Nihilism
Nihilism can not be logically conceptualized, free of paradoxes, without distancing it, as a concept, from the realm of philosophies, ideologies, and "-isms". It is generally understood that all that comprises a philosophy are its premises and whatever conclusions, unique to that philosophy, are affirmed based on those premises. Nihilism, however, lacks such conclusion-making, which has lent to its being perceived as counterintuitive when thought of within the context of ideology.
Thus, nihilism could be said to only make sense as something other than a philosophy. Since most philosophies, generally speaking, deal with absolutes and are blanket systems of thought, applicable in any location at any time, nihilism can be regarded as a strategy; such strategies differ from philosophies in that they are more local and temporal, only significant within the context of their respective place and period. As a strategy, nihilism can take on the form of any ideal, despite how non-nihilistic such ideals may seem from a broader scale, within the context and circumstances it resides in.
Nihilism, as said above, can be summed up as, when thought of as a strategic strain of thought and action rather than an all-encompassing order of beliefs, a simple and concise premise. This premise can be best thought of as Sartre's existence precedes essence, the existential postulate present within many contemporary philosophies, even ones that preceded Sartre's assertions (most of which were in themselves refinements of previously asserted conclusions). One can, for conceptual expedience, refer to this as the nihilistic premise.
This nihilistic premise is much like a force in the same manner that nihilism is like a strategy; a force that, when abutted against the context of established values, particular to a time and place (the most relevant of which being modern day, Western society), is utterly destructive and corrosive to surrounding ontologies. Much like how a joke can debase the seriousness of certain values (making humor an extremely nihilistic facet of expression), the nihilistic premise saps all meaning and intrinsic significance from commonly accepted promulgations.
Since the nihilistic premise so mercilessly attacks foundation and the propositions built on such foundation, it seems rather paradoxical for it to be succeeded by propositions of its own, even if on a temporary basis. When most people think of nihilism, it is the fatalistic nihilistic premise, which, by most standards of logic, inevitably results in infinite regress, that they are ignorantly thinking of. The nihilistic premise, however, is only one aspect of the totality of nihilism. It is also usually the basis for many revolutionary ideals; from the Bolsheviks to the hippies to the punks to Islamic terrorists; revolutionary ideals that have put forth an idealistic conclusion for what is to be built after the dust settles from the debris and rubble of the proverbial revolution. While these sentiments are the usual targets of the nihilistic premise, the nihilistic premise underpins these sentiments temporarily, using them as a means to an end; using them like vehicles to accomplish an overall destruction of other sedentary doctrines of thought.
After all, the ideals that the nihilistic premise fuels are in themselves polemic in nature, provisional upon the relative, entrenched notions and beliefs of that time. This lends to nihilism's context-dependency; the established values of one context are revolutionary values of another context; what the values are is not pertinent, rather it is their opposition to the current ontological hegemony or zeitgeist of that time and place. Thus, the nihilistic premise can be equated to iconoclasm for the sake of iconoclasm or revolution for the sake of revolution.
The way in which the nihilistic premise relates to nihilism is not the same way other premises relate to their respective philosophies, imparting to nihilism being a strategy. Nihilism as a whole is simply the overall pursuit for the destruction of affirmations via surrogate affirmations. In this manner it changes shape and form like a chameleon so as to blend in and sabotage the stability of values and the statue quo. As soon as one revolution succeeds, another one is immediately in the works to subvert the former. So it is to say that the nihilistic premise is the soldier bunkered down in its time and place while the whole of nihilism is the overall war machine that churns infinitely across time and space.
Nihilism seems to thereafter exist as an agent of entropy; as an inevitable force of nature that exists outside the mental frameworks of individuals' consciousnesses. Revolutionaries, after all, do not consciously incite revolution for nihilism's sake; rather it is usually for the petty ideals and sentiments they aspire to manifest into reality. Karl Marx, in all his conclusive folly, was rather accurate in recognizing the long, ongoing discourse of human society and its machine-like continuum of revolutions (i.e., the nihilistic premise); he hoped, however, to stop this meshing of seemingly ceaseless gears with an absolute governmental entity, despite such a government's inescapable lack of any innate, tangible ontology.
Existentialism and Nihilism
Since the beginning of the human discourse of thought and philosophy, the nihilistic premise has, on occasion, arisen from the depths of its subconscious habitat into the conscious realm of awareness. When philosophers began to embrace this premise within their world views, they attempted, in an almost naive fashion, to build a philosophy from it. Kierkegaard is most commonly accredited for being the first of these existentialists.
While there are separations between atheistic (Sartre) and theistic (Kierkegaard) strains of existentialism, Kierkegaard's leap of faith is a fundamental concept in it. Such a concept is a testament to the behavior of the first existentialists, of whom were daring, pioneering individuals and whom eventually grew braver in their nihilistic tendencies in the subsequent generations to the point where they could currently be considered nihilists; they touched upon the hot coals of the nihilistic premise in brief admittance to the subjectivity of all thought and knowledge, only to swiftly pull back in agonizing despair; only to hurriedly cherish subjectivity and false ontology, despite them being mere figments of overactive imaginations.
