Lyssa Maybe is gone.
This time forever?
On the other hand, for those who just can’t get enough of his “it’s so deep, it’s meaningless” pedantry, let me remind you that there is still an outlet you can turn to. His very own Know Myself clique/claque.
There, if you are interested in understanding things like nihilism, he explains it to you…
Books
All Things are Nothing To Me by Jacob Blumenfeld
Douglas Groothuis thinks nothing of Max Stirner’s nihilism.
Here of course [for me] the “ego” and the “unique one” revolve largely around how close to or far away from dasein we go. “I” in the is/ought world in other words. At least regarding the Self in the either/or world, it’s “own properties” are objectively true. Or are to the extent that this can be demonstrated to be the case. The Ego and the Unique One either embody certain demographic components or they don’t. Their lives unfold empirically as they do or as they do not. Nothing those like Stirner can write in an opus is going to change that.
Of course, in so many ways we are intertwined demographically, historically, culturally and the like in sets of circumstances where our sense of self is clearly going to be derived from this. You can obviously take the “unique individual” frame of mind to the point where the “we” part disappears altogether. And in “defining ourselves for ourselves” when does that become intertwined in a la la land description of yourself? And the part where I bring dasein into the discussion. When does that disappear altogether?
In other words, the “Stirnerian self” is basically this intellectual contraption he thought up as a way to take all of the factors that actually do go into how we come to think of ourselves and make that the default instead. In fact, historically and culturally, most of us are a citizen of one or another polity; we are a member of the human biological species; we do occupy particular social niches as workers or owners or artists or athletes. We have a skin color and a gender and a sexual orientation. And in interacting with others there is no getting around, among other things, the stereotypes and political prejudices we’ll have to deal with…in whatever manner in which we choose to think of ourselves as Stirner might.
Get you, but such a self as the one described above, may be a necessary pre-conception , for lack of this would create some kind of domino effect, where lack of the minutest end ingredient will collapse the entire following continua.
How to get to that appearently invisible , being the focus of most of what ontology has been all abut, may not necessarily sew it up, as those adversely oriented toward Kant would have categorically been inclined to do so.
At best it’s a 50-50 proposition.
Actually, if you were a nihilist, you would know it is a 49/51 proposition. Not to mention the other way around.
Though not necessarily in that order.
Books
All Things are Nothing To Me by Jacob Blumenfeld
Douglas Groothuis thinks nothing of Max Stirner’s nihilism.
Again, unless someone were to take what they think is being conveyed here and make it applicable to their own life…describing behaviors that they themselves choose by way of embodying the point being made…it is hard to pin down what in fact is being conveyed here in regard to the creation of values. Moral and political values in particular. To me the “will to power” is no less subsumed in particular worlds historically, culturally and experientially.
In particular, this part:
“… will to power is for Stirner but another spook – another false idealization of what’s not there, and ‘the unique one’ would be subsumed and alienated from its creative energies by employing the idea.”
You tell me how this is reflected in the life that you live, the behaviors that you choose. It’s a “spook” given my own understanding of dasein in that it is still no less something that you “thought up ‘in your head’” So it is “out there” only to the extent that you believe it is. As a “philosophical contraption”.
Books
All Things are Nothing To Me by Jacob Blumenfeld
Douglas Groothuis thinks nothing of Max Stirner’s nihilism.
Come on, how ridiculous is that? Depending of course on how any particular intellectual defines “nothing”?
For all of us, many things are something…mean something. But some things mean the same thing because they revolve around interactions that are the same for all of us. Unless, of course, we are afflicted with a clinical condition that makes even the either/or world our own personal domain.
Instead, the part where all things are nothing to me – and Stirner? – revolves around the assumption that in a No God world, our lives are essentially meaningless and purposeless. And, therefore, all things come to be/mean essentially nothing when we ourselves die and tumble over into the nothingness that is oblivion.
This part:
Yes, but how then is this not the sort of “philosophical assessment” that, even if true, does not make the world that we live and act in with others go away. We have no choice but to take out own existential leap of faith to “something”. Even in the is/ought world. And that is because as long as we choose to behave in certain ways around others, we are opening ourselves up to being challenged. Others will demand the reasons we do what we do. And how effective do you suppose it will be to go down the “all things are nothing to me” path?
Got that? Okay, then, in regard to the life that you live with and around others from day to day what “for all practical purposes” does it entail?
Books
All Things are Nothing To Me by Jacob Blumenfeld
Douglas Groothuis thinks nothing of Max Stirner’s nihilism.
