Nihilism

[The Feral Underclass]

A great essay about Nihilism I found on the net, which gives a better perspective on the philosophy than the one given at counterorder.com

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Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism.

Essay in full (http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/nihilism.htm)

[Individual]

No philosophy will be an accepted philosophy, accepted by all of mankind.

I do believe that as all human intelligence progresses, as we move closer and closer to discovering the truth, mankind will eventually come upon nihilism.

The reason that I think this is that eventually all of our known intelligence will lead to the event of infact knowing nothing. Nothing meaning that there is no purpose to being, no purpose or reason.

We spend much of our time trying to coexist with other individuals, figuring the most suitable way to interact amongst ourselves and others. Eventually where will all of this lead? We are all on the road to dropping the bombshell, the point where our intelligence realizes that realization cannot be found.

Nihilism is not meant in place of an excuse for literal destruction, so let us not become confused. Nihilism is the excuse that none of us have any purpose, there are no answers, and we all progress towards nothing.

Some day I believe that nihilism will prevail over all thought, though I don't see this for some time.

Maybe this will be the apocolypse as said in the bible, the end of existence holding the end of religion. Maybe we will all once realize that there is no realization.

We move towards nothing.

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

The 'advent of nihlism draws near' - Nietzsche. :)

[PRC-UTE]

do believe that as all human intelligence progresses, as we move closer and closer to discovering the truth, mankind will eventually come upon nihilism.

The reason that I think this is that eventually all of our known intelligence will lead to the event of infact knowing nothing. Nothing meaning that there is no purpose to being, no purpose or reason.

We are all on the road to dropping the bombshell, the point where our intelligence realizes that realization cannot be found.

Or as Henri Lefebvre argued, we can make such claims because we have not yet arrived at a philosophy of truth that will yield real freedom. One day we'll indeed have a philosophy of everything, of truth itself.

More importantly, what you're speaking of is not the result of objective knowledge but the triumph of subjective opinion and self-interest.

I think that's what Nietzsche was talking about. His famous statement "God is dead" was protesting the death of objectivity and standards, the rise of selfishness and alienation.

[percept¡on]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2004, 01:02 AM

Or as Henri Lefebvre argued, we can make such claims because we have not yet arrived at a philosophy of truth that will yield real freedom. One day we'll indeed have a philosophy of everything, of truth itself.

More importantly, what you're speaking of is not the result of objective knowledge but the triumph of subjective opinion and self-interest.

I think that's what Nietzsche was talking about. His famous statement "God is dead" was protesting the death of objectivity and standards, the rise of selfishness and alienation.
exactamundo

Careful what you say about Nietzsche around here though, he has quite a few devoted concubines in the philosophy forum

[DaCuBaN]

More importantly, what you're speaking of is not the result of objective knowledge but the triumph of subjective opinion and self-interest.

I think that's what Nietzsche was talking about. His famous statement "God is dead" was protesting the death of objectivity and standards, the rise of selfishness and alienation.

Sorry, but I don't get it: Why does subjectivism firstly rule out the idea of objective reality? Surely it's an admission of fallability and no more?

Similarly how is it rooted in self-interest? I've never met a subjectvist egoist...

[PRC-UTE]

Sorry, but I don't get it: Why does subjectivism firstly rule out the idea of objective reality? Surely it's an admission of fallability and no more?

Similarly how is it rooted in self-interest? I've never met a subjectvist egoist...

I'm not debating semantics ie: subjectivist egoist, I'm contrasting the reality of objective Truth v how it is perceived by an individual. They are saying there is no objective knowledge, or humankind will not find it.

The idea that we won't understand Truth is a subjective, post-modern view, not an attempt to understand or change reality.

It's of course "rooted in self-interest" - how else could there be a statement that everyone won't come to an agreement?

Like the statement that


No philosophy will be an accepted philosophy, accepted by all of mankind.


is an essentially subjective idea. We would counter by saying humanity's philosophy will one-day reflect material conditions, ie global communism.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2004, 03:02 AM
Or as Henri Lefebvre argued, we can make such claims because we have not yet arrived at a philosophy of truth that will yield real freedom.
Understanding that life is meaningless and without purpose is surely the ultimate freedom. Realising that this is the case free's you from the oppressive force of religion and allows you to enjoy your life.


One day we'll indeed have a philosophy of everything, of truth itself.

The truth is, there is no truth.


