nihilism

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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”.

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.

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

Over and again: by meaning a distinction must be made between existential meaning and essential – cosmic – meaning. There is no getting around the absolute necessity that mere mortals in a No God world must create and then sustain meaning in their day to day interactions with others. And that includes the far more problematic meaning in the “is/ought world”.

Really, try to even imagine a world of social, political and economic interactions where that is not the case. Only if you choose to utterly isolate yourself from all others does meaning revolve solely around you in the either/or world. Or, for some, around “I and Thou”.

And while “philosophically” it can be argued that human interactions sans a “cosmic meaning” need not pose a threat, just take a gander at human history to date. That threat is everywhere. Both in terms of those nihilists who own and operate the global economy, those sociopaths who rationalize anything and everything, and those objectivists hell bent on insisting that not only is there a “larger context” in which to subsume the “human condition” but others damn well better accept that it is their own.

See! Simple enough!!

Okay, let’s take that argument to the Supremes in Washington. Allow them to grasp its relevance in regard to abortion. Or to Moscow. Note it for the benefit of Vladimir Putin. See if that ends his invasion of Ukraine.

Those “human-all-too-human contexts”.

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

Here “I” am hopelessly ambivalent. I agree that to the extent moral nihilism results in you becoming “fractured and fragmented”, any social meaning you ascribe to your interactions with others is profoundly problematic to say the least. It bespeaks the gap between my “I” and the manner in which those like karpel tunnel and Gib here [at ILP] can accept part of my argument in regards to dasein but still not reach the point where they feel hopelessly drawn and quartered in regard to their own value judgments. They are able to accumulate enough meaning so that they can stand firmly behind their own political agenda. Well, if I am understanding them correctly.

If you believe that in a No God world life is ultimately – essentially – meaningless than what font is available to you in order to establish your existential meaning as objective? How is it not but the manifestation of subjective meaning rooted instead in dasein.

That’s basically the argument I am looking for.

That’s more or less my own argument here. No God [or His secular equivalent sans immortality and salvation] and you can convince yourself that your own moral and political value judgments are rock solid…but what happens when you bump into others who insist the same thing, only it’s their Truth and not yours?

For me, those like Gib “somehow” manage to convince themselves re “general description intellectual contraptions” that their own point of view prevails. But the other side is doing exactly the same thing. And they still have no font available to finally resolve it all once and for all.

Instead, from my frame of mind, those like him [and certainly the objectivists] embrace an objective existential meaning, because psychologically it comforts and consoles them. The thought of viewing the world around them as “I” do is simply, well, unthinkable. Too much is invested in their “one of us” vs. “one of them” mentality.

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

As for the thoughts we tend to focus in on over here in America, well, you tell me. Factual reality by and large still seems to revolve more around pop culture, mindless consumption and celebrity. Especially [of late] the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial.

Take European nihilism there and get back to us.

Again and again: that’s my point. Whenever it commenced, with or without Nietzsche, once science reached that tipping point where more and more things attributable first to “the Gods” and then to a God, the God, our God, were able to be explained as manifestations of nature understood through its laws, religion had less and less “mystery” to cling to in order to attribute them to the Gods or to a God, the God.

Then the birth of capitalism [along with the “Enlightenment”] sealed the deal.

Though, of course, not really. There’s still the part about objective morality, immortality and salvation. All the science and enlightenment in the world don’t make the hankering for them go away. And here God is still the only show in town.

Thus…

And what’s the concept of nihilism next to the actual manifestation of it in our modern world? The global economy owned and operated by legions of “show me the money” amoral nihilists. Then the explosion of sociopaths who in a No God world root “morality” in “what’s in it for me?”

How can we not be doomed?

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

By and large, the advancement of technology still seems [to me] to be far more about means than ends. Does anyone here wish to see technology advanced as an end in itself?

Instead, this or that particular technology – computers, the internet – are used by those all up and down the moral, political, philosophical and spiritual spectrum. Whereas assessments of “progress” and “consequences” will almost always revolve around moral, political, philosophical and spiritual prejudices.

Which I then root subjectively, existentially in dasein. As opposed to the objectivists among us who root them in one or another “transcending font”: God, ideology, “philosophy of life”, genes > memes assessment of nature.

Same with defending or attacking nihilism. Choose any particular technology to accomplish it. In my view, neither side, using any technology [or no technology at all], comes out on top with the most rational conclusion.

