“Think his nihilism got the best of him and he tried to kill himself?” – House, M.D.
Nietzsche couldn’t use pencils. He thought they were all pointless.
A big danger is Nihilism.
It’s certainly one of the biggest dangers that society faces today. As our society has become less religious, more urban, and has a greater and greater embracing of technology, people begin to ask:
Does any of this matter? Do our values have any real meaning?
My answer to both of those questions is, of course, yes. Values and virtues don’t become outdated.
But what is Nihilism? Nietzsche defined Nihilism fairly simply:
“That there is no truth; that there is no absolute state of affairs – no thing in itself. This alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind.”
To a Nihilist, nothing matters and everything that anyone can think of is true. Read that sentence again, and tell me what I’ve missed in what’s ailing society at its foundation, right now, today. To quote Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose, if Nihilism is the “extinction of the individual, then this world and everything in it – love, goodness, sanctity, everything – are as nothing, nothing man may do is of any ultimate consequence, and the full horror of life is hidden from man only by the strength of their will do deceive themselves; and ‘all things are lawful,’ no otherworldly hope or fear restrains men from monstrous experiments and suicidal dreams.” I’m guessing he knew my ex-wife.
Observance to a religion gives a society many things: purpose, values, unity, and stability, among others. But a Nihilist would say that all religions have the same validity, just like all cultures have the same validity.
But that is observably false.
Say what you will, but the Aztec people had a great motto: “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everyone.”
I’ll cherry pick an example: Aztecs. The Aztecs were a bloodthirsty, cannibal, slaving religion. When their ancestors escaped up north, they became known (later) as the Anasazi, and were so hated that they managed to get a huge coalition of all the other tribes together to unite to kill them, probably because having cannibals as neighbors is horrible for property values.
We live in a nation where academics and the news media are trying to normalize everything from cannibalism to “minor-attracted persons” to men pretending to be women. The only, and I mean only, way that this sort of normalization attempt occurs is because the GloboLeft are a group of nihilists that don’t have any fixed beliefs, at all. They were HATING former FBI Director James Comey before Trump fired him. Then, in the span of a single day, they were converted to loving him.
“Comey was always the good guy.”
We were always at war with Eastasia.
When Amy was a child, she said she wanted to go into comedy. Well, no one is laughing now.
If horrible religions like the Aztec religion can result in murder, wholesale slavery, human sacrifice, and cannibalism, imagine how much worse it is to have no religion at all? Now, it becomes open season on anything. The Mrs. likes to talk about an article she read once (maybe it was back when we subscribed to Reason?) about the author attending a Washington, D.C. dinner party.
The conversation went something like this . . . .
“Well, of course Africa is a problem, and probably has 200,000,000 too many people. I think that it can be solved, though, by withholding food supply.” This wasn’t a politician, but probably a GloboLeft academic or regulator.
The author confronted the GloboLefty: “You’re casually talking about starving 200,000,000 people to death?”
Apparently, the GloboLefty didn’t really like it when it was phrased that way, but when he could hide behind pretty words that disguised the real meaning of what he was saying, well, he was good with it.
I was going to donate my clothes to starving people in Africa, but I decided not to. If my clothes fit them, they’re definitely not starving.
The French Revolution was, perhaps, the very first example of this sort of extreme Nihilism, where the idea was not a war on man, but an organized war on God, Himself. Mankind has certainly had its share of civil wars and genocides throughout history, but the French Revolution was something entirely new – the desire of an idea, Nihilism, to remake an entire nation and discard every idea from the past.
To a Nihilist or a GloboLeftist (but I repeat myself) I am nothing. You are nothing. We are not even worthy of consideration as humans. We are beneath contempt. To quote Rose again, “The Revolution, in fact, cannot be completed until the last vestige of faith in the true God is uprooted from the hearts of men and everyone has learned to live in this void.” In the words of V.I. Lenin: “. . . there will be no way of getting away from it, there will be nowhere to go.”
Really.
Should the Russian Revolution be renamed the Tsar Wars?
The greatest horrors (that’s “horror” – I’m not talking about Madonna) in the history of humanity have been brought about by GloboLeft governments while being run not by atheists, but by antitheists. Period, and that’s verifiable by actual numbers. The end stage of this is the Nihilism we see around us now: The Nihilism bent only on destruction. The French Revolution started it, but you can see it daily at work
As I’ve said again and again, I believe we will win, because we stand for something and to win they have to kill us all. Every single one of us.
They can’t. After 74 years of trying, the Soviets couldn’t erase Religion and the values it provides. Today, only 13% of Russians are atheists. Infecting everyone with Nihilism is really, really hard.
My doctor said I should drink more wine. He actually said, “less beer”, but I’m pretty good at reading between the lines.
Why am I so certain we’ll win? Because we’ve been winning for at least 2000 years, and that won’t stop now. I do believe in Truth. And I know others to, too.
That’s all it takes to win.
I found this James Lindsay to be quite enlightening on understanding all this on an organic level. https://youtu.be/OVZPYQS1dFA?si=3ZQQlAGuKupv5gcR
Thanks! I’ll give that a look (it’s up, but I’m watching another one now)
The optimist says the glass is half full
The pessimist says the glass is half empty
The psalmist says “ my cup runneth over.”
Hahahaha!
