John Marmysz looks on the funny side of absolute nothingness.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/111/In ... s_Nihilism
In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
I find that humorous nihilsm indeed.This article is available to subscribers only.
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mickthinks
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Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Do you? I can't see any nihilism in that message, and without it, the irony which (I'm guessing) tickled you is sadly lacking.
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Whenever my present immersion involves the most recent issue of Philosophy Now arriving in the mail, I tend to find an article I want to focus on (a study point (and fumble around with it until it hopefully produces a around 400 word letter to the editor –that is since letters to the editor are about the only opportunity time and my process afford me to engage in the tinker, tweak, and tighten process of a more finished piece. And I generally choose it based on the extent it elicits my empathy while leaving me room for departure: that which I can use because of the common ground I share with them while still being able to assert and further my own process.
And the lucky winner (or unfortunate victim (this time is John Marmysz and the article ‘In Defense of Humorous Nihilism’. I would start with my main issue (his description of nihilism:
“God is dead. Nothing matters. All is meaningless. Nothing is true. These are the sorts of laments often associated with nihilism, a philosophical perspective premised on the belief that the world is incurably imperfect, flawed, defective. According to the nihilist, the way that the world actually exists is not the way it ought to be. We hope for Truth, but we never seem to grasp it in its entirety. We desire Beauty, but find only blemished examples of it in the concrete world. We want things to have value, but nothing seems ultimately all that important. We want the world to be perfect, but it always disappoints us with its flawed nature. This might not be so bad if only the nihilist had faith in our potential to somehow improve things. However, nihilists reject this sort of optimism, instead claiming that it is beyond humanity to mend the eternal rift between our real state of existence and the way we ideally desire things to be. For the nihilist, the real and the ideal are in everlasting conflict with one another, and there is nothing that can be done to alter this condition.”
Now I realize this is the popular understanding of Nihilism. And I would also note that this understanding of it is shared by Simone de Beauvoir:
“In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir characterizes nihilists as frustrated idealists, condemning them as exemplars of ‘bad faith’. That is, instead of grabbing hold of their imperfect situation like good existentialists, she claims nihilists resign themselves to a sort of impotent fatalism in which all worldly undertakings are doomed to failure since they must inevitably fall short of perfection. If perfection is the criterion of success, then nothing that we accomplish in the real world could ever measure up. The greatest of human achievements are still disappointments, and all worldly activity amounts to a vain struggle toward impossible goals.”
And I bring this up so as to point out how hasty it would be to dismiss Marmysz’s understanding of it. To make things worse, those who embrace nihilism tend to compound this understanding of nihilism (or what I call the nihilistic perspective (through what I consider a rather shallow understanding of the implications of nihilism: that which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being tapped into the underlying nothingness of reality, the fact that we are when we could not be as we are as compared to the 6.5 million other people we could be. Ultimately, what it comes down is authentically trying to understand the implications of that underlying nothingness, that implied in Leibniz's question:
"Why all this rather than nothing?"
And let’s be clear on this: it's not something that can be approached so directly as the so-called nihilists act as if it can. For instance, one of the implications that come from the nihilistic perspective is that all arguments break down to assumptions. And if we really look at those assumptions (really scrutinize them (they ultimately float on thin air. The so-called nihilist takes this as license to act like an a-hole. But nothing could be further from an authentic attempt at understanding the implications of the underlying nothingness than assuming that it has the fixed trajectory of negativity. Once again: all assumptions float on thin air. Nothingness, by definition, can have no fixed trajectory.
To finish with a more concrete example: from the nihilistic perspective, while there is no real solid foundation for embracing a god or a religion, there is equally no solid foundation for (even if it was proven wrong or nonexistent beyond doubt (for not embracing a god or a religion. Likewise, while there is no solid foundation for embracing a given ethical position, there is equally no solid foundation for not embracing that ethical position.