What could go in very bad directions? And how are attitudes regarding nihilism mitigating or aggravating it?

And what does this revolve around? Well, morally and politically, around “democracy and the rule of law”. On the other hand, in regard to God and religion, how exactly would faiths meet somewhere in the middle when the various denominations argue precisely that in regard to morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and then, their path is the One True Path?

Which is why, given what is at stake on both sides of the grave, I’ve never really understood the “ecumenical” path.

This, as most here know, is what I call a “general description spiritual contraption”. And, given human history to date, it has almost nothing to do with, among other things, human reality to date.

Thus:

Indeed, by all means, dream on…

Moral Nihilism as Reflected By Joker in The Dark Knight Movie.
by Satrio Jagad

So, how close to or far away from does one take nihilism here to the “lowest common denominator” assessment? How close to or far away from nihilism as you understand it to be, Mr. Philosopher, is the character Joker from the The Dark Knight? How narrowly intellectual and creatively elitist is Heath Ledger’s portrayal of him in the film. As compared to, say, how he is captured by Joaquin Phoenix in Joker?

And movies, if nothing else, attracts [and then sustains] the “lowest common denominator” mentality in regard to many things. Reality and Hollywood? Way should nihilism be any different? Only characters like Joker and Hannibal Lector seem to attract minds able to conjure up actual philosophical discussions…out in the deeper depths of our postmodern world. In particular, a No God world where the answer to the question, “how ought one to live?” can bring on an explosion of conflicting narratives.

The superhero, comic book world Hollywood, where almost everything is dumbed down to a paint-by-numbers Good vs. Evil mentality has, what, accidently portrayed something in the vicinity of a close encounter with…ambiguity?

With, say, the thinking man’s sociopath?

From PN:

My own personal interest in nihilism revolves basically around two things…

1] moral nihilism in No God world. For me, it’s not how these two characters – as “personalities” – came to be the way they are portrayed in the films; it’s that, in being moral nihilists, they come to embody [each in their own way] the belief that “in the absence of God all things are permitted”. Sociopaths, some would argue, for all practical purposes. Then it just comes down to exploring the sociopathic mentality more or less philosophically.

2] the role that dasein plays in creating individuals who come to construe themselves in this way.

For me, with respect to what we think, feel, say and do, ambiguity and ambivalence revolve around the assumption that we live in a No God world. And, further, that mere mortals in embracing one or another Humanist perspective, are only attempting to create a secular rendition of God’s “transcending font”. Something, anything that allows us to anchor the Self in a teleological foundation that then is able to provide us [psychologically] with the comfort and the consolation of believing that there is a Real Me able to be in sync with the Right Thing To Do.

It’s just that with Humanism, the grim reality of oblivion is still there. So, some are able to think themselves into believing that they live on through their own particular Ism of choice.

Here, it always comes down to how each moral nihilist comes to think about his or her own reality.

And, from my frame of mind, that’s all about the points I raise in the OPs here:

ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296

Moral Nihilism as Reflected By Joker in The Dark Knight Movie.
by Satrio Jagad

Yes, that’s always my own main interest in turn. There are, after all, those who go all the way out on the epistemological limb and speak of nihilism as though there is nothing at all that can really be known or communicated.

Then those who posit solipsism and sim worlds and hidden layers of reality that make the world we interact with others in from day to day pretty much a chimera as well.

Or the assumption that the entirety of human reality is wholly determined going all the way back to the Big Bang.

So, sure, we all have to draw the reality line here somewhere.

For me, it’s moral nihilism in a No God world.

So, what is it for Joker? Well, being a comic book character himself, he’s pretty much whatever we come to think he is.

Okay, consider someone who does not obey rules, laws or morality a nihilist. There’s still that part where he justifies that. Especially to himself. Suppose someone in “real life” decides to model his life on Joker from the movie. Eventually he gets caught. He’s in prison and agrees to be interviewed. By one of us say.

What questions would you ask him?

A theory however still revolves by and large around what we believe “in our head” is true about moral nihilism. I’m always more inclined to take what we believe about it there down out of the didactic clouds and start connecting the dots between that and the actual behaviors we choose.

“I choose not to obey rules, laws or morality because…”

Then the part where, among others, philosophers here discuss and debate whether it is rational or irrational to live that way. But only insofar as they bring their own lives, their own behaviors into the exchanges.

From PN:

That’s because I created this thread with the intention of exploring nihilism in terms of both morality and the manner in which I construe morality itself as the embodiment of dasein.

