nevver:

“God is dead. Marx is dead. And I don’t feel so well myself.”
– Eugène Ionesco

I disagree with “there is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.”  William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience devotes a whole chapter to “The Religion of Healthy-mindedness.”  If I remember right, it is a look at eternally optimistic religious expressions.  I think many people through history have found a way to be fairly content with the world as it comes.  Maybe they’re simple or blind, but they have found a way to “be satisfied with reality such as it is,” without a hope or a thought about what would be even better.

Ionesco might be closer if he said, “There is no teleology in which everyday life is not considered a prison.”  I don’t believe religion could be defined by teleological myth, but certainly teleologies are a central part of most religions and many philosophies, including those Ionesco may have had in mind.

However, taken on a collective view of humanity, which seems to be Ionesco’s main point, this quote carries a lot more weight.  Given that so many people do have an idea of what the world should be like, whether they have hope in its coming or not, Ionesco correctly observes that humanity (as “civilizations or cultures” together) may never have been satisfied in all of history.  Chronically care-free people seem to be few and far between, never the norm.