Still, I am not a Ligotti fan based on what I've seen so far.

Just kidding. If you're reading here, it's already too late for you

Exactly right! I found that out too late. Don't read DOTE. Save yourself!

“If truth is what you seek, then the examined life will only take you on a long ride to the limits of solitude and leave you by the side of the road with your truth and nothing else.”

I am still reading through the text—more like skimming through it—but I found a page of Ligotti quotes from that book which we can look at today. Here's the first one.

In my bleak post The Meaning Of Life , reader Sam Taylor mentioned Thomas Ligotti's book The Conspiracy Against The Human Race . I was not familiar with Ligotti, so I took a look. We're talking about Deep Pessimism here.

It appears that Ligotti is not psychological.

“Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness.”

Sorry, no cigar here, Thomas. Most people don't "learn" anything. The brain (unconscious mind) limits the contents of consciousness, thus making human life possible, as I said in my Meaning of Life post. There is a similar mistake here.

“This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are—hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.”

Consciousness is post-hoc (after the fact). More precisely, the contents of consciousness are post-hoc. The "normal" human being doesn't "strive to be unself-conscious." People simply are that way. That's human nature. For the vast majority of human beings, it comes for free. As I said in my Meaning of Life post, you can thank evolution for that.

Does Naomi Kline believe her own bullshit? Does Ben Bernanke believe his own bullshit? Of course they do! That bullshit gives their lives meaning and purpose. Naomi and Ben are "normal" people, i.e., normally functioning human beings. Indeed, they are high-functioning human beings because of their obvious social success on this planet. Such satisfying success depends entirely on limiting the contents of consciousness in each case.

I am talking about unconscious filtering, which is automatic and reinforcing with more and more success. What I call "non-congruent inputs" in the unpublished 4th Flatland essay—stuff that might upset the apple cart—are filtered to maintain delusions which promote social success, a positive self-image, etc. Thus Ben Bernanke's monetary policy did not exacerbate inequality in the United States, or, as Ben sometimes maintains, it doesn't matter if it did. This is motivated reasoning (bullshit). Bullshit is always some form of post-hoc rationalization.

And there's Ligotti stuff like this:

“Every human activity is a tack for killing time” “We are gene-copying bio-robots, living out here on a lonely planet in a cold and empty physical universe.” “Look at your body— A painted puppet, a poor toy Of jointed parts ready to collapse, A diseased and suffering thing With a head full of false imaginings." (quoted from the Dhammapada)

Think about Ben and Naomi again. Are they merely killing time? Are they are "gene-copying robots" living in a cold and empty universe? Are they on the verge of physical collapse with heads full of false imaginings?

Well, yes, if you strip life down to bare bones. But does such reductionism matter to Ben and Naomi?

Fuck, no! They're doing great, living life! They're saving the world, saving the American economy, or whatever. If life starts to seriously fuck with them, they may get a glimmer into Ligotti's bleak existential nothingness. (I doubt it, though). Until then, for Ben and Naomi, meaninglessness is beside the point, and if life treats them well, it will remain that way until the very end.

Being a realist is not the same as being a blanket pessimist. Remember that.