I'll add to your list of complete, yet-truncated, artistic trajectories. 'The Brothers Karamazov' -- one of the great apexes of the nineteenth century novel -- was to be a two-volume work, in whose second volume the "failed" monk Alyosha was to find his vocation as a revolutionary. It's a metamorphosis that would have struck Dostoevsky's Russian readers as completely logical, but might in retrospect have come to seem utterly banal. Lenin put paid, surely, to the world's guileless Alyoshas as agents of change.
There are some who will conclude that you are arguing that all suffering has meaning and purpose. I am not among them. But the transformation of suffering into purpose and meaning is a spiritual alchemy of which homo sapiens is uniquely capable. And in these dark days, we must reaffirm that human capability, through compassionate witness and action.
This is a thoughtful piece, as always. I agree with you that we can (though not necessarily do) gain wisdom through suffering, that this wisdom is valuable, and that therefore finding value in suffering is not entirely cope.
But some questions jump out to me: you say there is no such thing as a life without suffering, and I agree. Doesn’t this actually support Noah’s other point, namely that we should plow ahead with solving horrible problems like AIDS, regardless of whether this eliminates a “productive” form of suffering? There is always suffering to be had in life and therefore always wisdom and depth to be gained through suffering. Presumably wisdom can be gained from some other form of suffering once we can successfully cure AIDS of cancer. I often see concern about ameliorating certain forms of suffering from Illichians, vitalists, etc and I’ve never found them persuasive for this reason.
Also, can it be the case that we already live in Smith’s shallow world if he is wrong that there is no/minimal suffering in long and peaceful lives? You mention people who hide from suffering (their own or others), or who talk about it without really processing it. Do you think this is a unique (or especially bad) problem in the modern western world and, if so, what do you see as its sources?
I'm not in a position to consider, except in the most abstract sense, the daily life of an upper middle class American professional, because I've made choices that have taken me far from a path that would have led to that, but still I would like to make a qualified defense of Noah Smith's argument, or rather a twice-qualified defense, because I haven't read it, I've only read your response.
Noah says that we should try to eliminate suffering; you say that there is no such thing as a happy life without suffering. There is a contradiction here if the two of you have the same conception of suffering, but I'm not sure you do. To take myself as an example, I have never had AIDS, nor have I been in a car accident. But I promise I've suffered enough, all the same! The absence of these particular tragedies in my life have not prevented it from being a life that could, perhaps, in the long run, be called a happy life by you, which is to say a mixed life in the best way.
Isn't it surely the case that the same is true of middle class suburban professionals I am unlikely ever to cross paths with? Don't they face their own frustrations or limitations, make peace with who knows what disappointments, bear them quietly?
But what do AIDS and car crashes have to do it? Isn't Noah right that it is good for society to strive to prevent *that* kind of suffering? Where he's wrong is to suggest that Keith Haring's life would have been happy, had he been a mediocre artist who didn't die young. Coming to terms with being a mediocre artist, and yet still finding happiness in life—now that's something!
I agree with all the questions and points you raise here. All this also puts me in mind of a certain kind of person, usually a youngish man, who feels his life is shallow and empty and claims to yearn for the “car crash:” war, political upheaval, sacrificing his own body, the chance to physically protect his family from assailants, what have you. Surely this type of person also experiences the “daily” forms of suffering: dreary jobs, social alienation, heartbreak, the drudgery of life. I always end up wondering why, if they’re unhappy and yearning for suffering, they don’t look at the ways they’re actually suffering and try to find wisdom and meaning there.
Thanks for the really thoughtful essay. I definitely would contest the notion that happiness has depth akin to suffering- or at least rarely do we internally question our joy in the same way we do our suffering, leading to fewer results. But we are in an era where joy is minimal. We're seeing an epidemic of mental illness, loneliness, isolation, and many fewer people are in relationships. Instead, we live in a consumerist hellscape where our number 1,2, and 3 priorities seems to be our jobs and material status.
Even if there were no suffering in the world, we would need to find it to make sense of our lives. Fukuyama makes this point well in The End of History, and I'm not sure he's entirely wrong. It makes me remember of Peep Show where the two flatmates, Mark and Jeremy live very different lives (Mark is filled with existential dread, and Jeremy lives a life of solipsism and hedonism) but ultimately coalesce along the same problems of loneliness, a lack of belonging, and a failure to accomplish what both wanted with their lives.
