ContrarianLemming
6th September 2010, 11:17
I'm a Nihilist, and I'm a communist, but I'm not a Nihilist Communist, which is a specific tendency.
and a good while ago someone posted in learning "how can nihlists be communists?" and the poster asked (some along these lines) "why arn't all nihilists simply fascists? Wouldn't they want to the most efficiant system?"
This has been bugging me for awhile, and I wanted to point out a couple of things that bother me, and these are things a lot of newbies to the movement generally seem to believe, perhaps still getting over there statism.
1. The idea that Nihilists desire the most efficient system above all
2. That fascism is the most efficient (though I don't imply that this is what you think).
3. That hierarchy is efficient and that only in stateless communism can we rid ourselves of hierarchy because we don't need it anymore to defend ourselves. Ergo, we need hierarchy or the revolution fails.
These notions bother me because I think those who think them, particulary number 3, don't realize where this train of thought seems to go.
So lets look at them one by one.
1. Nihilists desire whatever they want, but first, what sort of Nihilist are we talking about?
There are two main kinds (they are not exclusive however)
Existentialist Nihilism; which states there is no meaning of life and no intrinsic value to life, without the common stereotype that this leads to dispear and fatalism (fatalism's stereotypes are for another thread), a stereotype I was constantly told in my old school Religion book: that everyone seeks a meaning of life, what bullsh!t.
The second kind is the one we're dealing with here for the most part:
Moral Nihilism is the view that there are no morals, nothing is right or wrong, that morals are entirely man-made and that there is no intrinsic reason why murder is wrong, we just say it is. The view that no rights are self evident, inherent, god given or sacred. That has little to do with how a Nihilist may act however, it's world view.
So as we can see, efficiency might be how a Nihilist goes about things, but that hardly a charcteristic of Nihilism, nor is it one of Utilitarianism as you might think.
2. fascism is efficient 3. Hierarchy is efficient
There both quite related so I'l do both here.
First, I want to point out that this is a blanket generalization, it's also sort of fuzzy with it's words; do they really mean leadership? or - I think more commonly - they actually mean coordination
I think coordination is efficient, duh, and I think the thinking the hierarchy is needed for coordination is a blowover from our constant childhood propaganda: Government is Order, Anarchy is Chaos.
I see fine efficiency in all the flat (ergo, lacking institutional hierarchy) societies I've seen, apperantly efficiency jumped in the Spanish Civil war, the modern Mondragon corporation - a collective of co-ops in which managment is elected is far more efficient then it's rivals with there traditional hierarchies.
I think people - more often then not - mean coordination and simply don't realize the amount of civics, organization and complexity libertarian socialists see in a revolution and statelessness.
It's also worth saying that there is a sort of blurry line between leadership - which anarchists support - and hierarchy.
I suppose it's the difference between a delegate and a representitive.
So I'm a Nihilist (existential) , and I'm a communist, and I think I'll write more on philosophies later.
CL
and a good while ago someone posted in learning "how can nihlists be communists?" and the poster asked (some along these lines) "why arn't all nihilists simply fascists? Wouldn't they want to the most efficiant system?"
This has been bugging me for awhile, and I wanted to point out a couple of things that bother me, and these are things a lot of newbies to the movement generally seem to believe, perhaps still getting over there statism.
1. The idea that Nihilists desire the most efficient system above all
2. That fascism is the most efficient (though I don't imply that this is what you think).
3. That hierarchy is efficient and that only in stateless communism can we rid ourselves of hierarchy because we don't need it anymore to defend ourselves. Ergo, we need hierarchy or the revolution fails.
These notions bother me because I think those who think them, particulary number 3, don't realize where this train of thought seems to go.
So lets look at them one by one.
1. Nihilists desire whatever they want, but first, what sort of Nihilist are we talking about?
There are two main kinds (they are not exclusive however)
Existentialist Nihilism; which states there is no meaning of life and no intrinsic value to life, without the common stereotype that this leads to dispear and fatalism (fatalism's stereotypes are for another thread), a stereotype I was constantly told in my old school Religion book: that everyone seeks a meaning of life, what bullsh!t.
The second kind is the one we're dealing with here for the most part:
Moral Nihilism is the view that there are no morals, nothing is right or wrong, that morals are entirely man-made and that there is no intrinsic reason why murder is wrong, we just say it is. The view that no rights are self evident, inherent, god given or sacred. That has little to do with how a Nihilist may act however, it's world view.
So as we can see, efficiency might be how a Nihilist goes about things, but that hardly a charcteristic of Nihilism, nor is it one of Utilitarianism as you might think.
2. fascism is efficient 3. Hierarchy is efficient
There both quite related so I'l do both here.
First, I want to point out that this is a blanket generalization, it's also sort of fuzzy with it's words; do they really mean leadership? or - I think more commonly - they actually mean coordination
I think coordination is efficient, duh, and I think the thinking the hierarchy is needed for coordination is a blowover from our constant childhood propaganda: Government is Order, Anarchy is Chaos.
I see fine efficiency in all the flat (ergo, lacking institutional hierarchy) societies I've seen, apperantly efficiency jumped in the Spanish Civil war, the modern Mondragon corporation - a collective of co-ops in which managment is elected is far more efficient then it's rivals with there traditional hierarchies.
I think people - more often then not - mean coordination and simply don't realize the amount of civics, organization and complexity libertarian socialists see in a revolution and statelessness.
It's also worth saying that there is a sort of blurry line between leadership - which anarchists support - and hierarchy.
I suppose it's the difference between a delegate and a representitive.
So I'm a Nihilist (existential) , and I'm a communist, and I think I'll write more on philosophies later.
CL