Man’s tragic search for meaning is a timeless theme that permeates some of the most famous philosophical works in history. While Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Nietzche were internationally acclaimed for their contributions to existentialism, a linguistic barrier veiled an equally important philosopher whose works only got translated posthumously. Peter Wessel Zapffe is a Norwegian mountaineer, artist, and philosopher whose works on existentialism, pessimism, and human evolution are highly relevant today.
What Characterizes Zapffe’s Writings?
Zapffe’s writings are characterized by a poetic style, a sense of humor, and profound insights. Long before his rise as a philosopher, Zapffe was pressured by his parents to pursue a career in law. Yet even then, his poetic style seeped through the cracks of legal language and he completed his law exam in 1923 entirely on rhyme. During law school, Zapffe taught himself mountain climbing and soon became one of the most famous Norwegian mountaineers, thanks to his humorous drawings and literary accounts of his adventures.
After serving as a jurist for a brief period, Zapffe encountered the works of Norwegian playwright and dramatologist Henrik Ibsen, which redirected the course of his entire life. In the 1930s, he traveled to Oslo with one mission in mind: to answer “the ever burning question of what it means to be human” (Tangenes, 2004). Although he initially planned to pursue a master’s degree in comparative literature, his advisor, Fredrik Paasche, was so amazed by the genius of his thesis that he advised him to rework it as a doctoral dissertation in philosophy.
What is Zapffe’s Magnum Opus?
Zapffe’s magnum opus is On The Tragic, published in 1941. On The Tragic was initially his doctoral dissertation, which he submitted in the winter of 1940. The next autumn, he earned his PhD in Philosophy and reworked a shortened version of his dissertation for book publication. This voluminous book, spanning over 600 pages, established Zapffe as one of the most original philosophers in Norway. He was not only recognized within academic circles, but amidst the general public. Although he wrote On The Tragic around the same time Jean-Paul Sartre rose to world fame as an existentialist philosopher, Zapffe was only accessible to Norwegian speakers.
On The Tragic was only translated to English over half a century later. As his biographer and translator Gisle R. Tangenes argued, “Had it been published in German, English, or French, the book might have been a classic today” (Tangenes, 2004). Nevertheless, Zapffe published a six-page summary of the major themes of his dissertation in a canonical essay that has been translated into English as The Last Messiah.
What Are The Major Themes of The Last Messiah?
The major themes of The Last Messiah masterfully interweave existentialism, evolution, pessimism, and antinatalism. Published in 1933, the essay explores the tragedy of man’s search for meaning from an evolutionary perspective. According to Zapffe, evolution cursed humans with “a surplus of consciousness” that allowed us to contemplate the nature of our ephemeral existence, searching for meaning where it cannot be found (Zapffe, 1933).
Unlike any other creature, human beings are the only animals whose basic needs cannot be met by their environment. While our refined cognitive prowess allowed us to soar to the summit of the food chain, it has also allowed us to view life from the top of a mountain, as it were, down which the totality of our existence lies silent, with no meaning or answer to offer that can satiate our search.
Zapffe argued that humans cope with the curse of their surplus of consciousness through four main defense mechanismss: isolation, sublimation, attachment, and diversion. However, he believed there was no real way out of our existential predicament. Influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism, Zapffe believed human existence was fundamentally tragic. At the end of his essay, the last messiah’s words of advice express his antinatalist philosophy: “Be unfruitful and let there be peace on Earth after thy passing” (Zapffe, 1933). According to Zapffe, the only way to end the paradox of human existence is to end the human race.
