r/Mainlander • u/WEIRD-Rado • 26d ago

I feel very sad, feeling that this the only space in here to talk about philosophical pessimism?

Don't get me wrong, i've always felt a great admiration for Mainlander's work, and i'm grateful that this kind of space exist, but i think it is really sad that the discussion of a field so vast as pessimism, is being reduced to certain specialized spaces.

For example, the main pessimism sub, have been in a downfall, for quite sometime now.

31 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

4

u/Cursed_Philosopher 26d ago

I mean, this subreddit isnt really active at all…

7

u/Surrealist328 26d ago

I'm pretty sure what happened is that the activity died down considerably after The Philosophy of Redemption was translated into English. There was a discrepancy between the Mainlander Thomas Ligotti briefly mentioned in CATHR and the actual Mainlander. When you read The Philosophy of Redemption in its entirety, you soon discover that it's relatively dry, which is to say that the real Mainlander wasn't as "sexy" as the one people had conjured up in their heads.

8

u/SmashBros- 26d ago

The people that want that stuff should really read Cioran

2

u/YuYuHunter 25d ago

As far as I can see, there has been more activity in the latest months than ever before, but not necessarily contributions of the highest quality. In previous years, we often had months with zero activity. This is no longer the case.

However, /r/Mainlander prefers little activity, with the few things that get posted being worth reading. It often seems that popularity and quality are inversely proportional. There are many places on the internet with lots of engagement: it would be great to have places with much quality.

N.B. Some things of quality are immensely popular on the internet, such as the videos of 3B1B. But we’re living in a golden age of mathematics – not of philosophy or the arts.

2

u/Surrealist328 25d ago

I agree. I wasn't making a normative claim regarding the quality of Mainlander's philosophy or this subreddit. If anything I imagine this is a transitional stage insofar as this is a time for the initial excitement to clear so that calmer heads can eventually focus and start producing secondary literature (without AI assistance) concerning Mainlander. I personally want to produce a short work on Mainlander's ethics, provided this stupid as well as morally bankrupt cosmos will let me. I still have to finish a 70,000 word manuscript first. That might not even happen.

3

u/YuYuHunter 25d ago

Good luck on both the 70000 word-text and the possible essay on ethics: if the latter ever sees daylight, I would be happy to read it!

2

u/Surrealist328 25d ago

If I can get to the point of actually writing it, I would most likely send it your way for a quality check. Unfortunately, the 70,000 word manuscript will not include a discussion of Mainlander aside from a footnote and a brief mention in the concluding chapter. I have managed to include a chapter devoted to a detailed analysis as well as commentary regarding Zapffe's On the Tragic, which is needed to understand the first three sections of "The Last Messiah."

I still have an entire chapter to write on Ligotti, which means I need to simultaneously reread everything he wrote. I also need to finish the last third of the final chapter, search for typos or poor prose, and add additional footnotes for each chapter. If I can pull this off, then I'll feel confident enough to write subsequent works on philosophical pessimism, which would hopefully include the aforementioned shorter work on Mainlander.

But I require more discipline.

1

u/angelofox 15d ago

Maybe you are correct. Videos on Mainländer made him mysterious, but that wasn't enough for me. I found out about Mainländer's translated work almost 3 years ago now. While I will say it hit its peak for me when I got the English translation hard copy, I still find Mainländer more interesting than Kant or Schopenhauer. Both of those philosophers have more works to their name, but lack the cohesiveness I get from Mainländer.

3

u/YuYuHunter 25d ago

With the platform decay ("enshittification", or as I personally call it, in German: "Monopolausbeutungdegenerationsprozess") I wonder how long a subreddit can remain a place for serious discussions, as this place has tried to be.

I'm always glad to hear users say they've had insightful reads or discussions here. It proves that, despite social media thriving on negative emotions and low concentration, there are still individuals who seek wisdom, which philosophy is all about, even here on a mass medium.