NEW ESSAY: Schopenhauer in an Age of Polarization

This is the latest essay I published in my project POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power. 

It is tempting to think of human conflict as a clash of beliefs, values, or identities. But beneath these visible differences, there may be something more fundamental at work: a shared condition that shapes how all of us perceive, desire, and act. Arthur Schopenhauer offers one way of understanding this condition—one that feels unexpectedly relevant in a time of deep polarization.

At the center of Schopenhauer’s philosophy is a striking claim: the ultimate reality of the world is not reason, progress, or harmony, but an irrational force he calls the will. This will is not a conscious intention but a blind, persistent striving that manifests in everything—from physical processes to human desires. In human life, it appears as a constant movement of wanting: we desire, we strive, we obtain, and almost immediately we are drawn into wanting again. Satisfaction does not end the cycle; it only briefly interrupts it. What follows is either boredom or the emergence of a new desire.

This structure of experience leads to a sobering conclusion: suffering is not an exception in human life but its underlying pattern. In this respect, Schopenhauer’s thinking resonates with traditions such as Buddhism, which similarly identify desire as a central source of dissatisfaction. The point is not simply that people suffer, but that suffering arises from conditions that are deeply embedded in the nature of human existence itself.

Seen in this light, human behavior becomes more difficult to interpret in simple moral terms. If our actions are shaped by forces that operate beneath conscious awareness—forces that push us to seek, compete, defend, and assert—then the line between intention and compulsion becomes less clear. This does not eliminate agency, but it situates it within constraints that are often invisible to us.

You can continue reading here.
[This essay will be included in Newsletter #23]