nihilism

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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
Fighting back for nihilism

And The Guardian reported this winter on the "lonely repetition and growing nihilism" characterizing the lives of Australia's young adults after months of wildfires and pandemic-related news and restrictions. The nihilism in this case entails a sense of apathy with a loss of psychological ability to face the future and take actions aimed at achieving happiness.
In fact, this is the nihilism that is more readily understood. You lose all hope for a purposeful and meaningful existence because the circumstances in your life have overwhelmed you. You're convinced that you have run out of options and the anguish precipitating despair is [from your frame of mind] clearly appropriate. It is entirely reasonable to think and to feel nihilistic.

Here the only hope seems to be a leap of faith to God or the No God equivalent. Or suicide.

But the nihilism that I root my own "fractured and fragmented" vantage point in is more...philosophical? It seems entirely reasonable to me that given a No God world there is no foundation that "I" am able to ground my Self in. There is no font around which allows me to think up or to discover objective morality. Life is construed to be essentially meaningless and purposeless. And, in the end, there is only oblivion.

But here's the thing...

In being a nihilist philosophically, one can, circumstantially, still have a day to day existence that is awash with fulfillment and satisfaction. You can have a truly great life even if convinced it has no necessary meaning and purpose. You simply accumulate the necssary distractions to keep all that "philosophical" stuff at bay.

As a consequence, the worst of all possible worlds is one in which you feel that your life has no overarching purpose and meaning...and your day to day existence is a misery.
Llanera told IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed that a constant barrage of anti-nihilist sentiment from acquaintances and the media helped prompt her to fight back on nihilism's behalf.

"Defending it really makes me feel like the madman in Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science," said Llanera. "You know, 'You've come too early! It's not yet time! Don't rock the boat!' But we think that it's about time and that's why we're making the case."
This both makes sense and does not make sense to me. Too early or not the time given what set of circumstances? This will obviously mean different things to different people. In other words, given the balance in their life between their philosophy and their circumstances.

What I attempt here myself is to defend nihilism as a philosophy of life given a No God world. It seems entirely rational to believe that, sans God, meaning and purpose in one's life will be rooted existentially in dasein. Then it comes down to how each of us choose to embody nihilism in our everyday interactions with others. At one end are those who champion moderation, negotiation and compromise and at the other the out and out sociopaths intent only on sustaining "what's in it for me?".

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195600
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
"Defending it really makes me feel like the madman in Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science," said Llanera. "You know, 'You've come too early! It's not yet time! Don't rock the boat!' But we think that it's about time and that's why we're making the case."
When is it ever the right time to suggest that in a No God world one's existence is both essentially meaningless and on route to oblivion?

The problem with defending moral nihilism is that you have nothing to put in its place other than the further suggestion that at least you are now afforded considerably more options in your interactions with others.

Of course, the problem with noting that is this: others can then point out this frame of mind can be employed by, among others, sociopaths to justify any and all behaviors. Ghastly, brutal, horrific behaviors.

And, really, what can the moral nihilist come back with then?

Thus...
The philosophers' case depends on separating the premise that life has no cosmic meaning from the many negative conclusions people tend to draw as a consequence. Tartaglia points to a common fear that a person who considers life ultimately meaningless will embark on a destructive rejection of life itself, potentially endangering others or at least falling into despair.
That's a perfectly reasonable assumption to make, isn't it? For example, who is to say what set of experiences one has as a child won't precipitate any number of monsters among us?

Sure, those like me can argue instead for "moderation, negotiation and compromise" in human affairs...but that's just one possible path to take in a No God world. One can examine the life of Vladimir Putin in order to explain his butchery in Ukraine. One might have come into contact with him years ago and been successful in creating a whole other kind of person. But where's the argument able to convince him that the path he did choose is necessarily irrational and immoral.

That's the part I'm unable myself to make go away.
"That's the one major misunderstanding," Tartaglia said. "The other one is that you concern yourself with trivia because you failed to see the important things in life." He often sees the latter fear expressed in relation to the time people spend online or purchasing consumer goods instead of participating in some activity deemed essential to a meaningful life by whoever is making the criticism.
Right, the important things in life. As though in a No God world there are arguments able to be made that make this part clear. After all, there are any number of men and women who eschew social media and mindless consumerism but then come to believe that the important things in life revolve around dividing up the world between "one of us" [the good guys] and "one of them" [the bad guys].

Ask a moral nihilist about the consequences of that.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195600
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
The most monstrous nihilists in popular culture include Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in the 2008 Batman film, The Dark Knight. He ridicules moral codes and rules as groundless, and sees order itself as an illusion created in a desperate bid for an arbitrary happiness. To the movie's audience, these beliefs seem tied to the Joker's penchant for chaos, crime and sociopathy.
Yes, when taken all the way out to the very end of philosophical/moral limb, there's just no getting around the dire consequences of living in a world where, increasingly, more and more people adopt this frame of mind. The law of the jungle rationalized as a perfectly reasonable set of assumptions in a No God world.

