The Philosophies of Richard Wagner by Young Julian;

Author:Young, Julian;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

Redemption

Since the will is the source of all suffering, Erlösung, “redemption” or “salvation,” can only come about through—here Schopenhauer mirrors the third of the Buddha’s Noble Truths (p. 68 above)—“denial” of the will. At first sight this might look like the advocacy of Stoic asceticism: the reduction of pain through the abandonment of many desires and, with respect to the remainder, desiring in a “detached” rather than “attached” manner. In fact, however, Schopenhauer rejects Stoicism: so-called “detachment” is a pipe dream, in part because it forgets that whatever is a habit becomes a necessity. What is wrong with Stoicism (and with its more extreme version in the form of Cynicism) is its failure to understand the conservation of pain principle, its failure to see that there is no this-worldly solution to the problem of suffering, its failure to see that the solution has to be an other-worldly one. Stoicism’s fundamental problem is that it is “entirely lacking a metaphysical tendency and transcendent end” (WR II:159). True redemption consists not in any way of being in the world but only in “transcending” it. What, in other words, Schopenhauer ultimately means by redemption is death. Only through dying to the world—literally rather than metaphorically—is there genuine redemption. Schopenhaurianism is thus, as Wagner says of Christianity, a “longing for death” (p. 40 above).

Why, however, should death be regarded as redemptive? Is it not simply the end, and if it is, how can it be regarded as in any sense compensating for a life of suffering? Is not a doctrine of salvation required to posit something beyond death, something which, like the Christian heaven, redeems life by revealing it as but a short chapter in a book with a long and happy ending?

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