Cormac McCarthy's Philosophy: Violence, Existentialism, and Hope

Cormac McCarthy's work delves into the metaphysics of violence and the human struggle with a central void, portrayed through existential and post-apocalyptic themes.

### Cormac McCarthy: Exploring Violence, Existentialism, and the Metaphysics of Lack
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* McCarthy posits that the central locus of humanity is its capacity for violence, which manifests in various forms from war to genocide to business, and this **endless cycle of brutality** is something we've failed to overcome.
* 📚 McCarthy's life and works, including "No Country for Old Men," "Blood Meridian," "The Road," and "Suttree," are characterized by **narrative ambiguities** that allow readers to **explore implicit meanings and contexts**.
* 🕊 In "No Country for Old Men," McCarthy explores the concept of the **eternal return**, suggesting that individuals and societies are destined to **repeat certain patterns and experiences**.
* 🧠 McCarthy's philosophy is rooted in the concept of **lack**, with the baseline of reality being an **empty chasm** that individuals and societies try to cover up with **artifices** such as norms, categories, and ideologies.
* 🛣 "The Road" is McCarthy's most popular and arguably most hopeful work, embodying an existentialism that challenges the idea of a meaningless void by emphasizing the **importance of subjective human experiences and connections**.
* 📜 McCarthy's prose is characterized by its **ambiguity**, which is a key source of its power and allows readers to **engage with his works on multiple levels**.

this video is sponsored by Aura, a digital security and privacy Suite. I am incredibly fond of. While I am working with Aura, my recommendation of this weite goes far, far beyond any working relationship. And with my audience gaining a two-e free trial, this is something that I wholeheartedly recommend you take advantage of. As many of you know, I am a huge proponent of digital autonomy, privacy, and the agency we deserve within an Ever intrusive internet. So why should I use Aura? AA combines the most core aspects of digital security and privacy into a single cost-effective Suite. The first is a data broker Protection Program. Go search your name on Google. Go see all the vast information you can find about yourself online. Data that spammers, hackers, and even worse stalkers can get a hold of. These data Brokers don't want you to know this, but they're legally obligated to delete your information if you opt out. Ora handles this for you. It offers an encrypted password manager, a central place where you store your passwords in a safe manner, allowing you

to create more robust, unique passwords for your account that you not have to remember, they offer identity theft monitoring and insurance, a VPN, antivirus, and more. Check out the link below for a completely free [Music] trial. What is the central Locus of men? Is this centrality predefined? If so, is it biology by Society? Is there even a centrality at all? These are all questions posited by McCarthy. While all these things are subject to interpretation, I feel as if the central Locust is not. And what might be this Locust? That Central Locust is our capacity for violence, unfettered brutality, thoughtless Slaughter, Blood Sport, blood Ritual, from war to genocide to business, all the way to our favorite sports. The endless cycle of brutality is not only something that continues to evolve, something we've failed to overcome. These themes are present and if not potentially popularized by McCarthy's work in No Country for Old Men, the road, and his incredibly dark, thus far unfilmable, Blood Meridian.

[Music], but it's not just violence. McCarthy is concerned about. It's our navigation around it, the varied context meaning spawning from a world bent on brutal domination, and the varied ways in which civilization seeks to control it yet let it loose in hidden ways. In order for us to go deeper into the weeds, we should go into more around McCarthy himself. McCarthy was born in Rhode Island to an upper-middle-class Irish Catholic family, but later in his childhood relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, the setting to one of his most beloved novels. Suri McCarthy lived in a relatively nice home but was surrounded by people living in what was described as two-room shacks, smaller family dwellings inhabited by the working poor of Knoxville. Much of his childhood was spent rummaging through Knoxville and befriending children from his poverty-stricken neighborhood. McCarthy was known to throw school to the wayside as a child, focusing on the things he felt more significant such as reading, writing, and drinking. This persisted up until the

time that he went to the University of Tennessee, where he later dropped out yet continued writing and made it a central focal point in his life. McCarthy was known for his rather austere lifestyle. famously he lived with his ex-wife and what she deemed a shack with no heat. After separating, McCarthy continued to live in poverty, riding away and taking life in his own accord. McCarthy also remarried but had no plans of jeopardizing his writing career with the hustle and bustle of a 9 to 5. His second wife recounts much of their marriage as also living in a shack, dwelling in the Smoky Mountains with no running water or heat. Hilariously, his second wife recounts this time with we were bathing in the lake, someone would call up and offer him $2,000 to come speak at a university about his books, and he would tell them that everything he had to say was there on the page, so we would eat beans for another week. Like many writers, McCarthy never saw tangible success until decades later.