And, indeed, when, over the years, some asked, "okay, what about this, Mr. Moral Nihilist?", what could I say? That's one possible scenario for the future. The dreaded dystopia owned and operated by those who practiced the survival of the wickedest. Only without the capacity [philosophical or otherwise] to confirm [in a No God world] that the behavior of the Joker is at least essentially evil.
Tartaglia said that figures such as the Joker might correctly be described as nihilists to the extent that they reject the idea of an overall meaning for their actions coming from some non-human source.
Though, sure, that may not encompass the manner in which you define the meaning of "a nihilist". Still, the bottom line is always the actual consequences that result from those who choose to behave as the Joker did. It's like debating whether Vladimir Putin is a nihilist. The part where means and ends get all tangled together in any one particular mind.

And then there is also Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of the Joker in the 2019 movie: https://medium.com/@surabhiii/joker-how ... ef59ec955a

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promethean75
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Re: nihilism

Post by promethean75 »

How many of you here are anti-foundatio-nominalistic post-hegelian nihilists like me, Max and Bubba?
Iwannaplato
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Re: nihilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

promethean75 wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:18 pm How many of you here are anti-foundatio-nominalistic post-hegelian nihilists like me, Max and Bubba?
So, you don't believe abstractions and categories are real.
You don't believe there are fundamental beliefs one can use deduction on to arrive at other beliefs.
What does the post-hegelian part of your self-definition add to the picture?
Who are Max and Bubba?
How do you know that is what you are, given what you claim you are? Given how much it seems like our sense of self is guided by impulses and biases and emotional needs and how you would lack not just certainty about any conclusion, but about every step in the process of drawing a conclusion and the biases herein. I am getting at the cumulative effects of thousands of small step evaluations which include biases in any such conclusion about yourself. IOW where do you get this confidence (not certainty of course) that you are an anti-foundatio nominalistic post-hegelian nihist?
Perhaps the being post-hegelian, which all the living are, gives you more confidence somehow.
promethean75
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Re: nihilism

Post by promethean75 »

"IOW where do you get this confidence (not certainty of course) that you are an anti-foundatio nominalistic post-hegelian nihist?"

What the hell is an anti-foundatio-nominalistic post-hegelian nihilist?
Iwannaplato
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Re: nihilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:12 pm "IOW where do you get this confidence (not certainty of course) that you are an anti-foundatio nominalistic post-hegelian nihist?"

What the hell is an anti-foundatio-nominalistic post-hegelian nihilist?
Well that was a surreal response...
promethean75 wrote: ↑Sat Apr 16, 2022 3:18 pm
How many of you here are anti-foundatio-nominalistic post-hegelian nihilists like me, Max and Bubba?
promethean75
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Re: nihilism

Post by promethean75 »

Why u bringing up old shit? That was like two days ago. I'm not an anti-foundatio nominalistic post-hegelian nihilist anymore bro.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
'A particularly evil nihilist'

"But I don't see any reason why that view would push you to go around destroying people and holding knives to their throats," said Tartaglia. "He [the Joker] is a particularly evil nihilist."
Indeed, there are any number of people that I have come upon over the years [on and offline] who make this immediate connection between nihilism and mayhem. Often, however, that revolves more around means employed rather than ends defended. Anyone who is into "ultraviolence" -- think Alex DeLarge and his droogs, Georgie, Dim and Pete in Clockwork Orange -- are automatically presumed to be nihilists. Even though they themselves may have never thought their behaviors through "intellectually" or "philosophically" at all. They may well just be run-of-the-mill sociopaths. Or, clinically, psychopaths. Or more sophisticated like anarchists.

Then this part...
Historically, German philosopher and soldier Ernst Jünger blamed rampant nihilism after the First World War for his country's descent into Nazism.

Although such associations continue to influence perceptions of those willing to call life ultimately meaningless, the merely trivial nihilist is perhaps the more common caricature now.
Does that make sense? Well, here we would need to entertain arguments posed regarding what one construes nihilism to be and which behaviors are linked to it given the events of the day.

The war in Ukraine and nihilism?

As for the "merely trivial nihilist" that would be those like Seinfeld's crew and their "shows about nothing". Exposing our everyday lives as grist for the nihilist mill. Practically nothing is not ultimately absurd.

And then of course...
An especially well-known example is the squad of cartoonish German-accented antagonists to Jeff Bridges' character, the Dude, in the film, The Big Lebowski. These self-announced nihilists seem to embody both major ingredients of the philosophy's poor image: violence and foolishness.
The nihilist turned into a fatuous cartoon character who goes stumbling and bumbling about the world as dumb as an ox. Unless, of course, you get the joke.

Though here even the Dude has a script to fall back on.