And the lucky winner (or unfortunate victim (this time is John Marmysz and the article ‘In Defense of Humorous Nihilism’. I would start with my main issue (his description of nihilism:
“God is dead. Nothing matters. All is meaningless. Nothing is true. These are the sorts of laments often associated with nihilism, a philosophical perspective premised on the belief that the world is incurably imperfect, flawed, defective. According to the nihilist, the way that the world actually exists is not the way it ought to be. We hope for Truth, but we never seem to grasp it in its entirety. We desire Beauty, but find only blemished examples of it in the concrete world. We want things to have value, but nothing seems ultimately all that important. We want the world to be perfect, but it always disappoints us with its flawed nature. This might not be so bad if only the nihilist had faith in our potential to somehow improve things. However, nihilists reject this sort of optimism, instead claiming that it is beyond humanity to mend the eternal rift between our real state of existence and the way we ideally desire things to be. For the nihilist, the real and the ideal are in everlasting conflict with one another, and there is nothing that can be done to alter this condition.”
Now I realize this is the popular understanding of Nihilism. And I would also note that this understanding of it is shared by Simone de Beauvoir:
“In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir characterizes nihilists as frustrated idealists, condemning them as exemplars of ‘bad faith’. That is, instead of grabbing hold of their imperfect situation like good existentialists, she claims nihilists resign themselves to a sort of impotent fatalism in which all worldly undertakings are doomed to failure since they must inevitably fall short of perfection. If perfection is the criterion of success, then nothing that we accomplish in the real world could ever measure up. The greatest of human achievements are still disappointments, and all worldly activity amounts to a vain struggle toward impossible goals.”
And I bring this up so as to point out how hasty it would be to dismiss Marmysz’s understanding of it. To make things worse, those who embrace nihilism tend to compound this understanding of nihilism (or what I call the nihilistic perspective (through what I consider a rather shallow understanding of the implications of nihilism: that which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being tapped into the underlying nothingness of reality, the fact that we are when we could not be as we are as compared to the 6.5 million other people we could be. Ultimately, what it comes down is authentically trying to understand the implications of that underlying nothingness, that implied in Leibniz's question:
"Why all this rather than nothing?"
And let’s be clear on this: it's not something that can be approached so directly as the so-called nihilists act as if it can. For instance, one of the implications that come from the nihilistic perspective is that all arguments break down to assumptions. And if we really look at those assumptions (really scrutinize them (they ultimately float on thin air. The so-called nihilist takes this as license to act like an a-hole. But nothing could be further from an authentic attempt at understanding the implications of the underlying nothingness than assuming that it has the fixed trajectory of negativity. Once again: all assumptions float on thin air. Nothingness, by definition, can have no fixed trajectory.
To finish with a more concrete example: from the nihilistic perspective, while there is no real solid foundation for embracing a god or a religion, there is equally no solid foundation for (even if it was proven wrong or nonexistent beyond doubt (for not embracing a god or a religion. Likewise, while there is no solid foundation for embracing a given ethical position, there is equally no solid foundation for not embracing that ethical position.
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Dalek Prime
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Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Embracing the absurd. What a load of horseshit. Sure, go right fucking ahead and celebrate the ridiculous, but don't expect everyone to attend the party with the same enthusiasm, like a little tyrant who won't allow dissent. And, just because your experience of the absurd was okay for you, doesn't give you the right to drag others into it.“In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947), the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir characterizes nihilists as frustrated idealists, condemning them as exemplars of ‘bad faith’. That is, instead of grabbing hold of their imperfect situation like good existentialists,...
Last edited by Dalek Prime on Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
“To finish with a more concrete example: from the nihilistic perspective, while there is no real solid foundation for embracing a god or a religion, there is equally no solid foundation for (even if it was proven wrong or nonexistent beyond doubt (for not embracing a god or a religion. Likewise, while there is no solid foundation for embracing a given ethical position, there is equally no solid foundation for not embracing that ethical position.”