of writing. It was only after his release of All the Pretty Horses did McCarthy gain widespread recognition, with his prior novels such as Blood Meridian and Suttree garnering acclaim decades later. McCarthy isn't a philosopher proper, and in my mind, that's what makes the writer particularly interesting. From people like Kafka to Bukowski, Philip K. Dick, the narrative ambiguities allow us to parse questions. Ironically, in a much more direct manner, it allows us to experiment with the implicit text meaning or context that isn't exactly in front of us. I have personally been looking forward to covering Cormac McCarthy on this channel, and it seems so have my patrons, which do subscribe and gain the chance to choose future videos as well. By the way, McCarthy at this point is arguably my favorite author. There hasn't been an author who has captivated my attention quite like him. The endless themes, ambiguous tones, layered writing, things that structure a type of philosophy we can siphon from him. McCarthy has published a non-fiction work called The Kulle Problem, which

I believe it's how it's pronounced, that alone likely necessitates a separate video. Though it is here, we will focus on his library of novels, the things he is best known for. Before we go much further, I will add that I will not add spoilers here. McCarthy's novels are incredibly important to me, and the last thing I want to do is jeopardize one's ability to dive headfirst. That said, we'll add context and explore the theme set by McCarthy with the large catalog of works from McCarthy. I'll likely lean heavily into the works of his that felt most pertinent to me, texts such as Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men, The Road, and even his newest, The Passenger. Blood Meridian is what I believe to be his most McCarthy-esque, if you will, and is personally my absolute favorite novel of all time. Blood Meridian follows the life of a character primarily referred to as the kid, a lone wanderer who experiences the full brunt of the violent history of the American

West this book can be summed up as one of the most violent texts ever written. Much of the mainstream attention Blood Meridian has received is its inability to be filmed and made into a movie from its incredibly unorthodox plot points and narratives to esoteric characters and most of all its extreme depiction of violence and genocide. Yet amidst the surface of narrative violence, there's an underground central figure that I think infiltrates all when it comes to McCarthy, and that is Thomas Hobbs. Of this video, I find that Hobbs may be the most defining figure in relation to McCarthy, so much so in one scene in McCarthy's newest text, the passenger, there is a passage where the protagonist reads Thomas Hobbs defining piece, the Leviathan. It's sneaky, but McCarthy absolutely threw that book in there for a reason. Thomas Hobbs was writing from the early transitional state of monarchy into pre-liberal Enlightenment political philosophy. Hundreds of years later, it can be easy to skim past the historical anxiety in these periods, but at the time of Hobbs

the Leviathan. This was at the Forefront. Hobbs was concerned about the state of nature. What is nature in its purest form to Hobbs? Nature is a constant state of War, a state of all against all. Hobbs famously says life in the state of nature solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and the condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone again the historical place here is important. At the time of the 15th century, Hobbs was concerned about the newer type of governance that was being proposed one away from monarchy and into a liberal political philosophy of Rights or in many ways in Hobbs' mind the lack of governance. Hobbs was most concerned about Society falling returning to the brutish state of nature that haunted him. The king, the Monarch, the Leviathan was the one centerpiece holding everything together both authoritarianism in nature were brutish to Hops but he thought one to be much much worse. We see this clearly within Blood Meridian the entire text follows a meta

