To Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran, being born is life’s greatest tragedy. It’s a catastrophe that’s much better to be prevented; nothing good comes from it but enduring misfortune and subsequent suffering. As far as we can perceive, we cannot stop ourselves from being born; we appear here, on Earth, without consent.
However, we could prevent other souls from overcoming the same dreadful fate that has befallen us all. Yet, procreation seems a drive too strong for humanity to set aside. Cioran goes as far as to call procreation a crime.
And thus, people repeatedly commit the “crime” of becoming a parent. Emil Cioran is considered one of the most pessimistic philosophers in history. His written works are bleak and contain a disdain for existence.
In my first video about Cioran’s philosophy, I reflected on one of his earlier books, On the Heights of Despair, in which he argued that profound experience lies not in happiness but in despair. This video continues the journey into Cioran’s pessimistic worldview as we delve into his life and explore his later work, The Trouble with Being Born, a collection of aphorisms illustrating why being born is a disaster, what causes our suffering, and what we could do to cope. Due to the book’s aphoristic style, this video isn’t a summary or complete overview but a reflection on the themes that, in my view, capture its essence.
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The only thing Emil Cioran regretted more than being born was being born Romanian, as he noticed the Romanian people have a unique talent: wasting time. According to Cioran, Romania was a syndicate of failure, and the Romanians were a people that never should have been. Compared to the strong-willed Germans or the grandeur of the Spanish conquests, he counted the Romanians among the losers of history.
Hence, Cioran considered being part of the Romanian people a great curse. Emil Mihai Cioran was born in the remote village of Resinár. His mother led a Christian women’s organization, and his father was an Orthodox priest.
Despite his prominent Christian background, Cioran rejected theology and embraced philosophy, which he studied in Bucharest. There, he encountered many individuals who spent most of their lives doing nothing, which, according to Cioran, characterized the Romanian spirit. He was particularly baffled by one of his professors, Nae Ionescu, who frequently plagiarized, improvised his lectures, and sometimes didn’t even show up at his lectures, stating that he didn’t have anything to say.
At the age of twenty-three, Cioran wrote On the Heights of Despair, which delves into the darker sides of existence and the depth of human suffering. This book was the precursor of an attitude toward life in general, which Cioran developed and solidified as he grew older: that being born just wasn’t worth it. In 1937, Cioran left Romania for France.
For years, he had dreamed of Romania achieving national greatness, inspired by the authoritarian energy of regimes like Nazi Germany. However, as he witnessed the violence and antisemitism of movements like Romania’s Iron Guard, his admiration for nationalist and fascist regimes turned into disillusionment and disdain. He felt ashamed of his former glorification of the Iron Guard.
The bloodshed of the war made him lose hope for humanity, and so he retreated into himself. Cioran broke with his Romanian past as he decided to stay in France, never to return. He rejected the opportunity for a successful academic career by refusing to write his doctoral thesis.
Unlike fellow philosophers Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir, whom he met and even hung out with, Cioran wasn’t that ambitious. He didn’t want to be a successful member of society. He avoided working.
He aspired to be a parasite. For example, instead of writing his thesis, he used his student status to take advantage of cheap meals at student restaurants. He embodied failure and became what he previously loathed in the Romanian people: an expert in wasting time or, as he stated: “having the passion for being unproductive.
” Yet Cioran’s life wasn’t without accomplishment—far from it. He wrote several highly esteemed books but never spoke highly of them and consistently refused literary prizes. In his early sixties, The Trouble with Being Born was published.
This book will be the focus of the rest of the video. People often fear death. We tend to treat death as a disaster, something to fear and loathe, something tragic.
However, according to Cioran, disaster doesn’t lie in death but in birth, a position he expands upon in his book The Trouble With Being Born. Cioran concluded that life is nothing more than a “laughable accident. ” It’s full of suffering, a burden forced on us without consent.
Tragedy begins from the moment one is born. As the period before birth is serene and free of suffering, the period after birth is filled with it. Not being born is freedom, according to Cioran.
“I long to be free – desperately free. Free as the stillborn are free. ” …he wrote.
He described his longing for the period before birth, not because it felt so good or he had a blast during that nothingness and found profound happiness and joy there, but precisely because he couldn’t feel it. According to Cioran, the very notion of being conscious is the problem. He described the paradoxical nature of consciousness.
On the one hand, he suggested that discomforts and fear spark consciousness. On the other hand, consciousness loathes (and suffers from) the things it owes its existence to. But at the same time, consciousness allows all suffering to occur, surviving one discomfort after another.
Thus, its suffering is its very source—it longs to eliminate itself even as it sustains itself. Cioran called consciousness a “dagger in the flesh. ” It’s a source of pain, debilitating, and prone to anxiety and despair.
He wrote: If we could sleep twenty-four hours a day, we would soon return to the primordial slime, the beatitude of that perfect torpor before Genesis – the dream of every consciousness sick of itself. End quote. Man suffers more than a fruit fly because its consciousness is much more developed.
A stone doesn’t even seem capable of suffering because it lacks consciousness. Hence, Cioran argued that it’s better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, and a plant than an insect. Salvation lies in whatever diminishes consciousness.
Ignorance is bliss; the less we’re aware, the better. Not coming into existence altogether would be best, as consciousness would have no chance to arise. As far as Cioran was concerned, Genesis would never have happened, by which he aligns himself with Schopenhauer, who envisioned a better version of the Earth: crystalline and lifeless, such as the moon.