Existentialism is to philosophy as Marxism is to politics and socio-economics; it is the forced establishment of ontology for its own sake; that is, stability for the sake of stability. Just as Marxism hopes to dam up the flow of revolutionary discourse, existentialism hopes to diagnose and treat the nihilistic premise. It does this by imbuing meaning into meaning; i.e., it recognizes the nihilistic premise and its implications, but attempts to somehow stifle these implications with the leap of faith.
Such a philosophy, being based on the nihilistic premise, is by no means incorrect in its conclusions and is, by some regards, quite commendable in its postulations. There is, however, a simple matter of authenticity. Existentialism proposes a very spontaneous, phenomenological interpretation of the world, emphasizing the importance of the subjective. What disrupts this seemingly carefree outlook is existential angst (which is in itself the conscious recognition of the nihilistic premise).
The way in which this angst is invoked is, most often, through the interaction with other human beings; that is, other, sometimes contentious or oppositional perspectives. Such interaction creates instability within the subjective framework that the mind has built the world upon. When two entirely separate truths compete with one another, they, in turn, make each other somehow less authentic or believable.
After all, when the dialectic of methodical arguing, assuming it is logical and without blind fallaciousness, is done with, both sides are left with nothing more than the realization that neither of the two were right nor wrong (which is, once again, the nihilistic premise coming into view). Suspended disbelief and logical fallacies are the only saviors for subjectivity in this case, making any insightful, logical person a victim of his own intellectual reasoning. To look at your opponent in the face; to see that he sees you the same way you see him is a reminder to your own objectivity.
Sartre quite accurately delineated this in his Being and Nothingness; in it, he elaborates on his idea that "Hell is other people" by putting forth the concept of "the Other". To Sartre, the Other was the rest of the sociological world abutted against the individual with the friction and abrasions between the two being angst. For Sartre, a person is a subject existing within a world of objects. Under this scenario, the entire world of objects exists for the individual subject, giving the subject a sort of possession of the world and the freedom to attribute to it ontology and teleology on a whim. The scenario is, unfortunately, immediately interrupted when another individual subject enters the picture. It is at this point that the two subjects a.) see each other as the objects that they truly are, making them exist for each other, or rather, for the Other, and b.) must share with one another the objective world and, if they are to coexist peacefully, they must also share some values to imbue the objective world with.
It is this realization that we are not alone that makes the values that one withholds less authentic. Much like how a chauvinist objectifies women, the Other objectifies the individual subject, making whatever ontologies that that subject puts forth just another opinionated perspective in the muck of today's melting pot of worthless, disingenuous values. It is analogous to the difference between art and kitsch.
The existentialist's solution to this, at least from a Sartrean view, is somewhat psychiatric in nature; it suggests that one ought to commit much of one's time to overcoming angst, a process of which existentialism believes will never end, as well as surmounting the external pressures of the Other, and making oneself an authentic subject.
Nihilism and existentialism are both founded on the nihilistic premise; both acknowledge the emptiness and nothingness that seems to permeate existence; both are uncompromising in their acknowledgment; that is, they have emerged from the muddy waters of denial that other philosophies continue to splash around in.
However, the fundamental difference, of which is monumental compared to any similarities the two may share, is that existentialism seems incapable of transcending the sphere of the individual; trapped, almost, to catering to a subjective unit of understanding (i.e., the self), of which it practically worships; meanwhile nihilism, in all its openness, could and would operate within any strata of contextual thought, beyond and below the individual self, given that it was allowed. That is to say that existentialism grows sedentary, much like Marxism or humanism, settling, almost stagnantly in the absence of God, with a certain paradigm or sphere of comprehension, with rules, vocabularies, and grammars particular to those spheres (like a board game). (I might add that Sartre himself was a Marxist and humanist.) It settles with such sentiments, not because they are righteous or truthful, but because the human mind requires abstract rules in the game of life to properly function; thus, they exist for their own sake.
Contrarily, nihilism, while doing much of the same value-creation that existentialism does, practices a level of iconoclasm that existentialism never dares to go near. That is, existentialism isn't so much of an antithesis to nihilism, rather it is but one side of it. Existentialism aims to subjectify the individual (Marxism aims to subjectify society, humanism aims to subjectify humanity); nihilism simply aims to subjectify that which objectifies everything else, which often times coincides with existentialism's emphasis on the individual.
Transcendental Nihilism
An example of nihilism's intent, if it could be said that there is one, is its pursuit of authenticity. That is to say that authenticity is, in itself, an extremely flighty and elusive creature, and is very difficult to capture for any length of time within the confines of context. In order to properly witness even just the slightest bit of authenticity requires a great deal of value-destruction; i.e., room needs to be made and useless notions need to be cast aside to get to the deep core that authenticity seems to love to burrow into.
Thus, since authenticity and borderline self-induced solipsism seem to go hand-in-hand, nihilism scarcely tolerates the existence of other individuals, of whom may disrupt whatever subjective order one has managed to construct; at least insofar as those individuals are in disagreeable and contentious terms with said order. This seemingly paranoid backlash against the Other is somewhat analogous to Nietzsche's will to power. Such nomenclature can not be properly translated without a tinge of ambiguity, as was Nietzsche's habit, so that many misinterpret what the will to power is.
