The existential elk theory

Can a species become too self-aware to survive? Philosopher Peter Zapffe thought so. His dark vision argues consciousness is a curse we manage through elaborate self-deception...

- BY SUHAIB AYAZ

A 1928 painting of the Irish elk by Charles R. Knight | Field Museum of Natural History

(Charles R. Knight Field Museum of Natural History)

You might want to sit down for this one.

About 100 years ago, a Norwegian philosopher named Peter Zapffe wrote what’s now considered one of the darkest, most unsettling philosophies in history. He called it The Last Messiah, but people often refer to it through an image he used — the existential elk.

Zapffe compared humanity to a species of giant elk that once actually existed — magnificent creatures whose antlers grew so large and heavy that they eventually doomed them. Their beauty became their curse. Their own biological evolution led to their extinction.

He believed that we are that elk. That human consciousness — our capacity for reflection, abstraction, self-awareness — evolved too far. We became so smart that we broke the game. We realised that we're going to die, that the universe is absurd and that existence itself has no inherent meaning. We became animals cursed with godlike awareness.

In Zapffe’s view, human intelligence reached a point where we could finally “do the math” — weigh the costs and benefits of existence — and realise that maybe non-being is preferable to being.

Can a species become too self-aware to survive? Philosopher Peter Zapffe thought so. His dark vision argues consciousness is a curse we manage through elaborate self-deception...

So, if that’s the case, why haven't we gone extinct like the elk?