Still, Earth is a cradle of life and, therefore, of suffering. Every day, new beings come into existence, robbed of the calm and peace of nothingness, thrown into this universe without their consent, under the curse of consciousness. Cioran believed that coming to life is a disaster—something we never ask for but overcomes us.
Therefore, deep inside, we all long for that period before birth—devoid of consciousness. He argued that the fear of death is, in reality, a fear of being born (or being born again); it’s a fear that originated in that dreadful moment of coming to life, projected into the future. “We do not rush toward death, we flee the catastrophe of birth, survivors struggling to forget it.
” …he wrote. For Cioran, given the horrible circumstances happening after birth, compared to the stillness and serenity of death, it’s pretty clear which one is evil. And if death is such a bad thing, he argued, why do we consider people happy after they cease to live?
In other words, why do we say things like “rest in peace”? Why do we refer to death as “sleeping peacefully,” “eternal rest,” or “gone to a better place”? Moreover, dying is something inherent to life.
We can’t experience dying if we aren’t born first. So, aren’t any grievances or fears concerning it to be blamed on birth rather than death? As birth—not death—is a disaster, for Cioran, ‘not to be born’ is the best plan of all.
But it’s unfortunately out of everyone’s reach. And while we indeed don’t get to choose whether or not we’re born, giving birth is something else. We can choose to have children.
But by doing so, we also choose to bring people into existence without their consent. Cioran goes as far as to call procreation a crime, describing himself as “to have committed every crime but that of being a father. ” By stating this, he, like Schopenhauer, ventures into antinatalist views of childbirth, considering procreation unethical.
The antinatalists believe that it’s morally wrong to have kids because by doing so, we choose to expose them to the inevitable suffering of life. Happiness is never guaranteed. And even if we live “happy lives” according to societal standards, this does not outweigh life’s inherent discomfort.
And so, by having a child, we’re responsible for its potential suffering. Hence, from the antinatalist view, Cioran calling being a father “a crime” makes sense. In his book, he also points out an inconsistency we sometimes see in human thinking.
For example, some people lament the world’s dire state—fearing global conflict, nuclear devastation, or looming environmental crises—yet they still choose to procreate. Does it make any sense to bring children into such a world? According to Cioran—you’ve guessed it—it doesn’t.
He wrote: Everything is wonderfully clear if we admit that birth is a disastrous or at least an inopportune event; but if we think otherwise, we must resign ourselves to the unintelligible, or else cheat like everyone else. End quote. It’s probably clear by now that Cioran saw being born as problematic.
Birth is the source, the beginning of all suffering, and so it would be better if it never happened. Birth is being chained. Not being born is freedom.
The answer to the curse of consciousness? Unconsciousness. From such a pessimistic view of life, the solution seems straightforward: just end it.
I mean, doesn’t that solve it? Doesn’t that grant us freedom from suffering? After all, Cioran seemed envious of friends who passed away as they, he wrote, “solved every problem.
” Still, he argued that “ending” yourself isn’t worth the effort, as you always do it too late. The pain that led you to this act has already happened. So why bother?
His argument sounds contradictory to his general views on life. Sure, while it’s true that the misfortunes that may have driven us to suicide already happened, don’t we want to prevent even more misery from happening? Moreover, what about misfortune projected onto the future, in other words, fears?
Aren’t those common reasons why people end it? Years after publishing The Trouble with Being Born, Cioran stated that he was as sick of death as he was of life. Given, then, the additional suffering “ending oneself” generates, abstaining from it makes sense.
But if we decide to linger, what are we to do? Aside from espousing his pessimism, did Cioran have solutions? The Trouble with Being Born never gives explicit advice.
However, it shows glimpses of how Cioran navigates his existence. He spent his days enduring himself, and one of his methods of endurance was writing books, which he called “postponed suicide. ” Writing brought him solace.
He refused to write academically or explain his philosophy. He didn’t even regard himself as a philosopher. He wrote in aphorisms, expressing himself and showing how he felt.
He often contradicted himself, which didn’t bother him, as he saw his writings as momentary truths. Cioran also pointed to acceptance or, more specifically, the realization that birth is a defeat, which feels like a surrender. Accepting we’re conquered comes with a relief that makes existence endurable.
He also hinted toward ataraxia, a state of calmness sought after by the Epicureans and Stoics, although he doesn’t give specific instructions on how to achieve it. His way of dealing with misfortune is interesting as it seems almost masochistic; instead of avoiding it, he pursued it. And his life was a testament to it.
For example, he chose the existence of a failure. Even though, in reality, he wasn’t, he made an effort. For instance, he evaded fame, rejected praise, and lived in austerity.
For most of his adult life, he didn’t work. Instead, he hung out with other failures and losers. People who didn’t make anything out of their lives he found pleasant company.
But he didn’t do it necessarily because he loved misfortune; he just didn’t like being surprised by misfortune. And let’s face it: if we’re too attached to things like success, wealth, and fame, we’re also very susceptible to suffering failure, poverty, and being insignificant in the public eye. So, by welcoming these misfortunes instead of avoiding them, encountering them hurts much less.
Cioran didn’t subscribe to methods and systems to eradicate suffering. He wasn’t the type of guy who’d practice a philosophy like Stoicism or follow a religious tradition. He wasn’t a big fan of rational, structured solutions for the complex, irrational nature of human suffering.
Religion he viewed as an escape from the harsh reality, namely, that life is meaningless, and we suffer for no reason. Skeptical and reluctant as he was, he simply endured, taking in life raw, seeing it for what it is: a disaster rooted in birth and without salvation. Thank you for watching.
