Supernatural horror is commonly about encountering a paradox in the flesh, something that is but ought not to be–the living dead vampire, the self-mobilized puppet. We are willing to believe almost anything about ourselves–that we are apes or angels–but not that we are puppets. We are resistant to the idea that the state of living, at least by default if not in all cases, is not positive. The public dislikes uncompromising pessimism. It begets a feeling of wrongness.Ĭhapter-by-chapter Introduction: Of Pessimism and Paradox
There are also two types of people: optimists, who believe that human life is good and should be perpetuated, and that being alive is basically all right (as Ligotti spells it) and pessimists, who believe that happiness cannot make up for suffering and that, far from being "basically all right," life is something that should not be. There are 10 types of people, those who are familiar with worn-out binary jokes and those who are not.Only human extinction can end human suffering.In the absence of any such proof, the default position is that reproduction inflicts harm on the one who is born.The burden of proof rests on those who claim that life is good.There is not really any such thing as free will.Our sense of self, or our sense of "being someone," is illusory.People naturally resist the idea that life is not okay.Consciousness is the parent of all horror.Those who cannot bear the truth will pretend this is another work of fiction, but in doing so they perpetuate the conspiracy of the book's title. Ligotti's calm, but often bloodcurdling turns of phrase, evoke the dreadfulness of the human condition. The worst and most plentiful horrors are instead to be found in reality. Through impressively wide-ranging discussions of and reflections on literary and philosophical works of a pessimistic bent, he shows that the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination. The Conspiracy against the Human Race is renowned horror writer Thomas Ligotti's first work of nonfiction. This is part of a series of abstracts, commentaries, and reviews on philosophical articles and books.
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