Fatalism - and why it isn't fatal

Thomas Hardy, about whom I shall be writing my research project for honours later this year, has often been accused of holding a philosophical position of 'gloomy fatalism', which many readers find rather depressing. His nicer characters tend to get thwarted a lot in whatever their aspirations might be, and his nastier characters tend to do a lot of thwarting, only to be thwarted themselves at the end. No one seems to end up very happy, and the idea seems to be that there's not a lot of point to life, and it certainly doesn't pay to expect much from it.

Hence I have often found it difficult to explain to people why I find his books curiously uplifting. My 7th form English teacher may be the only one who ever got it. But I think I figured out a way to explain it today. Hardy's idea was that life on earth is inherently problematic, due to the fact that nature has one set of rules, and human sentiment has another, and the two constantly come into conflict. Nature is ruthless. For one organism to prosper, another must diminish, or even die. Accident rules, life begins and ends at random moments, and, like a river flowing past a rock, the rest of life merges around it and carries on without a backward glance.

But the further up the evolutionary chain you go, the more the sentient beings experience pleasure and pain in relation to these events. Humans in particular become attached to one another, and to things, and grieve when we lose them. Nature makes no provision whatever for these feelings, and we are powerless against nature, so we are doomed to suffer constant attack upon our emotional wellbeing.

Hardy felt that God, or nature - whichever one is really in charge - had made a blunder here, beginning something He/it could not complete. The natural order is good, and sentiment is good, but they are fundamentally incompatible. 'The emotions have no place in a world of defect, and it is a cruel injustice that they have developed in it', he wrote. To mend matters, nature would need to be made more accommodating to sentiment - and that doesn't look like happening.

To me, however, this concept doesn't necessarily lead to gloom or pessimism. Rather, it is quite empowering. It gives us a broader perspective on our misfortunes, which can only serve to help us to bear them, understanding them as inevitable rather than permitting the sense of injustice that often accompanies them. 'Ah well, that's how it goes; let's move on' becomes the sensible response to misfortune. The concept also helps us to persevere in our attempts to right the wrong in the world, because it makes 'fixing everything' an impossible goal from the outset, which allows the focus to shift to humbler, more achievable goals. It adds an air of defiance to any little success in such endeavours - 'Take that world; there will be love and happiness in life despite your scheming!'

Oh, I should probably add that I do not agree with Hardy on the malevolent/neglectful God thing. I think holding such a view of God would make life seem rather grim, but that, if one can see God as sharing in our pain, and can concede that He understands more than we do and sees ends in things that we do not see, and can believe that He cares about us and has it all figured out, the whole sorry picture becomes rather beautiful, and takes on a purposeful aspect. Beauty is always heightened by tragedy and pathos. Not that I'm suggesting God allowed evil in the world for the purposes of aesthetic enjoyment. And now I'm rambling. I hope this makes some kind of sense, and that y'all don't think I'm too...I dunno, macabre maybe. It makes sense in my head.