The common meaning of ‘pessimism’ is, according to one common dictionary,
a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen; a lack of hope or confidence in the future.
In this pedestrian sense, a ‘pessimist’ is one who expects bad weather, expects his favorite sports team to lose, expects illness, poverty, and difficult times; in this sense, a pessimist, confronted with a person, place, thing, idea, or event will identify and expound on its disadvantages and drawbacks.
But the word ‘pessimist’ is used in a radically different way by Schopenhauer and by many other philosophers. We must clearly distinguish between these two ways of using the word, and we must dismiss from our minds entirely the ordinary everyday meaning.
For Arthur Schopenhauer, born in 1788, the word ‘pessimism’ refers to a belief that the world is not perfectible. Schopenhauer, in asserting pessimism, means to say that the empirical real world in which we live is necessarily not perfect, and this cannot be changed. We might be able to change the world, but we cannot change the fact that the world is necessarily imperfect.
In answering the question about Schopenhauer’s understanding of pessimism, we raise further questions. What does it mean for the world to be perfect? What does it mean for the world to be imperfect? This would include a long list of synonyms: the world necessarily contains some evil; the world is flawed; the world necessarily contains pain and suffering; the world contains injustice and violations of moral law and of natural law.
To sort out what Schopenhauer means, we can look at some salient texts from The World as Will and Representation, originally published as Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung and alternately translated as The World as Will and Idea. Schopenhauer raises the concept of pessimism in the context of comparative religious studies.
All religions, argues Schopenhauer, are most meaningfully analyzed and divided into two groups, not by asking whether they be monotheistic or polytheistic, but rather by asking whether they are optimistic or pessimistic. Optimistic religions, he writes, find the world, as it is, to be self-justified and laudable. Pessimistic religions find the world's condition to be a consequence of our, of humanity’s, guilt; pessimistic religions find that the world should not be as it is, and perhaps should not be at all. Schopenhauer writes:
Den Fundamentalunterschied aller Religionen kann ich nicht, wie durchgängig geschieht, darin setzen, ob sie monotheistisch, polytheistisch, pantheistisch, oder atheistisch sind; sondern nur darin, ob sie optimistisch oder pessimistisch sind, d.h. ob sie das Dasein dieser Welt als durch sich selbst gerechtfertigt darstellen, mithin es loben und preisen, oder aber es betrachten als etwas, das nur als Folge unserer Schuld begriffen werden kann und daher eigentlich nicht sein sollte, indem sie erkennen, dass Schmerz und Tod nicht liegen können in der ewigen, ursprünglichen, unabänderlichen Ordnung der Dinge, in Dem, was in jedem Betracht sein sollte.Schopenhauer’s understanding of pessimism complements his understanding of optimism. He expounds this by means of his understanding of various religions - Judaism, Christianity, and pagan mythology. The reader should bear in mind that Schopenhauer is discussing these religions as he understood them, which raises a further question of whether he understood them correctly. But to understand his use of ‘pessimism’ and ‘optimism,’ we will grant for the moment Schopenhauer’s understandings of those religions to him.
Schopenhauer sees Buddhism and Christianity as the two great pessimistic religions, by which he means that they understand the human condition to be one of suffering and sin. By contrast, he sees Judaism, Islam, and Greco-Roman mythologies as optimistic religions. He explains:
Die Kraft, vermöge welcher das Christentum zunächst das Judentum und dann das Griechische und Römische Heidentum überwinden konnte, liegt ganz allein in seinem Pessimismus, in dem Eingeständnis, dass unser Zustand ein höchst elender und zugleich sündlicher ist, während Judentum und Heidentum optimistisch waren.
Schopenhauer argues that the crucifixion of Jesus was a concrete instance of the conflict between optimism and pessimism. Judaism, embodying optimism, could not tolerate Jesus, who embodied pessimism. As he phrases it,
Sind es doch, der evangelischen Darstellung zufolge, gerade die orthodoxen Anhänger des Alten Testaments, welche den Kreuzestod des Stifters herbeiführen, weil sie seine Lehren im Widerstreit mit den ihrigen finden. Im besagten dritten Buche der Stromata des Klemens tritt der Antagonismus zwischen Optimismus, nebst Theismus, einerseits, und Pessimismus, nebst asketischer Moral, andererseits, mit überraschender Deutlichkeit hervor.
Because he has cited a book by Clement of Alexandria, Schopenhauer offers an additional explanation about the role of Gnosticism in the conflict between optimistic Judaism and pessimistic Christianity. But Schopenhauer's comments about Gnosticism are beside the point. His argumentation becomes dense at this point. Having begun with his assertion that Christianity and Buddhism are pessimistic religions, and that Islam and Judaism are optimistic religions, he goes on to examine an internecine conflict within Christianity, the dispute between orthodoxy and Gnosticism. Schopenhauer mines Clement's comments about Gnosticism; Clement is himself of complex figure, opposing, yet influenced by, Gnosticism.