My main point here is that Nihilism (or the nihilistic perspective, like nothing, does nothing; it always has. But it has always been there waiting. Once again:
“To make things worse, those who embrace nihilism tend to compound this understanding of nihilism (or what I call the nihilistic perspective (through what I consider a rather shallow understanding of the implications of nihilism: that which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being tapped into the underlying nothingness of reality, the fact that we are when we could not be as we are as compared to the 6.5 million other people we could be. Ultimately, what it comes down is authentically trying to understand the implications of that underlying nothingness, that implied in Leibniz's question:
"Why all this rather than nothing?"
It goes back to Socrates confession that he knew nothing through the romantic break from the classicist hierarchy as well as Enlightenment’s break from religion to Nietzsche’s (via Hegel (proclamation that God is dead on through existentialism’s experimentation with the underlying nothingness of consciousness to its full expression in postmodernism via (post) structuralism.
And given the history that Marmysz describes:
“This seemingly bleak and depressing philosophy of life has been wrestled with by many of the world’s greatest thinkers, most of whom, like Beauvoir, have endeavored to reject it, and move beyond it. Thus we find philosophers such as the Buddha, Immanuel Kant, Max Stirner, Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, and perhaps most explicitly, Friedrich Nietzsche, struggling with the problem of nihilism, proposing their own ‘solutions’, and suggesting ways that might guide us on a path toward the overcoming of our despair.”
:it is easy to see how the more pop-nominal description of nihilism would have taken hold like it did. And we can see the source of it in (neo) classism as Marmysz suggests:
“Traditionally, philosophers have recoiled from incongruity, seeing in it something illogical, irrational. As such, incongruities have normally been thought of begging for resolution, eradication, or at the very least, some sort of clarification.”
What we’re talking about here is a perfectly natural human need to maintain order. Hence, the recoil from incongruity in the face of the general ungroundedness of things which is an expression of the underlying nothingness. It comes out of a failure to really explore the implications of that ungroundedness (that nothingness (reinforced by the fact that the nihilistic perspective can never really be looked straight on, can only glance the corner of the eye because it always stands outside of the symbolic order we find ourselves living in. The problem lies in the classicist tradition described above that the nihilistic perspective has always lain in wait to undermine. And it’s not something you can just say, “Sounds like a good idea”, and embrace and understand. It is, rather, something that comes to you through an ongoing process of (self) deconstruction. In this sense, it’s a lot like Alan Watts’ (and I’m kind of revealing my influences here (concept of “letting go”: that which cannot happen until you let go of the idea of letting go.
But while I am perfectly empathetic with the conventional understanding of the nihilistic perspective (just a misunderstanding to me, what is truly odious to me is the self serving misrepresentation of the so-called nihilists –as was parodied in the movie The Big Lewbowski. They’re the ones that act like nothingness must have some kind of fixed trajectory into negativity. While Marmysz’s move from the pop understanding of nihilism to his conclusion (and even if I have issues (was consistent, theirs fail miserably in their failure to truly explore the implication of the underlying nothingness, ungroundedness, or the incongruity of reality for the sake of self indulgence.
My main point here is that Nihilism (or the nihilistic perspective, like nothing, does nothing; it always has. But it has always been there waiting. Once again:
“To make things worse, those who embrace nihilism tend to compound this understanding of nihilism (or what I call the nihilistic perspective (through what I consider a rather shallow understanding of the implications of nihilism: that which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being tapped into the underlying nothingness of reality, the fact that we are when we could not be as we are as compared to the 6.5 million other people we could be. Ultimately, what it comes down is authentically trying to understand the implications of that underlying nothingness, that implied in Leibniz's question:
"Why all this rather than nothing?"
It goes back to Socrates confession that he knew nothing through the romantic break from the classicist hierarchy as well as Enlightenment’s break from religion to Nietzsche’s (via Hegel (proclamation that God is dead on through existentialism’s experimentation with the underlying nothingness of consciousness to its full expression in postmodernism via (post) structuralism.
