On Schopenhauer’s Guide to a Tolerable Life: An Interview with Dr. Colin Marshall

By Ainsley Davis and Zhenya Shapiro

On March 5, 2025, Ainsley Davis and Zhenya Shapiro sat down with Doctor Colin Marshall and discussed his upcoming book and current work on the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The transcript below has been edited for print.

Ainsley: Thank you again for sitting down with us this morning. To start, what inspired you to write this book?

Dr. Marshall: I think first was just really liking Schopenhauer. I got into him because of a project I was doing on compassion and I read something that a friend recommended to me about feminist approaches to compassion and empathy, and weirdly in there was a mention of Schopenhauer's view, and I was like, “oh, that's actually pretty close to what I think.” So that was sort of my entry point, and then the more I read, the more I liked, despite him being this kind of repulsive person. Despite being this weird, misogynistic, antisemitic elitist, there's something that just really drew me in, and it took me a while to figure out why. So yeah, I just kind of liked some of his views. And then I was working on this book about persuasion, and for a while, it wasn't going very well, and it took me a little while to figure out what the problems were. One of the problems was, I realized, I was just trying to find excuses to write about Schopenhauer more than what really made sense for the book. So with a friend of mine I was reading this book by Nicolas Bommarito, Seeing Clearly: A Buddhist Guide to Life. It was a pretty fun book, and then my friend pointed out, “oh, you could write a Schopenhauer book.” At first I was like, “eh, I don't know.” And then I realized, “oh, wait, that's actually sort of what I'm trying to do with the persuasion book.” So I pulled the projects apart. It was actually after that that the persuasion book found an editor who was enthusiastic about it, and then I found an editor who was enthusiastic about the Schopenhauer one.

Ainsley: Do you remember what the first work of Schopenhauer you read was?

Dr. Marshall: Yes. The first thing I read was in college: there was a class I did in musical aesthetics, and we did his aesthetics, and at the time I didn't get his whole philosophy. You don't get a lot of his pessimism in the aesthetics—a little bit, but not a ton. So at the time I was like, “oh, that's kind of cool,” but it didn't make that much of a mark on me. But I remember just thinking I wanted to go back to it and then I think my first year after grad school I had this postdoc that my department, NYU, put together for me because I didn't get a job my first year out. It gave me a couple of classes to teach. I got a lot of free reign. And so I put Schopenhauer on a syllabus just to see—it was pretty fun.

Zhenya: What kind of class was it?

Dr. Marshall: It was an intro class, but intro through the classics. And so I just got to pick sort of random stuff. So I did some Epicureanism, Lucretius, we did some Aquinas, some Descartes—but not the Meditations—we did the Discourse, and then Schopenhauer. And yeah, Schopenhauer was just a trip.

Ainsley: How is this book meant to be read?

Dr. Marshall: One thing I learned as I've been trying to move towards more general audience, non-scholarly writing is that most non-academics, when they pick up a book, they're not sitting there with a pen and pencil figuring out how to summarize your argument and fit it into their next paper that they're writing. That's the thing we academics do in a certain mode. But most of the time when people are reading, that's not what they're looking for. So I read some examples of popular philosophy; some of which I like, some of which I didn't like so much. And the thing I realized is it needs to be something that people can dip into. So there's an overall theme of the book which is: things are pretty awful, when you realize that, then things that aren't quite as awful, you'll sort of see their value. That's the running theme, but it's much more sort of chunked by chapter. So you can dip into—hopefully, if it comes together—the chapter on art, kind of read it by itself, not really remember much of the rest of the book and still get something out of it.

Ainsley: So not a non-academic audience, but you’re hoping to reach outside of academia?

Dr. Marshall: Yeah, exactly. One model that I've used is Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. Which is an amazing book of psychology and it's really accessible for people like me—I don't have any projects in psychology, I'm not looking to build theories. It's just, that book gives me a general theme, like here's the two systems our mind has, and then each chapter you sort of see that play out in different ways. So it's not dumbed down. Of course, he drops some stuff that only other psychologists would care about. But it still lets you get into some depths… it sort of meets you where you're at, as opposed to assuming that you're another psychologist with all the exact same sort of commitments and interests that an academic psychologist has.

Zhenya: Is it kind of like trying to bring academia into the lives of non-academics?

