(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In the preface to my edition of Peter Wessel Zapffe#'s main philosophical work About the tragic, published by Aventura Forlag in 1988, signed "Peter Wessel Zapffe, dying at home", it says: "The human race comes from Nothing and goes to Nothing. Beyond this there is Nothing.”
I perceive this as clean nihilism. Not only that there is nothing here either before life or by death – most people can nod in recognition – there is a big Nothing between the two. Not only that there is no meaning with life, there is no meaning either i life. If this is true, how can people be blamed for filling their lives with emptiness, junk and noise? And how can one think that something is more meaningful than something else when everything is essentially the same pointless? But Zapffe's view of life was strongly hierarchical. Yes, what thought actually the philosopher Zapffe on? What values did he have in life? What was he willing to fight for?
Personally, I perceive Peter Wessel Zapffe as one passionate nihilist. I remember the first time I began to read his main philosophical work, and it certainly appealed to me, not so much because I perceived life as he did, but because I felt that here I had met a real poet. Especially the depictions of Job's and Hamlet's tragic existential situation is something that is not easily forgotten. There are passages in this work worthy of a true poet. But I also think that if you are to write a book about Zapffe, you should come to terms with his nihilism.
The meaninglessness of life
Biology professor Dag O. Hessen has now published a book about the Norwegian philosopher. He presents a wide range of themes and places emphasis on showing Zapffe in his full breadth. Among other things, the philosopher was also a zealot climber, besides being a thinker, pessimist, humorist and writer. In addition, he was also a fisherman, husband and nature lover. He is also considered a forerunner of the ecology movement and called himself rather biosoph than 'philosopher'.
One can both admire and shake one's head at Zapffe's consistent attitude to life. Hesse never takes any passionate stand with Zapffe, but has written a gentle and friendly book about the philosopher. That's fair enough, but I miss some of the same textual presence in Hesse's book as in Zapffe's best texts.
The problem with Zapffe's nihilism is that he seemed to have been blind to that pessimismn his was self-selected, and not necessarily a product of the actual state of the world. We all create the world in our own image. But Zapffe seems to have doubted that his perception of reality was 'the only true one'. This means that he comes across as unwilling to compromise, stubborn, one-sided and one-sided. And also as rather old-fashioned.
If there was anything sacred in Zapffe's life, it was his conviction of the meaninglessness of life.
This very paradox, namely that Zapffe armored himself in his own nihilism and, based on this, drew the conclusion that man should disappear, should have been problematized more strongly. What conditions in a person's life contribute to producing such an extreme view of life? I don't get an answer to this.
Being born is a punishment, Zapffe believed.
I also find Zapffe's outlook on life to be of little universal value. Fortunately, Hesse takes this up. Although Zapffe perceived life as meaningless, he was certainly able to find joy in existence. And that's good. But the lack of general validity in Zapffe's outlook on life, he stands as a rather lonely star in the Norwegian sinkhole. Being born is a punishment, Zapffe believed. It would have been best not to have been born.
What is left after Zapffe?
So what can Zapffe's philosophy add to us who do not share his profound pessimism? Can one call his perception of life anything but failed? Such a negative view of man cannot add anything to my life. So maybe we should start at the other end and rather try to examine what values he actually believed in and fought for, and find out what we can deduce from that? Hesse does not lose himself in Zapffe's nihilism, but depicts Zapffe's life as rich, despite the dark undertones.
Hesse writes that Zapffe was a anti-authoritarian elitist, and that he despised both communism and Nazism. He hated what he perceived as the vulgarization of life. So Zapffe believed in quite a lot. But did he think life was worth living? I still wonder about this after Hessen's book has been read.
I can also share that material sobriety gives the greatest scope for freedom of thought.
What is left after Zapffe? I can learn nothing from his pessimism. But I learned something from his mountain-ecosophical point of view, and his opinion that one can live a rich life with simple means. I can also share his view that material sobriety gives the greatest scope for freedom of thought, although I am probably more concerned with comfort than Zapffe was.
But the settlement with nihilism does not take place. And that makes this book a bit too tame for me.