But, I'm not sure suffering does anything on its own, and I am sceptical of attaching too much weight to suffering on its own merit. Indeed, the kind of suffering we see is not creating the space for more depth to emerge at the moment. It is in part why critics like James Marriott believe we are heading towards a very dark literary, cultural, and political moment. So, perhaps suffering only produces depth when it is attached to something larger we can make sense of-otherwise, it is just us screaming into the void.
Reading Noah's article, when he dismissed Romanticists who "knock over the edifice of industrial society intentionally, in order to kick against the seeming shallowness of modern life — to return humanity to a world of toil and struggle, in order to ennoble us" as VILLIANS... I almost laughed out loud. It's EVERY sci-fi novel's trope that the uneducated pagan is set against 'progress' and it's up to the protagonist to overcome ignorance. The only problem is usually the protagonist is ignorant of any value deeper than 'freedom' or 'science' or 'progress' and, apart from a good story, these principles hold little value at all. His only footnote is a video game so that just proves my point.
Noah's argument also leaves room for little of value in our lived experience. Apparently pro-creation is the point of our ascent? For why? So our genetic heirs can live more peaceful lives? If there's one thing easily observed today, it's that spoiled children handed everything on silver platters are not ennobled, their lives are wasted.
Anyone thoughtfully raising children or versed in the basics of human development knows: the point of child-rearing is to instill resilience. Noah seems to imagine a world where resilience isn't necessary, I could humor him on his take of humanity. But in basic biology, he is absolutely wrong.
Thanks. You concluding paragraph reminds me of Mark Fisher's notion of depressive hedonia... he develops this in his short book Capitalist Realism. Appreciated. D from Scotland.
"the more the world approaches the frictionless utopia that many people are hoping for"
Could you spell this out a bit? Right now half the world's population lives on less than six dollars a day. Half of Americans are one financial emergency away from bankruptcy. Currently 10 percent, and if the Republicans get their way 20 percent, of Americans have no health insurance. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced recently in Sudan, Ukraine, and Gaza. Millions of people throughout the world will likely lose their jobs to business-system AI. And by the end of the century, we will probably reach 3 degrees C. of global heating, which will mean millions of deaths from crop failures and millions of migrants from extreme weather and sea-level rise. Not to mention the possibility of a full-on authoritarian state and several other countries. I don't see much utopia in all this.
I'll add to your list of complete, yet-truncated, artistic trajectories. 'The Brothers Karamazov' -- one of the great apexes of the nineteenth century novel -- was to be a two-volume work, in whose second volume the "failed" monk Alyosha was to find his vocation as a revolutionary. It's a metamorphosis that would have struck Dostoevsky's Russian readers as completely logical, but might in retrospect have come to seem utterly banal. Lenin put paid, surely, to the world's guileless Alyoshas as agents of change.
There are some who will conclude that you are arguing that all suffering has meaning and purpose. I am not among them. But the transformation of suffering into purpose and meaning is a spiritual alchemy of which homo sapiens is uniquely capable. And in these dark days, we must reaffirm that human capability, through compassionate witness and action.
With gratefulness for your own witness.
This is a thoughtful piece, as always. I agree with you that we can (though not necessarily do) gain wisdom through suffering, that this wisdom is valuable, and that therefore finding value in suffering is not entirely cope.
But some questions jump out to me: you say there is no such thing as a life without suffering, and I agree. Doesn’t this actually support Noah’s other point, namely that we should plow ahead with solving horrible problems like AIDS, regardless of whether this eliminates a “productive” form of suffering? There is always suffering to be had in life and therefore always wisdom and depth to be gained through suffering. Presumably wisdom can be gained from some other form of suffering once we can successfully cure AIDS of cancer. I often see concern about ameliorating certain forms of suffering from Illichians, vitalists, etc and I’ve never found them persuasive for this reason.
Also, can it be the case that we already live in Smith’s shallow world if he is wrong that there is no/minimal suffering in long and peaceful lives? You mention people who hide from suffering (their own or others), or who talk about it without really processing it. Do you think this is a unique (or especially bad) problem in the modern western world and, if so, what do you see as its sources?
Santi, this is awesome. Thank you.
I'm not in a position to consider, except in the most abstract sense, the daily life of an upper middle class American professional, because I've made choices that have taken me far from a path that would have led to that, but still I would like to make a qualified defense of Noah Smith's argument, or rather a twice-qualified defense, because I haven't read it, I've only read your response.
Noah says that we should try to eliminate suffering; you say that there is no such thing as a happy life without suffering. There is a contradiction here if the two of you have the same conception of suffering, but I'm not sure you do. To take myself as an example, I have never had AIDS, nor have I been in a car accident. But I promise I've suffered enough, all the same! The absence of these particular tragedies in my life have not prevented it from being a life that could, perhaps, in the long run, be called a happy life by you, which is to say a mixed life in the best way.
