Not really. I am just pointing out that evaluation and meaning are subjective when we address nature. Things just are in Nature without inherent values. Its an agents that introduces such concepts and attempts to evaluate the conditions.
i.e your phrase " the world is inherently negative" can only have a meaning compared to the preferences of an observer, right?

Yes which is why I mentioned

philosophical pessimism is an evaluation of the state of animal/human existence — schopenhauer1

It’s about human/animal condition.

Actually human condition is where my argument stands. A quick search of this term provides the following definition "The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death".
So philosophical pessimism observes our human and our world's condition from a broader scope based on a more objective evaluation?
How can this be possible without our subjective criteria and preferences? What defines something as inherently negative for example...?

How can this be possible without our subjective criteria and preferences? What defines something as inherently negative for example...? — Nickolasgaspar

Of course with anything values, it must had agreement on terms and go from there.

Seems like an empty point.
You previously said that we are social so you are kind of having your cake and eating it here.

The ‘rules’ of life are unknown. Games are what make up life so it is possibly a little presumptuous to assume life is a ‘game’.

What defines something as inherently negative for example...? — Nickolasgaspar

Always being in a tight spot; either Hobson's choice or Sophie's choice. This is the nub of (my) pessimism.

What defines something as inherently negative for example...? — Nickolasgaspar

For Schopenhauer for example, suffering is a constant lack we are always overcoming but never reaching. Human existence can’t help but be this and this is inherent, not just contingent to it.

The ‘rules’ of life are unknown. Games are what make up life so it is possibly a little presumptuous to assume life is a ‘game’. — I like sushi

Really? Survival in a social context seems pretty accurate to me.

That does not surprise me.

Just to add … if we are defining everything as a ‘game’ then does this term actually mean anything?

I think a lot of people get caught in the ideas of Wittgenstein and start believing ‘everything is game’ just because he termed the phrase ‘language game’ … he did use the term Language in a very narrow sense so it is worth taking that into account.

Note: I have previously used the theme of life being a ‘game’ before but that was rather loose.

We reach it in death. It is not exactly like every waking hour of our lives is hellish or even close to being so.

Human beings are human beings because we are alive. We cannot help existing. Why would we want to? I certainly have no major qualms with ‘existence’ but it is certainly puzzling that I exist and attach meaning to things in my life.

‘Suffering’ is a term too easily thrown around by you I find. Why would any sane person avoid every single ounce of suffering in life? Do to so would mean you are a walking talking zombie person shuffling through life like you are already dead. This is actually something quite common to many humans but the vast majority get over it.

Would you call Schopenhauer much of a narcissist? It just seems to me that such obsession with negative thoughts often stem from a kind of narcissism as the fury/rage/disappointment is directed at the world, or life itself, rather than simply taking the world on as mere happenstance within which we are not particularly significant nor possessing any right to demand/expect reality to be other than it is.

Everyone gets ‘angry’ at life though at some point. Then we usually grow up … albeit slowly and with instances of regression! :D

Everyone gets ‘angry’ at life though at some point. Then we usually grow up … albeit slowly and with instances of regression! :D — I like sushi

Dumb trope. That’s not how it necessarily goes. I can commit suicide or accept that I can’t change things. I want to be in neither position. But I can’t. Just saying “suck it up buttercup” is saying nothing but the default with the added “don’t complain”. But that is simply restating the status quo and telling people to not question the situation itself because YOU particularly don’t want to hear it. Then don’t worry, go somewhere else. Carry on and read nothing that challenges the status quo.

Do to so would mean you are a walking talking zombie person shuffling through life like you are already dead. This is actually something quite common to many humans but the vast majority get over it. — I like sushi

Much of life we are zombies repeating same behaviors over and over. You can fast forward most of peoples day and nothing of meaningful experiences or significance would be lost.

Putting words in my mouth now? Why?

I am failing to see the point pf any of this. You simply state the obvious over and over like it is something we should care about whilst simultaneously insinuating we should not care about it.