Dr. Marshall: Totally. I've become like a little bit of a zealot about this because I think there's a lot of opposition to academia in America now, especially to humanities and social sciences, and I think a big part of that just rests on us not having good representatives. So partly, I think it's our fault we're writing papers for other academics, and they're not accessible to other people, so it's hard for non-academics to see the value. But then the other thing is, and this is something that the editor I'm working with at Princeton University Press really pushes on, he thinks there's a big public appetite for philosophy. Lots of people are wrestling with philosophical issues. They want some insight. They want some perspective. They don't necessarily trust academic philosophers directly, but if you channel it, if you say, “oh, here's a great philosopher or here's a philosophical tradition,” people will listen to that and take that more seriously. And, you know, they've got the book sales to prove it.

Zhenya: It almost seems like sometimes there's some sort of resentment from the public audience towards academics, just because it's so inaccessible. Why would you put the effort into trying to read them if it's not meant for you?

Dr. Marshall: Yeah, and I feel the pressure a little more being at a public university. Realistically, we receive very little state support; it's almost all tuition driven. But still, I see myself as a little bit of a public servant. So if I can't deliver some goods for more general public consumption, something feels a little bit off with me. Although, also, I emphatically don't think every academic needs to do that. There's lots of good things to be doing, but I do think more of us should be doing sort of like real public, accessible stuff.

Zhenya: For sure. The next question––we kind of went over this, but if you have more to say, feel free to––who do you hope will engage with this and how?

Dr. Marshall: Yeah, I've been surprised how many people have gotten into it whenI've even mentioned it, so I don't want to limit the audience in any way. I think the main group of people I had in mind are people who just feel deflated by our current social political situation. And obviously this comes from interacting with undergraduates a lot, and just seeing how many bright young minds there are out there who are just feeling like, “where in the world do we go now? What's the point in going on?” So that's sort of where I started… I've also been thinking about––this is sort of a change––when I think of UW undergraduates, I think of fairly left-leaning people who are worried about climate change and social justice and things like that. But as I've gotten into it, I've realized I’d also like to speak to people who feel deflated but don't feel sort of allied particularly with the left. So, the sort of people who gravitate to, say, a Jordan Peterson book, because it gives them some sense of validation for the misery they feel. It gives them a certain direction––not a direction I happen to agree with.

I think Schopenhauer would say there's a deep well of misery in lots and lots of people, and it doesn't have a political leaning. It can be channeled one way or another and there might be better and worse ways to channel it. So I'm writing the book maybe with a little less ideology than I might have started out with, because I want it to hopefully engage some people who would think I'm just totally wrong in all my political opinions.

Zhenya: I think that's great to have something that everybody can engage with, and then maybe have a conversation about it. Because there's so many echo chambers where everybody just bounces around their own ideas.

Dr. Marshall: And Schopenhauer has this great––I think one of his best lines is that if you want to connect with people, don't pay attention to their moral character, because people are generally pretty selfish–mean across the board. We're all pretty self-absorbed and capable of doing horrible things to people we disagree with. He also says, “don't focus on people's understanding, because we're mostly largely self-diluted, we get all sorts of things wrong.” It'll just turn you off if you really pay attention. Instead, just focus on their suffering.

Dr. Marshall: Yeah, then you will feel some sort of solidarity, then you'll actually be able to relate. And that 100% rings true with me. When I’ve found myself in conversations with people who hold views I think are just reprehensible, if we can get to that level of, “hey, what's weighing you down?” and “Oh, yeah, that sucks.” That, I think, is just this really important source of human connection that we often miss.

Ainsley: Yeah, I definitely think more people need to think that way when approaching conversations like that.

Dr. Marshall: And sometimes you have to sort of work a couple layers down, be- cause people don't want to admit––and I think Schopenhauer is good about this––people don't want to admit their weakness and their suffering because they're wondering “how are you going to exploit me? What are you looking to do? Are you going to mock me?” But if you can get past that, I think most people will respond to “Pfft, same shit, different day.” People laugh at that because we can relate to it.

Ainsley: Yeah, definitely. You kind of already touched on this, but how do you think working with your students impacts your writing process?

Dr. Marshall: I've gone all in, especially for this kind of project, where I want to connect with people who aren't academic philosophers. The first time I tried it was three years ago; I had a working group that helped me get together a first draft of the persuasion book. The draft had lots of problems, but it helped me get the ball rolling. And out of it, I got a bunch of examples, I got a bunch of––UW undergrads are nice, but they're not pushovers. So if something's not resonating, if it just doesn't sort of ring out, it was a way for me to find out. Because in my head, I could talk myself into everything I do being brilliant and perfect, it doesn't need revision––but it's not. So yeah, I think a lot of my projects now are in terms of what conversations I want to have in the lead up to writing this. And that's even now translated into my sort of more narrow academic stuff.

