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Schopenhauer

The Ethics of a Pessimist

Dennis Vanden Auweele looks at Schopenhauer’s response to suffering.

“I was born a few months before my due date,” he said in a tone of solemn proclamation. “I was quite fragile, very thin, and on top of everything, I came down with a bad case of pneumonia. Our family’s physician, a stern elderly man, took my mother’s hand, looked her in the eye, and advised her not to get overly attached to me.” He paused for a moment, then added: “And I must say, my mother has followed the doctor’s orders to this day!”

I laughed out loud when I heard this joke, only just restraining myself from rolling on the floor. Later the same day, in a moment of quiet solitude, I started pondering what the great pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote about jokes.

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