With no objective truth…is natural selection debunked?
Who is selecting, if nobody has a choice?
Why the struggle and competitiveness if all is already decided?
When I choose to climb a mountain is there only one way up there, or multiple ways, each with varying degrees of difficulty, risk, and probability of success?
Is judgment not naturally selected?
Do not manmade environments warp this, replacing it with social selection?
A ‘Joker’ — and a world — gone mad from nihilism
Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix alike imbue the character with such fundamental dignity, even in his abasement, that we never forget that we are called to love him, not laugh at him.
Tara Isabella Burton
Of course the Batman saga itself goes all the way back to 1939. And the Joker character made his first appearance in 1940. So, it would be interesting to note the gap between Joker as first imagined by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson and the TV/movie renditions of him over the years. Was nihilism [and mental illness] ever deemed to be a component of his character way back then?
In other words, will the real Joker please stand up?
Hmm, let’s connect the dots: screenrant.com/joker-king-of-co … n%20common.
Rupert Pupkin/Arthur Fleck: “Robert De Niro as Rupert Pupkin, a struggling stand-up comedian with mental health issues who longs to appear on Langford’s show.” wiki
Only [to me] The King of Comedy was more about the “made in America” obsession with fame. No one gets killed.
Pick one:
1] your rendition of “woke”
2] their rendition of “woke”
Is Arthur Fleck your champion or is he really just a ludicrous – demented – clown?
At least until the workers of the world do unite and bring down the elite as disciplined revolutionaries. After all, much that unfolds in Fleck’s life is clearly “inadvertent”.
Of course…nihilism as far out as one can take it: no meaning at all.
On the other hand, my nihilism revolves more around the manner in which the world we live in today is bursting at the seams with meaning:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r … traditions
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p … ideologies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s … philosophy
Go ahead, pick one. Then insist it is in turn the One True Path to, well, whatever you believe that to be.
Don’t have to ( pick) for they anassumingly utilize the same line, , even without looking, their acts, or, they act as if their particular act separates the joke from The Joker, whereas they all are the joke within all jokers.
Realize this comment does not give credit for the parallel, barred simulated effort to overcome the apparent contradiction’s effect of such great has beens as the chaplinesqye mime.
See this effect in Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’.
From Reddit that can not be duplicated
nihilists always find common ground…whether they be spiritual - believing in the one - or secular - believing in the nil.
The common ground is their shared resent of nature - existence - and their lot.
Their differences are about how to cope…how to nullify what they despise.
Absoluteness - whether it is conceptualized as a one, or a nil is a negation of the existent.
Positive & Pure nihilism.
Both worship no-thingness, only some deceive themselves that there is a some-thingness there.
Critics always find common ground…whether they be spiritual - believing in constructive criticism - or secular - believing in deconstructive criticism.
The common ground is their shared critique of creation - existence - and their chosen role as critic.
Their differences are about how to critique…how to deconstruct or construct away from what they view through a critical lense.
Absolute Critique - whether it is conceptualized as a construction, or a deconstruction, is an attempted negation of the creation.
Positive & Pure nihilism.
Both worship no-thingness, only some deceive themselves that there is a some-thingness there.
But they volunteer still more nothing.
If only they could learn to appreciate creation and cast themselves in the always open role of co-creator…
Nihilism dreams of inverting nature’s order…yet, intuitively, they know that this is insanity, so instead they want to pretend, and to convince as many of their own kind to pretend together - fabricating an alternate reality.
But this is no solution. Pretend may give you an ephemeral escape, but it does not solve your issues with nature.
The costs are impossible to escape, even if they insist on collectivizing them so as to equally disseminate them, buying them some time.
If nihilists truly believed in the bullshyte they say, they would establish their own private communes - like Communists and anarchists have tried - and they would have practiced what they preached…and then we would see how long they could survive.
Abrahamism found a clever solution - they never practice what they preach…but insist that all practice it.
Nobody is forcing anyone to climb a mountain using the same paths - the same ways.
Others can choose alternate routes…and face the consequences of their choices on their own.