These days, I prefer to co-author than regular author, partly because it's just so much more fulfilling to be able to talk through issues with someone else. It can be kind of hard to co-write, especially if you have different styles. Bouncing stuff off other people or getting ideas, it just feels… in Schopenhauer's terms, it's still selfish, I'm still out to increase my social standing and maybe make a buck off a book, but at least it's not just purely selfish. At least I'm also doing something that other people are involved in, in the process so we get some human connection out of it.

Zhenya: I'm curious, you mentioned that your friend helped you with separating out the persuasion book and the Schopenhauer book, right? What's the difference between working with friends, or other adults, in helping you write versus younger people?

Dr. Marshall: With most of my friends, I can't really run material by them, because stuff can get weird in all sorts of ways. Often my friends are reluctant to really push against things I say, because that's not what our friendship is built around. It’s different with my academic friends, where a lot of our friendship is based on giving each other a hard time about our papers––that's fine. The friend in question, he's actually a sort of machine learning expert, he's not an academic. But I think we have interest in popular philosophy, but also a certain level of impatience. Like, what's this book really saying? If there's not a clear point, we both get kind of irritated. So he's someone who is not particularly deferential to me––he's willing to hear me out, but he's not particularly deferential. He'll push back, so he's kind of my unofficial editor these days. But he's sort of the same age as me. For his own sanity he doesn't really follow the news very much. So when I get to work with a group of undergrads, they're just tuned in to the broader world in the way that a lot of my friends are sort of hiding––or just focusing on keeping our kids safe and stuff like that. It's a lot harder for me to predict what undergrad students are going to… like my friend, I have some sense of the type of stuff he'll focus on; whereas, if I start with a group of undergrads, I don't know where they're going to be, what sorts of things they're going to be bringing in, or what sorts of things they're wrestling with.

Zhenya: What is something you learned from Schopenhauer that you found most interesting and impactful in your own life?

Dr. Marshall: There's a few. One––and this is hard to implement––is a sort of flipped expectation on friendships and colleagues. So, for a lot of life, it feels like we expect our friends to be there for us, we expect our colleagues to do their jobs and respond to our emails and all that. And that's okay. But one thing that's really helped me, I think, is for Schopenhauer, being organized, on the ball, and nice, is a miracle. It's a miracle that people can ever get their stuff together enough to keep their appointments, to help you out even when it's a little inconvenient. Something I've wrestled with in the past before is: I have a friend, they maybe have a friend or a colleague, they do something I think is really objectionable. Do I cut them off? Sometimes it's really tempting. I've got people in my ear being like, “how could you possibly hang out with someone like that?” And that's something I've gone back and forth with, I think in life, not always coming out on the right side. But Schopenhauer, I think, has pushed me into the side of, “no, no, no, I don't have to be friends with everybody.” But the mere fact that someone failed me or holds some reprehensible view or something—like, of course, I'm sure I do too. When friends apologize like, “sorry, I have to bail on this” or “sorry, I let you down” or “sorry, I was in a bad mood.” Schopenhauer's kind of moved me to: “no, don't apologize, we'll hope for next time, you know, things work out, life's shitty.”

Ainsley: Yeah, I definitely need to embrace that more in my life.

Dr. Marshall: It's hard. It's really hard.

Zhenya: Besides a sense of acceptance for what Schopenhauer thinks is the baseline behavior, would you say it also gives you more gratitude for when people go beyond that?

Dr. Marshall: Yes, but… when people do sort of major acts of compassion, like when someone really sticks up for me and there's nothing in it for them, I think it does make that seem all the more amazing. So, when one of my kids just helps out the other without–because there's candy involved or anything like just to do it–I think it does increase my appreciation. The but though is, I think Schopenhauer is right that we should be pretty careful about giving too much credit, because often there's some secret self-serving. So he's not like Nietzsche or Machiavelli where he thinks it's all selfishness all the way down. No, there's real compassion. But there's a whole bunch of bullshit that looks like compassion, that people use to stay in good graces with the people around them. So yeah, I think I'm a little less… when people want to cheer on some like wonderful public figure, who they think is just awesome in every way––I've got my heroes too––but I think Schopenhauer keeps me just a little bit cynical, which does also insulate me from disappointment.