More to the point is his (mis)understanding of the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He rather simplistically identifies the Old Testament with Judaism and the New Testament with Christianity. He thereby ignores the fact that Judaism is something more than the Old Testament, ignores the fact that Christianity is a construct which arose in accumulated traditions which extend beyond the New Testament, ignores the fact that the New Testament is a thoroughly Jewish set of texts, ignores the fact that Jesus is thoroughly Jewish, and ignores the complex and subtle interplay between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In addition, he ignores the distinction between Jesus and Christianity. He ignores a few other things as well. Schopenhauer rather blithely writes:
Dasselbe ist gegen die Gnostiker gerichtet, welche eben Pessimismus und Askese, namentlich enkrateia (Enthaltsamkeit jeder Art, besonders aber von aller Geschlechtsbefriedigung) lehrten; weshalb Klemens sie lebhaft tadelt. Dabei schimmert aber zugleich durch, dass schon der Geist des Alten Testaments mit dem des Neuen Testaments in diesem Antagonismus steht.While Schopenhauer might not be good at descriptive comparative religious studies, he nonetheless makes a noteworthy contribution to philosophy by his examination and explication of his notions of pessimism and optimism.
Somewhat more accurately, but still perhaps not entirely grasping the spirit of Judaism, he notes that the Fall is an event which points more to a pessimistic religion than to an optimistic one. Maybe he underestimates the permeating presence of the Fall throughout the Old Testament. He sees it as an exception rather than a leitmotif in the text:
Denn, abgesehen vom Sündenfall, der im Alten Testament wie ein hors d'oeuvre dasteht, ist der Geist des Alten Testaments dem des Neuen Testaments diametral entgegengesetzt: jener optimistisch, dieser pessimistisch.
Having cited Clement of Alexandria, Schopenhauer continues his sidebar discussion of Gnosticism, which is not directly to the point of pessimism, but does contain in passing some remarks which are to the point. Although Clement attacks Gnosticism for its pessimism, Schopenhauer uses Clement's text as a guide to philosophical antecedents. Those whom Clement dismisses, Schopenhauer sees as pioneers:
Er sieht darin ihren schreienden Undank, Feindschaft und Empörung gegen Den, der die Welt gemacht hat, den gerechten Demiurgos, dessen Werk sie selbst seien und dennoch von seinen Schöpfungen Gebrauch zu machen verschmäheten, in gottloser Rebellion »die naturgemäße Gesinnung verlassend« (antitassomenoi tô poiêtê tô sphôn, – – – enkrateis tê pros ton pepoiêkota echthra, mê boulomenoi chrêsthai tois hyp' autou ktistheisin, – – asebei theomachia tôn kata physin ekstantes logismôn). – Dabei will er, in seinem heiligen Eifer, den Markioniten nicht ein Mal die Ehre der Originalität lassen, sondern, gewaffnet mit seiner bekannten Gelehrsamkeit, hält er ihnen vor, und belegt es mit den schönsten Anführungen, dass schon die alten Philosophen, dass Herakleitos und Empedokles, Pythagoras und Plato, Orpheus und Pindaros, Herodot und Euripides, und noch die Sibylle dazu, die jammervolle Beschaffenheit der Welt tief beklagt, also den Pessimismus gelehrt haben.
Moving into a lesser-known set of religious examples, Schopenhauer looks to the language and religion of Persia's Zend culture, which is Zoroastrianism. He sees Zoroastrianism as attempting some manner of middle ground in the tension between optimism and pessimism. Following the thought of Johann Gottlieb Rhode, Schopenhauer (wrongly) identifies Zoroastrianism as the ancestor of Judaism.
While Zoroastrianism, in Schopenhauer's understanding, attempts to balance optimism and pessimism, Judaism, in Schopenhauer's view, tilts the table toward optimism. Zoroastrianism's two gods, one good and one evil, represent the balance; in Judaism's subordination of Satan as inferior to God, Schopenhauer sees a loss of balance.
Schopenhauer's reading of Zoroastrianism is somewhat idiosyncratic, given that the usual understand of Zoroastrianism is a stalemate between good and evil, not between optimism and pessimism. The view which Schopenhauer borrows from Rhode about the sources of Judaism is verifiably false, given the dating of Zoroaster himself and the earliest Zoroastrian texts. Judaism was already centuries old by the time Zoroastrianism appeared.