Religion has a certain social utility but on the other hand Europe has theoretically been Christianized for 1500 years or so and European Christians have spent a lot of that time killing each other, often over different interpretations of Christianity. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs isn’t about Christians being killed by Muslims, it is about Christians being tortured and murdered by other Christians. The Martyrs Mirror is an important Anabaptist work (Mennonites, Amish, etc) detailing the horrific tortures and murders visited on Anabaptists by both Catholics and Protestants. Some of the tortures match anything the Aztecs could come up with. World War I especially featured millions of Christian soldiers killed by other Christian soldiers.
Paul spoke of wolves among the sheep before he died. Because human “Christians” did evil for their own benefit in the name Christianity says nothing about Christianity except how it defines humans all humans as hopeless sinners in need of a Savior
Christianity has nothing to do with war. War is one of the main human occupations. Nothing can eliminate war, as it is part of the human condition. The Second Coming is the final and most brutal war.
Yup. Won’t deny that. But still dwarfed by the numbers of murders by those who believe in nothing.
In one of his Falkenberg’s Legions stories in the 90s, Jerry Pournelle, anticipating today’s Kagan Kult, had a line about the US Administration “…courting nuclear war with nihilistic relish.”
I’ve always thought Nihilistic Relish would be a great name for a band.
If Nihilistic Relish released an album, would it be 45 minutes of silence?
Or a condiment.
I put Nihilistic Relish on a Nothing Burger
You, good sir, have won the internets for today!
That’s the win.
Hahahaha! But there’s nothing that Nihilistic Relish would go with!
Clif High summed up the GloboLeft Nihilists quite well.
“They’re clever but not smart.”
Yup, and Clif is thinking that things are gonna get spicy, soon.
Excellent post Sir. Just change we to he and its perfect
Thank you! Where?
The Left is ugly, crazy, and wants to die. Believing themselves to be god, they seek to remake the world in their image.
Yes. Burning it all down is their goal.
In the immortal words of the great philosopher Walter Sobchak: “Nihilists? Well, f–k me … say what you want about National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos.”
Hahahaha!
Daniel Dennett has said we can honor religion’s role in the development of morality for “having played a founding role in the past, as a ladder that, once climbed, may be discarded.”
Perhaps.
But for some of us the ultimate question regarding religion – any religion – boils down to three words: “Is it true?”. In other words, do the claims, doctrines, and dogmas of religion X provide a true picture of reality?
Those of us asking that question must find the answer for ourselves. Personally speaking, I’ve found my answer.
Does this make me a nihilist? Does my lack belief in God automatically make me at once a nonbeliever in everything AND a believer in any stupid impulse and ridiculous ideology that comes along?
Hardly. That I reject belief in God and religion does not mean I also reject the tenets of authentic Liberalism and the Enlightenment, which arose both because of and in spite of religious beliefs and actions.
There are differences between atheists, Atheists, and Anti-Theists.
Examine yourself to determine where on that spectrum your beliefs and actions lie.
Indeed, and eventually we’ll find out what is True.
I know what is true. SigmaDog has it wrong.
Of course there is truth and an absolute state of affairs external to our brains. But you’re probably not going to identify that reality by using faith, which means belief contrary to evidence.
> how much worse it is to have no religion at all?
Religion is just a different flavor of nihilism, where you believe something you made up inside your brain is actually reality. Whereas if you truly stop deceiving yourself, you become a Skeptic, and content.
> Anasazi
You misspelled Ashkenazi.
The mental illness of nihilism is presented as a false dichotomy fallacy, as if it were the only alternative to the retreat into fantasy that is the government called organized religion. In truth, something created this environment which humans perceive as the “universe”, and it wasn’t the green-skinned projection of the Wizard of Oz; that’s just men in the mainstream media lying. In the innermost sanctum behind the preparation rooms used by ordinary religious staff is merely the evil head priest, a man.
The religion-government inserts values into the minds of children as an opaque, unexamined package using compulsory attendance “schools”. Just like secular-government. The religion-government demands payment of its taxes (“tithes”) at gunpoint, just like the secular-government. The religion-government apologizes for itself to adults by claiming it has the best understanding of the universe, and therefore can offer the best advice. Just like secular-government and Global Warming. But when Galileo disproves Global Warming, I mean Geocentrism, he is deplatformed and shadow banned, I mean placed under house arrest. Adults can’t think straight about the church’s arguments because they’re using the bogus axioms about extraterrestrial aliens bulk-loaded into their neural nets as children and never reexamined as adults.
Nihilism as the source of evil that is infesting the West is not new, and noticing it isn’t new either. One of the most brilliant articles I’ve read:
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/a-prophecy-of-evil-tolkien-lewis?utm_source=publication-search
Excellent link! Thank you!
And yet, nihilism never seems to question the underlying fact that they themselves are “good” people. Their own moral status is never questioned in their own minds (nor will they sit for questioning of such by others).
Often, when you force and force people to make a choice, they will do so – but very often it will not be the choice you wanted.
“And yet, nihilism never seems to question the underlying fact that they themselves are “good” people. Their own moral status is never questioned in their own minds (nor will they sit for questioning of such by others).”
The reason for this seems obvious: Everyone is the star of the movie playing in their heads.
“Nihilists. I mean say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it’s an ethos, Dude.”
Smells like . . . Lebowski.