Thomas Ligotti

friends we kept in the walls all those years.

I want you, Grandpapa, to tell us about Thomas Ligotti's, I think I'm saying that name correctly, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimmscribe.

I

pulled up in a new Ligotti.

Right where you belong in the gremlin zone.

Okay.

Thomas Ligotti is an American author writing kind of in the same veins as Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Franz Kafka, while also being seen as a foundational figure of the kind of the Kafka on these nuts.

It wasn't me.

And I think that many of you who have ever enjoyed depressive literature or pessimistic philosophy will have an intuitive sense for this.

There is something about plunging into the absolute pessimism of a Shoran or a Schopenhauer or Camus or Ligotti that can be rather invigorating.

And it's precisely because such writers are willing to look at aspects of human life that we all know are there but that others want to look away from or paper over with optimistic sentiments.

And I think it is of the highest importance that in these weird tales, even if they are told with this life-giving telos in mind, there is absolutely no obligation to provide an optimistic spin on them or a redeeming ending or comforting reassurance.

Consciousness was not a cosmic mistake.

As one of the key writers that Pizzolatto takes from, Ligotti, Thomas Ligotti, believes that like, you know, consciousness was a mistake and a torture to us that we know that we're, you know, we not only experience, I mean, well, it's the ground of experience, but we not only go through these things, but we experience them consciously that we, that we, you know, know we're going to die and that we know we're going to suffer and all.

And that, you know, when we, when we love, we know we're going to lose it.

that that person is going to die, so that it's better not to have been born at all.

Hello out there.

This week, we discuss cosmic horror writer Thomas Ligotti's philosophical work, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

This book is a masterful case for pessimism and antinatalism.

In Ligotti's world, consciousness is a tragic mistake.

So am I.

This is one that I think we've both wanted to do for a long time now, and it's finally come together.

It's been an interesting week being immersed in some of these ideas, rereading Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

Did you go on to read the other material also that you talked with me about, the stuff that he quotes?

Ramsey Campbell, Robert Block.

There's a guy, I believe he's still writing, Thomas Ligotti.

His stuff is

fucking dark and weird and very, very heavily based on Lovecraft.

Right.

He like throws out all the Thomas Ligotti conspiracy against the human race stuff.

And he realizes the true nature of the numinous.

But in this film, there is that ambiguity.

Pessimism still isn't as dominant as it was in the 18th and 19th century, but there is a growing literature and interest in pessimism.

Academics like David Benatar, Julio Cabrera, Rivka Weinberg, David E. Cooper, Ian James Kidd, and even non-academic writers as well, like Thomas Ligotti, all contribute to a healthy ecosystem of pessimism that is alive today in the philosophical discourse.

And of course, there are many people in the general populace, including myself, that enjoy observing and witnessing this discourse, and even contribute to it in our own ways.

So that was a very whistle-stop tour of pessimism.

So, I mean, it is very...

Well, we'll get into that, but there's a lot of existentialist... sort of offshoots of this, which is why Mr. Ligotti is a fan, I imagine.

Yes, yes.

And themes of isolation as well, isn't it? And perhaps a certain amount of obsession comes in as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, because when I read that, because I read that little tidbit of information after I'd read the story and looked into his sort of background, I read that Thomas Ligotti was influenced by him.

And I was like, of course he was.

Of course he was.

Yeah.

And it's like some- some of it reminds of a little bit of, like, like the, the more grounded Ligotti stories.

Yes, you mentioned that.

Like, like-

Anyway, that one.

[laughs]

[laughs] You know, giving it a quick skim, it, it seems, uh, easier to digest than Ligotti's work.

It is.