Female pessimists?

[Steve Dekorte]

I would like to stand this thread on its head, and ask why so many males are pessimists.

Or ask if males are really more pessimistic after all. Here's two points for that side:

1. My impression is that relatively few women take to physically dangerous sports. Could it be that women are less optimistic about avoiding injury (hold fewer delusions of invincibility)?

2. A sure place to find true optimists are casinos and compulsive gambling is ~75% male: http://www.responsiblegambling.org/articles/Gender_Differences_in_Gambling_Behavior_and_.pdf

Another point: There seems to be an implicit claim in this thread that those that want to have children are optimists and those that don't are pessimists and this assumes parents give significant thought to their children's welfare. Perhaps this is not the case. This would explain why you see high fertility rates even when it is likely that the children will live in miserable conditions and may not even be able to be fed. It's not they are optimistic that things will be better for their children. It's that they think it likely that sex and/or reproduction will benefit themselves even if this benefit comes at the cost of their children's suffering.

 

[candy]

Most women have children, which makes it difficult to be a pessimist. Can you really look down at the bundle of joy in your arms and say that it would have been better if he or she had not been born?

I agree with you to a point. I have two children and could never imagine my life without them. But when I became pregnant with my first child I honestly thought my life was over. Now that she is a teenager and quite self-sufficient I realize that my life is better for having her in it.

I used to live next to a woman who constantly said things like,"I can't wait to have kids, kids are great, etc." After giving birth to twins she ended up leaving the kids with her mother and moving out of state.

I think parenthood doesn't prove pessimism or optimism. I also believe that most people are both optimists and pessimists. Depending on your mood that day or the situation you find yourself in. I try to be an optimist every day when I wake up but find by the time I go to bed at night the pessimist inside of me has struck again.

 

[Gray House]

Off topic unfortunately, but related to the link Thomas cited, the very lucid and fascinating Sister Y wrote in response to a question as to why philosophers treat the default position as against suicide;

"I don't know why this should be. I haven't come up with any explanations for this that I find compelling. Perhaps it's the psychological salience of the act of suicide, or the ubiquity and ancientness of the prohibition, although philosophy is usually able to get behind such things."

One theory for this may be that society recognizes retrospectively in the person who has committed (or attempted) the act, an individual who was of relative greater worth to the maintenance of the society. Thus the victim of a conventional act of violence is still commiserated, of course, but in a very different way. A hypothetical explanation for this would be that it is because the individuals who attempt to remove themselves from existence are more likely by their actions during life (Sublimations in the CATHR sense, I think) to provide Distractions (in the CATHR sense) to needful members of society, (almost everyone else). (As another aside their greater intensity of feeling may also correspond to a spirit of self-sacrifice useful to the society, but this is another issue).

Another way of phrasing it is: the group in which suicidal propensities occur strongly overlaps the group with an ability to provide a society/culture with meaning. Their suffering is a terrible by product/consequence of the ability to be so close to meaning and to communicate it (or its lack). They see the palette or toolbox for what it is – others see the created picture. If this were recognized probably unconsciously by society it may explain part of the "ancientness of the prohibition". These same individuals may be more likely to posses a creativity vital to others -

I am thinking along the lines of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity_and_bipolar_disorder

and Kay Jamison’s "Touched with Fire" book - I am not sure the correlation between bipolar and creativity is proven concretely by science (Honestly though, I declare non-objectivity - I will probably believe it exists, faithfully, forever) but the bipolar suicide connection is quite clear I think and has also been my anecdotal experience. Please note: I am not inferring that creativity requires this, just that the state which has been termed "bipolar" has a correlation within it, with creativity. I am also not arguing there is an identity betwween pessimists and individuals with the bipolar state, just some overlap - I am also not arguing many other things and probably I am incapable of sharing my thoughts sufficiently clearly, for which I apologise.

I have probably communicated these ideas poorly and none of the connections I hypothesize, even if correct, are going to be absolute, just some thoughts, still reading CATHR.