Die Zendreligion hält gewissermaaßen das Mittel, indem sie, dem Ormuzd gegenüber, am Ahriman ein pessimistisches Gegengewicht hat. Aus dieser Zendreligion ist, wie J.G. Rhode, in seinem Buche »Die heilige Sage des Zendvolks«, gründlich nachgewiesen hat, die Judenreligion hervorgegangen: aus Ormuzd ist Jehova und aus Ahriman Satan geworden, der jedoch im Judentum nur noch eine sehr untergeordnete Rolle spielt, ja, fast ganz verschwindet, wodurch denn der Optimismus die Oberhand gewinnt und nur noch der Mythos vom Sündenfall, der ebenfalls (als Fabel von Meschian und Meschiane) aus dem Zend-Avesta stammt, als pessimistisches Element übrig bleibt, jedoch in Vergessenheit gerät, bis er, wie auch der Satan, vom Christentum wieder aufgenommen wird.
Per his usual method, Schopenhauer seems to delight in finding unusual examples to prove, or at least illustrate, his theses. Pondering the endless cycles of attack and death among carnivorous animals, he turns to an obscure bit of short fiction, a French story published in 1859, about a squirrel eaten by a snake; the snake, aided by magical powers, causes the squirrel to walk into its waiting jaws. Schopenhauer's point is this: only a pessimistic view of the world - again, 'pessimism' in his sense of the word - is plausible, given the effort with which one generation produces another, only so that these offspring may one day be eaten by predators. Schopenhauer gives numerous examples of the extreme effort which animals put into their survival, and into the survival of their offspring, only to be part of a long food chain in which a predator, having eaten its prey, becomes in turn prey to another predator. For him, this is 'the will to live' made concrete:
Diese Geschichte ist nicht bloß in magischer Hinsicht wichtig, sondern auch als Argument zum Pessimismus: dass ein Tier vom andern überfallen und gefressen wird, ist schlimm, jedoch kann man sich darüber beruhigen: aber dass so ein armes unschuldiges Eichhorn, neben dem Neste mit seinen Jungen sitzend, gezwungen ist, schrittweise, zögernd, mit sich selbst kämpfend und wehklagend dem weit offenen Rachen der Schlange entgegenzugehen und mit Bewusstsein sich hineinstürzen, – ist so empörend und himmelschreiend, dass man fühlt wie Recht Aristoteles hat zu sagen: hê physis daimonia men esti, ou de theia. – Was für eine entsetzliche Natur ist diese, der wir angehören!
Schopenhauer’s understanding of Judaism is arguably incomplete. His understanding of the relationships between Christianity, Judaism, Jesus, the Old Testament, and the New Testament is deficient. His understanding ignores that the Old Testament contains in embryonic form many New Testament concepts. His understanding also ignores that the New Testament sees itself in many ways as an organic extension of the Old Testament. Schopenhauer's knowledge of theology is insufficient.
His development of the concepts of pessimism and optimism, however, are insightful and valuable to philosophy.
He addresses directly a question which lurks beneath the surface of much social, political, anthropological, and religious philosophy: is the world perfectible? is a utopia possible? can human nature be refined and thereby freed from flaw? can humans develop and implement the perfect society?
In political hypothesizing, this question takes the forms of, e.g., Rousseau and Marx, each of whom seems to flirt with the notion that some manner of ideal society can be effectuated. In Schopenhauer's terminology, Rousseau and Marx are optimists. Schopenhauer also explains the mechanism which makes predictable the horrors of the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution: optimists trying to fulfill an optimistic doctrine are prone, on utilitarian calculation, to countenance any and all means to achieve their ends. The utility of a perfect society being infinite, or nearly so, atrocities committed to attain that perfection will be rendered relatively small by comparison.
Despite Schopenhauer's deficient understanding of theology, sacred text, and some religions, his conceptual framework constitutes a significant insight into the natures of various religions. To label Christianity as pessimistic is to capture what theologians call the fallen nature of the world, and to capture what one calls the brokenness of the world. The conversation between Jesus and Pilate has echoes in the words of Malthus, Metternich, and Edmund Burke. A kingdom "not of this world" meant that there was no attempt to establish a paradise or a utopia in this space and time. Jesus urges compassion, meaning that one should aid the poor and suffering, and yet simultaneously urges the sober realism that the poor will always be among us.
(In passing, it should be noted that Malthus is often misunderstood: his main concern was neither the size of the food supply nor any alleged population problems; he was writing to explain that planet earth is a place which will necessarily always contains some suffering. Malthus was a pessimist in Schopenhauer's sense of the word.)
Strictly speaking, Schopenhauer's pessimism does not rule out the establishment of some manner of perfection outside of our spatiotemporal continuum.
Labeling Islam as optimistic crystalizes and makes explicit the rationale which drives the quest for the establishment of a caliphate. Optimism, linked with specific and concrete definitions of 'good', leads to the drive to establish an organization to achieve those conditions. Optimistic religions tend to build institutions to bring about an envisioned society, whereas pessimistic religions seek simply to help the poor and the suffering - those who are vulnerable in society: widows, orphans, foreigners.
