← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · neoclassical
Thread ID: 16263 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-01-11
2005-01-11 06:10 | User Profile
Nihilism
Plato created his famous metaphor of the cave to illustrate the two states in which humans live. He said that what we know of reality is like shadows projected on the cave wall by objects in front of a fire; silhouettes of what really exists. There's several ways to interpret this.
The first is the most popular way, in which there's a pure world somewhere and the physical objects we sense are pale shadows of that world. This creates a causal problem, because if this pure world exists, what created it, and why is there duality with this world? The usual response here is "God did it," which just gets silly when you consider the modern nature of God: some absolute being who like a democratic leader makes sure we all get tucked into bed at night. WTF LOL
Another way is the method chosen by the ancient Indo-European scribes who wrote the Vedas: to suggest that we can only know impressions of physical objects as filtered through our senses, thus the shadows we see on the wall are those impressions - whether of our own perception, or of social conditioning, is a questions moderns, who are beset by a constant stream of electronic images, have to contend with more than ancients, who actually had some peace and goddamn quiet in which to contemplate reality.
A nihilism is one who denies all value except the inherent; this means that nothing can be filed in neat categories like "good" or "evil" or even "profitable," but exists as it functions as part of the larger structure and design of nature. To a nihilist, most of what we know as "reality" is value associations conditioned into us by society and linked to objects, such that when we perceive the objects, we're seeing them as an adjunct to the socially conditioned value.
Nihilism is a mental bleach to remove these external, centralized, absolute controlling values, because if we're going to get anywhere in thought or even life itself, it helps to recognize reality (this would seem more evident than it apparently is to most people in this time). When these barriers are gone, we can begin to perceive life as a continuous system, instead of a barrage of values in conflict with one another.
For this reason, nihilists of the modern type consider nihilism a gateway philosophy, in that one can branch on to other disciplines, such as existentialism or integralism or naturalism, without becoming confused in the initial definitions required to appreciate such philosophies without projecting onto them the imprint of the social logic we've been taught, which in a modern time is a mishmash of scientific progressivism, utilitarianism, secularized Judeo-Christian dogma and industrial capitalist "Social Darwinist" rhetoric.
Nihilism, in the definition which we use, is not compatible with fatalism, or the belief that one can never know anything, do anything to change the world, or even have any values system whatsoever. Fatalism is the philosophy of those who would rather be dead, and thus it's healthy to be skeptical of any fatalists you encounter, because they seemingly lack the ability to off themselves yet persist in preaching their hopeless, dead-end, self-pitying dogma at you. Fatalism is not "modern" nihilism, as we call the kind of values-denial practiced here at ANUS.com.
One other thing that will conflict with nihilism is a type of quasi-fatalism disguised as the most positive philosophy over. In our society, the "progressive" worldview is quite popular; it states that we have steadily through morality and technology been pulling ourselves up from a primitive state, and someday we'll achieve a Utopic society. This view is bigotry against the natural world, and descends from the Christian ideal of a moral society, which in turn descends from the Jewish concept of "Tikkun Olam," or "repairing the world" - a world which doesn't need repairing, if one isn't so afraid of death that one cannot see its inner beauty.
It's precisely to escape this kind of insane worldview that nihilism is used in a modern time. We grow up under this doctrine of death-fear, which implements its disease by creating values that are contrary to death, such as ways of convincing you that you will live forever or that your life can be made meaningful only by implementing a progressive agenda, at which point you can feel good about your depressed and self-pitying self because you're doing the Absolute right thing.
Nihilism removes all this; it's like jumping out of an airplane without checking for your chute. Death is certain. Life is not. But reality is always preferrable to imaginary worlds and false values. If you can follow this trip, welcome to the world of nihil.
[url]http://www.anus.com/zine/nihilism/[/url]
2005-01-11 09:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Nihilism removes all this; it's like jumping out of an airplane without checking for your chute. Death is certain. Life is not. But reality is always preferrable to imaginary worlds and false values. If you can follow this trip, welcome to the world of nihil. [/QUOTE]
Sophistry.
The author claims allegiance to reality-qua-reality, and then roundly ignores the empirical fact (confirmed by evolutionary biology) that man is simply not equipped to function effectively with a nihilistic world view.
Our reasoning faculty evolved quite separately from our myth-making instinct, and in response to quite different evolutionary pressures. These are completely distinct things, and it follows that if we truly respect our own natures we won't use the one to disparage the other.
We all possess an evolved need for religion (E.O. Wilson). As Geoffrey Miller alluded to, we're not talking about just any religion, either, but rather one that affirm's man's central importance in relation to benignly supreme forces. If we really accept man as he is, then we'll accept this central existential fact of man's nature frankly and deal with it forthrightly. Viewed in this way nihilism fails the laugh test. If no individual man could hope to build a meaningful life based on a worship of death, then so much less the chances of building a sane society based on a nihilistic worldview.
As E.O. Wilson points out, of the two evolved mental faculties, our religious instinct is primary. Reason is a great tool, but reason itself can't tell us why we should reason, or what we should reason about. It's like a precision tool. A laser-guided precision saw is great to help us achieve our goals, but it cannot tell us what our goals should be. In the same way our religious imagination precedes and encompasses reason. Reason must be mollified (this is the essence of theology) but it must never be used to attack the fundamental religious vision. That would be to turn the saw on the carpenter.
The author ignores his own motivations in coming to this conclusion. I think it's pretty clear that his nihilism cloaks an adolescent need to feel superior to others. Note his final sentence, inviting others to join his exclusive club. In high school terms, he's the nerdy kid sitting at the Trekkie table muttering under his breath at all the dumb jocks yukking it up with the cheerleaders. "Welcome to the world of nihil." Sheesh. Live long and prosper, nerd.
This is the same mistake Cosmotheist makes on another thread. He confuses the two faculties and allows his outraged reason to condemn the supra-rational mythologizing of man's religious instincts, especially Christianity, toward which he has adopted Dr. Pierce's zealous animus. But in doing so fails to recognize his (and Dr. Pierce's) own supra-rational religious imagination directing his reason in fashioning an attack on a competing religious vision.
Walter
2005-01-12 05:22 | User Profile
It may come as surprising.
But we exist in a Nihilistic world. It could not be otherwise.
If we consider it carefully. And with correct understanding.
Mentzer