This is a thought provoking theory. A thought I have on it is that this could possibly be true in a segment of society consisting of those with, to my mind, good taste in Distractions. But I think there is perhaps a larger segment consisting of those who prefer Distractions that would be unlikely to be produced by creativity that might be resultant from a bipolar state. I don't know for sure what sort of creativity might generally be resultant from a bipolar state, but my guess is that it isn't of the kind that might produce, for example, Pirates of the Caribbean. Although, the development of the art of film-making conceivably might not have advanced far enough without many bipolar people throughout its history to produce the films, good and bad, being made today.

Incidentally, and rather frivolously, it occurs to me that the painting I use as my avatar might make a good metaphor for this theory. If you look closely, the upper portion of it is filled with smiling faces. These could represent society. The people in the arena could represent bipolar people. The lions could represent the bipolar disorder. The people and lions in the arena are providing the smiling onlookers with Distraction.

 

[Odalisque]

I also believe that most people are both optimists and pessimists. Depending on your mood that day or the situation you find yourself in. I try to be an optimist every day when I wake up but find by the time I go to bed at night the pessimist inside of me has struck again.

A good point. Sometimes I feel optimistic, sometimes pessimistic. There seems something odd about the idea of people being stuck in one or other condition.

 

[Nemonymous]

I also believe that most people are both optimists and pessimists. Depending on your mood that day or the situation you find yourself in. I try to be an optimist every day when I wake up but find by the time I go to bed at night the pessimist inside of me has struck again.

A good point. Sometimes I feel optimistic, sometimes pessimistic. There seems something odd about the idea of people being stuck in one or other condition.

I suppose all is relative. I feel that to study pessimism as a philosophy or have empathy with pessimism (so called - although another debating point might be: what is pessimism? And is it vital to act as a foil to optimisim?) or to utilise pessimism in some way in one's art, all that doesn't (intentionally or necessarily or logically) mean that one is generally pessimistic more than optimistic.
I don't think there is any generality, either, with gender. Men seem to write more and paint more, judging by the number of male names in any bibliography of philosophy, or fiction, or art....and so there seem to be many more overt male pessimists.
des

 

[Odalisque]

I suppose all is relative.

But is the relative an aunt or an uncle?

 

[Acutely decayed]

But I think there is perhaps a larger segment consisting of those who prefer Distractions that would be unlikely to be produced by creativity that might be resultant from a bipolar state. I don't know for sure what sort of creativity might generally be resultant from a bipolar state, but my guess is that it isn't of the kind that might produce, for example, Pirates of the Caribbean. .

I am actually unhappy with my post because it does not really communicate what I was trying to say.... i am not clear on it myself. It also downplays or fails to emphasize the serious and terrible nature of the bipolar state, which is not what I intended.

As far as my argument goes, part of the problem I think, is I am blurring the categories of distraction and anchors - I am suggesting the individuals who help society cope by facilitating both mechanisms most successfully, are perhaps (in some cases) more likely than the average person to not draw any lasting solace from them themselves. There may not even be a need to invoke the example of what are seen as non-conventional mental states.

They are themselves less likely to be able to avoid the evidence that existence is "MALIGNANTLY USELESS" .

this was very interesting on meaning, to me at least

http://theviewfromhell.blogspot.com/2008/06/mismatch-and-meaning.html


Our ideas on quality of meaning fall apart, when distractions are seen for what they are as far as CATHR is concerned, I think. If all meaning is manufactured, the quality of a distraction is merely that it does just that. "Pirates of the Carribean" may work as well as Bach if it works for the person in question..... then again people sharing this view are not the individuals displaying the response I was initially talking about.

Perhaps with anchors the quality of the associated art or theme (religous art for instance) remains pertinent longer, perhaps not. Anchors would seem to have their own associated distractions that improve their efficacy. My own Anchors have some exquisite distractions.

It is also likely that there is no need, to posit other theories than societies empathy for the person lost (that is the imaging of how bad it must have been for that person to take the action they did) to explain the response to a suicide – my theory is perhaps an uneccessarily selfish attribution of societies motives.