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Iwannaplato
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Re: nihilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

promethean75 wrote: Mon Apr 18, 2022 5:36 pm Why u bringing up old shit? That was like two days ago. I'm not an anti-foundatio nominalistic post-hegelian nihilist anymore bro.
How would you know you're not one?
promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 3:12 pm
What the hell is an anti-foundatio-nominalistic post-hegelian nihilist?
promethean75
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Re: nihilism

Post by promethean75 »

"How would you know you're not one?"

You. Yoouu. You got a gift, my friend. Oh yeah.

You saw that I couldn't know if I wasn't an x if I didn't know what an x was. You saw that there was something I was tryna do and you figured that out.
simplicity
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Re: nihilism

Post by simplicity »

A lot of people seem to care a lot about not caring.

If you haven't been a nihilist at some point[s] in your life, you're not doing a great deal of thinking. It's like having a crush on your seventh grade teacher [when your raging hormones greatly lower the threshold for such].

This, too, shall pass.
Iwannaplato
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Re: nihilism

Post by Iwannaplato »

promethean75 wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 5:17 pm "How would you know you're not one?"

You. Yoouu. You got a gift, my friend. Oh yeah.

You saw that I couldn't know if I wasn't an x if I didn't know what an x was. You saw that there was something I was tryna do and you figured that out.
I can enjoy a game of ping pong with a ghost and I don't get a lot of opportunities. That said, telling me who Max and Bubba are shouldn't cause any problems, nomialist or non-nominalist, either way. And I am still curious about the post-hegelian part. Nothing need be written in stone. But that word was chosen rather than post-nietzschean and even the most evanensent of skandhas probably means something at that moment when 'it' uses it.
Skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāḷi) means "heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings".[1] In Buddhism.
And I'm not a Buddhist, no fly traps.
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iambiguous
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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
Llanera finds no compelling logical connection between nihilism and antisocial behaviour or a choice to waste one's life on trivial, unrewarding obsessions.


When, logically, does human behavior become antisocial? When, logically, is one wasting one's life on trivial, unrewarding behaviors?

Anyone care to list those behaviors? A "top ten" perhaps?

We can note particular contexts and offer our own personal opinions regarding any number of behaviors here. But the whole point of nihilism is to suggest that sans God there is no essential, objective, logical font around to settle any and all conflicts that pop up over and again regarding those behaviors some insist we should reward and others insist we should punish.
And while a lack of ultimate sources for the meaning of one's life cannot directly justify good behaviour either, it can release people from harmful mistaken beliefs and damaging mindsets.
The part where I suggest that nihilism at least provides us with considerably more options in our lives. Once we abandon God, ideology, deontology, etc., we are not restricted to behaviors said to be either necessarily scripted or unscripted. We can do whatever we please. Or, rather, whatever we can get away with.

But that is no less the embodiment of dasein. And there is always the possibility of creating a dystopian community of sociopaths. Might makes right. A world dominated by those like...Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump?
Llanera hears often from students that they consider themselves "not religious, but spiritual," a description she finds potentially concerning.

"It strikes me that people are always looking for something to hold onto — tarot cards, the luck of the stars. I think [that's] being used to fight against this threat that life will become meaningless," Llanera said.
Exactly. Religious and spiritual paths are, in my view, first and foremost, anchors for I. Thus the actual path you happen to be on -- Christian, Pagan, Buddhist etc. -- is not nearly as important is that you are on it. And being on it you have access to a moral Scripture "here and now" and immortality and salvation "there and then".

Which in my view is why so few will take their own paths here:

1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path


They simply have too much invested psychologically in being on a path. They're not about to let someone like me jeopardize that.

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Re: nihilism

Post by iambiguous »

Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
'The problem is egotism'

[Llanera] criticizes some non-nihilist philosophers for spreading the message that the best way to respond to a sense of meaninglessness is to tap into non-human sources, such as a sacred entity or magical realm. In her view, this amounts to misdiagnosing the problem.
Look, if the problem is coming up with an essential meaning and purpose and objective morality on this side of the grave, as well as immortality and salvation on the other side of it, nothing -- nothing -- is ever going to top a leap of faith to the "sacred entity" most call God.

Right?

Unless, of course, you've got one. Either as a "nihilist philosopher" or as a "non-nihilist philosopher". It's not for nothing that God still rules the roost here around the globe when it comes to what is ultimately at stake for "mere mortals".
"The problem is egotism," Llanera said, "our attitudes of wanting to have an authority controlling and giving us answers, rather than being responsible for our own lives."
Of course here I muddy up the waters as well in suggesting that even if we do reject the "sacred entity" and make it all about the "ego", how is the ego itself not just a profoundly problematic manifestation of dasein.

That's when I tap others on the shoulder and ask them for advice as to how, given the manner in which they construe the manner in which "I" construe the meaning of dasein here...

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

...they are not themselves "fractured and fragmented" out in the is/ought world.

Given particular sets of circumstance.

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