On the other hand, in the absence of God, as has been noted by some, “all things are permitted”. And, for the sociopath, who starts with the presumption that right and wrong revolves solely around that which sustains his or her own self-gratification, any behavior can be rationalized.
And where is the philosophical argument that refutes this?
Also, there are those who argue that clitorectomies are inherently immoral while sanctioning the right of women to abort the unborn. Half of which will be female.
Full stop? How exactly would that be demonstrated…deontologically? Again, its not for nothing that those like Kant eventually came around to God as a necessary component for objective morality.
That most are repulsed by certain behaviors does not establish that these behaviors are necessarily immoral. Or, in fact, can this be established?
Okay, take particular examples of moral conflagrations that have rent the species down through the ages…abortion, capital punishment, animal rights, homosexuality, gun ownership, social justice, economic equality, the role of government, conscription, just wars…and on and on and on.
“Inalienable rights” from whose point of view? Based on what set of political prejudices that evolve over time historically and culturally.
It’s not completely arbitrary of course. It’s not like in the absence of God and objective moral values, an individual just plucks a moral narrative or political agenda out of thin air. Instead, he or she is “thrown” at birth into a particular historical and cultural context, is indoctrinated as a child to believe certain things and then has a series of uniquely personal experiences that predispose them to believe this and not that.
And, again, to the extent that someone insist that there is “the objective existence of the moral truths”, I’d be interested in how they actually go about demonstrating that in a No God world.
THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT
Perhaps because there is no treatment at all – no fundamental treatment anyway – published or unpublished, sustained or not. On the other hand, Nietzsche did get around to “thinking up” the next best thing to God among mere mortals…the Übermensch.
No, there may not be an actual fate for “I” on “the other side”, and, no, there isn’t access to objective morality on this side, but one can still choose to be a master rather than a slave. And with any luck at all [Woody Allen notwithstanding] an “eternal recurrence” will still keep us around for all of eternity. Thus all the more reason to be a master rather than a slave.
This has always been my own starting point. No God, no one to turn to for the Final Answers. To either the Big Questions or in regard to the moral conflagrations that have rent the species now for thousands and thousands of years. And only we could have killed Him because we are the ones who invented Him.
No God and as Nietzsche speculated, “any aim is lacking, any answer to the question ‘why’ is lacking.”
Lacking insofar as one is able to configure existential meaning and purpose into essential meaning and purpose.
No God, and, as Michael Novak speculated in The Experience of Nothingness, mere mortals, “recognize that [they] put structure into my world…There is no ‘real’ world out there, given, intact, full of significance. Consciousness is constituted by random, virtually infinite barrages of experience; these experiences are indistinguishably ‘inner’ and ‘outer’…Structure is put into experience by culture and self, and may also be pulled out again…The experience of nothingness is an experience beyond the limits of reason…it is terrifying. It makes all attempts at speaking of purpose, goals, aims, meaning, importance, conformity, harmony, unity----it makes all such attempts seem doubtful and spurious.”
Of course, Novak took a leap of faith to Catholicism. For the nihilists of my ilk, however, that is no longer an option. At least not “here and now”.
THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT
Kelly is chair of the department of philosophy at Harvard University
Scholarly dispute. Scholarly debate. I’ll pass on that myself. Instead, I am far more interested in exploring how mere mortals go about finding meaning and purpose in their life once [for whatever personal reason] they reject God and religion.
In particular, the part where, once you accept that death almost certainly equals oblivion, you come to accept in turn that anything you think, feel, say and do will ultimately become subsumed in this oblivion.
Camus is famous for posing the question of suicide. But we need not go that far. Still, how far will each of us go in living a life that revolves around what Milan Kundera encompassed in “the unbearable lightness of being”?
Everything ultimately comes to naught. So, in light of that, how then to live? Why then to live?
That’s how it works. A God, the God, your God. But ever and always situated out in a particular world historically and culturally. Indeed, just imagine Nietzsche being around today pondering the meaning of the “death of God”. Or, for that matter, the Übermensch.
Or the Last Man?
In regard to meaning and purpose in our lives, things change “radically” for individuals as well. What I call the Song Be Syndrome but for others it might revolve around any number of very different contexts. For the nihilist, however, it can reach the point where change itself is subsumed in an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence. Why not choose, say, hedonism over one or another rendition of the master class. The Übermensch himself is eventually swallowed whole by the brute facticity embedded in the staggering vastness of “all there is”.
THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT
Kelly is chair of the department of philosophy at Harvard University
This “tolerance” mentality has never made much sense to me. With objective morality at stake on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation at stake on the other side, how can someone of a particular religious persuasion not insist that there is but one true path to God? Their own.
