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    The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror
    The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror
    The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

    Written by Thomas Ligotti

    Narrated by Eric Jason Martin

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    "There is a signature motif discernible in both works of philosophical pessimism and supernatural horror. It may be stated thus: Behind the scenes of life lurks something pernicious that makes a nightmare of our world."

    His fiction is known to be some of the most terrifying in the genre of supernatural horror, but Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book may be even scarier. Drawing on philosophy, literature, neuroscience, and other fields of study, Ligotti takes the penetrating lens of his imagination and turns it on his audience, causing them to grapple with the brutal reality that they are living a meaningless nightmare, and anyone who feels otherwise is simply acting out an optimistic fallacy. At once a guidebook to pessimistic thought and a relentless critique of humanity's employment of self-deception to cope with the pervasive suffering of their existence, The Conspiracy against the Human Race may just convince listeners that there is more than a measure of truth in the despairing yet unexpectedly liberating negativity that is widely considered a hallmark of Ligotti's work.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateOct 2, 2018
    ISBN9781684414413
    The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror

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    Reviews for The Conspiracy against the Human Race

    4/5

    171 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I’m so glad I found this book. Mind blowing
    • 5/5
      Finally a book that speaks directly to my heart! As a matter of fact, it's so good that it almost feels like a betrayal writing this review. But I guess the author would understand, even if he wouldn't necessarily agree."Does intellectual honesty, when taken to its logical conclusion, necessarily lead to ontological despair?" That's not exactly the question the book is after, but rather depicted as one of the core elements of a particular type of horror fiction. And the book isn't about fiction in the general sense. It is about fiction to the extent the studies examining the phenomenon of consciousness are. This is why it is terrifying and confirming at the same time.Two things I haven't seen coming were serious references to Thomas Metzinger's work, and unbelievable dark humor that went beyond entertaining. And I think this is what makes this book lovely: it's all about the style, because it's impossible to be original content-wise when it comes to the most important, yet the simplest question we face, the only original and deepest horror of our existence.This fine piece of literature deserves its place in every bored person's library, as an indication of the cosmic problem that needs not to be solved, but more like a needlessly prolonged tension that needs to be resolved.
    • 5/5
      The book is a goldmine of truths that one needs to be reminded of regularly as they can be easily forgotten in a stop-gap happy world. To find out that it's not just the world that is in chaos, but even our selves are a chaotic fabrication of lies being tugged at by some all-permeating invisible force, is a crushing blow to any hope still left. The only real self-help book ever written or that you'll ever need.
    • 5/5
      Reading this tract about the accident of the human being, an error spat into existence by an indifferent and disconnected nature, is like being on a really bad drug trip. Your mind actively seeks to fight the words on these pages as you read them. Reading this book was so uncomfortable for me that in my sweltering dreams last night I began digging into the side of my neck, perhaps trying to dismantle the human puppet, the intoxicated animate that I am. The gut reaction of most people who hear about the basic premise of this book, or who begin to read it, would be, "Well, if anybody thinks life is so meaningless, why do they bother writing about it, why do they bother living at all?" The answer being that this book can be executed as a philosophical exercise, but simply because one knows something doesn't mean he will act on it. Our perverted will to survival, distorted from that of the apes and the wolves into a humanoid pipe dream of inane complexity, insists that our being here has to mean something. The religious get their God prescription, and their way out of this horror is the first that comes to mind. Others may adopt the dictum of Camus that we should create our own meaning in a meaningless world, or the transcendent affirmations of Nietzschean Will to Power. We all have some way to trick ourselves into believing that our existence matters, and the force of our ridiculous ego makes the trick inescapable to all except those with a stomach for suicide. However, who commits suicide to rebel against theorized ontology alone? Perhaps though, the man who glimpses the horror of nothingness is a little better off than he who thinks meaning is inherent and that life is alright. The former has glimpsed the cruel joke and can laugh as the black maw of entropy laughs along with him.
    • 4/5
      Ligotti's first story in his first collection is "The Frolic," features a serial killer who seems to have supernatural abilities. Yet, in contrast to most psychopaths, real-world and fictional, he has no sense of grandiosity but an awareness of his own insignificance. Conspiracy reminds me of that story, in that Ligotti sets out to slay every illusion that one might hold about life, about mankind, about the universe, yet seems to realize the futility of this mission. A fascinating work of disillusionment.
    • 5/5
      fantastic polemic on good vs evil and the quest for the meaning of life