More importantly, what you're speaking of is not the result of objective knowledge but the triumph of subjective opinion and self-interest.

To say that there could be a meaning to life implies that there is a prerequisite to existence that we as humans did not create. We [humans] do not know what this meaning is, so if we do not know what it is then we did not create it.

You are saying that there is or could infact be a meaning to our existence. That there is some purpose to our lives that we are not yet aware of. How did this meaning come into existence? If it does exist, and it is something we did not create, who then created it? God?


The idea that we won't understand Truth is a subjective, post-modern view, not an attempt to understand or change reality.

But there are many aspects of Nihilism, both political and philosophical. Communism and nihilism do not necessarily have to exclude each other.

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

Originally posted by percept¡[email protected] 25 2004, 01:29 AM
exactamundo

Careful what you say about Nietzsche around here though, he has quite a few devoted concubines in the philosophy forum

Um, I fully agree on a basic level with the guy, not enough to rant anyway. Do you intend on posting a warning everytime somebody makes a statement on Nietzsche in case they get into, go forbid, a debate!

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

One day we'll indeed have a philosophy of everything, of truth itself.

Well as a perspectivist I do not believe in any eternal truth nor do I think it is very important that their actually is one. What is important is that in our own personal situation and for those around us there is some kind of value system (not morality) that we can live by.


I think that's what Nietzsche was talking about. His famous statement "God is dead" was protesting the death of objectivity and standards, the rise of selfishness and alienation.

It's not as simple as that, the statement is first and foremost not a protest, Nietzsche wants the concept of God dead but we are not ready for his word, hence the madman. He wants a kind of selfish man, lonely men like Zarathusra who have no fear of a Godless existence. However he is aware of the problems God's death will cause, the void will have to be filled, like the whole in the head where God was as Sartre says. Unfortunately there will be a crisis of nihilism before man emerges.

[PRC-UTE]

interesting responses boys, will give me something to mull over . . . :huh:

;)

[Djehuti]

I fear no man,
I fear no God,
I seek no heaven,
I fear no hell,
I have no heroes,
I have no faith,
I bow before no one.
I am a Nihilist.

http://www.counterorder.com/

[Djehuti]

Radical scepticism is just plain stupid. Nihilism is the negation of objective non material truth. Nihilism is strict materialistic. Nihilism does not deny science, rather the opposite. Nihilism denies faith, because faith means to abandon rational thought. Nihilism is the negation of idealism, ideology, philosophy, faith, and moral.

[Djehuti]

Here is a great texts that combines nihlism with communism.
Marx meets Nietzche.


For a World Without Moral Order
http://troploin0.free.fr/biblio/moral_uk/


"The present article is an introduction to a critique of social mores, a contribution to the necessary task of revolutionary anthropology. The communist movement possesses a dimension both of class and of humanity. Although the central role of the proletarian worker is at the foundation of that movement, and although that movement works toward human community, it is neither a form of workerism nor of humanism. For the time being, reformism lives off separation by the accumulation of demands in parallel spheres, never calling the spheres themselves into question. One measure of the potency of any communist movement is (or should be) its capacity to recognize, and in practice to go beyond the gap or contradiction between the dimensions of class and of community.

This gap and this contradiction flourish in the ambiguities of our emotions and make a critique of social mores an especially delicate matter.

What follows is not an article about "sexuality," which, like economy or work, is an historical and cultural product. Like work and economy, sexuality was born as a specific sphere of human activity under nineteenth-century capitalism, when it was honed down and theorized (discovered), then made banal by the capitalism of the twentieth century. Within the totality of a communist existence, it can be superceded.

For the same reasons, this is not a "critique of daily life," which would apply to that social space excluded by work and in competition with it. "Mores," on the contrary, include the entire range of human relationships in their emotional aspects. They are no stranger to material production. (Bourgeois family values, for example, cannot be dissociated from the work ethic.)

Since capitalism, in its own way, sums up the human past which produced it, there is no revolutionary critique without a critique of social mores and ways of life preceding capitalism, and the way they have been absorbed by it."

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 25 2004, 09:49 AM
Understanding that life is meaningless and without purpose is surely the ultimate freedom. Realising that this is the case free's you from the oppressive force of religion and allows you to enjoy your life.
I agree with this.

The only way we will progress is by recognizing that we are a "mistake". That will probably makes us concentrate even more on our problems, to improve our lives.