But choosing alternate paths and then insisting others are obliged to come to your rescue, is hypocritical, more so when you’ve negated morality and ethics, so there is no reason you can make such demands.
Are you saying I insist to be rescued?
Are you even talking to me?
Do you mean the whole “salvation” thing?
Do you feel the same about stopping the karma cycle, forming right attachment, etc.?
So which morality/ethics is negated… what’s the standard… who does it “pick out” or describe?
If you violate self=other, you violate yourself, and the one who it describes switches perspectives and takes the violation… as fulfillment of the standard. Not a demand from a violator — a demonstration from a fulfiller… from a position of fullness.
Why refuse it?
A ‘Joker’ — and a world — gone mad from nihilism
Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix alike imbue the character with such fundamental dignity, even in his abasement, that we never forget that we are called to love him, not laugh at him.
Tara Isabella Burton
That was my own take on him. It wasn’t like he ever sat down and attempted – philosophically, politically, psychologically, etc. – to “think through” his experiences. Or made an attempt to come up with one or another overarching “ism” to either explain the world around him or to change it. He basically seemed to just stumble though the days reacting to events based on the manner in which existentially he had become the man that he was.
Then the part where those watching the film focused on the extent to which they thought that he was “mentally ill”. And that is crucial because to the extent that he was, is the extent to which any number of important parts of his life become “beyond his control”. His brain was just “misfiring” [in a free will world] and he doesn’t react to his travails as others not afflicted with “clinical” conditions might.
Still, what does an assessment like this really come down to? Aren’t we generally going to take out of it what we ourselves first put into it…our own subjective understanding what a Christian tradition or sin or madness or power hierarchies entail? Our own subjunctive reaction to such things as moral and natural laws.
Yes, and that is precisely the part that some will construe as most reflective of nihilism. A world where practically anything goes. Think Trump and DeSantis today. Elect us and we’ll take America back to the 1950s. Back to a time where law and order prevailed, and father knew best regarding, say, behaviors revolving around sexual mores.
Or, perhaps, YAS WOKE!!!
Nihilists like to define themselves as skeptics, so as to conceal their underlying motives - even form themselves.
This is quickly exposed when one realizes that their “skepticism” is selective and never using the same standards - in some cases a possibility is good enough, whereas in other cases - contexts - absolute certainty is all they will accept.
If one studies these hypocrites - as I am wont to do - you will find a pattern in their arbitrary application of their pseudo-intelelctual “stringency”.
Where their ‘standards’ are lax, there’s no issue, using skepticism to pretend they have integrity, but where their skepticism becomes rigid, to the point where omniscience is demanded, then that is the source of the wound they are protecting…and like all trauma’s the victim favours the side where he/she was severely hurt.
10 Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
This is applicable to me because some years ago I was [time and time again] able to reconfigure my own value judgments from one objectivist font to another. Both God and No God. Now, however, given the assumption that we live in a No God world, I have come to conclude instead that objectivism itself revolves more around wanting there to be an overarching “meaning of life” that one can anchor their Self to. In other words, in order to sustain a certain measure of comfort and consolation. It’s basically a way to feel as though one’s life is a part of something that transcends what might be construed to be an utterly insignificant [and essentially purposeless] existence given the staggering vastness of all there is.
Here, of course, we know better. Mere mortals, even in rejecting God, were, are and probably always will be able to “think up” secular equivalents of God. Either philosophically or politically:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s … philosophy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p … ideologies
In fact, there are actually very, very few men and women around the globe who would call themselves nihilists. Instead nihilism is more likely to be manifested in the policies of those who run the world economically and politically, or in the amoral pursuits of the sociopaths. Nietzsche isn’t likely to come up much at all among them.
On the other hand, there are lots and lots of young men and women embracing the likes of these political communities: cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingm … -extremism
Though, sure, it is certainly the case that with respect to things like money and drugs and those far-out lifestyles, there are many, many, many men and women “out there” who don’t give a shit about much else.
Abrahamism is now the only resistance that is tolerated to secular nihilism - Americanism - because it only refuses to follow the logic of its own self-deceiving emoting, but does not reject the underlying lies both need to cope with a cosmos that does not care, and is threatening to life.