It is a reflection of the power and ontological honest of CATHR that I feel compelled to babble like this - it is unlike me, at least as I had the illusion I was. I find myself compelled to grasp at philosophical life-lines.

To return to topic - Emily Dickinson always struck me as having a deeply pessimistic nature based on her honest assessment of existence, and her poetry seemed quite philosphical to me, to the extent she unflinchingly reveals the bleakness of life. I may be remembering selectively though, as I have not read her recently.

 

[bendk]

I really enjoyed your bundle of joy post Bleak&Icy! It reads like something Ligotti would write.

A few general comments:

As a little kid when I first used the accusation of "I was never asked to be born." the immediate reply was: "Who was?" I think that excuse should not be able to be used once you perpetuate the problem yourself. Another good response is "Many people are a lot worse off than you." This is usually the preamble to a chronicle of woes that boggles the imagination. And they think this is supposed to justify life!

This young lady at work (pregnant yet again) once asked me "How many children do you have?" I said "None." She said "Well, you better hurry up and have some." No doubt alluding to my middle age. I said " I don't want any and I never have." She inadvertently blurted out "That's selfish." She apologized, but it was obvious that she stated the truth as she saw it. Not only do I disagree, but I think not having children is the antithesis of selfishness. I was lucky, my parents had my baby sister when my mom was forty and I was already fifteen. When her elderly babysitter got sick, I got to stay home from school and take care of her. And it was great fun! One year I got to stay home from school for over twenty days! I can certainly see why people would want to have children, but I have been ill for most of my life and I could never bring myself to inflict that kind of suffering on anyone else. And I do find it amazing when parents expect "gratitude" for whatever reason.

A few loose quotes:

I think it was either La Rochefoucauld or Chamfort who said "When one considers life one thinks of revenge."

De Sade went even further by stating that parricide should not even be considered a crime.

 

[Daisy]

I’ve just had the opportunity to read this thread in its entirety, and, for whatever it’s worth, I’d like to add a few words both personal and general.

Having learned at a very early age about my grandmothers’ individual struggles , I developed a certain, hardly uncommon perspective, that life is a hardship through and through -- particularly for women, who often bear the brunt of the world’s abuse, ridicule, poverty, and abjection. Had my grandmothers, or any number of women living or dead, been given the platform to voice their opinions about what it means to be alive, I think they would have been too choked with tears of exhaustion and defeat to do so.

Perhaps the overall lack of known female philosophers and writers who articulate a dark or problematic view of existence can be blamed in part on the “gallery’s” abhorrence (to pick up on Bleak&Icy’s terms) of a negative woman, i.e., one who either acts out her negativity or expresses it in some systematic way. Fortunately, women like Laura Riding Jackson, Ai [Florence Anthony], Marguerite Yourcenar and others faced down the prospect of opprobrium and challenged expectations. For writers both female and male, it takes great courage to publish ideas that many will perceive as oppositional, obscure, or grotesque.

In her tract "The Sufficient Difference" (wr. 1966-1975), Jackson writes, "Are we dolls, created to be just so much, and no more?” In answering her own question, she reaches a singular awareness: “By the body's remote understanding we know life only as individual parcels of itself wrapped in death." Knowing what she knows, I would ask (in futility), “How can one be a woman – how can one be a human being – and not be a pessimist?”

 

[tonalized]

Nice post. I hope it's not parody. Anyway, as a schizophrenic and an alcoholic, I understand how simply being alive can be a serious burden. Regardless, the point that I disagree with you and Mr. Ligotti is that I'm glad I'm alive. The momentary (and I mean few & far between) moments of pleasure or happiness can make it worth while. What I mean to say is that our existence is most likely merely a blip on the cosmic timeline, we think and feel, but nothing we do will ever really matter in the long and short of it. Might as well just do what makes you the happiest.

 

[paeng]

It might be better to see pessimism in light of peak oil, climate change, and the effects of a debt-ridden economic crisis.