It does not make sense.

Pessimism is necessary in life. Suffering is necessary in life. That is not exactly anything anyone did not know is it? Even if it is so what?

Carry on and read nothing that challenges the status quo. — schopenhauer1

You literally said we cannot challenge the status quo … which we cannot. We live, we suffer and we die. Why is this ‘pessimistic’ though? It is just the fact of existing.

Pessimism is necessary in life. Suffering is necessary in life. That is not exactly anything anyone did not know is it? Even if it is so what? — I like sushi

What can be done about it?

About what? Existing?

We suffer more in imagination than in reality. — Seneca

I'll back up. I said in a reply that I am diagnosing more than prognosing. I am giving the landscape.

However, it isn't a particular war that a pessimist would care about but the seemingly pervasive aspect of conflict and war in human society, governments, and history. It seems like a feature or an irradicable bug. — schopenhauer1

I wrote a previous thread about technology, for example. In that one, I described the pervasive and inescapable nature of the fact that not all humans can truly participate in creating the technology that sustains them. — schopenhauer1

I wrote in another thread about the inability to move to another form of living. This is a pervasive and inescapable feature of being born. We cannot really change the set of choices and harms presented to us. — schopenhauer1

I now know what you really are. You're not a pessimist. You are a cynic. Know the difference. I think you have disdain, not despair, of things humans. Which give me hope -- pessimists annoy me. But cynics bring to life a different flavor of humanity. They're a funny lot, but truthful. Which is what's important. They tell it like it is.

Double post.

"Philosophical pessimism?"

'To exist sucks' mostly because – even though you ought not to exist – as Cioran points out: it's always too late not to exist. So 'embrace the suck' if you have the courage and the wit to do so; otherwise, you can always 'unfuck yourself' with either a pharmaceutical or surgical lobotomy. :eyes: — 180 Proof

:rofl:

Et lux in tenebris lucet.

Okay :) My bad. I did probably take you off-track a bit.

@schopenhauer1 I would be interested to learn about other schools of ‘pessimism’ if you can give an account of some of them rather than sticking to the one in the OP.

I feel showing the distinctions between different views in this area would help in the understanding of a particular ‘pessimism’.

Existence/life is so pathetic that ...

I now know what you really are. You're not a pessimist. You are a cynic. Know the difference. I think you have disdain, not despair, of things humans. Which give me hope -- pessimists annoy me. But cynics bring to life a different flavor of humanity. They're a funny lot, but truthful. Which is what's important. They tell it like it is. — L'éléphant

Fair enough. I think it important to point out these pervasive negatives that we cannot escape. It's like being taken advantage of but not knowing it, but trying to wake people up to the fact that they are being taken advantage of. Perhaps they don't want you to wake them up to this fact. Perhaps they liked their ignorance. It's always the same theme.. Plato telling those in the cave. The people in the cave telling him to leave them the fuck alone, and probably adds.. "You raving lunatic".

I would be interested to learn about other schools of ‘pessimism’ if you can give an account of some of them rather than sticking to the one in the OP.

I feel showing the distinctions between different views in this area would help in the understanding of a particular ‘pessimism’. — I like sushi

I think it is so loosely defined, that there aren't really "schools" of pessimists, but just individual pessimists with similar themes. However, I can sum up some basic differences:

Metaphysical Pessimists (Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Mainlander, etc):
These thinkers thought there was an inherent source of suffering. For Schopenhauer it was Will. Will represents a striving-for-nothing. Will's playground is the illusion of individuation. This individuation creates the appearance of separate objects. These objects are objectifications and individuations of the Will, but are not primary ("less real") than the unified Will. Animals, and especially humans, suffer due to a profound sense of metaphysical "lack". Satisfaction is temporary because we are go from pursuits of survival and entertainment to boredom and back. Satisfaction can only truly happen by transcending one's nature of willing. According to him, this requires denying the Will and becoming an ascetic along the lines of a Jainist or something of that nature. The ultimate fate would be to starve oneself to death peacefully. He didn't expect anyone except a few to live up to that kind of lifestyle. He did think there were other things that can invoke will-lessness. He thought compassion and art brought us temporarily into a state of will-lessness. It goes on obviously. He has four really large books on the matter in The World as Will and Representation.