Nihilism is a political tool, and it has upgraded from spiritual to secular forms, so the spiritual rejecting tis nullification of sexual roles, is tolerated by Americanism that simply goes further with Abrahamism’s own ‘logic’.
The homosexual, transsexual upgrades is where Abrahamism sems to draw the line, unable to accept the technological advancements that made heterosexuality all but obsolete.
Yet the ‘logic’ of Transsexuality follows form the ‘logic’ of Abrahamism, that positions a ‘immortal soul’ within a ‘mortal body’, thusly separating physical appearance form the identifying ‘essence of a human’.
A separation of mind/body - where mind=spirit/soul and body = sinful, prison, ‘Qliphoth imprisoning divine sparks,’ in the Kabbalistic tradition - is already evident as a presumption with no rational arguments, that race is also a social construct, since all men ‘were created’ and ‘were created equal’ - the defining identifier being ‘logos’ or semiotics and an organism’s ability to understand and use it.
Word is Abraham’s one-god, and words express mind - which is now cosmic - and so words is all that is required to prove god’s existence…for if his name is spoken, he is present.
And what do words affect if not the psychology, in the one who can understand and use them?
Words to trigger emotions, imagery, sensations - like Pavlovian bells.
We see the impact when the brainwashed use terms like ‘Nazi’, or ‘Racist’ with little understanding other than the emotional reactions it triggers in them, after generations of social engineering.
The words now suffice to be used in lieu of rational counter-argumetns…always evoking pain, suffering, violence, brutality, as their lowest-common-denominator triggers.
Existence is experiences as need/suffering and so need/suffering is the common-denominator in all living beings - a unifier, that transcends all other biological identifiers.
It is what unifies Abrahamics - except Judaism which uses it only to control.
It is what unifies Marxists.
It is what identifies all variants of nihilism that offers relief.
Relief - hedonism - is what motivates them all and the threat of it is what they use to silence and integrate and proselytize.
Where need/suffering dominates, reason can have no effect.
Where feminine subjectivity rules, masculine objectivity, cannot enter.
How do we train animals and manimals?
We use food to bind them to us - associate us with relieving their hunger - pleasure principle.
Then, once the association is established over time and they become dependent on us, we introduce the threat of punishment and exclusion, ostracization - denying them relief from their need/suffering; denying them pleasure.
Then, if we are dealing with higher life forms, like humans - we use nihilism to annihilate the possibility of escape, of freedom, viz., by destroying the very ideas of an external world ([size=85]objective reality[/size]), or of an identity independent from the farm’s enclosure…
Denial of pleasure becomes degeneracy, as pleasure becomes the only identifiers, the only certainty, the only objective, so increasing pleasure, exploring new sources of pleasure, becomes an individua’s primary ambition.
A ‘Joker’ — and a world — gone mad from nihilism
Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix alike imbue the character with such fundamental dignity, even in his abasement, that we never forget that we are called to love him, not laugh at him.
Tara Isabella Burton
On the other hand, there will always be those “classists” who basically disdain any and all characters who are of, by or for the working class. Why? Because they are convinced that some of us are just naturally superior to others. In intelligence in particular. Think Plato and his Republic or Nietzsche and his Übermensch or Hitler and his Aryan super-race.
For them Fleck is a clown in more ways than one. And if he has been shat on by “society”, well, what would one expect of that caste. Either that or they brought it all on themselves. And Fleck is also a “nut case”.
Again, we all take out of films like this what we first put into them: our own rooted existentially in dasein self.
I didn’t watch the credits roll at the end thinking the movie was making any claim for the necessity of nihilism. It showed a world where some citizens struggling to survive and living in an urban jungle are abandoned…and if pushed far enough they are going to react to that…to fight back. But not in a way that was really “thought through” by any of the characters. And not in the way in which, say, a Marxist would react to that world. Or the nihilists who embraced anarchism back in the day or the characters in books written by those like Dostoevsky or Turgenev.
Well, as the author here understands nihilism perhaps. But not in the manner in which I do. For me, there is no prescriptive moral narrative or political agenda to be had. There is only one or another rendition of democracy and the rule of law. And to the extent Fleck is “fractured and fragmented” that was seen by me to be more in sync with his mental illness. Connecting to others from my own cynical frame of mind is, at best, problematic.
