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A Short History of Decay (Penguin Modern Classics)

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In this sense, perhaps the only way to encounter Cioran is to stumble across him, as if by accident or by fate. A Short History of Decay is at once a work of philosophy and yet a sort of song, a conflicted and agonistic testament of the “magnificent futility” that is humanity—and the ambivalence this book expresses is, arguably, more and more relevant today in our own era of climate change, peak oil, and disasters both natural and artificial. Others praised it for precisely these reasons (in his review of the book, Maurice Nadeau proclaimed Cioran “the one whose arrival has been prepared by all the philosophers of the void and of the absurd, harbinger of bad news par excellence"). Dazzling literary/philosophical/psychological aphorisms from a gem of the 1940s, a book that very properly won Cioran a prize from the French cultural establishment. Scaffolds, dungeons, jails flourish only in the shadow of a faith—of that need to believe which has infested the mind forever.

Everyone trying to remedy everyone’s life: even beggars, even the incurable aspire to it: the sidewalks and hospitals of the world overflow with reformers.According to Cioran, although both countries have a long Christian tradition, irreligious populations in both countries act as foils to the idea of God, preservering its vitality and cultural relevance—which would be diminished in a more uniformly Christian population. What therapeutics to invoke against a disease we no longer remember and whose aftermath encroaches upon our days? His mother has Alzheimer's, his father has recently had a stroke, and his girlfriend has recently broken up with him. In Cioran's view it is death that holds no mystery (being a unambiguous state) whereas what makes life (it's purpose/meaning) difficult to deal with is that there is no agreed meaning or purpose and that is why mystery lays with life rather than death.

Précis de décomposition is (I think) Cioran’s best book, and certainly the one that put him on the map. One touch of clearsightedness reduces us to our primal state: nakedness; a suspicion of irony strips us of that trumpery hope which let us dupe ourselves and devise illusion: every contrary path leads outside of life. Outside the Irremediable, everything is false; false this civilization which seeks to combat it, false the truths with which it arms itself. The film was shot in October and November 2012 in Wilmington, North Carolina, [2] Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, [3] and New York City. While it is only at their final stages, at the dissolution of a whole system of behavior and belief, that the other civilizations could enjoy that lively exercise which lends a flavor of futility to life, it was in full ripeness, in full possession of their powers and of the future that these two epochs knew the tedium heedless of everything and permeable to everything.Whereas the animals proceed directly to their goal, man loses himself in detours; he is the indirect animal par excellence. Bear in mind that a few of these quotations can be upsetting (regarding religion), as they are harsh. No new principle comes to it from the surprises of our growth nor from the efflorescence of our gifts; they are merely natural to it. As close to the ape in one as in the other, we scale the clouds for the same reasons we shinnied up trees: the means of our curiosity pure or criminal are all that have changed, and – with disguised reflexes – we are more diversely rapacious.

Knowledge has no more desperate enemy than the educative instinct, at once optimistic and virulent, which no philosopher can escape: how would their systems be unscathed by it? He also became enthralled by the turbulent politics of the time, an enthusiasm that eventually gave way to disillusionment and bitterness. Used books have different signs of use and might not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material. I have known post-sexual metaphysics, the void of the futilely procreated universe, and that dissipation of sweat which plunges you into an age-old chill, anterior to the rages of matter.All Alexandrianism begins with the need to ventilate words, to make up for their blemishes by a lively refinement; but it ends in a lassitude in which mind and word are mingled and decompose.

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