Why Do We Live For No (Real) Reason? - Nihilism & The Philosophy of Emil Cioran

this video is sponsored by blinkist emil taran was a writer and philosopher born in 1911 and what is present day rasanari romania he is renowned for his penetratingly dark nihilistic yet beautiful writing style considered by many to be one of the great writers of despair building his philosophical arguments off the somber emotional rhythm of his prose often expressing shocking thoughts and dark humor nearly every sentence and passage hung down from the very heights of despair born into a socially and spiritually volatile time of western history somewhere in the middle of the increasing disintegration of traditional religious ideology and the newly emerging philosophical movements of existentialism idealism and other pessimistic schools of thought tyron would find himself positioned on the face of a mountain that humanity was desperately trying to get over and from his view he saw nothing a deathly climb to another valley of nowhere [Music] at a fairly young age charon would become a heavy reader going on to study literature and philosophy at the university of bucharest a public university in romania here he would study and read the works of philosophers like emmanuel kant friedrich nietzsche arthur schopenhauer lev shestoff hegel and many others at 23 he would publish his first book titled on the heights of despair which would soon go on to receive controversial but mostly positive critical acclaim achieving him two notable awards and setting him on the path to soon become an internationally recognized writer and thinker in this first work not only did charon reveal his promising young intellectual mind but also what would go on to become the recurring lifelong themes and obsessions of his work themes like despair suffering social isolation absurdity futility failure decay and death written out of a spell of horrible insomnia this first book would provide a foretelling of what awaited charon a lifelong exploration of the underbelly of the human condition fueled by a depression-infused insomniac lifestyle i've never been able to write otherwise than in the midst of the depression brought about by my knights of insomnia tehran writes for seven years i could barely sleep i need this depression and even today before i sit down to write i play a disc of gypsy music from hungary like many great writers and artists tehran felt as though he had to write it was not as if he made his work sad but that his sadness made his work in the moments of depression writing was according to him his only therapy his first book and the 20 plus others of his to come according to tehran saved him from what might have otherwise seemed like the logical conclusion to much of his work if nothing else this aspect of his work and life reveals a profound insight into the potency of the creative process that even in writing about the futility and meaninglessness of life and its endeavors the power of the creative process can in some sense save the writer from the very substance and content of their own work paradoxically making the futility and meaninglessness that they discuss somewhat less futile and meaningless after leaving romania for the last time in 1940 tron would end up living the majority of his life in paris he would go on to produce upwards of 20 books written in both romanian and french keeping the same eloquence wit and intensity throughout his work would increasingly develop and maintain him a highly respected reputation amongst the prominent french intellectual scene garnering the admiration of high-ranking philosophical peers as well as a large following of readers across the world despite this he would live a very modest private life going to great lengths to avoid any and all accolades and any way of life that would otherwise be considered ordinarily successful in 1995 at the age of 84 charon died after having developed alzheimer's several years prior slowly but surely one of the most eloquent minds of the 20th century lost all relationship with words and then experienced the main theme of his life's work firsthand in terms of turon's philosophy despite his work being unmistakably perceptive and intelligent he is somewhat interesting and perhaps debatable in the context of a philosopher for the most part traditional philosophical work is almost always grounded in a particular system of thought which is formed or integrated first as a foundation and then logically built on from there chiron's work however does not really start from nor integrate any real system of this form rather it relies more on his aphoristic observational writing style which seems to almost philosophize and reveal metaphysical ideas through the emotionally tense subjective and chaotic reading experience alone without much consideration for logical structure or systematic reasoning seeing as how a key part of toronto's philosophy is that he disagreed with the premise of reason and traditional philosophy as a means of resolving life and explaining its reasonlessness this approach arguably makes sense to adequately argue for a philosophy of absurdity and reasonlessness what better way is there than to write without priority for structure or reason and in this sense perhaps it would be more accurate to say that tehran is sort of an anti-philosophy philosopher which perhaps nonetheless is ironically still a philosophy [Music] according to what can be surmised of tehran's views it is more or less death specifically that both causes the futility of life and poses the inevitable limit to all reason within it however in his most famous work the trouble with being born he discusses how since death necessarily follows from birth it is actually the memory of our birth that is the tragic problem of life and not death in and of itself the attempt to reason an understanding or solution to the conscious awareness of death stemming from birth is thus both the driving force of philosophy religion and science and simultaneously their collapsing force the unbeatable opponent