes a horizon for thought, always receding just beyond the bounds of intelligibility.

Two kinds of pessimism: “The end is near” and “Will this never end?

In a culture that prizes the can-do, self-starter attitude, to be a pessimist is simply to be a complainer – if you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem. To live in such a culture is to constantly live in the shadow of an obligatory optimism, a novel type of coercion that is pathologized early on in child education in the assessment: “Does not like to play with others.

To the culture of the early Renaissance, the demon presents a limit to the empiricism of the unknown, something that can only be verified through contradictions – an absent manifestation, an unnatural creature, a demonic malady.

In addition to the interpretive frameworks of the mythological (classical-Greek), the theological (Medieval-Christian), and the existential (modern-European), would it be possible to shift our framework to something we can only call cosmological? Could such a cosmological view be understood not simply as the view from inter-stellar space, but as the view of the world-without-us, the Planetary view?

What if depression – reason’s failure to achieve self-mastery – is not the failure of reason but instead the result of reason? What if human reason works “too well,” and brings us to conclusions that are anathema to the existence of human beings? What we would have is a “cold rationalism,” shoring up the anthropocentric conceits of the philosophical endeavor, showing us an anonymous, faceless world impervious to our hopes and desires.

Whether we can “save” the planet is one question – whether the planet needs saving is another.

Pessimism is the night-side of thought, a melodrama of the futility of the brain, a lyricism written in the graveyard of philosophy.

The indifference of the everyday gets the better of us all.

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

(life science) definitions. The question that runs through these disputatio is the following: What if “horror” has less to do with a fear of death, and more to do with the dread of life?

The more we learn about the planet, the stranger it becomes to us.

A crying baby is the purest expression of the inanity of being human.

The ethereal nature of mists means that while they may appear solid and to have distinct forms, they are also immaterial, and can readily become formless.

There will always be someone who will see the futility of your actions. There will always be someone who is irritated by what you do, whatever you do. In this way we participate in a kind of shared, communal pessimism.

In short, when the non-human world manifests itself to us in these ambivalent ways, more often than not our response is to recuperate that non-human world into whatever the dominant, human-centric worldview is at the time.

What Kant refers to as depression is simply this stark realization: that thought is only incidentally human. It would take a later generation of philosophers to derive the conclusion of this: that thought thinks us, not the reverse. Legend

If the supernatural in a conventional sense is no longer possible, what remains after the “death of God” is an occulted, hidden world. Philosophically speaking, the enigma we face is how to confront this world, without immediately presuming that it is identical to the world-for-us (the world of science and religion), and without simply disparaging it as an irretrievable and inaccessible world-in-itself.

In raising problems without solutions, in posing questions without answers, in retreating to the hermetic, cavernous abode of complaint, pessimism is guilty of that most inexcusable of Occidental crimes—the crime of not pretending it’s for real. Pessimism 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, live as if you are not, in fact, being lived by some murmuring non-entity both shadowy and muddied.

The world is increasingly unthinkable – a world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, tectonic shifts, strange weather, oil-drenched seascapes, and the furtive, always-looming threat of extinction. In spite of our daily concerns, wants, and desires, it is increasingly difficult to comprehend the world in which we live and of which we are a part. To confront this idea is to confront an absolute limit to our ability to adequately understand the world at all – an idea that has been a central motif of the horror genre for some time.

For every un-universe, then, an un-philosophy that must also negate itself.

Around you this night a thousand million firefly anatomies breathe in and out in their slow-burning liturgical glow.

There is no surer sign of pessimism than an overly-optimistic person.

It seems to have no motive, no vendetta, no program of action, other than simply that of “being ooze.

One who has ceased being irritated by others, but who remains a misanthrope.

There are times when I feel that the only real aptitude of our species is that we can ruin anything.

A bit of philosophizing leads to a wonderment of life. A lot of philosophizing leads to a contempt of it.

Human culture: a kind of incessant ringing in the ears.

What is repulsive about children - all children - is not that they are not yet adults, but that they are already adults - whining, self-absorbed, demanding attention, unable to care for themselves, throwing tantrums when things don't go their way. Far from what we tell ourselves, children are the most concise expressions of humanity. At least children are unaware of this.

When solutions produce problems, when thought flounders in the absence of order, unity, and purpose, when healthy skepticism turns into pathological sarcasm – this is usually when pessimism enters the fray.

But already there is some ambiguity, for does black designate a “color” that does not reflect light (and if so, why label it a color?), or does black designate the “color” that results in the total absence of light? Without light, no color, and without color, there is only black – and yet black is not a color.