And given the history that Marmysz describes:
“This seemingly bleak and depressing philosophy of life has been wrestled with by many of the world’s greatest thinkers, most of whom, like Beauvoir, have endeavored to reject it, and move beyond it. Thus we find philosophers such as the Buddha, Immanuel Kant, Max Stirner, Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, and perhaps most explicitly, Friedrich Nietzsche, struggling with the problem of nihilism, proposing their own ‘solutions’, and suggesting ways that might guide us on a path toward the overcoming of our despair.”
:it is easy to see how the more pop-nominal description of nihilism would have taken hold like it did. And we can see the source of it in (neo) classism as Marmysz suggests:
“Traditionally, philosophers have recoiled from incongruity, seeing in it something illogical, irrational. As such, incongruities have normally been thought of begging for resolution, eradication, or at the very least, some sort of clarification.”
What we’re talking about here is a perfectly natural human need to maintain order. Hence, the recoil from incongruity in the face of the general ungroundedness of things which is an expression of the underlying nothingness. It comes out of a failure to really explore the implications of that ungroundedness (that nothingness (reinforced by the fact that the nihilistic perspective can never really be looked straight on, can only glance the corner of the eye because it always stands outside of the symbolic order we find ourselves living in. The problem lies in the classicist tradition described above that the nihilistic perspective has always lain in wait to undermine. And it’s not something you can just say, “Sounds like a good idea”, and embrace and understand. It is, rather, something that comes to you through an ongoing process of (self) deconstruction. In this sense, it’s a lot like Alan Watts’ (and I’m kind of revealing my influences here (concept of “letting go”: that which cannot happen until you let go of the idea of letting go.
But while I am perfectly empathetic with the conventional understanding of the nihilistic perspective (just a misunderstanding to me, what is truly odious to me is the self serving misrepresentation of the so-called nihilists –as was parodied in the movie The Big Lewbowski. They’re the ones that act like nothingness must have some kind of fixed trajectory into negativity. While Marmysz’s move from the pop understanding of nihilism to his conclusion (and even if I have issues (was consistent, theirs fail miserably in their failure to truly explore the implication of the underlying nothingness, ungroundedness, or the incongruity of reality for the sake of self indulgence.
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Connection and departure: the criteria by which I choose the victim of my focus in any given issue of Philosophy Now (https://philosophynow.org/issues/111/In ... s_Nihilism, the very criteria by which I chose Marmysz’s article -hard name to remember the spelling of BTW. That said, I think it is time to get to the f-ing point:
“It is precisely because of the nihilist’s logically-irreconcilable incongruity between aspirations and the actual state of the world that many philosophers who have encountered it have either fallen into despair or chosen to ‘overcome’ nihilism by changing their fundamental beliefs about reality. But there is a third option, and that is to adopt an attitude of humorous amusement toward the world’s absurd nature.”
While Marmysz seems to be approaching my sense of it, it is as if his attachment to the historical understanding of nihilism excludes him from seeing what I see as the true relationship between incongruity and the nihilistic perspective. And, once again, I consider the so-called nihilists the most egregious offenders at work here in that they are the ones who fail to articulate the implication of the underlying nothingness while being committed to it and make the self contradictory assumption that nothingness must have a necessary trajectory into the negative, that which results in the outsider assumption (Marmysz’s for instance (that nihilism must lead to despair. In this sense, Marmyyz’s appeal to the common understanding of nihilism seems more empathetic and less nocuous in that, language being an agreement, he is simply working from the understanding given him by the given symbolic order he is attached to -that is while the so-called nihilist fails to truly address the implications of the aspect of the symbolic order they have chosen to embrace. I mean why, for instance, must an embrace of the underlying nothing necessarily lead to despair and negativity? That is when such openness can lead to the joy of deciding one’s own values: values that can be destructive or constructive?
Where I part from Marmysz is that by embracing the pop understanding of nihilism, he, first of all, denies himself the intellectual productivity of a consideration of the nihilistic perspective as it actually is, that is given the ubiquitous nature of it that he actually approaches:
“Despite the efforts of these great intellects, by some accounts nihilism is a more urgent philosophical syndrome today than it ever has been. It certainly continues to be a challenge not to be taken lightly, and certainly not something most people feel inclined to laugh at.”
