The Temptation to Exist
by
by
Richard Howard (Translator),
Susan Sontag (Introduction)
The Sin of Obsessive Assurance
Susan Sontag’s introduction to these essays cites their dependence on Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. But I don’t think she is correct in her claim that Cioran merely restates their arguments. Rather he makes them even more extreme in their already radical alienation by recognising the source of the problem: language, that very tool through which the problem is formulated. This self-referentiality is spiritually, politically, and very often physically intolerable.
Being trapped within the bubble of language is a horrible fate. It obsesses us; it frustrates us; and it can often drive us insane. So Cioran laments, “The fact... that our first ancestor left us, for our entire legacy, only the horror of paradise. By giving names to things, he prepared his own Fall and ours. And if we seek a remedy, we must begin by debaptizing the universe, by removing the label which, assigned to each appearance, isolates it and lends it a simulacrum of meaning.”
There is no escape from the bubble. We increase its strength every time we attempt to denounce it. It is a universe that expands without limit faster than we can measure it. Because we casually use it, we believe we control it. But this is its hidden strength: it feigns impotence. Cioran speaks of “the stupidities inherent in the cult of truth.” Language simply never approaches reality. Truth is merely a conceit that language insinuates into defective lives.
The therapy we typically employ to break out of the bubble is action. Action is real; action seems to pierce the bubble, to neutralise it. But, of course, the motive for action, the ideal, the goal, the value and intended effects of action are already infected by the contents of the bubble. Even in action we cannot but increase its power: “The man who unmasks his fictions renounces his own resources and, in a sense, himself. Consequently, he will accept other fictions which will deny him, since they will not have cropped up from his own depths.”
Cioran says, “The aspiration to ‘save’ the world is a morbid phenomenon of a people’s youth.” Youth eventually finds that saving the world demands power. Power is the universal currency of the idealists who have emerged from youth strengthened in their resolve to push on. So they spend their lives collecting it. “Contaminated by the superstition of action, we believe that our ideas must come to something.” Language leads us into an abyss of delusion that we seek to impose everywhere, on everything and everyone.
Those who seek power within the bubble don’t realise that to the degree they succeed in their quest, they become oppressed under the weight of their own language. Their personal bubble collapses to the literary density of a neutron star in which substance is so uniform that there is no chemical or atomic interaction. Their expression becomes repetitive and formulaic. Cant is the ultimate reduction of language to disassociated atoms of linguistic matter. Action becomes increasingly violent to compensate for the vacuity of language. The result is predictable:
Most people are satisfied to remain placidly within the bubble of language because it promises happiness, contentment, advancement, and ultimate peace. Liberation, redemption, and salvation are the terms used to provide assurance that the bubble is fundamentally benign. That this is a delusion is rejected by the mass and exploited by the rest. Language provides to the ambitious an unlimited vocabulary of novel ideas that please those who need assurance:
Nietzsche and Dostoevsky had some minimal confidence that their writing might be noted, perhaps heeded by some to improve life within the bubble. Cioran had no such hope. He knows that attacking the bubble is a task of intellectual vanity. The compulsion to carry out such attacks leads only to exhausted compliance:
Cioran, therefore presents more than an atheist spirituality. He wants to combat the grave sin of optimism rampant in a world that considers idealism a virtue. Salvation does not come from triumph against physical or social adversity but the renunciation of ideals tout court. Seen in this light, as a mystical prophet, Cioran presents a call perhaps not heard since Isaiah to attend to oneself rather than everyone else’s defects.
*It is difficult for me to read this passage without thinking of Trump’s incitement to riot on January 6th.
Susan Sontag’s introduction to these essays cites their dependence on Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. But I don’t think she is correct in her claim that Cioran merely restates their arguments. Rather he makes them even more extreme in their already radical alienation by recognising the source of the problem: language, that very tool through which the problem is formulated. This self-referentiality is spiritually, politically, and very often physically intolerable.