Treating religious belief as a cafeteria where you pick and choose the beliefs and the behaviors that are most suitable to you seems far, far removed from a reasonable assessment of the sort of thing a God, the God would advocate Himself.
Social pressure? With the fate of your very soul for all of eternity on the line?
No, that to me – an “ecumenical” frame of mind – is something in this day and age that was “thought up” as a way to make God a “one size fits all” “progressive” entity that will tolerate behaviors that, depending on the denomination, may be completely in conflict.
God obviates moral nihilism but in its place each denomination gets to tweak the moral commandments such that human interactions can be all over the board.
Yes, in a No God world, nihilists can as individuals come up with their own renditions of the “right way to live”. And that might revolve around almost anything. But, from my frame of mind, that doesn’t make my own arguments go away. What each individual nihilist does “come up with” will be no less rooted existentially in dasein. Will be no less subject to contingency, chance and change. Will be no less embodied in an essentially meaningless and purposeless life that eventually tumbles over into the abyss that is oblivion.
Then those moral nihilists who for all practical purposes become “global capitalists”. Who construe the “human condition” as revolving around “show me the money”.
Or, perhaps, the most ominous of moral nihilists. Those who for all practical purposes become sociopaths. Nihilism at its most profoundly problematic. At its most dangerous. Bump into one of them and you can be toast. And there is no “reasoning” with them, is there?
THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT
Kelly is chair of the department of philosophy at Harvard University
Then, of course, how far you take it. If the “well-lived” life basically revolves around your own narrow self-interest, and you are making it work for you, then nihilism is as good a philosophy as any in a No God world. But how far will you go if others get in between you and this well-lived life? Each of those who accept moral nihilism as a reasonable “way of life” will take it in a different direction. Some will stop at nothing to get what they want, others will be more inclined toward their own “personal code”. Think, for example, someone like Dexter. A serial killer with principles.
In the end though, in any community, the tug of war between “I” and “we” will necessitate “rules of behavior” that shift back and forth between rewards and punishments. For the moral nihilists, however, freedom to choose is greatly expanded. Your behaviors are not “locked into” one or another God or ideology or deontology. But this enhanced freedom can create the loss of “comfort and consolation” that comes with believing that the behaviors you choose are “the right ones”.
And then the part where you begin to examine more closely what it actually is that motivates you to choose what you do. That vertiginous sense that I often feel in being “fractured and fragmented”.
Of course, all of this becomes entangled in politics. In what Marx called “political economy”. You may come to a frame of mind in regard to your behaviors that revolve around your own subjective sense of “well-being”, the “well-lived” life. But without the actual option to act that out…what then?
THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT
Kelly is chair of the department of philosophy at Harvard University
Or Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener who ever and always “preferred not to”. Fortunately, there are any number of “aims” in life that can be quite satisfying once attained that don’t require an overarching justification that ties everything together. After all, you don’t need an essential meaning and purpose to enjoy good food, or music or art. Or to pursue a satisfying career or to accumulate accomplishments in the world of athletics. Friendships and romantic relationships can revolve around any number of shared interests that don’t necessitate the existence of one or another God or ideology or spiritual path.
Yes, some do need a transcending font that does eventually tie everything together…especially one that connects the dots between here and now and there and then. Life, then death, then what comes next. Obviously, this becomes all the more likely if your life is in the toilet, or you are getting closer and closer to death. It’s all entirely existential though. Experienced differently by different people. Experiences they may or may not be able to effectively communicate to others.
Nihilists here are much like everyone else. Ultimately, what it comes down to is how fulfilling and satisfying their day-to-day existence is. That and their access to options.
Sure, this might be the case. But why it strikes some and not others is always going to be profoundly rooted in the mysteries of human psychology. Someone like David Foster Wallace or Curt Cobain or Robin Williams takes their own life and we just don’t “get it”. What we wouldn’t do to have their success and accomplishments. But something is “missing”, and off they go.
Or it has nothing at all to do with meaning and “aims” in their life. Perhaps it is a “clinical” depression as described by William Styron in Darkness Visible. The brain devouring itself.
Tell that to, among others, the sociopaths.
THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT
Kelly is chair of the department of philosophy at Harvard University
So, how do we go about pinning down which rendition reflects the most accurate portrayal of American culture these days? Is it more in sync generally with quiet desperation or with a fulfilling happiness?
