Pessimism is a mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empty or half full?"; in this situation, a pessimist is said to see the glass as half empty, or in extreme cases completely empty, while an optimist is said to see the glass as half full. Throughout history, the pessimistic disposition has had effects on all major areas of thinking.
"The Last Messiah" is a 1933 essay by the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe. One of his most significant works, this approximately 10 pages long essay would later be expanded upon in Zapffe’s book, On the Tragic, and, as a theory describes a reinterpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's Übermensch. Zapffe believed that existential crisis or angst in humanity was the result of an overly evolved intellect, and that people overcome this by "artificially limiting the content of consciousness."
Thomas Ligotti is an American horror writer. His writings are rooted in several literary genres – most prominently weird fiction – and have been described by critics as works of philosophical horror, often formed into short stories and novellas in the tradition of gothic fiction. The worldview espoused by Ligotti in his fiction and non-fiction has been described as pessimistic and nihilistic. The Washington Post called him "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction."
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction. Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such as China Miéville, sometimes use "the tentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European folklore and gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft. Weird fiction often attempts to inspire awe as well as fear in response to its fictional creations, causing commentators like Miéville to paraphrase Goethe in saying that weird fiction evokes a sense of the numinous. Although "weird fiction" has been chiefly used as a historical description for works through the 1930s, it experienced a resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s, under the label of New Weird, which continues into the 21st century.
Nicholas Austin Pizzolatto is an American writer, producer and director. He is best known for creating the HBO crime drama series True Detective.
Raymond Brassier is a British philosopher. He is member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, known for his work in philosophical realism. He was formerly Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University, London, England.
David Benatar is a South African philosopher, academic, and author. He is best known for his advocacy of antinatalism in his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, in which he argues that coming into existence is serious harm, regardless of the feelings of the existing being once brought into existence, and that, as a consequence, it is always morally wrong to create more sentient beings.
Joseph S. Pulver Sr. was an author and poet, much of whose work falls within the horror fiction, noir fiction / hardboiled, and dark fantasy genres. He lived in Germany, and died from COPD and other issues in a German hospital on April 24, 2020.
Eugene Thacker is an American author. He is Professor of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. His writing is associated with the philosophy of nihilism and pessimism. Thacker's books include In the Dust of This Planet and Infinite Resignation.
Simon Strantzas is a weird fiction author from Toronto, Canada. He has written five story collections and been nominated for a British Fantasy Award in 2009. He has also edited three anthologies including Aickman's Heirs which won two Shirley Jackson Awards in 2015, one for best Edited Anthology and one for the included story “The Dying Season” by Lynda E. Rucker. His work was also cited as an influence for Nic Pizzolatto, creator of True Detective.
"The Long Bright Dark" is the series premiere of the anthology crime drama True Detective, which initially aired on HBO in the United States on January 12, 2014. It was directed by executive producer Cary Joji Fukunaga and written by series creator Nic Pizzolatto. The episode introduces a pair of Louisiana State Police homicide detectives, Rustin "Rust" Cohle and Martin "Marty" Hart, as well as series regulars played by Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles. In "The Long Bright Dark", Martin and Rustin are forced to recount the history of the Dora Lange murder investigation as new evidence suggests the perpetrator remains at large.
The first season of True Detective, an American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, premiered on January 12, 2014, on the premium cable network HBO. The principal cast consisted of Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles. The season had eight episodes, and its initial airing concluded on March 9, 2014. As an anthology, each True Detective season has its own self-contained story, following a disparate set of characters in various settings.
"The Secret Fate of All Life" is the fifth episode of the first season of the American anthology crime drama television series True Detective. The episode was written by series creator Nic Pizzolatto, and directed by executive producer Cary Joji Fukunaga. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on February 16, 2014.
"Haunted Houses" is the sixth episode of the first season of the American anthology crime drama television series True Detective. The episode was written by series creator Nic Pizzolatto, and directed by executive producer Cary Joji Fukunaga. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on February 23, 2014.
"Form and Void" is the eighth episode and season finale of the first season of the American anthology crime drama television series True Detective. The episode was written by series creator Nic Pizzolatto, and directed by executive producer Cary Joji Fukunaga. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on March 9, 2014.
"The Western Book of the Dead" is the first episode of the second season of the American anthology crime drama television series True Detective. It is the 9th overall episode of the series and was written by series creator Nic Pizzolatto, and directed by Justin Lin. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on June 21, 2015.
My Work Is Not Yet Done is a horror novella by American author Thomas Ligotti, collected with two short stories, "I Have a Special Plan for This World" and "The Nightmare Network", and subtitled Three Tales of Corporate Horror.
Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence is a 2006 book by South African philosopher David Benatar, best known for being associated with antinatalism and philosophical pessimism. The book was preceded by Benatar's 1997 paper "Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence", where he expounded on what would eventually become the book's major concepts.
Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is ontologically or metaphysically adverse to living beings, and that life is fundamentally meaningless or without purpose. Philosophical pessimism is not a single coherent movement, but rather a loosely associated group of thinkers with similar ideas and a resemblance to each other. Their responses to the condition of life are widely varied. Philosophical pessimists usually do not advocate for suicide as a solution to the human predicament; many favour the adoption of antinatalism, that is, non-procreation.
Philosophical pessimism is a philosophical school critical of existence.