By taking the historical route of seeing philosophy as acting against the nihilistic perspective, Marmysz falls short of seeing the intimate relationship between incongruity and the nihilistic perspective. He makes it seem as if nihilistic humor is just some kind of antidote to incongruity when it could very well be an expression of that intimate relationship between the two and the joy that results. I’m just not sure humor needs to be thought of as a “third option”.
Think, for instance, of the movie Trainspotting which I consider to be a nihilistic anthem.
“It is precisely because of the nihilist’s logically-irreconcilable incongruity between aspirations and the actual state of the world that many philosophers who have encountered it have either fallen into despair or chosen to ‘overcome’ nihilism by changing their fundamental beliefs about reality. But there is a third option, and that is to adopt an attitude of humorous amusement toward the world’s absurd nature.”
While Marmysz seems to be approaching my sense of it, it is as if his attachment to the historical understanding of nihilism excludes him from seeing what I see as the true relationship between incongruity and the nihilistic perspective. And, once again, I consider the so-called nihilists the most egregious offenders at work here in that they are the ones who fail to articulate the implication of the underlying nothingness while being committed to it and make the self contradictory assumption that nothingness must have a necessary trajectory into the negative, that which results in the outsider assumption (Marmysz’s for instance (that nihilism must lead to despair. In this sense, Marmyyz’s appeal to the common understanding of nihilism seems more empathetic and less nocuous in that, language being an agreement, he is simply working from the understanding given him by the given symbolic order he is attached to -that is while the so-called nihilist fails to truly address the implications of the aspect of the symbolic order they have chosen to embrace. I mean why, for instance, must an embrace of the underlying nothing necessarily lead to despair and negativity? That is when such openness can lead to the joy of deciding one’s own values: values that can be destructive or constructive?
Where I part from Marmysz is that by embracing the pop understanding of nihilism, he, first of all, denies himself the intellectual productivity of a consideration of the nihilistic perspective as it actually is, that is given the ubiquitous nature of it that he actually approaches:
“Despite the efforts of these great intellects, by some accounts nihilism is a more urgent philosophical syndrome today than it ever has been. It certainly continues to be a challenge not to be taken lightly, and certainly not something most people feel inclined to laugh at.”
By taking the historical route of seeing philosophy as acting against the nihilistic perspective, Marmysz falls short of seeing the intimate relationship between incongruity and the nihilistic perspective. He makes it seem as if nihilistic humor is just some kind of antidote to incongruity when it could very well be an expression of that intimate relationship between the two and the joy that results. I’m just not sure humor needs to be thought of as a “third option”.
Think, for instance, of the movie Trainspotting which I consider to be a nihilistic anthem.
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Having just finished the magazine, so starts the grueling process of reducing all this to a letter to the editor:
Dear editor: after reading David Marmysz’s In Defense of Humorous Nihilism, I find myself on the same page with room to write in the margins. My main concern is the first paragraph that describes nihilism as a state of despair based on the meaninglessness and inconsistency of life and reality. I attribute this to the nihilistic pose that was parodied in the movie The Big Lewbowski: gloom, doom, and destruction dressed in black, never smiling, and punctuating every statement with “what’s the point?”
I would present against this the nihilistic perspective: a matter of being tapped into the underlying nothingness and ungroundedness of things, and exploring the implications of it. And it is the failure to do so that characterizes the nihilistic pose and exposes its self indulgence and pretense: a reverse sentimentality in which they assume, flashing their negativity like a badge of authority, they have somehow risen above the rest of us common sheep and found a shortcut to true understanding, that is while contradicting themselves by assuming that nothingness has some kind of fixed trajectory into negativity.
But from the nihilistic perspective, nihilism, much like nothing, does nothing. For instance, while there is no solid foundation for adopting a given ethical or moral assertion, there is equally no solid foundation for not adopting it. This is because any argument we make for either will break down to assumptions; and assumptions, from the nihilistic perspective, float on thin air.