Isn't it surely the case that the same is true of middle class suburban professionals I am unlikely ever to cross paths with? Don't they face their own frustrations or limitations, make peace with who knows what disappointments, bear them quietly?
But what do AIDS and car crashes have to do it? Isn't Noah right that it is good for society to strive to prevent *that* kind of suffering? Where he's wrong is to suggest that Keith Haring's life would have been happy, had he been a mediocre artist who didn't die young. Coming to terms with being a mediocre artist, and yet still finding happiness in life—now that's something!
I agree with all the questions and points you raise here. All this also puts me in mind of a certain kind of person, usually a youngish man, who feels his life is shallow and empty and claims to yearn for the “car crash:” war, political upheaval, sacrificing his own body, the chance to physically protect his family from assailants, what have you. Surely this type of person also experiences the “daily” forms of suffering: dreary jobs, social alienation, heartbreak, the drudgery of life. I always end up wondering why, if they’re unhappy and yearning for suffering, they don’t look at the ways they’re actually suffering and try to find wisdom and meaning there.
Thanks for the really thoughtful essay. I definitely would contest the notion that happiness has depth akin to suffering- or at least rarely do we internally question our joy in the same way we do our suffering, leading to fewer results. But we are in an era where joy is minimal. We're seeing an epidemic of mental illness, loneliness, isolation, and many fewer people are in relationships. Instead, we live in a consumerist hellscape where our number 1,2, and 3 priorities seems to be our jobs and material status.
Even if there were no suffering in the world, we would need to find it to make sense of our lives. Fukuyama makes this point well in The End of History, and I'm not sure he's entirely wrong. It makes me remember of Peep Show where the two flatmates, Mark and Jeremy live very different lives (Mark is filled with existential dread, and Jeremy lives a life of solipsism and hedonism) but ultimately coalesce along the same problems of loneliness, a lack of belonging, and a failure to accomplish what both wanted with their lives.
But, I'm not sure suffering does anything on its own, and I am sceptical of attaching too much weight to suffering on its own merit. Indeed, the kind of suffering we see is not creating the space for more depth to emerge at the moment. It is in part why critics like James Marriott believe we are heading towards a very dark literary, cultural, and political moment. So, perhaps suffering only produces depth when it is attached to something larger we can make sense of-otherwise, it is just us screaming into the void.
All praise the Hockey stick chart!
Reading Noah's article, when he dismissed Romanticists who "knock over the edifice of industrial society intentionally, in order to kick against the seeming shallowness of modern life — to return humanity to a world of toil and struggle, in order to ennoble us" as VILLIANS... I almost laughed out loud. It's EVERY sci-fi novel's trope that the uneducated pagan is set against 'progress' and it's up to the protagonist to overcome ignorance. The only problem is usually the protagonist is ignorant of any value deeper than 'freedom' or 'science' or 'progress' and, apart from a good story, these principles hold little value at all. His only footnote is a video game so that just proves my point.
Noah's argument also leaves room for little of value in our lived experience. Apparently pro-creation is the point of our ascent? For why? So our genetic heirs can live more peaceful lives? If there's one thing easily observed today, it's that spoiled children handed everything on silver platters are not ennobled, their lives are wasted.
Anyone thoughtfully raising children or versed in the basics of human development knows: the point of child-rearing is to instill resilience. Noah seems to imagine a world where resilience isn't necessary, I could humor him on his take of humanity. But in basic biology, he is absolutely wrong.
Excellent response Santi.
Thanks. You concluding paragraph reminds me of Mark Fisher's notion of depressive hedonia... he develops this in his short book Capitalist Realism. Appreciated. D from Scotland.
"the more the world approaches the frictionless utopia that many people are hoping for"
Could you spell this out a bit? Right now half the world's population lives on less than six dollars a day. Half of Americans are one financial emergency away from bankruptcy. Currently 10 percent, and if the Republicans get their way 20 percent, of Americans have no health insurance. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced recently in Sudan, Ukraine, and Gaza. Millions of people throughout the world will likely lose their jobs to business-system AI. And by the end of the century, we will probably reach 3 degrees C. of global heating, which will mean millions of deaths from crop failures and millions of migrants from extreme weather and sea-level rise. Not to mention the possibility of a full-on authoritarian state and several other countries. I don't see much utopia in all this.
*in the US and several other countries*
I agree with you that no such utopia is on the horizon.
we could have a fake technological utopia in the developed ("developed") nations, though
🙏🏻