I became acquainted with Cioran’s works while in France. Until recently, many of his works were not translated into Russian. Emil Cioran was a consistent Romanian nihilist, an extremely pained one. The majority of his works are in the form of aphorisms. All of them are quite melancholic.
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Cioran writes that he finds himself in a world that is condemned, that we are all obviously doomed, cursed victims of this condemnation. We have no way out in any direction — no way, up or down, because “we are condemned and crucified on the cross of interpretation.”
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At the same time, Cioran says that “optimism is the reflex of the dying.” But even this convulsive reflex is necessary in order to somehow maintain the status of the universe, for optimism constitutes the world (in the same way that a spasm characterizes a dying person).
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Despite the fact that Cioran’s works bear no religious element and no salvational doctrine that might change a person’s fate by opening up the call to leave this universe and take a leap of will towards the Absolute, which is to say that there is no positive transcendence, he nevertheless accurately captures the most important condition of this world: its illusory nature, the absolute meaninglessness permeating its exhaustion. This starting point of human existence constitutes the basis of optimism as the spasmodic reflex of the dying.
✍️ Daria Platonova Dugina
Translated by Jafe Arnold
— Excerpt from the chapter “Cioran: Enthusiasm as a Form of Love,” in the book Eschatological Optimism
https://pravpublishing.com/eschatological-optimism/
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In Memory of Daria Dugina
Памяти Даши Платоновой-Дугиной
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