The question is, what happens when we as human beings confront a world that is radically unhuman, impersonal, and even indifferent to the human? What happens to the concept of politics once one confronts the possibility that the world only reveals its hiddenness, in spite of the attempts to render it as a world-for-us, either via theology (sovereign God, sovereign king) or via science (the organismic analogy of the state)? In the face of politics, this unresponsiveness of the world is a condition for which, arguably, we do not yet have a language.

[T]he pinnacle of humanity lies in its ability to be disgusted with itself. What really separates us from other forms of life is our ability to detest our kind, to recognize the stupidity of being human. I spite, therefore I am.

In books such as Isis Unveiled (1877) or The Secret Doctrine (1888), Blavatsky covers everything from archaic mystery cults to modern paranormal research, giving one the sort of global perspective found in anthropology classics such as James Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1890).

Traditionally, the Socratic tradition in philosophy has a therapeutic function, which is to dispel the horrors of the unknown through reasoned argument. What cannot be tolerated in this tradition is the possibility of a world that cannot be known, or a world that is indifferent to our elaborate knowledge-producing schemes.

For Nishitani, then, the only way beyond nihilism is through nihilism. And here Nishitani borrows from the Buddhist concept of śūnyatā, conventionally translated as “nothingness” or “emptiness.” In contrast to the relative nothingness of modern nihilism, which is privative, and predicated on the absence of being (that is, an ontology), Nishitani proposes an absolute nothingness, which is purely negative and predicated on a paradoxical foundation of non-being (that is, a meontology). “Emptiness

The question that runs through these disputatio is the following: What if “horror” has less to do with a fear of death, and more to do with the dread of life?

It is often said that the more spiritual a person becomes, the more unassuming they are. Eventually, they vanish entirely.

The most devastating thing about suffering is that it is relative. There is always someone who hurts more, someone who hurts less.

Kierkegaard famously wrote “my sorrow is my castle.” Unfortunately not all of us have as much space.

How are things going?” “Oh, I can’t complain…” The greatest complaint of all.

Are you a pessimist?” “On my better days…

Contrary to what the great works of literature tell us, living in the modern city is neither heroic nor tragic - nor even comedic. It's simply pedantic.

How is it possible to feel nothing but unmitigated spite for so many different kinds of people?

Happiness is the feeling you have just before something goes wrong.

Everything does work out in the end, one way or another.

Bartleby’s paradox: acceptance through refusal.

Voltaire once described optimism as “a cruel philosophy with a consoling name,” which immediately suggests what pessimism might be: a consoling philosophy with a cruel name.

The last word of philosophy is loneliness.

[T]he devastating possibility that "wasting time" and "passing time" amount to the same thing.

One senses that for Schopenhauer, the world does exist, and it’s horrible, and there’s not much one can do about it.

For optimists, the most perplexing question is how one becomes a pessimist – if one is not born one. For the pessimist, the question is how each person, by virtue of being born, is not already a pessimist.

Is there yet another meaning of “black” beyond this? There is, but it is a difficult thought to think, and nearly impossible to know, though it does exist (actually it doesn’t exist, though the thought of its not-existing does).

If one is willing to go down this path, retinal pessimism is not just about the non-color that is black, but it is about the perception of color itself. It is, ultimately, the suspicion that all colors are black, that all retinal activity is retinal inactivity. Retinal pessimism: there is nothing to see (and you’re seeing it).

Whenever it occurs, however it occurs, pessimism has but one effect: it introduces humility into thought. It undermines the innumerable, self-aggrandizing postures that constitute the human being. Pessimism is the humility of the species that has named itself, thought furtively stumbling upon its own limitations on black wings of futility.

An oft-mentioned example in this regard is the Medieval practice of catapulting corpses. The primal scene in this regard is the 14th century Italian trading post at Caffa, on the northern border of the Black Sea. Ongoing skirmishes between Italian merchants and Muslim locals led, in one instance, to the catapulting of plague-ridden corpses by the latter, over the fortress walls of the former.87

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

It matters to me little whether they're on the Mongolian steppe, the deserts of West Africa, the Australian Outback, the marshlands of Southeast Asia... I can't escape the feeling of nausea... And this is just the tip of the iceberg - the ongoing spectacle of humans blissfully ignorant, boisterous, over-confident, scheming, and talking big about their dominion overthe world - a suffocating, self-absorbed, vacuous place called the wrold-for-us - to say nothing of how human culture has legitimized the most horrific actions against itself, a sickening and banal drama of the exchange of bodies, the breeding of spe ies, the struggle for power, prosperity and prestige. It just keeps going on and on, no matter how many films or TV shows imagine -like a myth - the disappearance of the human.

Consciousness is nothing more, he writes, than “a flash of lightning between two eternities of darkness.

If historical mysticism is, in the last instance, theological, then mysticism today, a mysticism of the unhuman, would have to be, in the last instance, climatological. It is a kind of mysticism that can only be expressed in the dust of this planet.