I'll just paste from the Wikipedia article on Mainlander:

Working in the metaphysical framework of Schopenhauer, Mainländer sees the "will" as the innermost core of being, the ontological arche. However, he deviates from Schopenhauer in important respects. With Schopenhauer the will is singular, unified and beyond time and space. Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism leads him to conclude that we only have access to a certain aspect of the thing-in-itself by introspective observation of our own bodies. What we observe as will is all there is to observe, nothing more. There are no hidden aspects. Furthermore, via introspection we can only observe our individual will. This also leads Mainländer to the philosophical position of pluralism.[2]: 202  The goals he set for himself and for his system are reminiscent of ancient Greek philosophy: what is the relation between the undivided existence of the "One" and the everchanging world of becoming that we experience.

Additionally, Mainländer accentuates on the idea of salvation for all of creation. This is yet another respect in which he differentiates his philosophy from that of Schopenhauer. With Schopenhauer, the silencing of the will is a rare event. The artistic genius can achieve this state temporarily, while only a few saints have achieved total cessation throughout history. For Mainländer, the entirety of the cosmos is slowly but surely moving towards the silencing of the will to live and to (as he calls it) "redemption".

Mainländer theorized that an initial singularity dispersed and expanded into the known universe. This dispersion from a singular unity to a multitude of things offered a smooth transition between monism and pluralism. Mainländer thought that with the regression of time, all kinds of pluralism and multiplicity would revert to monism and he believed that, with his philosophy, he had managed to explain this transition from oneness to multiplicity and becoming.[16]

Death of God
Main article: God is dead
Despite his scientific means of explanation, Mainländer was not afraid to philosophize in allegorical terms. Formulating his own "myth of creation", Mainländer equated this initial singularity with God.

Mainländer reinterprets Schopenhauer's metaphysics in two important aspects. Primarily, in Mainländer's system there is no "singular will". The basic unity has broken apart into individual wills and each subject in existence possesses an individual will of his own. Because of this, Mainländer can claim that once an "individual will" is silenced and dies, it achieves absolute nothingness and not the relative nothingness we find in Schopenhauer. By recognizing death as salvation and by giving nothingness an absolute quality, Mainländer's system manages to offer "wider" means for redemption. Secondarily, Mainländer reinterprets the Schopenhauerian will-to-live as an underlying will-to-die, i.e. the will-to-live is the means towards the will-to-die.[17]

From the Wiki article on Hartmann:

The essential feature of the morality built upon the basis of Von Hartmann's philosophy is the realization that all is one and that, while every attempt to gain happiness is illusory, yet before deliverance is possible, all forms of the illusion must appear and be tried to the utmost. Even he who recognizes the vanity of life best serves the highest aims by giving himself up to the illusion, and living as eagerly as if he thought life good. It is only through the constant attempt to gain happiness that people can learn the desirability of nothingness; and when this knowledge has become universal, or at least general, deliverance will come and the world will cease. No better proof of the rational nature of the universe is needed than that afforded by the different ways in which men have hoped to find happiness and so have been led unconsciously to work for the final goal. The first of these is the hope of good in the present, the confidence in the pleasures of this world, such as was felt by the Greeks. This is followed by the Christian transference of happiness to another and better life, to which in turn succeeds the illusion that looks for happiness in progress, and dreams of a future made worth while by the achievements of science. All alike are empty promises, and known as such in the final stage, which sees all human desires as equally vain and the only good in the peace of Nirvana.[9]

Existential Pessimists (E.M. Cioran, Nietzsche, Camus, etc.)
These people tend to not focus on metaphysics but purely the phenomenological human.