This part – theanarchistlibrary.org/library … e-nihilism – is of less interest to me.

Nihilism can lead one to either acts of creativity or acts of despair.

But [to me] the acts themselves revolve around the assumption that in a No God world all things are permitted. It’s not so much “is this the right thing to do?” as it is “can I get away with it?”

You do what you do because, for whatever reasons rooted existentially in dasein, it gratifies you.You don’t give a shit about the consequences of your behaviors for others. They are only a means to sustain your own personal – personal – “kingdom of ends”.

That’s precisely why sociopaths are so fucking scary: you can’t reason with them.

What do you say to these guys: youtu.be/Y7-ZBa5QeEw

Maybe they like you and won’t do you any harm. Here and now. But that can always change. Think the character Neil McCauley from the movie Heat: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

That’s the “discipline”.

The heat being those who defend the rules, laws and morality in any given community. For the nihilist however it is always “me, myself and I”.

Up to me, up to you. Your interest in comic book characters – in Hollywood movie characters – and mine.

As though it might actually be possible here to pin down what we ought to be opting to discuss. :unamused:

Moral Nihilism as Reflected By Joker in The Dark Knight Movie.
by Satrio Jagad

No, not “no meaning” but meaning that is thought to be essentially, necessarily, objectively true. And not in regard to the either/or world, where that sort of meaning abounds, but in regard to what, in being meaningful to us, motivates our behaviors when interacting with others given conflicting moral and political values. Moral nihilism in other words. Which for me is derived from the assumption that we live in a No God world.

Come on, how discouraged are you when the meaning revolves around those things that are in fact true for all of us. You become a part of an American football game. How many conflicts will pop up regarding what it means to play football. The rules of the game are well known. And you can always agree among yourselves on what if any changes you want to make to them.

No, the squabbles erupt around how as individuals we feel about the game itself. Or how we think about professional sports. Does the game promote values that appeal to us or not? Do we want our children to play the game or not? Is fútbol the far better sport?

Then to how “philosophical” you go with this.

This far?

“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy.”

Of course out in the real world most suicides revolve instead around the existential, circumstantial parameters of meaning in our lives. Around our health or our economic plight or a lost love or the death of someone near and dear to us.

The plight of Sisyphus doesn’t often come up.

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

Who really knows how many people who are out there never really give much thought to this at all. If any thought at all.

They leave all that “meaning” stuff to God. Or they live lives bursting at the seams with personal relationships and accomplishments that truly preoccupy them from day to day to day. I’ve met my own fair share of men and women who at least seemed this way to me. Of course, what could I know about their innermost thoughts and feelings.

But it seemed clear that when they spoke of particular behaviors being absurd it wasn’t meant in a philosophical sense but rather as a way to deride particular behaviors in particular sets of circumstances that they themselves though to be inane or foolish or entirely inappropriate.

We’ll need a context of course. And all of the many different ways in which it either will or will not be thought of as absurd. And, for those anchored to one or another God or No God transcending font, I is always subsumed in it. Time is irrelevant. Nothing matters except that we are able to convince ourselves that we are doing what we are doing because it is simply unthinkable that we would not be doing it. That’s the whole point behind rituals. We do what we do over and over again because it is necessary that we do it. Doing it is precisely what it takes to convince us that life does have an essential meaning. Whether you’re Christian or a Communist you are obligated to embody that meaning. Ever and always.

That’s why the manner in which “I” construe dasein was so threatening to the many objectivists I’ve encountered over the year. You can only feel “fractured and fragmented” when you’ve convinced yourself that now or a million years from now everything we do is essentially meaningless and purposeless.

What is fractured?

What is fragmented?

Isn’t wholeness implied in a fracture or fragment?

Even if you can’t explain the wholeness?

Even if you’re utterly blind to the wholeness?

Even if it’s been explaining itself to you in so many different ways and you’re still in that moment right before understanding?

Oh it’ll make ya flinch.

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

And for the life of me, I can’t see this as relevant to anything we do – or to anything we might be feeling now – without the existence of God. Something or someone has to be around to connect the dots past, present and future. And this someone or something would surely need to have a teleological component. The part where our life can be said to have a meaning or a purpose. Aside from religion, what else is there?

Of course some rush towards this, grappling, philosophically or otherwise, to fit it into their lives, while others do everything in their power to keep it far, far off in the distance. Or they make it all go away through God and religion. But there it is: “I” in the stupendous vastness of all there is.