 

[DoktorH]

There is also the fact that in most cultures, there is still a slight stigma attached to those females that do not want children, so more of them are less vocal about their beliefs. "You don't want children? Your biological clock has not started ticking? You don't have a maternal instinct? Whatever is the matter with you dear?"

I think the stigma is on anyone who chooses to abstain from the love/sex/dating/marriage/procreation drama. I think the stigma is more severe for women in American culture because the men are expected to resist to some extent before finally yielding while the women are expected to lure them into it.

 

[ToALonelyPeace]

"There are no female Jack the Rippers for the same reason that there are no female Mozarts." -- Camille Paglia

I was never fond of Paglia, but now I know why some people consider her an idiot. If she actually does some research, she'd know there are plenty of infamous female serial killers, such as : Enriqueta Marti (active in Spain during 1890s, prostituted & killed children to sell their bones as magical powder), Jane Toppan (active in Massachusetts during 1890s, her ambition was "to have killed more people — helpless people — than any other man or woman who ever lived...), Elizabeth Bathory, Miyuki Ishikawa, etc...I would argue female serial killers have been more effective and practical in their killings, with body count reaching the 650 for Bathory.

There are female pessimists, namely: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Flannery O' Connor, Eudora Welty, Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte, Edna St. Vincent Millay...these I remember off the top of my head.

I don't know about pessimistic female philosopher, but I think that this is due to the lack of pessimistic philosophers in general.

 

[Chroale]

Helene von Druskowitz' "Pessmistische Kardinalsätze" (= "pessimistic cardinal sentences") (1905) may be counted as a pessimistic philosophical work. The rather curious aspect of it is that it claims that men were the primary curse of the world. So it may be rather taken as a very early feminist pamphlet. But still, there are some rather general pessimistic passages. I'm afraid it hasn't been translated into English. If you're able to read German, here's a link to the full text: Pessimistische Kardinalsätze – Wikisource

 

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Wonder where all these forum members have gone?

 

[DarkView]

I haven't personally known any pessimists of either sex. The few I've had discussions with were all online and male. I assume that's because in the U.S. optimism is practically a pathology.

 

[gveranon]

Sister Y, mentioned by the Yellow Jester himself in an old post upthread, is Sarah Perry, author of Every Cradle Is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide. I read this book a few months ago and recommend it highly to anyone interested in philosophical questions of pessimism, antinatalism, and suicide. It is lucid, broadly informed, argued with great sensitivity and acuity, and gracefully written. I'm still sorting out what I agree with and what I don't. It's that kind of valuable book: a book to think with, and a book to go back to.

A couple of years ago I started a thread on Louise-Victorine Ackermann. Secondary sources depict her as a pessimist. As far as I know, her writings still haven't been translated into English.

 

[Coa]

Compared to your usual standards of feminist writing, Paglia actually did some research. And story about Bathory is overblown teletubbies-stuff.

 

[ChildofOldLeech]

- Although they might not be labeled Pessimists with a capital P, over the past year or so I've been reading a number of works by Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, and I'd say they qualify. Oh, and Elfriede Jelinek as well, perhaps?

(Incidentally, in re: Paglia; something I've noticed for some time now is that she tends to be about the only 'feminist' mentioned with approval by those who are otherwise quite antipathetic towards feminism.)

 

[gveranon]

- Although they might not be labeled Pessimists with a capital P, over the past year or so I've been reading a number of works by Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, and I'd say they qualify. Oh, and Elfriede Jelinek as well, perhaps?

Yes, some of Sontag's essays. "Under the Sign of Saturn" is about Walter Benjamin and melancholy. "Thinking Against Oneself" is about Cioran. Other essays, too. Damn, now I'd like to take another look, but I can't find any of her books in the mostly-unshelved chaos of my "library." If I remember rightly, Cioran didn't like her essay about him, but I don't suppose that matters. There's also a very good collection of interviews with her. I haven't seen her recently-published journals; I should probably buy and misplace those, too.