I feel (and this is completely subjective) that when I was a kid reading science fiction in the late 80's the major themes across authors tended to run along the lines of "How can humanity be saved?"
Anymore, most of what I read tends to lean more towards "Is humanity worth saving?"
Of all the writers that you mention, Julius Bahnsen has to be the most obscure, neglected, and forgotten. Thank you for keeping his memory alive as extremely few others, except perhaps in footnotes to Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, are inclined to do so. It has been almost 150 years since his death and his works will probably never be translated into English. There are two reasons for this that I can see: his absolute and subversive pessimism along with his difficult and impenetrable style. There seems to be more interest in him in the Spanish-speaking world.
I have to give Thomas Ligotti a lot of credit for mentioning him in his great book,The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror. That section can be found here.
There is no entry for Bahnsen in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. By far the best discussion and analysis of his life and work is to be found in the final chapter of Frederick C. Beiser’s highly regarded book, Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900. For those not wanting to purchase it, a summary can be found here.
For some inexplicable reason, Bahnsen is not even mentioned in Joshua Foa Dienstag’s otherwise excellent work, Pessimism: philosophy, ethic, spirit. But as if to compound this omission, neither is the better known Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer Peter Wessel Zapffe, who is treated by Ligotti at length. I would love to hear your views on Zapffe and especially his marvelous essay, “The Last Messiah.” However, I certainly would not wish to unduly burden you, taking into consideration Bahnsen’s self-chosen epitaph: Vita mea irritus labor.
It seems that you have correctly surmised that their are only two things that can motivate us - what is and what should never be...
We, as a race, have obviously gone down the wrong road and are in desperate need to turn around, go back to where we came from and consciously and willingly choose 'what is' to guide us...
But to face that fact and to make that choice seems like the most difficult thing to do!
We generally prefer to 'soldier on' towards the abyss, as if, only by going totally over the edge can we learn the folly of the direction we are so obviously heading in!
I feel (and this is completely subjective) that when I was a kid reading science fiction in the late 80's the major themes across authors tended to run along the lines of "How can humanity be saved?"
Anymore, most of what I read tends to lean more towards "Is humanity worth saving?"
Of all the writers that you mention, Julius Bahnsen has to be the most obscure, neglected, and forgotten. Thank you for keeping his memory alive as extremely few others, except perhaps in footnotes to Schopenhauer or Nietzsche, are inclined to do so. It has been almost 150 years since his death and his works will probably never be translated into English. There are two reasons for this that I can see: his absolute and subversive pessimism along with his difficult and impenetrable style. There seems to be more interest in him in the Spanish-speaking world.
I have to give Thomas Ligotti a lot of credit for mentioning him in his great book,The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror. That section can be found here.
There is no entry for Bahnsen in the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. By far the best discussion and analysis of his life and work is to be found in the final chapter of Frederick C. Beiser’s highly regarded book, Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900. For those not wanting to purchase it, a summary can be found here.
For some inexplicable reason, Bahnsen is not even mentioned in Joshua Foa Dienstag’s otherwise excellent work, Pessimism: philosophy, ethic, spirit. But as if to compound this omission, neither is the better known Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer Peter Wessel Zapffe, who is treated by Ligotti at length. I would love to hear your views on Zapffe and especially his marvelous essay, “The Last Messiah.” However, I certainly would not wish to unduly burden you, taking into consideration Bahnsen’s self-chosen epitaph: Vita mea irritus labor.
It seems that you have correctly surmised that their are only two things that can motivate us - what is and what should never be...
We, as a race, have obviously gone down the wrong road and are in desperate need to turn around, go back to where we came from and consciously and willingly choose 'what is' to guide us...
But to face that fact and to make that choice seems like the most difficult thing to do!
We generally prefer to 'soldier on' towards the abyss, as if, only by going totally over the edge can we learn the folly of the direction we are so obviously heading in!
https://substack.com/home/post/p-140838315