Nihilism

[Kyriakos]

I recall reading Crime and Punishment when i was 17, and originally forming a very biased view of it due to my young age. It seemed to me at the time to be about a revenge of the individual against society for its unfairness. I did not give much thought to the actual brutal violence shown by Raskolnikov, since i mostly thought it was a sort of need of the "special individual" to express himself.
However Raskolnikov had a different end, he wanted to stop feeling "like a fly", and also was quite distanced from the world and seemed to need a shock to return to it.

But this thread is not mostly about that novel, but the question whether nihilism has in your view as an inherent quality the possible violent expression of the individual.

In my opinion the critical parameter is that of one's character; if he is not violent in general then even if he becomes nihilistic chances are he will continue to not be violent. However it seems to me that nihilism can reach an apogee, where one does not care about anything, and therefore he can become under some circumstances like another of Dostoevsky's characters, Kyrilov. Kyrilov appeared at least on the surface to be completely empty of all hope or care, and he even agreed to commit murder, since he had the plan to kill himself anyway. Things did not turn out like that, but he still can be seen as a paradigm of a potentially dangerous nihilist.

What about you? Are you a nihilist? And even if you aren't what are your views of this psychical stance of indifference and annihilation of all meaning in the external (or possibly even the internal) world?

 

[PeteAtoms]

What about you? Are you a nihilist? And even if you aren't what are your views of this psychical stance of indifference and annihilation of all meaning in the external (or possibly even the internal) world?

I don't know alot about nihilism, and the stuff that I most often hear parroted is stuff about not caring about anything and not believing in anything. So I guess I can't be considered a nihilist, I believe in the importance of being alive and human (due to our fortune of being human), and I believe in a thing called love.

I think a lot of psychological baggage is unfairly attributed to nihilists (apathy, uncaring, things you mentioned in OP). But they don't necessarily need to apply to the definition of nihilism or all people that believe that. Religion and every other belief out there can lead to the same (and other) negative results. So why pick on nihilism?

I like the way this sums it up for me:

 

[Silurian]

Travels in Nihilion by Alan Sillitoe

From Amazon

Nihilon is a country turned upside down. Two-storey buildings have wooden ground floors and concrete second floors. TV and radio news is announced as "Here are the lies!" Pets are part of the census in the city of Fludd, so when the dam breaks, the number of "souls" lost can be so much higher (international aid, don't you know). Natural resources are conjured out of thin air by geographers, to attract foreign mining operations.

And on and on and on.

This is a hugely funny book about the sort of cynicism you see in places like Yugoslavia, assorted third-world countries, and the UN. Highly recommended.

Quite amusing book and the reason for the space ship launch is good.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Nihilism can mean various things. In XIX century Russia, it had a political, subversive, materialist, even fanatical to a degree, meaning. It wasn't only associated with a resigned, indifferent attitude to life.

 

[BvBPL]

All men live under a sentence of death. They all go sooner or later. But I'm different. I have to go at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. It would have been 5, but I had a good lawyer...

Woody Allen, Love & Death

 

[warpus]

Came here for the Lebowski reference, saw it, on my way out

 

[civver_764]

Nihilism confuses the hell out of me. What does it mean to believe in nothing?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Nihilism is a rather dishonest philosophy, because you can never disbelieve everything. Just as a matter of survival, you have to believe in food, for example. The natural course of this doctrine tends towards absurdity.

Which brings me to Crime and Punishment, which I too read at age 17, and was thoroughly unimpressed. The whole premise of the book is that Raskolnikov kills an old woman not to rob her, but to prove to himself that he's capable of an act of violence without remorse. As far as he's concerned, doing so proves that he is a superior man, since anyone else would feel great remorse for killing an old defenseless woman. His experiment goes awry, and he, in the end, breaks down and allows himself to be captured by the police.

The whole book is, like nihilism, an operation of absurdity. Even Raskolnikov's assertions contradict his actions, since it was clear that he truly intended only to rob the old woman, breaking into her house while she wasn't there and rummaging through her jewelry, and only killing her in surprise. It was also clear to me that he rationalized the murder after it was done, probably because he couldn't live with what he had done. There also seems to be, whether intentioned by the author or not, a suggestion that Raskolnikov is lapsing into schizophrenia. He displays features of withdrawal and delusional thinking that Dostoyevsky may have witnessed in someone he knew. One can even argue that the book may deliberately be absurd in order to point out the dishonesty of criminals, who rationalize and excuse their acts.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Which brings me to Crime and Punishment, which I too read at age 17, and was thoroughly unimpressed. The whole premise of the book is that Raskolnikov kills an old woman not to rob her, but to prove to himself that he's capable of an act of violence without remorse.

He also rationalizes his crime by envoking "The Greater Good" principle, convincing himself that the old woman is so unpleasant, that killing her would be a net positive for the humanity - a principle which Dostoyevsky found repugnant.

He didn't kill the old woman in surprise, though - you're misremembering things. He did it to her devoted younger sister, who was mistreated by said old woman. I find no evidence to suggest that he wasn't planning of murder all that time.

I'm pretty sure that Raskolnikov's justifications are intended to be inconsistent, considering Dostoyevsky's political views and attitudes.