Narrative of war from the early pages surrounding paternal abuse to the relentless pursuit of what is described by Blood Meridian's infamous character, the judge, as blood ritual. I'll leave the explicit context of this for all who decide to read Blood Meridian. It's not as simple as it seems. These things are present in the context of the Wild West within 19th century America, the lack of any cohesive order, one of genocide, the ruthless destruction of Native American peoples and culture throughout the American continent. Blood Meridian is known for some of its more esoteric content and writing, but one of its more challenging, notoriously confusing, and in my mind brilliant sections is the epilogue. But to many, it's incredibly short, cryptic, and confusing. Here's the entire thing: In the dawn there is a man progressing over the plane by means of holes which he is making in the ground. He uses an implement with two handles, and he chucks it into the hole, and he enkindles the stone in the hole.

with his steel ho by hole striking the fire out of the rock which God has put there on the plane behind him are The Wanderers. In search of bones and those who do not search. And they move haltingly in the light like mechanisms whose movements are monitored with escapement and pallet. So that they appear restrained by a prudence or reflectiveness which has no inner reality. And they cross in their progress one by one that track of holes that runs to the rim of the visible ground. And which seems less the pursuit of some continuance than the verification of a principle. A validation of sequence and causality. As if each round and perfect hole owed its existence to the one before it there on that prairie upon which are the bones and the gatherers of bones and those who do not gather. He strikes fire in the hole and draws out his steel. Then they all move on again. There is debate on exactly what this entire epilog means besides creating the world's largest run-on.

sentence of all time. I believe this to be McCarthy envisioning fence layers, settlers, or ranch hands in the West digging post holes upon a barren land that has seen war, genocide, and the very brutish elements deep from within. Hobs after the violent Odyssey we witness in Blood Meridian, McCarthy leaves us with this the process of history. Many describe Blood Meridian as a work of anti-colonialism. In a way, this is what I was expecting, yet the narrative and speak a bit different. I want to posit a different approach here, something much more dark, an explicit sociopolitical or moral analysis. I believe is missing something critical to the text, that being you cannot be against something that is inherent to all of us, and you cannot escape it, you can certainly try, and try we should, but at the end of the day, it's all we really can do. McCarthy almost posits a metaphysics of violence, thus the only way to curtail violence is to then subvert it into newer means, things that we don't typically see as

violent phenomenon happenings, such as business indoctrination. Civil Society itself, yet even this to McCarthy or even Hobs, is much more desirable than the former state of nature. It's a recognition that we should build human organization up but be completely prepared to face our violent impetuses in newer lights. [Music] This brings us to No Country for Old Men, arguably the most well-known work of McCarthy's, as it was adapted by the Cohen Brothers into really one of the best films ever made. The story is a neowestern revolving around Sheriff Bell, an old-time World War II veteran turned peaceful Sheriff who lives a relatively easy life in an easygoing town with minimal crime. He's presented with a situation that turns his life upside down and makes him question notions of progress, civility, and even mortality. There is so much synergy between Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men. I feel it accurate to call the latter a distant sequel. What happens when the American West is conquered?

after the events of Blood Meridian, is it really so much of Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men follow the century-old philosophical concept of the eternal return, or Eternal reoccurrence? A modern revor of the eternal return speaks on this question. Here, this life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more, and there will be nothing new in it but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you all in the same succession and sequence. Now, in isolation, this can be and often is interpreted as a personal, singular question, something merely of one's own life, but n has broader implications. Here, you've never been in trouble before and has you never been arrested before, that's right, judge. What about your family, Joe, your father and mother? Oh, they swell. Do we ever escape anything? Do we ever truly escape trauma? How might we bear the weight of understanding that life doesn't truly have chapters where

things are permanently cordoned off. How do we cope with the understanding that our every release into the world will be felt over and over again? This is where many stop with n and why he has been incorrectly bastardized as a self-help philosopher. But this question isn't merely personal. N has metaphysical and historical implications here, at least within some later interpretations via individuals such as to lose this. Echoes the whole time is a flat circle. Mantra happenings destined to repeat itself. Sure, history can progress, but at the same time, it falls back within itself, a sphere that spins yet moves in a linear fashion. In this vein, there's a specific cryptic, well-renowned scene in No Country for Old Men where Sheriff Bell describes his dreams to his wife and Tom. I'll be polite. All right then. Two of them, both had my father in them. It's peculiar. I'm older now than he ever was. About 20 years. So, in a sense, he's the younger man. Anyway, the first one, I don't remember.