Lovecraft expresses this same sentiment as follows: “Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous.

Herein lies the basis of what Lovecraft called “cosmic horror” – the paradoxical realization of the world’s hiddenness as an absolute hiddenness. It is a sentiment frequently expressed in Lovecraft’s many letters: “Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests are emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form – and the local human passions and conditions and standards – are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all…but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown – the shadow-haunted Outside – we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the threshold.

Far from being a homogenous "Big Science," biotechnology is highly diversified and heterogeneous. "The" human genome is not a single database, but a cluster of semi-autonomous databases housed at universities, biotech companies, and independent research institutes. In fact, because any computer user can, if he or she wishes, download the entire genome, "the" human genome is probably more distributed than we can guess. From: "Open source DNA and Bioinformatic Bodies" by Eugene Thacker

Pessimism’s propositions have all the gravitas of a bad joke.

In presenting problems without solutions, in posing questions without answers, in retreating to the hermetic, cavernous abode of complaint, pessimism is guilty of that most inexcusable of Occidental crimes – the crime of not pretending it’s all for a reason.

Leopardi: “True misanthropes are not found in isolation but among people, for it is practical experience in life, not philosophy, that makes us hate.

The only philosophy worth pursuing is the one that poses questions without answers. Anything less is hubris. But this can never be proved – by definition.

Things should be good, I tell myself, but they’re, well, not-so-good. Nothing seems to make sense – and it should (shouldn’t it?). Granted, things weren’t exactly perfect before, but now they’re definitely worse (…or so it seems). And this on top of the simplest of things: having to live a life.

To live in constant apprehension of life. Exhaustion before one has made the effort. To attempt to laugh at it all, until the laughter becomes slightly sad, until tedium covers everything with its tenebrous haze.

Afraid to be happy. Content to be sad.

Astral Projection. The more I talk to people, the less I see the point in conversation. I’ve often been in the midst of a conversation and have suddenly, unwillingly, been extracted mysteriously from it, as if I were observing the whole thing with a strange sense of detached melancholy, like an out-of-body experience. Why exactly are we talking? What exactly are we saying? And how long have we been talking? It’s as if we talk in order to slow down time, thereby secretly extending our share of immortality just a little.

Prospect Park, Sunday afternoon. To feel claustrophobia even in “nature.

An argument for or against suicide? One lives, in spite of life.

A philosopher – Shestov I think – once noted that, since philosophy deals with the most difficult and important issues concerning existence, philosophers think themselves the most important people. He then notes: “A bank clerk, who is always handing money out, might just as well consider himself a millionaire.

A saying from the Desert Fathers reads: “It is frightening to die, it is even more perilous to live a long life.” If only pessimism had the devotion of the ascetics.

Inexhaustible indifference.

How are you?” “Good–” “Give it time…

Happiness” is the feeling you have just before something goes wrong.

Signs of the Times. It is more important to be seen than to exist.

Young enough to keep trying, old enough to know better.

Falling asleep. Waking up.

Happiness in other people makes me suspicious.

Happiness in myself makes me apprehensive.

When you’re alone, your voice sounds different. Vaster. More empty.

When someone casually asks me “How are you doing?”, I sometimes find myself hesitating, as if caught in a micro-catatonia. The question is both petty and cosmic at the same time. Then I remember: just say “Fine.

(I long for someone to invent a punctuation mark for despondency…)

Why do we all know so much? And why do we feel the unbearable urge to tell each other that we know so much? It’s as if we are burdened by the question of what to do with thought, by our brains, by the very weight of the organ…

The longer we suffer, the more we dwell on suffering – eventually suffering and the thought of suffering eclipse each other entirely…

Afraid to be content. Content to be sad.

But the truth is that I am a pessimist… except when writing about pessimism. I’ve managed to make pessimism a form of therapy.

Enthusiasm as a form of depression.

Arguably, “solitude” is an urban word. The café is the urban equivalent of the desert cave.

We Philosophers. Eager to help, trained to be ineffectual.

You can only force a smile for so long until it becomes a grimace.

Confusion, frustration, depression, spite. Confusion about what I am supposed to do, frustration at my conditions, depression at feeling frustrated and confused, and a general spitefulness towards the world and all people. Every day. Only going for walks and writing in this pedantic notebook help, a little.

I don’t believe in saying anything unless there’s something to say. As time goes on, the less I speak. Boredom, depression, equanimity.

The only thing more terrifying than the person who has nothing is the person who has everything. Things can only get worse for them. The more you have, the more you have to lose. And in the end everything must be lost. Is it better to not want anything at all? Maybe, but what about the rest of us, who have some things, which we judiciously manage, like archivists?