In the English language, “suffering” can indicate many things with different normative connotations. Not only can we, quite negatively, suffer from, but we also can suffer through, which, while indicating hardship, implies an achievement, or at least some gain. While the latter is usually part of the result, i.e. of what comes after we’ve suffered, we often, quite positively, ascribe a certain value to what we’ve undergone itself and even look back at it with a certain amount of pride. A friend once told me about how her mother used to slap her when she was a child, and she considered this to be formative, an experience of value; not only was it a positive experience despite it, but because of it. It is a phenomenon that is familiar to all of us, namely that we take pride in our suffering and consider those, who haven’t gone through these experiences, as naïve, lacking. Has not our first heartbreak taught us an important lesson about love?

Seen in such light, a certain economy pertains to suffering. There’s a potential pay-off, whereas unjust suffering can be compensated with, say, revenge. A great amount of suffering amounts to a great amount of experience, adding to our worth. But who suffers the most in a society? The poor, evidently. As we can see, the dynamics of taking pride in one’s suffering, thereby legitimizing it, also affirms the status quo, the world in which said suffering is taking place. Someone who that takes pride in the corporeal punishment that was afflicted upon them as a child, will possibly continue this practice. Just the same, the poor are often portrayed with a certain dignity, an air of wisdom that they’ve ‘earned’ through their abdication, an authenticity that is seemingly unreachable for the upper class. A lie, evidently, and a pathetic one. But should we refuse the economy of suffering altogether then, claiming no suffering to be ‘worth it’, or is there an economy within the economy, where we could decide, which parts of the status quo are to be changed, and which ones to be kept? Is growing up not always linked to discipline, self-denial, cultivation? We’ll respect someone, who’s “worked himself to the top” more than someone who was “born with a silver spoon,” but is the goal’s value necessarily connected to the price we had to pay for it? Would it diminish the skill of driving a car if we were born with the ability to do so? Suffering through a difficult experience might make us become more modest, or appreciate things more, but are there no better ways? We might gain experience, but is memory truly, as Nietzsche said, a wound?

We might say that suffering is an unfortunate component of agency, a necessary price to pay, but necessary by outward circumstances. In this light, we’re still on the economic level, with pay-offs and dues to be paid. But the pain that one experienced in attaining a certain goal neither increases nor decreases its value. Understanding a difficult topic requires a lot of effort, and potentially sleepless nights, but discipline and a good time management can make it easier for us without diminishing the result. If, on the other hand, we consider suffering to be a necessary source of the goal’s value, it becomes the mark of a higher state, a door to transcendence. We cannot forget that this (potentially) amounts to a total affirmation of the status quo, as it would legitimize poverty, war, famine, and other forms of suffering, which we force onto others. Yet, if we remind ourselves that the condition of suffering is never something to remain in, but, quite the contrary, something inherently to be overcome, the perpetuity of it becomes problematic. It is only afterwards that we take pride in it.

Suffering always points to ‘something else’, in a denial of the present with regard to a future. To affirm suffering could therefore only mean to affirm it as something of the past, which has been overcome in the present; as a retrospective affirmation. The child that is beaten is suffering, but, as its parents are promising it, it will learn the ‘lesson’ in the future. As such, it is at the same time a present affirmation by an instance that can judge the present from a retrospective position. In as such as it affirms the continuation of the practice, so that future generation also ‘have to go through it’. But the legitimation comes from the future (even if it hasn’t happened yet, as a promise); the parents, who have ‘transcended’ the difficult childhood, ‘guarantee’ that the practice is of value. We could speak of a horizontal, temporal axis of legitimation (from future to present).

At this point, we can’t really say how to evaluate this structure of legitimation. It can range from basic (and legitimate) scenarios like “you should try this food, it tastes better than it looks (I guarantee it)” to something as despicable as corporeal punishment. Guaranteeing the value of experience is a fundamental way of how we pass on experience. Essentially, there is no doubt that hardship (even if it’s just about tasting ugly looking food) can be formative. The question is, to what degree the suffering itself can be a source of value, instead of just a variable hurdle that needs to be overcome.