too well, but it was about meeting him in town somewhere. He gave me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we were both back in older times, and I was on horseback going through the mountains at night, going through this pass in the mountains. It was cold, and there was snow on the ground. He rode past me and kept on going, never said nothing, going by. I just rode on past, and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down. When he rode past, I saw he was carrying fire in a horn, the way people used to do. I could see the horn from the light inside of it, about the color of the Moon. In the dream, I knew that he was going on ahead, he's fixing to make a fire somewhere out there, and all that dark and all that cold. I knew that whenever I got there, he'd be there. Then I woke up. I think this scene is brilliant as it highlights Sheriff Bell's subconscious grappling with these themes.

metaphysics of violence an eternal return to a root of our nature. One visualized with his father an understanding of time bent upon repeating itself in different form. But let's get into the person, the self. With McCarthy, there is an immense psychoanalytic existential tonality throughout McCarthy's text. We see this with one of the most underexplored passages throughout Blood Meridian, and is a later scene where the kid and the judge characters in Blood Meridian are talking in a saloon. One could well argue that there are not categories of no ceremony, but only ceremonies of greater or lesser degree. And deferring to this argument, we will say that this is a ceremony of a certain magnitude, perhaps more commonly called a ritual. A ritual includes the letting of blood. Rituals which fail in this requirement are but mock rituals. Here, every man knows the false at once, never doubt it, that feeling in the breast that evokes a child's memory of loneliness, such as when the others have gone and only the game is left with its solitary.

participant a solitary game without opponent where only the rule rul are at Hazzard. Don't look away. We're not speaking in Mysteries. You of all men are no stranger to that feeling. The Emptiness and the despair. It is that which we take arms against, is it not? I think this leads us into a perfect segue around McCarthy's existentialism, an existentialism that encompasses this lack in some Corners. Many consider McCarthy's Su to be his magnum opus, something in completely different tone than Blood Meridian or No Country for Old Men, but I'd argue the themes are completely present. They just contend with them in different ways. Sucher follows a fisherman who lives on a houseboat in Knoxville, Tennessee, who abandon his wife and children alongside his wealthy family. Sucher can be seen as a type of autobiography of McCarthy, a lone man who lives in poverty by choice, and a type of person who just cannot, absolutely cannot help himself but to get into trouble. You all know someone, whether growing up God.

forbid an adult who just cannot help finding themselves in bad situations with the law within relationship even if it's not entirely their fault. Well, that's suery. Suery is the Incarnation of one's closeness or realization of lack, a story of violence within civilized parameters from punitive institutions, his time in prison to police brutality throughout the story, religious institution to his impoverished friends who find themselves at the mercy of others. There is this constant question in the background of Suri amidst your suffering, why continue this, perhaps is highlighted even more so in McCarthy's newest text, the passenger, which in my mind feels like a spiritual successor to Suri. Both the protagonists, Bobby and Suri, are contending with a world hinged upon violence within confines of Civility, and yet not just explicit violence per se but nature itself. There's a subtext within the passenger that I think mirrors the work of Michelle Fuko immensely. Concepts such as biopolitics, power, and Madness, it's actually uncanny how much it does. Bobby is faced with a world hinged upon

regulation and taboo. A world with the start categorization found found in modernity. The pursuit of normaly creates a violent threshold that squeezes our ability to be well human. The pathological deeply violent human effect from social ethics and Norms founded in regulation of difference such as disabled, queer, or non-anglo individuals. Bobby is a troubled Vietnam veteran, yet his time in Vietnam, as violent as it was, wasn't the thing that troubled him. He's able to Grapple with the concept of war. War is the lack of Regulation, such that Bobby can parse it, but he cannot grapple with is the loss of his sister, of which both were deeply in love with one another. Yes, you heard that correctly. Bobby seems to struggle within the ways in which we deal with our hsian state of nature. The categories of right and wrong we bring into our world, ones that are at odds with ourselves, and yet in a Twist, we can argue there's a level of a cartisian Mind Body dualism.