under which all reason logic and human effort crumble and consequently any philosophical attempt to do so for charon can only be a contemplation on failure broadly speaking this concept would also become a fundamental tenet of his philosophy often underpinning his ideas on the notion that human endeavors are almost always synonymous and faded with failure what his work also seemed to parallel alongside this dread and nihilism though is the notion of accepting and playing into the absurdity of it all loving the absurd uselessness for what it is how it is and using it against itself and living anyway in the words of tehran when all the current reasons moral aesthetic religious social and so on no longer guide one's life how can one sustain life without succumbing to nothingness only by a connection with the absurd by love of absolute uselessness loving something which does not have substance but which simulates an illusion of life i live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing it is in this dive into the absurdity that sharon seems to pose the question can those who accept and embrace failure and disaster ever really fail or be struck by either pessimism in this sense almost serves as a trump card the last true failure being the failure of optimism from there we become as he put it invincible victims there is a certain unique and important quality to the irony of turan's work as a sort of anti-philosophy philosopher who argued that life cannot be made or reasoned into any sort of reconciliation or meaningful benefit he nonetheless did so by philosophizing at least in some form nihilism of which he is generally associated denies the value of all things but can annihilus philosophy be expressed as a philosophy and remain a nihilist philosophy in other words can the premise and conclusion be that life is inherently meaningless and that endeavoring and seeking reason is entirely futile while simultaneously making this meaningful claim through creative action and albeit subversive providing reasons for it discussing or creatively expressing the notion that all is meaningless and void of reason is itself a creation of meaning out of the void motivated by the very void of reason the process of forming meaning it seems can perhaps not be escaped even by one of the greatest so-called nihilists and perhaps then at bottom charan is never really declaring true nihilism there is the more obvious reading of tehran and perhaps others like him that can reasonably come off as if it was created by someone who outright hates life and lives with the constant bitterness towards everyone and everything but there is also another read that seemingly reveals a paradoxical reverence and embrace of life although tehran might not have explicitly agreed with this to speak of life with such candor in the way he did to think it is worthy to be spoken of at all to refuse to lie to it or about it despite how dark or bleak it might be perhaps suggests a certain hidden but nonetheless deep admiration and acceptance of it when asked once why he writes about such dismal topics in the way he does tehran said everything that is formulated becomes more tolerable his work time and time again demonstrates this revealing the perhaps vile and horribly unresolvable qualities of life while simultaneously revealing the potential for redemption contained inside them a worthiness of enduring of thinking of writing of living life cursed with the gift of consciousness we are all inescapably forced into the beautiful confrontation of the void and the absurd inevitability of creating meaning and somethingness out of it tron's work is likely not for everyone but for those whom it is it is likely with a great degree as all art and literature arguably should his work attempts to reflect with as much brute earnestness as possible the things most of us know and feel but are often too scared or unsure to not only talk about but think about he was one of the rare explorers willing or perhaps forced into traveling through the depths of hell and heights of despair and then tell about it perhaps tron's work can be seen simply as a collection of life-refusing nihilistic thoughts or perhaps it can also be seen as an embodiment of the irrational but no less potent force of human creative consciousness at work its ability to meaningfully endure even its own horrible conditions and in this in his works arguably successful confrontation and embracing of the sad hopeless and absurd parts of life it serves as an enduring and important connection point into these often hidden but deeply shared human experiences reminding us that we aren't so alone and reassuring us with the comforting notion that i'm simply an accident why take it all so seriously [Music] amiotaran this video was sponsored by blinkist perhaps one of the hardest parts in developing and maintaining consistent strong reading habits is sifting through the 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Channel: Pursuit of Wonder

Views: 435,957

Rating: 4.9569817 out of 5

Keywords: emil cioran, philosophy, philosophy of, school of life, academy of ideas, dark, scary, franz kafka, pursuit of wonder, nihilism, dealing with, overcoming, creativity, the creative process

Id: mHK6YmSx7YQ

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Yes, he is a respected writer and philosopher to say the least. His works are studied in high schools and universities.

Nice video by the way.

[u/sRD-omul]

Yes, every time a teenager breaks up with their boyfriend/girlfriend or doesn't get to go out with their friends or any other reason for teenage drama they feel the need to post a quote from Cioran on their facebook feed.

[u/[deleted]]

Read his books as a teenager, couldn't stand him shortly after because of this whole despair thing (it's hard to take him seriously when you're trying to distance yourself from everything solemn), but mostly because of his fondness for the Iron Guard (Romanian fascists).

Tried to read him agains several years after, it didn't click.

But yeah, he's famous.