What’s your “solution”?

Again, it always comes down to what each of us as individuals deems the absurd to be. If we interact with others or live a life of solitude and ascribe meaning and purpose to the things we do, the “philosophical absurd” can for “all practical purposes” become moot. But if we deem it necessary to subsume this existential meaning in an essential meaning and purpose and can find none, the existential meaning is not nothing. One can want to live forever simply because forever is ample time to enjoy the things that bring us satisfaction and fulfilment…the food we eat, the friendships we have, the music we enjoy, the sex we share. Who needs a life that is not absurd for that? In fact, to the extent that many do believe in one or another God or ideology or philosophy or life, their own satisfaction and fulfilment is often truncated by one or another straight and narrow path they are expected to follow.

Cue “the gap” and “Rummy’s Rule” here for those like me. The “connection” seems clearly to be far, far, far beyond our grasp.

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

Here I always come back to the part where many of the things we do have little or nothing to do with being meaningful [philosophically or otherwise] but simply provide us with pleasure. Really, do we bite into the food we love to eat and think, “what’s the point if my existence is ultimately meaningless?!” Same with many, many other activities that delight our senses…our bodies, our minds.

The philosophy of the Epicureans and the Dionysians hasn’t persisted down through the ages for nothing. Not only a challenge to Plato but to any others who seem ever intent on focusing the philosophical beam on the rational pursuit of Wisdom.

The journey itself is the point. And then for those who must anchor it to an ultimate meaning and purpose, that’s what religion is for.

And here there are any number of intertwined sequences. Those that revolve around friendship, around love, around sex, around family, around community. Or around sports or the arts or politics. Chains of justifications that may or may not be linked to God or political ideology or philosophical schools of thought. But chains that provide all manner of existential meaning for most of us.

Thus…

Which of course is why the overwhelming preponderance of human beings around the globe don’t give things like philosophy a second thought.

Life is suffering, ok, because universe is a deadly dangerous chaos which kills us all in the end. But, values is how we as society want to fight this chaos.
Nihilism is the rejection of this societal struggle. “Don’t expect anything from life and your suffering will reduce”. Become passive. When you suffered so much that you went insane, you become active nihilists and you destroy your neighbors.

Is this you, Turd?!! :laughing:

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

On what basis do you justify what you do? Is it derived from someone or something “outside yourself”? Someone or something that you are able to subsume your Self in? God’s will? A spiritual path? A political ideology? A philosophy of life? Nature?

Or does everything simply revolve around “me, myself and I”? Your own selfish wants and needs. Where everyone else basically becomes just a means to an end. Yours.

What I focus on here, however, is not what your answer might be, but how each of us as individuals come to acquire one particular answer and not another. Existentially. And then the consequences of answers that come into conflict.

Also, the extent to which you are able to demonstrate that your answer is not merely something that you believe “in your head”, but something you are able to demonstrate further by providing evidence that all rational men and women are obligated to share in that answer.

Of course, everything is gained for those able to convince themselves of this “single, controlling life scheme”. That’s why the overwhelming preponderance of us have one. To believe that there is no definitive justification for the things we do is something that can, at times, seem almost hard-wired biologically in us to reject. It’s to imagine a dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, law of the jungle, might makes right world. A Mad Max dystopia. An Anton Chigurh flip of the coin.

But philosophers of course are still inclined to keep all of this “up in the clouds”:

What we need to do instead is to take abstract speculation of this sort out into the nitty gritty world of actual human interactions. In particular, when those interactions come to revolve around conflicting goods.

You have your reasons for doing what you do. I have mine.

Given a particular context, let’s talk about them.

Thomas Nagel
The Absurd

Absurd, or just plain silly. Or embarrassing. Or entirely ironic. The sort of absurdity that, depending on how it impacts you personally, you may well be able to live with. Or even take advantage of.

Not at all the absurdity that preoccupies those like me.

Here there are options available to you to mitigate it…or even to make it go away altogether. Or you can always just ignore it.

Thus…

On the other hand, when you come to construe your own existence itself as essentially absurd…essentially meaningless and purposeless…there’s no getting around being you.

Here the only viable option seems to revolve around distractions. Immersing yourself in the things that you enjoy…the things that take your mind off of your ultimately absurd existence. The things that take you away from the frame of mind encompassed by, say, Sartre in Nausea.

Or this option…