Being trapped within the bubble of language is a horrible fate. It obsesses us; it frustrates us; and it can often drive us insane. So Cioran laments, “The fact... that our first ancestor left us, for our entire legacy, only the horror of paradise. By giving names to things, he prepared his own Fall and ours. And if we seek a remedy, we must begin by debaptizing the universe, by removing the label which, assigned to each appearance, isolates it and lends it a simulacrum of meaning.”
There is no escape from the bubble. We increase its strength every time we attempt to denounce it. It is a universe that expands without limit faster than we can measure it. Because we casually use it, we believe we control it. But this is its hidden strength: it feigns impotence. Cioran speaks of “the stupidities inherent in the cult of truth.” Language simply never approaches reality. Truth is merely a conceit that language insinuates into defective lives.
The therapy we typically employ to break out of the bubble is action. Action is real; action seems to pierce the bubble, to neutralise it. But, of course, the motive for action, the ideal, the goal, the value and intended effects of action are already infected by the contents of the bubble. Even in action we cannot but increase its power: “The man who unmasks his fictions renounces his own resources and, in a sense, himself. Consequently, he will accept other fictions which will deny him, since they will not have cropped up from his own depths.”
Cioran says, “The aspiration to ‘save’ the world is a morbid phenomenon of a people’s youth.” Youth eventually finds that saving the world demands power. Power is the universal currency of the idealists who have emerged from youth strengthened in their resolve to push on. So they spend their lives collecting it. “Contaminated by the superstition of action, we believe that our ideas must come to something.” Language leads us into an abyss of delusion that we seek to impose everywhere, on everything and everyone.
Those who seek power within the bubble don’t realise that to the degree they succeed in their quest, they become oppressed under the weight of their own language. Their personal bubble collapses to the literary density of a neutron star in which substance is so uniform that there is no chemical or atomic interaction. Their expression becomes repetitive and formulaic. Cant is the ultimate reduction of language to disassociated atoms of linguistic matter. Action becomes increasingly violent to compensate for the vacuity of language. The result is predictable:
“Faithful to his appearances, the man of violence is not discouraged, he starts all over again, and persists, since he cannot exempt himself from suffering. His occasional efforts to destroy others are merely a roundabout route to his own destruction. Beneath his self-confidence, his braggadocio, lurks a fanatic of disaster. Hence it is among the violent that we meet the enemies of themselves. And we are all violent— men of anger who, having lost the key of quietude, now have access only to the secrets of laceration.”*
Most people are satisfied to remain placidly within the bubble of language because it promises happiness, contentment, advancement, and ultimate peace. Liberation, redemption, and salvation are the terms used to provide assurance that the bubble is fundamentally benign. That this is a delusion is rejected by the mass and exploited by the rest. Language provides to the ambitious an unlimited vocabulary of novel ideas that please those who need assurance:
“As for our redeemers, come among us for our greater harm, we love the noxiousness of their hopes and their remedies, their eagerness to favor and exalt our ills, the venom that infuses their “lifegiving” words. To them we owe our expertise in a suffering that has no exit.”
Nietzsche and Dostoevsky had some minimal confidence that their writing might be noted, perhaps heeded by some to improve life within the bubble. Cioran had no such hope. He knows that attacking the bubble is a task of intellectual vanity. The compulsion to carry out such attacks leads only to exhausted compliance:
“One does not abuse one’s capacity to doubt with impunity... Those who have found answers for nothing are better at enduring the effects of tyranny than those who have found an answer for everything.”
Cioran, therefore presents more than an atheist spirituality. He wants to combat the grave sin of optimism rampant in a world that considers idealism a virtue. Salvation does not come from triumph against physical or social adversity but the renunciation of ideals tout court. Seen in this light, as a mystical prophet, Cioran presents a call perhaps not heard since Isaiah to attend to oneself rather than everyone else’s defects.
*It is difficult for me to read this passage without thinking of Trump’s incitement to riot on January 6th.
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ February 08, 2021
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