And this is my issue with it: by starting with the nihilistic pose, we end with it. We end up with nihilistic humor as a “third option”, little more than an antidote which steps in to preempt despair, and thereby confirm the inherent contradiction of assigning a fixed trajectory to nothingness. We fail to see that the nihilistic perspective is not just some position we can take, but rather an inherent component to the human experience rooted in the underlying nothingness of consciousness (the fact that we are when we could as easily not be) -existence even (think Leibniz: why all this rather than nothing?) We fail to see that all humor based on incongruity is inherently nihilistic. And in doing so, we miss out on the irony, a humorous nihilism of cosmic proportions: the recognition that our philosophical tradition has been one of resisting the nihilistic perspective while succumbing to it with every break from tradition. Think Nietzsche. Think Po-Mo.
Dear editor: after reading David Marmysz’s In Defense of Humorous Nihilism, I find myself on the same page with room to write in the margins. My main concern is the first paragraph that describes nihilism as a state of despair based on the meaninglessness and inconsistency of life and reality. I attribute this to the nihilistic pose that was parodied in the movie The Big Lewbowski: gloom, doom, and destruction dressed in black, never smiling, and punctuating every statement with “what’s the point?”
I would present against this the nihilistic perspective: a matter of being tapped into the underlying nothingness and ungroundedness of things, and exploring the implications of it. And it is the failure to do so that characterizes the nihilistic pose and exposes its self indulgence and pretense: a reverse sentimentality in which they assume, flashing their negativity like a badge of authority, they have somehow risen above the rest of us common sheep and found a shortcut to true understanding, that is while contradicting themselves by assuming that nothingness has some kind of fixed trajectory into negativity.
But from the nihilistic perspective, nihilism, much like nothing, does nothing. For instance, while there is no solid foundation for adopting a given ethical or moral assertion, there is equally no solid foundation for not adopting it. This is because any argument we make for either will break down to assumptions; and assumptions, from the nihilistic perspective, float on thin air.
And this is my issue with it: by starting with the nihilistic pose, we end with it. We end up with nihilistic humor as a “third option”, little more than an antidote which steps in to preempt despair, and thereby confirm the inherent contradiction of assigning a fixed trajectory to nothingness. We fail to see that the nihilistic perspective is not just some position we can take, but rather an inherent component to the human experience rooted in the underlying nothingness of consciousness (the fact that we are when we could as easily not be) -existence even (think Leibniz: why all this rather than nothing?) We fail to see that all humor based on incongruity is inherently nihilistic. And in doing so, we miss out on the irony, a humorous nihilism of cosmic proportions: the recognition that our philosophical tradition has been one of resisting the nihilistic perspective while succumbing to it with every break from tradition. Think Nietzsche. Think Po-Mo.
Last edited by d63 on Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:19 am, edited 8 times in total.
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Impenitent
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Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
if one laughs at nothing, does he get the joke?
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-Imp
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
By the brilliant and great, one might say Genius, Gary Larson.
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HaHaHa
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Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Most people cannot fully appreciate the funny absurdity of all existence.
It's all often enough one big joke and most people don't get the pun line.
It's all often enough one big joke and most people don't get the pun line.
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
Joker!!!HaHaHa wrote:Most people cannot fully appreciate the funny absurdity of all existence.
It's all often enough one big joke and most people don't get the pun line.
Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
U arrogant nihilistic fucker!!!!!.......
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Dalek Prime
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Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
So, d63, what do you consider not based on "thin air", as you say? Because if you believe nothing is certain, no amount of reasoning can bring you forward, philosophically.d63 wrote:...
Last edited by Dalek Prime on Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dalek Prime
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Re: In Defense of Humorous Nihilism
I think it funny that the picture has been deleted, considering the thread context. How appropriate.Walker wrote:By the brilliant and great, one might say Genius, Gary Larson.