here, Bobby's psyche couldn't care less about the regulations and categories we hold ourselves to. He deeply misses his sister, yet throughout the story, he interacts within those regulations and categories nonetheless, making his psychological disposition null and void within materiality. He has no choice but to grapple with social bounds regardless. Again, McCarthy posits a negative metaphysics of violence. He pushes us to see violence beyond mere killing and the continual artifices we build up around ourselves. We've talked extensively around the concept of lack, from metaphysics to phenomenology, or Lon's concept of the real, the empty chasm, the baseline of our genuine reality. Our metaphysics being rooted in the philosophical concept of negation, which is to say nothing, the predisposed emptiness we are all running from - life, society, relationships - our perceptions are not but things to cover this chasm. If you are new to concepts like negation, lack, or the concept of Lon's real, I'll leave some resources for you. This is the baseline for McCarthy.

central void. The Emptiness we all feel, the only quote unquote real thing we have, the state of nature. From there, the artifices we use to construct our reality, the normatives categories, ideology that we impose upon ourselves. The last main work I want to focus on McCarthy's philosophy is The Road. As a literary piece, it's arguably his most popular, a post-apocalyptic story of the man and the boy who find themselves within an utterly destroyed world. It's not explicitly stated why the world ended, albeit I've personally settled on a conclusion, but I won't mention that here. McCarthy often keeps setting and even characters within a shrouded veil, something that needs to be further pressed through reading. But McCarthy's insistence on lack on Hobbes' state of nature is certainly visualized most directly here. The thing about The Road that hit me the hardest, and what I imagine to many will also do, is that it truly shows how catastrophic an apocalyptic scenario like this would be.

the road more than nearly anything else shows how much of a Hollywoodized mythos. Renditions of Apocalypse that is quietly infested in all of our brains. Disaster movies with Heroes villains Happy Endings quick deaths. Video games such as Fallout that focus on the comedic irony of situation of capitalism and the characters therein. The road is much more terrifying than that. Side note we should have a thing where the minute politicians start talking about nuclear warheads as a mean of legitimate foreign policy is the minute we should probably force them to sit through something like the road alongside their family. Book or movie either one will probably get the point across. It really cannot be understated how dismal the visual of this book is and ironically beautifully so but like so many others within McCarthy's text it reflects metaphysically. He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world the cold. Relentless circling of the interstate Earth Darkness implic the blind dogs of the Sun in their running.

the crushing black vacuum of the universe. In somewhere, two hunted animals trembling like ground foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it. Spite the crushing tone and and Pros. McCarthy brings forward. The road is arguably the most hopeful and even optimistic of McCarthy's. Primarily, McCarthy's use of existentialism here. An existentialism that challenges some thought seen and absurdism. We can see the world as a void, one lack of meaning as it exists within a default state that without our own intervention, our perception, our being. But it's our subjectivity as people that matter. I'd argue McCarthy goes beyond that. We haven't spoken about McCarthy's spiritual influence in his text. From almost mystical-like figures and characters such as the judge or Anton. Sher Spirit as an entity, a concept. However, we might describe it, is often visualized within characters in the road. I'd argue McCarthy centers this into the setting because of the. Decay, because of the quite literally lack of. Of Life of all in the book. We must go beyond Sight.

and sound into the sublime. Beyond sense, beyond reason, beyond logic, we see this with the boy and the man's promise to one another to always carry the fire. This is a mantra shared throughout the text. We don't technically know what the fire is; it's never explicitly stated. Yet, as collective humans, as the reader, we still understand it. The road encompasses a restless spirit of humanity that contends with this lack, this void, and in a modern sense, much of McCarthy can be seen as not exactly, but a type of postmodern author, at least in his narrative form. The road flips this and is probably McCarthy's most modernist work. Much of this video has been a bit more vague than my others, but there is a direct reason for this. McCarthy's prose tends to be vague, and that's what makes his art damn powerful. In my mind, the balance between the ambiguous and the explicit, he embodies this more than many writers, and I think it fair to carry that form throughout this video. At the end of all of this, I think we can sum up.

