Curated Quote - Schopenhauer

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident”.

-Arthur Schopenhauer, (1788 – 1860) German philosopher

This is one of my favorite quotes. As a futurist, it speaks to the dynamic, never-ending process through which humanity changes and evolves. Since the Age of Science and the Enlightenment, this has always been true. Think about it. The Earth revolves around the sun. The world is round. Climate change is real. All ridiculed at first. Then as the truth begins to challenge the status quo, it is violently opposed as it will upset the existing structures, ways of thinking and physical reality. Then of course it becomes accepted.

All of us here have seen this with climate change. Only now, when it is showing up all around us all the time in every way, is it impossible to deny that climate change is real. The reporting on the fires, floods, droughts, super storms all mention climate change as a factor, without hesitation.

Just think about the list of uncertainties now. If you think about the three stages, there are a large number of dynamics and trends that are moving from one to the other.

-EVs are still being resisted still, but they are moving to self-evidence

-AI is moving rapidly through to self-evidence

-cryptocurrency seems to be moving out of resistance

-the Climate Crisis and the magnitude of it seem to be lost on some politicians where the reality is in self-evidence but many politicians - Trump being a leader here - are still in resistance

-private space travel is moving from resistance to self-evidence

There are many more dynamics in areas of our social/economic/political/technological experience and reality. Back to Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer was one of those philosophers whose work was embraced much more after his death than during his life. Evidently his thinking influenced Freud, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Jung among thinkers, and writers such as Tolstoy, Melville, Hesse and Proust.

The concept of being of influence and being well-respected after death, versus fame during life but being forgotten after death is something that has long fascinated me. Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime yet there has been a billion dollars or more of revenue generated by a museum, multi-media experiences, and the sale and resale of his work. Popular European portrait painters of the time became wealthy during the time that Vincent lived in poverty – or an insane asylum.

Evidently Schopenhauer’s mother was a successful and popular author. This allowed her to get her publisher to publish her son’s thesis. This from Wikipedia:

[Note: Brockhaus was the publisher of both Schopenhauer and his mother.]

“His mother had just published her second book, Reminiscences of a Journey in the Years 1803, 1804, and 1805, a description of their family tour of Europe, which quickly became a hit. She found his dissertation incomprehensible and said it was unlikely that anyone would ever buy a copy. In a fit of temper Arthur told her that people would read his work long after the "rubbish" she wrote was totally forgotten.[79][80] In fact, although they considered her novels of dubious quality, the Brockhaus publishing firm held her in high esteem because they consistently sold well. Hans Brockhaus (1888–1965) later claimed that his predecessors "saw nothing in this manuscript, but wanted to please one of our best-selling authors by publishing her son's work. We published more and more of her son Arthur's work and today nobody remembers Johanna, but her son's works are in steady demand and contribute to Brockhaus'[s] reputation."

[bold emphasis is mine]

I was surprised to see a number of videos about Arthur Schopenhauer on You Tube. I think these videos area really good ones to explain why, since his death, Schopenhauer, has become so influential.