Knowledge of misery —

The emergence of pessimistic philosophies
is by no means a sign of great and terrible misery.

No. these question marks about the value of all life
are put up in ages in which the refinement and alleviation of existence
make even the inevitable mosquito bites of the soul and the body
seem much too bloody and malignant

and one is so poor in real experiences of pain
that one would like to consider painful general ideas as
suffering of the first order.

There is a recipe against pessimistic philosophers
and the excessive sensitivity that seems to me
the real “misery of the present age “…

Well, the recipe against this
“misery” is:
misery.

–excerpt The Gay Science, Book 1, Section 48 by Friedrich Nietzsche

This morning I was thinking of that screed favored by today’s conservatives, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  The fictional tale is the apotheosis of individualism, a myth of the serrated ego.  The tale advances a pessimistic philosophy for a present era.  Conservative minded politicos are in the media with nauseating frequency, bullies shameless to verbally assault women, imposing state-power to multiply trauma by compelling pregnancies to term.  They feel revulsion at immigrants fleeing hunger, — men, women and children with intimate knowledge of misery…

The names of this clown-crew too easily come to mind:  Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, Boebert, Greene, Cruz, Jordan, McCarthy.  Of course there’s “the ‘man’ behind the curtain”, uber wealthy capitalists writing the checks.  Not to be overlooked are the “Christian” mega-church mullah’s that view suppressing the Gay and Trans communities as “God’s will.”

Nietzsche offers a suggested remedy for the “misery” of this crowd.