My guess is that here we will see others more or less as we see ourselves. But tap me on the shoulder when the definitive study comes out that finally settles it once and for all. Let alone the argument able persuade me of which frame of mind all rational men and women ought to embrace.
Then the part where this is measured more in terms having or not have found an overall meaning in your life, or the extent to which you have acquired a lifestyle that allows you to simply enjoy yourself. A good job, money in the bank, family and friends, good health etc.
Things like philosophy and religion [or even politics] may not play any really significant part at all in it. Nihilism? What’s that?
Here, it is important to note that this article was written way back in 2010. Before all of the events that unfolded to make it the world we live in today. A world perhaps closer to the quiet desperation end of the scale?
But that’s how speculations of this sort work for me. There is what we think “here and now”. Then something [or many things] happen and we no longer think that way at all. How is this not rooted subjectively, existentially in dasein. Indeed, today we may well be on the cusp of a nuclear exchange with Putin and Russia. How much contentment and happiness will still be around given the “death of God” if that happens?
No doubt about that, of course. Some will take God and religion – which gives their own life essential meaning and purpose – all the way with them to the grave. Nothing that happens will persuade them otherwise. And, in part, because God and religion will always be the “best bet” around.
I’d go there if I could.
Given your predilections nad interest in the thought of Sean Kelly you may find this video interesting (I did.) :
[youtube]https://youtu.be/cC1HszE5Hcw[/youtube]
Sean Kelly: Existentialism, Nihilism, and the Search for Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #227
Sean Kelly is a philosopher at Harvard specializing in existentialism and the philosophy of mind. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
EPISODE LINKS:
Sean’s Twitter: twitter.com/sean_d_kelly
Sean’s Website: scholar.harvard.edu/sdkelly
Sean’s Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Do….
OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
0:19 - Existentialism
20:27 - Nietzsche and nihilism
38:03 - Dostoevsky
53:30 - Camus and suicide
1:12:00 - The Big Lebowski
1:19:49 - Ayn Rand
1:29:57 - Evil
1:40:31 - Heidegger
1:52:11 - Hubert Dreyfus
1:58:04 - Moby Dick
2:09:19 - David Foster Wallace
2:29:31 - Can AI make art?
2:49:15 - Meaning of life
Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
Well, since they are philosophers, the first thing one [like me] might assume is that by “meaningless” they [ironically enough] mean philosophically. The key words of course being “ultimate meaning and purpose”.
After all, in regard to virtually every aspect of your life – relationships, work, the arts, social pursuits, politics – meaning and purpose are everywhere. Indeed, trying to intertwine all of the at times contradictory meaning and purpose here can for some become nothing short of overwhelming.
With respect to the covid pandemic, what is meaningful and purposeful to you? Here alone we have had endless debates [some rather caustic] because the objectivists among us insist that only the manner in which it is meaningful and purposeful to them reflects the most rational point of view.
Well, there can be a huge difference between noting that “good things can come out of it” and suggesting it “poses no significant problems or threats”. Clearly, when the discussions come around to what it means to be a moral or immoral person given a specific set of circumstances, the consequences can be devastating when an agreement can’t be found.
Especially given the fact that for the objectivists among us there is no real distinction made between existential meaning and purpose and essential meaning and purpose. For them the meaning they accept must be the meaning that you and I must accept too.
The potential for problems and threats are everywhere here.
Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
Me too. Only, given my own frame of mind, nihilism is no less rooted subjectively/existentially in dasein. And not only are very different people living very different lives likely to understand it in very different ways, there is no way in a No God world for those like philosophers either to encompass it in the most rational manner or to conclude whether all rational men and men ought or ought not to be a nihilist.
Nihilism and dasein.
On the other hand, how far does that refusal go? Me, I’m considerably less adamant about it myself. I don’t argue that human life has no greater or essential meaning…period, end of story. After all, how exactly would I go about demonstrating that? Instead, I merely suggest that my life up to now has led me to believe that this is the case. Then like all the rest of you I’m confronted with “the gap” and “Rummy’s Rule”. And there is absolutely no getting around the fact that there is no realistic human interaction at all without tons and tons of existential meaning.
After all, that’s what begets all the conflict.
Here of course – existentially – “nihilism” means all those who don’t think like we do. Joe Biden, the nihilist to the fulminating fanatics in the Trump camp, Trump the nihilist to the fulminating fanatics in the Biden camp.
In other words, derived from dasein, whatever that means to you.
Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
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.
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?”.
Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
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…
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.
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.
Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
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.
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: medium.com/@surabhiii/joker-how … ef59ec955a
Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers
Tom Howell
at the CBC website
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…
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…
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.