McCarthy is one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, and hopefully, this video did him and his writing justice. Thank you all for watching and making it to the end. I've always wanted to make a video on McCarthy, and I was happy to see that patrons here obliged. As always, I want to make a huge quest. These videos would not be possible without the help of all my patrons and people in the YouTube members sections. Consider pledging a few bucks a month here. It allows us to keep all of these videos possible and flowing. Most of all, though, I want to give an extra shout out to Jay Roberts, Kate, and Keith Gaylor. Thank you all so much. You truly have gone above and beyond. For everyone else, I hope to see you in the next one.

The Dark Philosophy of Cormac McCarthy

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The central theme in McCarthy's work is the human capacity for violence and brutality, and the ways civilization seeks to control it.

McCarthy's own life was marked by a focus on writing, a minimalist lifestyle, and a long struggle for success.

Cormac McCarthy gained widespread recognition after the release of "All the Pretty Horses," with his earlier novels receiving acclaim later on.

His ambiguous and layered writing style allows readers to explore implicit meanings and contexts, making his work intriguing.

McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" is known for its extreme violence and unorthodox plot, with the influence of Thomas Hobbs being a defining aspect of his work.

The Impact of Hobbs' Philosophy on "Blood Meridian"

Hobbs believed that nature is in a constant state of war, which influenced his fear of society returning to a brutal state of nature.

"Blood Meridian" reflects this philosophy through its depiction of relentless violence and the pursuit of war, set in the Wild West during the 19th century.

The epilogue of "Blood Meridian" symbolizes a validation of sequence and causality, reflecting Hobbs' idea of a constant state of war and the pursuit of power.

The Sociopolitical and Moral Analysis of McCarthy's Works

McCarthy's work in Blood Meridian is often seen as anti-colonial, but the narrative suggests a darker and more complex analysis of violence.

No Country for Old Men is considered a distant sequel to Blood Meridian, exploring similar themes of progress, civility, and the eternal return.

Both works delve into the idea of whether it is possible to escape from the cycle of violence and trauma in life.

The Eternal Return and Metaphysical Themes in McCarthy's Works

The concept of eternal return is a central theme in McCarthy's works, as seen in the symbolic dream of Sheriff Bell encountering his father.

McCarthy's writing also delves into the metaphysics of violence and the repetitive nature of human existence.

The author explores psychoanalytic and existential themes through the characters in his novels, particularly in the portrayal of rituals and the letting of blood in "Blood Meridian.

The Existential Themes in McCarthy's Novels

McCarthy's novel "Suttree" is seen as his magnum opus, depicting a lone man living in poverty by choice and constantly getting into trouble.

The book explores the theme of violence within civilized society, from punitive institutions to police brutality.

"The Passenger" is considered a spiritual successor to Suttree, delving into a world hinged upon violence and the regulation of difference, mirroring the work of Michel Foucault.

The protagonist, Bobby, grapples with the concept of war and the loss of his sister, struggling with societal categories of right and wrong.

Bobby's psyche struggles within social bounds despite deeply missing his sister, reflecting McCarthy's negative metaphysics of violence.

McCarthy's philosophy revolves around the concept of lack and the central void, as depicted in "The Road," which offers a terrifyingly realistic portrayal of an apocalyptic scenario.

The book challenges the Hollywoodized mythos of apocalypses, emphasizing the dismal truth of the world and reflecting McCarthy's metaphysical themes.

The Road: McCarthy's Modernist Masterpiece

McCarthy's novel "The Road" explores existentialism, absurdism, and the human struggle to find meaning in a seemingly void world.

The book's spiritual influence is embodied in the concept of "the fire," representing the restless spirit of humanity.

The ambiguous and explicit nature of McCarthy's prose adds to the power of his storytelling, solidifying his place as one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century.