Why is nihilism seen as a bad thing and associated with apathy or depression? I’d argue i’ts the exact opposite. I were depressed a year ago, I always thought it was because I was an “over-thinker”. But then I became a nihilist and reasoned that nothing really had meaning anyway so why feel sorry for yourself when you can be happy instead ? After all are just a conscious mysterious thing in a body, why spend my 80 years not having positive emotions when I can have ?
I find nihilism as extremely liberating, anyone agree ?
I think you’re describing a sort of post-nihilism.
You value happiness, even if you believe that it doesn’t matter ‘objectively’.
For me nihilism, in a good form, equates to free and open space. That is what neutrality brings.
Neutrality also de-limits the consciousness in some ways. So it can be very value-able.
Long ago I had slightly nihilistic feelings. Since then I’ve changed. I don’t recall it being depressive.
I’ve been through similar stages with nihilism. Here’s what I’ve come to think. There is actually meaning, and it’s not hard to find once you see it, but you have to know how to look at it. Meaning is grounded in our subjectivity. Everything is not meant to be the way it is (1. I don’t believe there is intention in the dust and physics of the universe apart from life and 2. I don’t believe in divine providence except for the gods among men), but you and I can mean something to be a certain way and we struggle and strive because we have drives and we value, and thus, by default, the world is meaningful for us. It can be beautiful at times and disturbing at others, but, whether beautiful or disturbing, the fact that we feel any way at all proves that meaning is with us.
Nihilism is associated with apathy and depression quite sincerely because lots of apathetic and depressed people have professed nihilism and helped anchor that perception. These kinds of people are easy “emo” targets for others to put down. Attention is often drawn to the emo nihilist to avoid an honest consideration of nihilism as a more complicated and multifaceted concept. I agree with you, though. Nihilism isn’t all pessimistic. It’s useful and a good intellectual concept if sufficiently explored.
I’ve thought a lot about this subject throughout the years, since high school when I first thought about how “nothing really matters” in any grand scheme. And if there never was any grand scheme and it has always just been us coming up with narratives of meaning and purpose then, by god, we can still continue to come up with narratives of meaning and purpose and fly right in the metaphorical face of a mindelssly indifferent, but fascinating, universe.
If life is so pointless and absurd…
[size=85]Other way around, iambiguous. Human existence is essentially meaningful precisely because of all those things you listed plus many more. People are always already invested in the world and meaning from the moment they are conceived, it’s just that there’s no divine plan – the origin of our meaning is human and subjective. That we see absurdity in things is meaning. Pointlessness is a meaning. Meaning is inescapable for us. We have such ambitions it kills us to think we’ll come up short in life. Hence, nihilism and threads like this…these indicate the fear that one will not be able to live a meaningful life that is acceptable for him personally. But one should never give up or abide.[/size]
the unproblematic soul
[size=85]Now I can get on board with the notion that the more one seeks, the more one probes, the more fragmented reality becomes for him. BUT Cioran’s “tragedy of knowledge” is just a miserable pessimism. He can have it if he wants, but it will not be a notion that I choose develop. Like nihilism. I deny that there is inherent (objective) meaning and that is the extent of my nihilism. Others may choose to paint the world as meaningless and themselves as mere objects occupying its space, but I do not choose to develop that view of the world. Thinking like that tends to “make it so.” I think it is important to look at worldview as prophesy. It becomes destiny. If on all occasions I am preoccupied with the aspects in which things are pointless or not as meaningful as they appear then I undercut my own motivations and desires to participate…to live. For that reason, I choose not to develop that view of the world.[/size]
How about the ‘power of negative thinking’ rather than nihilism? Negative thinking might not lead to apathy–it might even lead to being proactive–maybe.
The very idea that you need to be something different than what you are, the idea that there is something you can get, all that was placed into you.
And you can’t get rid of anything. The moment you say ‘how to get rid of it’ you are in a concept, just looking for another one to replace it.
Don’t try to not do anything.
Nihilism is more of a neutralizing concept than a negative concept. If you live a problematic life, then nihilism can clean you to a blank slate.
The problem is that over time, nihilism makes maturity unreliable. There are no foundations, so while over the short run, you might get energized, over the long run, that energy won’t get directed in a focused manner. You get depressed because you don’t know what to do with yourself, and it leads to bipolar dependence. You feel bad, so you’re nihilist to recover. You feel good, but your nihilism prevent maturity. You feel bad from being immature. You feel good from letting things go.
It’s kind of like steroids or declaring bankruptcy. It can help you get out of dire straits, but you need to find something reliable to anchor in afterwards.
On a social level, it’s also not a fair ideology because it lets people get away with not taking responsibility for their actions. People also claim there’s nothing wrong with pushing others around because nothing really matters. Victims can likewise become depressed from believing nothing matters.