E.M Cioran for example, wrote in essays and aphorisms. One of his main themes was the idea of inertia (that is my take anyway). It's the idea that there is our situation is grim, but there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. Here are some quotes:

My mission is to kill time, and time's to kill me in its turn. How comfortable one is among murderers.


Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.

To Live signifies to believe and hope - to lie and to lie to oneself.


Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.


Life inspires more dread than death - it is life which is the great unknown.

When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, "What's your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act." And they do calm down.

Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on. Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.

There was a time when time did not yet exist. ... The rejection of birth is nothing but the nostalgia for this time before time.

Not one moment when I have not been conscious of being outside Paradise.

Just read any of his quotes here:
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran

Again, there is not so much a coherent movement as much as similarity in themes. 19th century Germany might be the most prominent time/place of this philosophy. Schopenhauer was the progenitor for much of the ideas that came after. Even if not directly, movements like existentialism were influenced from him.

For more reading go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_pessimism

or read these books:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1677700.Pessimism
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28192377-weltschmerz?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=CASfH7rSIL&rank=1

From Goodreads on Weltschmerz:

Weltschmerz is a study of the pessimism that dominated German philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century. Pessimism was essentially the theory that life is not worth living. This theory was introduced into German philosophy by Schopenhauer, whose philosophy became very fashionable in the 1860s. Frederick C. Beiser examines the intense and long controversy that arose from Schopenhauer's pessimism, which changed the agenda of philosophy in Germany away from the logic of the sciences and toward an examination of the value of life. He examines the major defenders of pessimism (Philipp Mainlander, Eduard von Hartmann and Julius Bahnsen) and its chief critics, especially Eugen Duhring and the neo-Kantians. The pessimism dispute of the second half of the century has been largely ignored in secondary literature and this book is a first attempt since the 1880s to re-examine it and to analyze the important philosophical issues raised by it. The dispute concerned the most
fundamental philosophical issue of them all: whether life is worth living.

I believe we can resign from life, but mind you, not in the way we think.

I ‘work’ 20 hrs a week currently - cut down from 24 hrs.

My ‘job’ is something I enjoy 80% of the time.

I do not get sucked into ‘consumption’ for the sake of consumption - do not use a mobile (have one but it stays as home). I buy new clothes every 4 or 5 years, and the only possessions I have of value to me are my books and iPad. I refuse to wear clothes that have any symbol or writing on (dislike them for some reason).

People may judge, and do, and I do not care too much. I am my own judge and jury for the most part (obviously I am a social creature so others have some sway over my choices and thoughts).

Basically, the OP is a relative point of view. I have felt the general shadow of the OP in life but I simply refused to accept it and told my parents from a fairly young age that I would rather live and die on the streets than get stuck in a job I hated.

Sloth is about avoidance not ‘lazing around’. If someone chooses to sit around all day picking their nose that is their choice. I feel sad for them. Some of the most slothful people I have met are very industrious … they are simply doing something easy to distract from what their passions are.

Your only usefulness to broader society is your ability to both produce and consume. If we do not value these things (in the modern context at least), the system collapses. — schopenhauer1

The operative phrase there is "in the modern context", by which I take it you mean western industrial capitalist society. I do realize that most of the world has followed suit, whether they wanted to or not.

A couple of things about this kind of society: it's anxious, alienated and terminally ill. The very conceptual foundation of capitalism is anti-human and anti-life. Since it runs on debt, it has to keep growing to survive and that means it has to consume everything and then die. But it's incapable and unwilling to look forward at long-term consequences. If we look back a few thousand year, so is the basis of "civilization" as we have learned to call urbanized, stratified social organization, fundamentally anti-life and anti-human. As we have domesticated and enfeebled dogs by breeding the wolf out of them, we have domesticated humans by browbeating, bribing and flim-flamming the zest for life out of them...

No, not quite. There is spark still left. Is there any hope for it to thrive? It depends, I think, on how soon the present system collapses; whether there is something and someone left for a new departure.
Since I like to imagine so, I suppose I'm not a real pessimist... yet.