Existentialism's self-affirmation, in a sense, could be considered the will to power. It is the overall liquidation of values that did not originate from the self (thus, it is the liquidation of other selves; other individuals; of the Other) in order to make room for values that did originate from the self, inducing authenticity. The nihilistic premise (and, subsequently, nihilism) is simply an instrument used for such a clearing of values (or, as Nietzsche called it, the "re-evaluation of values") and is paramount to the eventual affirmation of existentialism. This, of course, is not how some people have come to view the will to power; some take the "power" aspect of the term quite literally, deriving from it advocacy of blind power-acquisition. It should be noted that the "power" these people are referring to is a phantasmal sociological construct that retains no natural girth outside of society's rigid structure.
What stunts existentialism's strategic utilization of nihilism, particularly the way Nietzsche delineates it, are concepts and attitudes congruent with the Kierkegaardian leap of faith and whatever Marxist, humanistic ideological spawns have sprung forth from it. In this manner, existentialism is wholly without nihilism, making, if not extremely theistic, then extremely reverential for similar logical fallacies and self-induced blindness that is present within theism. Such existentialists simply conclude that if ignorance is bliss, then they will have nothing to do with the pangs of consciousness and nihilistic awareness.
Existentialists of the opposing breed, however, have come to realize that in order for their sentiments of an ontology-bestowing, value-creating, and freedom-enjoy world to exist, a revolution of sorts is needed. And so, just as all the various flagships of different revolutions withhold the same nihilistic premise deep within their hulls, so too does the existential revolution, or, as I prefer to call it, the meta-revolution. The meta-revolution transcends all other revolutions in that it is fundamentally contained nihilism; that is, nihilism temporarily in a straitjacket. Nihilism has, in this sense, been tamed by the existentialists to serve their own purpose.
It was Nietzsche's belief that such a meta-revolution would be succeeded by a new age of Ubermensche. Of course such notions crossover into the realm of speculative fiction and beyond the limits of reasonable predictions and foresight. It is in an intriguing notion, however, and makes one wonder what is necessary to authenticate oneself and one's values.
Existentialism, within the context of the postmodern condition (of which is plagued by existential angst and the Other), can only exist with an escapist, consumerist mentality. It is unable to properly authenticate itself because to do such would call for nihilism, the meta-revolution, and the will to power to be enacted.
Transcendentalism, a philosophy promulgated by the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, is similar to existentialism in that it emphasizes the intuitive self as being the only true and authentic source for value, ontology, and teleology. It differs, however, in its approach to man's estrangement and angst due to the Other; it prefers to deny the Other, not so much in its existence, but rather, it's validity, thereby eradicating the Other whenever the opportunity arises. Existentialism would simply prefer to stagnate, making as few destructive gestures as possible, coping with and accepting the Other, hoping to authenticate itself even when it is well aware that that is impossible given the circumstances. As a result, transcendentalism characteristically leans towards man's reconciliation with nature through solitude and asceticism.
While existentialism strives to receive empowerment of freedom and responsibility from the nihilistic premise, it could be said that a sort of transcendental nihilism strives to use the nihilistic premise as society's proverbial wrecking ball (i.e., the meta-revolution). Such transcendental nihilists are more grounded in reality in that, while they agree with existentialists in terms of value-creation, they recognize that such value-creation isn't possible (authentically) in such a highly opinion-saturated world.
Thus, realizing that the world is overpopulated, transcendental nihilism can, seemingly cruelly and coldly, put forth ideas that promote disease, famine, and war in hopes of reducing the population. While we humans may have achieved evolutionary supremacy, that is, we have preserved the corporeal self in almost ever facet of plausible danger, we are now in the midst of a new game of survival; the survival of our metaphysical selves. Our subjective selves, the ones we project onto the objective world, is constantly being threatened by the Other, necessitating that we preserve ourselves via obliterative nihilism.
Transcendentalism, generally speaking, suggests the self is not so much the limits and outlines of our physical bodies, but rather, the entire part world to which we have grown affinity with. That is, while Platonic philosophies consider the self to exist somehow within the body or mind (i.e., the spirit, the soul, any intangible thing within the corporeal body of flesh), and science, humanism, existentialism, and Marxism simply tack the self onto the materialistic, corporeal body itself, transcendentalism projects the self as far out as is possible, albeit before colliding with the projected selves of others, or the Other (in other words, such projection is the will to power). In this way, the corporeal self can be nothing more than an instrumental aggregate, granted an important one, of the whole self, acting as a means to fulfilling a self-made teleological end. The projected self, thus, resembles a narrative or epic story.
Since existentialism can not be asserted authentically presently, the alternative is transcendental nihilism, which resembles existentialism in theory, but differs from it in practice. It embraces the self-projecting will to power; it supports the meta-revolution (thereby supporting all surrogated revolutions); it contemptuously assails the Other, using the nihilistic premise to do such; and it cultivates the eventual recreation of values after said meta-revolution. Perhaps the Ubermensche could result from it after all.
Originally posted/published by me here.