10 Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Of course, for some evangelicals, an increasingly nihilistic world is actually a sign that the Second Coming is nigh. The Apocalypse can’t come too soon for them. And “sir” and “ma’am” are the least of it. More like their reaction to, among other things, LGBTQ.
Meaning. That’s what often becomes crucial for many. It’s not enough that they live their life from day to day accumulating any number of experiences that bring them considerable satisfaction and fulfillment – food, music, sex, a career, the arts, sports, relationships, politics, etc. What does all of that matter if there is no essential purpose that their life is able to reflect? For most it is God, but for others it can be ideological. Or spiritual in the broadest sense.
And, yes, I agree that nihilism can be embodied in very, very scary ways. A world in which sociopaths start popping up where you’d least expect them. A world where you may well find yourself largely on your own if one of them crosses your path. And it’s not like you can reason with someone convinced that morality itself is merely a cultural and historical construct…something you accept when things are going your way, but simply abandon when they are not. And capitalism itself will always mass-produce those for whom “me, myself and I” is the bottom line. Or maybe they’ll throw in a family or a circle of friends.
How else to explain why in America and across Europe right-wing autocratic political parties – fascists – are on the rise.
Then those like me who, in regard to moral and political value judgments, are fractured and fragmented. And simply hanging in there. Or drawn and quartered, tugged and pulled every which way and basically unable to contribute anything much beyond moral nihilism itself.
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
First, of course, is he a psychopath?
Well, there are generally two ways in which to construe this:
1] “a person affected by chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior”
2] “INFORMAL an unstable and aggressive person”
Now, if he is afflicted with a mental disorder, his behaviors may well be in large part “beyond his control.” Back to the case of Charles Whitman:
“Charles Whitman had a brain tumor pressing on his amygdala, a region of the brain crucial for emotion and behavioral control.” Scientific American
Same with being “unstable”. Why? Because he had grim childhood? Or is it more a “clinical” or medical condition?
Or, instead, is he a sociopath? He simply views the world around him in terms of “me, myself and I”. Others are merely a means to any particular end he craves. The end itself rooted in the complex nature of dasein.
On the other hand, for me it’s the coin flips that set him apart from all the others. It seems to indicate the manner in which he has thought through the “human condition” and has come to recognize just how much our lives can become embedded in chance encounters. Or in luck. Just simply being in wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the right time.
Or, again, given the complexity of human psychology and all of the vast and varied circumstantial contexts we might face, it could be any number of other explanations. If killing the landlady became important enough to him, she’s a goner. And I didn’t connect Chigurh, with his “captive bolt stunner” to any quest for power. He was hired to get the money. And he became basically just a hitman regarding anyone who got in his way. It’s been quite a while however since I read the book.
On the other hand, down through the ages that’s exactly what the moral objectivists could be as well.
That and a flip of the coin?
Chigurh, the Übermensch? The embodiment of a strange, strange admixture of “might makes right” and “right makes might”?
How about this: you tell me.
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Socrates…the hitman? And, of course, for some he encounters all the self-awareness in the world isn’t going to keep them around if they come between him and the money. And even those like the gas station owner who have absolutely nothing to do with the money are spared only because – beyond their control – they call the coin toss correctly.
Instead, what Anton Chigurh brings to this particular hitman is the awareness of just how precarious human life can be precisely because there are so many variables in our lives we either do not fully comprehend or control.
The philosophical sociopath?
Again, however, what’s crucial for some of us, is that some of his victims more clearly “deserve” to die than others. Llewelyn Moss and Carson Wells were both deeply embedded in that two million dollar briefcase. But what about Carla Jean: “Chigurh still kills Carla Jean because Llewelyn didn’t literally hand over the money himself.”
That distinction again. You tell me how close the author comes in pinning it down. For me, embracing nihilism “actively” or “passively” can mean many different things to many different people. And the bottom line here is that it all eventually comes down to that two million dollars. In other words, in a culture where “show me the money” may well be for all practical purposes the new religion.