So, concrete example: the comedian Louis C.K. I used to love Louis C.K stand-ups. They were great, the best philosophical stuff out there. Then there was the scandal that came out. He did some inappropriate things, lied about it, made some women comedians… shamed them, called them liars, and then eventually fessed up. I think for me, that was devastating at the time because I had the sense of, “Louis C.K, he's the guy who's got it!” Like, “he's got human nature under control.” He's like, “it's all good.” And then I find out, no, he's actually kind of shitty too. I think if I'd been reading more Schopenhauer at the time, it would have felt like less of a blow. Of course he's kind of a shitty person. I mean, he's another human in a position of power–shittiness plus power, of course that's going to be bad stuff. Which doesn't mean that I forgive him, and I'm not a card-carrying Louis C.K. fan anymore, but it softens it, makes me a little less on the side of, “we should just cancel this guy.”

Ainsley: Would you say there is such thing as a truly selfless act?

Dr. Marshall: Yeah, I think there are genuine acts of loving self-sacrifice. The most obvious examples for me are examples of parenting, and Schopenhauer’s suspicious of that, because he thinks the parent sees their kid as an extension of themselves. So, self-sacrifice for your kid is kind of like one for yourself. Let's not pat ourselves on the back too much for like, “oh wow, you're such an amazing person staying up, taking care of your kid.” But I think there are other cases.

So one example with my kids: there was one case, my younger kid, she was only like three or four… I think the setup was: she had ended up with a few candies from a birthday party she had gone to, and her bigger sister didn't have any. And so, she came home from the party, her sister asked her for some candy, and we said, “okay, it's your choice. These were candies, you got these at the party, and you can decide whether to share them or not.” And her face sort of––you know––you could see the eyebrows go down in concentration, and you could see the wrestling. It was like, “but I want all the candy… but, eh, it's not fair.” And then, it took her maybe three or four seconds of––you could see the turmoil. And then she went, “here you go!” and she gave her sister some candy. I don't think she was doing any selfish calculation, like, “oh, I should share it.” I think it was just she could feel that her sister really wanted the candy, she had plenty, and so she gave some away.

Ainsley: Yeah, that's a great part of being a kid is that you don't necessarily have those calculations in your head about “Aha! Sharing this candy will make me look great!”

Dr. Marshall: Yeah. That's right. She was too young to be doing that kind of thing. I'm pretty sure.

Ainsley: So what, in your opinion, would be the absolutely ideal reality for Schopenhauer, or is there one? And if there was, what would it be like?

Dr. Marshall: He has this great line that if we're talking about what's ideal or what's possible, we shouldn't focus on what we can dream up. We should focus on what's actually consistent with the forces that govern reality. So he's definitely not a utopian. He doesn't think we're going to ever get to a point of lasting world peace. We humans are not capable of that. And even if we have a good stretch of peace, there's going to be viruses and stuff that'll take care of us––we're not going to get there. But he does recognize that, in his estimate, 90% of the human race lives in misery on the brink of death. Which actually, for the 19th century, I don't know, that's maybe not right––depends how you define “brink of death.” And he thinks some things can be better.

He was really morally clear-eyed on the slave trade. Other European philosophers were kind of apologetic and like, “I don't know.” Schopenhauer was plenty racist, but he was also like, “it doesn't matter how smart the enslaved people are, there's just this huge amount of misery there that doesn't need to be there.” And he saw how slavery had ended in the UK; the US could do that too!

So, I think for him, the ideal is: there's a sort of political ideal where we just coordinate our selfishness and malice so that it's minimally harmful. For example, I didn't grow up as a huge fan of professional sports, but, Schopenhauer kind of brought me around because if malice and wanting to fight is just part of human nature, then we got to put it somewhere. And, you know, let's put it into things like roller derby. I took my kid to a roller derby bout. It's messy, people fall, they get hurt. But, if that's the way we're channeling our malice, instead of actually slaughtering each other, that's way better, and, that's consistent with human nature. Whereas trying to make us all friendly all the time, that's not going to happen. So, you have to have, for [Schopenhauer], a strong enough political power to keep us from slaughtering each other. And he’s like, “don't underestimate that.” There are other things the government can do, but the main thing is, let's not slaughter each other. And then we need to have things that let human nature do its thing in a way without causing too much misery. Oh, and art! He definitely thinks art gives us a break from normal misery, so people need to have lots of opportunities for art. It's always going to be messy. It's always going to be ugly. There's always going to be plenty of nastiness. But I think, for him, there's not a utopian state we could get to, but there's a clear direction we can move in.

