The Conspiracy Against the Human Race (2009) by Thomas Ligotti

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race (2009) by Thomas Ligotti: Whew! Great writer of visionary horror Thomas Ligotti checks in with his first non-fiction tome, a philosophical exploration of horror fiction and the need for the human race to cease to exist. It's the feel-good book of 2009!

Is it non-fiction, though? Throughout, Ligotti refers to lectures by Professor Nobody, a Ligotti stand-in. And the philosophical arguments made by Ligotti dovetail with the fictional horrors he's been visiting upon us for decades. One can never underestimate Ligotti's sense of humour.

Regardless, it's an interesting book. And a depressing one. Without giving too much away, the "conspiracy" of the title is the fact that humans possess self-awareness and an Ego. This means that we suffer more than anything else in creation, so much so that having a child is an atrocity: parents unleash children into a world where that child's suffering will always outweigh its joy.

In order to defeat suffering, humanity must cease to procreate. But it won't because humans have been programmed to have children. And they've been programmed to believe that their suffering will be lifted from them. Or isn't that bad.

Fun times, right? Ligotti goes into a number of areas in his relentlessly downbeat argument. Horror fiction, Ligotti notes, is the one branch of the Arts that faces the overwhelming suffering in a useful way: we are, in a way, all those characters in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft who learn that humanity's existence has neither hope nor meaning, and that we are all self-aware, suffering ants in a meaningless cosmos of suffering.

I've simplified and left out a lot of stuff. Look, read The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Or don't. It just doesn't matter. Highly recommended.