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Ever and always, it’s not that human life has no value, but that in a No God world it has no essential value. Clearly, from the cradle to the grave, the existential value of human life is everywhere. The value of those who grow our food, who provide us with drinking water, who manufacture all of the “stuff” we want and need to go on living from day to day to day. Most value family and friendships. And on and on and on.
It’s just that certain Übermensch among us make a crucial distinction between themselves and those who merely operate gas stations. That they are given a 50-50 chance at survival is probably more than they deserve?
As for “redemption”, how is that applicable here: youtu.be/opbi7d42s8E
What “sin, error, or evil” has he done that he needs redemption for? For innocently asking where Chigurh comes from? Nope, from my frame of mind, here, Chigurh is basically just another extremely dangerous sociopath. Someone that you hope you never cross paths with yourself. Call him a nihilist if you must though.
On the other hand, in a world where “show me the money” has, for some, become the center of the universe, moral nihilism can certainly be used to justify going after anyone who comes between you and two million dollars.
That’s what makes Chigurh’s encounter with the man at the gas station so ominous. He represents no real obstacle to him and the cash at all. But he still has to “call it”.
That could you or me.
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Again, if it wasn’t for the coin toss and the occasional insights he offers in his discussion with the victims, he strikes me more as a sociopath. And any number of sociopaths not only treat others as sacks of meat but actually take pleasure in tormenting and torturing them as sacks of meat. It’s not for nothing that many of them start out inflicting all manner of cruelty on animals other than their own species. For a few, in fact, it might be the only way they can get aroused sexually. With nihilists as I construe them, however, there is just a greater likelihood of engaging them in a deeper exploration of the behaviors they choose.
On the other hand…
That may well be how someone like him thinks this all through. But is that more a philosophical component of his perspective on life or just another manifestation of a twisted psychology? Perhaps something more peculiar to a psychopath. Here, however, that would necessitate a prequel. A film in which the life of Chigurh is explored more in depth. How – why – did he become this way? The parts that revolve around dasein.
Only his creator is now dead and gone.
Uh, maybe? The fact is that this may or may not be how Cormac McCarthy imagined him.
From wiki:
‘Chigurh is devoid of conscience, remorse, and compassion. He is described by Carson Wells, a central character in the novel, as a “psychopathic killer”…’
So, pick one:
1] a nihilist
2] a sociopath
3] a psychopath
4] all of the above
Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić
Here I am definitely of two minds. Yes, I understand the gap between what some might construe to be the Last Man and the Uberman. The gas station proprietor leading the unexamined life and not really having a clue regarding what Chigurh is telling him. But look at Chigurh. He is bought and paid for by a drug cartel to get their two million dollars back. Over and again [to me] he comes off as just another sociopath…a thug. It’s all about the fucking money and mowing down anyone who gets in his way. Llewelyn, sure, because he’s got the money. As for Carson Wells, he’s just another hit man himself, a “fixer” hired to…to do what exactly? The relationship between the two of them is still rather fuzzy to me.
Again, you tell me what’s going on here between these two. But are we supposed to see Carla Jean as but another unsophisticated manifestation of the gas station proprietor’s Last Man? A part of “the herd”…someone that, in the end, doesn’t really matter all that much at all. Another oblivious component of “the masses”?
Really, as a “philosophy of life”, how utterly pathetic is that? Because of Llewelyn’s weakness, she had to die? That’s as pathetic as Original Sin in my book. From my frame of mind, this has nothing at all to do with nihilism as I understand it. You can’t deconstruct morality in a No God world and then imagine that Chigurh is acting out of “principle”! Killing the gas station proprietor if he had called the coin wrong and killing Carla Jean because he promised he would to her husband? That makes him either a sociopath or a psychopath. After that, fuck him.
Again, in my view, that is ridiculous. This is basically to argue that Chigurh’s own life was the equivalent of a coin toss by nature. No, to me, in a world where human autonomy is the real deal, Carla Jean is right on the money: it’s Chigurh who decides to kill her not the coin.
Though, sure, perhaps I am myself failing to follow all of this as was intended by the author.