Zhenya: Going off of that––there may not be a clear answer––but I was curious, would he value artistic jobs over other types of jobs that might bring other types of goodness to people? Like doctors and things like that?

Dr. Marshall: Oh, good question. My guess is his own view is that you don't need that many artists. He's a romantic, he believes in geniuses. There aren't that many around. He loved Mozart, Rossini, Haydn. He's like… occasionally you get one of these geniuses, and they'll produce works that can help a ton of people, but you don't want to incentivize art for people who aren't geniuses––in his view, just having more crappy art around. So that's his kind of elitist view. But part of it is, one genius will do a ton of good. And that's even before the age of electric, digital ways of conveying art, which just massively expands it. So I think, yeah, the geniuses will come along. When they come, there should be support for them. I think he'd back that. I don't know if he'd back government support, but some form of support. Someone's got to help these people, you know, crank out as much stuff as they could. With doctors, I think he's fairly pro-medicine, at least if it alleviates suffering. I think prolonging life, he's maybe a little more iffy on, but at least when we're alive, not suffering too much.

Zhenya: This last question, I would assume, is something that you're really tackling in this book. In this very tumultuous time in our world––politically, spiritually, environmentally––how do you think Schopenhauer would aid someone in severe distress? Both on an individual level, and a larger, universal level––maybe somebody in a position of a lot of power?

Dr. Marshall: I think there's a lot of ways it could happen. One way he could help, I think, is––for me, when I've had mental health challenges, part of the problem was a feeling of, “it's me,” a sense like, “I'm just sort of damaged or worthless or some- thing like that.” And that's an isolating sort of feeling.

So I don't think Schopenhauer [can] take away the feeling, but he can take away––and for me has––the sense of isolation. You're tapping into that very thing that's simmering everywhere––people try to cover it up but, that's really there. I think that's worth a lot. People respond to that.

I think for people, I mean in sort of a political side, the stuff about accepting imperfect allies––[Schopenhauer’s] not interested in political activism––but I think for political activists, I've sort of been convinced. Obviously we've got to have some standards, but having a really high purity test for our allies, I think it's a mistake because we’re shitty too. We don't see our own crappiness, but of course it's there. Of course we're missing things because it's a big, messy world and we can only direct our compassion a few places. So yeah, I see that importance in advocacy.

And then for leaders, focusing on progressives versus conservatives, I think his impact on conservatives would be, “don't idealize any point in the past.” America was never great. Never. It's never been great. But then for progressives, he would also say, “and it's never going to be great. We're never going to be all sitting around singing kumbaya together, that's not us.” There's always going to be crappiness. We can mitigate things. Certain things can be improved. But if someone tries to sell you––this is me sort of guessing––“America's best days are ahead of it. Ahead of us” it's okay but, come on, we all know that's bullshit. Whereas if you instead go more Bernie Sanders and are like, “your healthcare cost doesn't need to be this high” I think that's more sort of the kind of thing Schopenhauer would be like, “yeah, that's an actual thing.” We don't have to change human psychology to make healthcare better. That's a thing we could do. I also perversely like allying Schopenhauer, putting him sort of close to feminists and Jewish thinkers. And I recognize it's a little bit of malice on my part that's kind of like sticking it to him. And he's got a line basically about how you should make fun of dead people. He's talking about how he's going to give Kant a hard time. [Schopenhauer] was like, I’ve got deep and sincere feelings of respect for him: “human frailty can’t bear to see its heirs refuted in the absence of mollification and flattery”––people can’t handle criticism unless you really make it a compliment sandwich––“but the dead have cast this weakness aside”––won't bother them. So I also think one way to channel our malice is make fun of dead people. Especially people who we see some merits in. We can give them a hard time.

Zhenya: They gave us a lot to work with, and now we're taking it on.

Dr. Marshall: Right. One thing that's weird is I've never had a thing before where I was like, “I've got a good title and a good theme; now I've got to write a book that lives up to it.” Everything else I've written is like, “I know what I want to say,” and then I sort of fish around for a title or theme. So I do feel a little pressure: can I actually get this sort of together well enough?

Zhenya: But I think it would be very interesting. I think it's something that a lot of people would really make good use of in their life.

Dr. Marshall: I hope so, yeah.

Zhenya: I definitely feel like I could.

Ainsley: Yeah, me too.

Zhenya: Thank you so much!

Ainsley: Yes, thank you!