I’ll read all the responses when I have time. But Dan, yes you’re right. I do value happiness. Happiness and time are by far the most valuable things in life. Ergo me being a (weak) utilitarian. But the difference is that I think that these values are fully subjective. As to objective values, nothing at all have value. We are just a collection of atoms, deluding ourselves, and I’ts beautiful !
I don’t see your point. Nihilism doesn’t make me less energized at all. Nihilism just tells me that nothing matters objectively. But I still have a lot of values to go for subjectively. I still do things that gets me happy/energized e.g. helping other people. Again on the social level thing. Nothing is objectively wrong with waving your penis in public. Nothing is objectively wrong with punching someone in the street. That doesn’t mean I’ll do it simply because I subjectively value happiness. Therefore I don’t want to do those things which decreases happiness.
Why? Yes ideas were planted by society. And I’ve gotten rid of them just like a lot others I hope. I’ts just all in your head, instead of forcing it out, try accepting it and just not care about it. Whatever you’re talking about
I don’t see how the fact that we feel proves that meaning is with us. You can say that you’re fighting for something and that it really matters to you. The only thing I think of is that you are deluding yourself if you believe its objective. I think you’re having subjective thoughts, that are neither right nor wrong. That doesn’t make your feelings worse. Only for others who don’t value the feelings like you do. But they’re still valuable for you
Good to see people agreeing with me by the way. It’s not common in reality.
I think as a nihilist you’re kind of liberated from emotions. You control them much better. For me at least. E.g. I have a much better time not mourning the guy who died yesterday compared to others I know, although I feel empathy very strongly
Or in that mode, how about reverse psychology?After all, philosophy as a grand design is an over-reach to be sure, however, social construction or reality, anti-alienation, require some ground, to perpetuate nihilism as not strictly an ethical consideration, but a constructive mode of building meaning at large.
Reverse psychology as a way to establish that mode, as scary as it may appear at first glance, may work against the deconstruction of a very freely tossed about term nowedays, 'Vanity'. It was that, which started the whole thing rolling, contrary to misconception, and in that, civilization' discontent was sadly misdirected by the obvious. The fetish of nihilism, it's seemingly dead ended process, stalled existentially, and it was reduced to an unsupportable fetish. Vanity was objectified by fetish, the commercialism of dignity was parayed into a fusion of freedom and dignity. This is the problem of vanity, the vanity, whose fire was stolen in about 200 years, since the late Rennaissance, and the struggle is between social adhesion and individual rights. Reverse psychology, alive and well, will surely bring in the Big Brother, by neccessity. What is 200-250 years in the big scheme of things?
You don’t have to make assumptions about whether I believe in objective meaning or not because, if it wasn’t already clear from what I said in this thread, I linked a lot of background on my perspective.
Your line “nothing has meaning anyway” is voided by your every sentiment “why feel sorry for yourself when you can be happy instead ? After all are just a conscious mysterious thing in a body, why spend my 80 years not having positive emotions when I can have ?” Nihilism obviously has a liberating meaning for you.
It may be impossible in a new world order to stop the floodgates, when the disenchantment with fetish wears off. It’s like riding a wave, in an eternal summer. Boundaries, literally and figuratively will absorb the fetish, the object of nihilism, because although nihilism can inhialate it’s own object, it will require something to compensate for it. There really is nowhere else go go from here. The apathy can be turned around with drugs, but that just reinforces the artificiality, through which, upcoming generations are prone to have their boundaries closed forever. The insight will be artificial. Ready to take advantage- those that know how to profeteer, to trade off immediate gratification for long term goals. Enters BIG BROTHER. I see no exit apart from a kind of a humanistic existentialism, to regain the soul, to combat HIM. The eternal summer is over. The wave has come down.
It has a subjective meaning of some sense maybe but that’s exactly what nihilism is.
I’m sorry I fail to see how the fact that I neglect objective values is an objective value in itself. Yes it has meaning to me, subjective meaning
It is right to say that an atheist have a belief since he believes that there are zero gods.
The same pattern does not apply when stating that an existential and moral nihilist have objective values
Sorry to edit this: pls. Grant the poetic liscence of free flow over hebrephrenia. Just had a tough, apathetic night, dealing with "ideal forms" , making the whole schopenauerian idea of vanity an obvious effect of some kind of de-compensation. (In all earnestness) ---but I share at least this, with Socrates- He started it.
I really was serious about negative thinking. There’s really nothing ‘wrong’ with it–must one really ‘go with the flow’ of majority thinking in order to be ‘happy?’ Does anyone really need to assume a philosophy of “…nothing really matters, objectively” in order to be happy?
How about, instead of that, one says, “This pisses me off!” That gives you some options, at least.
What you find liberating might not be “nihilism” at all. See, you have found something of value and decided on a way as better than others, if not for all then at least for you. Nihilism CAN be associated with depression, but depression is not nihilism. Depression is not simply “feeling sorry for yourself”, and happiness not just a choice you make (unless you equate that with drugs). If you can have positive emotions it might be for other reasons rather than nihilism. You have, in any case, found meaning and overcome nihilism.