 

[Cutlass]

I don't know alot about nihilism, and the stuff that I most often hear parroted is stuff about not caring about anything and not believing in anything. So I guess I can't be considered a nihilist, I believe in the importance of being alive and human (due to our fortune of being human), and I believe in a thing called love.

I think a lot of psychological baggage is unfairly attributed to nihilists (apathy, uncaring, things you mentioned in OP). But they don't necessarily need to apply to the definition of nihilism or all people that believe that. Religion and every other belief out there can lead to the same (and other) negative results. So why pick on nihilism?

I like the way this sums it up for me:

"If nothing we do matters, than all that matters is what we do." -Angel

 

[_random_]

Nihilists! I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, dude, at least it's an ethos.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

It may be that "nihilist" is a word that means different things to different people, but I was under the impression that nihilism meant that life has no meaning, purpose, or value.

However, I checked the wikipedia and apparently there are several forms of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism#Forms_of_nihilism

Moral nihilism

This one is particularly ridiculous to me. Pretty much you have to be a sociopath to believe this is the right way to think. To be a moral nihilist you have to deny any sort of morality exists, which means you have to have no morality yourself, otherwise you're not a moral nihilist, you're a moral subjectivist, a person who believes that morality is subjective, but that competing claims can be true.

A moral nihilist believes no moral claims are true. A firefighter rescuing someone from a burning building is no more moral than a serial killer running around shooting everyone. All this is, is denying that words have meaning. You just question the terms right and wrong, good and bad, and assign them all a neutral value. There is no underlying logic to the argument, it's simply denying that there is right and wrong. It's like having no economic philosophy because you deny the existence of currency. It's just absurdist nonsense.

Existential nihilism

This seems to be another kind of mental disorder. Such a person is basically homicidal or suicidal depending on their whims. It's assigning a status of a philosophical viewpoint to a type of mental derangement.

If life has no value, then shooting someone in the head is just as non-significant as reading a book. People who espouse these viewpoints are either liars because they haven't acted on their random whims to kill themselves or others, or they are hypocrites for denying themselves the opportunity, or they are sociopaths for being consistent.

Mental diarrhea, that's what it is.

Epistemological nihilism

Means that nothing is knowable. Very well, then stop talking, and stop listening to anyone, because you have no idea what I'm saying. I might be saying "stop listening to me" but when I say that, I might mean "dance with poisonous snakes". You don't know, because nothing is knowable.

Don't bother communicating your viewpoint on epistemological nihilism, because no one has any way of figuring out what you mean. They can't be sure, so why bother? Don't bother opening your eyes when driving down the street. You can't know for sure if that Mack truck headed toward you is real, and your eyes could deceive you, so don't trust them. When they scrape your brains off of the pavement, that will also be an unknowable event for you, because you'll be too dead to be that skeptical.

Sensing a pattern? Nihilism is basically the idea that thinking is pointless. Which is the opinion that says it's a bad idea to have ideas or opinions. It eats itself.


Whenever folks suggest that there is nothing that is objectively true, I laugh, because that means by definition, they are wasting their time being an advocate of a false viewpoint. Any other view is at least as valid as theirs, in the most generous scenario. Realistically speaking, nihilism is the justification for being completely ignorant of everything and devaluing everything.

The idea will always lead to nothing. No new scientific achievements, no new stories or television series. No reason to get out of bed and eat breakfast. The logical conclusion to nihilism is to sit there and waste away until you die.

My reaction is: prove it. But do it to yourself, please, leave me out of it.

 

[PeteAtoms]

My take on it (which may be completely off since I'm too lazy to make an effort) is that it has more to do with admitting human existence has no objective point. There is no higher purpose to us being here. In the scope of 6 billion years, what we say and do doesn't mean anything to the universe . . . except for us.

Meaning can come from the fact that we have perspective. I can say "I" and that self has needs, desires, and relationships with other beings and forces in the environment. It is this temporary "I" that creates meaning for itself. When the "I" is gone, any meaning that it held for the world goes with it. The "I'" of others persist however, and meaning for them also persists.

In this case, meaning is self-centered, subjective and temporary.

I don't know a lot about the various forms, and the denial of objective truth version is just too easy to shoot down, so I don't really buy into that.

EDIT: If you can imagine a world without any "I's," than you can imagine a world without meaning. It's hard to articulate what I intend by using the word "meaning." It's not the meaning I am referring to, when I explain that the snails shell serves a purpose. There is a reason for the snail to attach meaning to it . . . yet I doubt a snail has an "I." I dunno where I was going with this actually. . . carry on.

 

[sophie]

My only interaction with Nihilism is in Grendel. While the book was fantastic, I didn't find the philosophy to be at all very interesting.

 

[Askthepizzaguy]

My take on it (which may be completely off since I'm too lazy to make an effort) is that it has more to do with admitting human existence has no objective point. There is no higher purpose to us being here. In the scope of 6 billion years, what we say and do doesn't mean anything to the universe . . . except for us.

Meaning can come from the fact that we have perspective. I can say "I" and that self has needs, desires, and relationships with other beings and forces in the environment. It is this temporary "I" that creates meaning for itself. When the "I" is gone, any meaning that it held for the world goes with it. The "I'" of others persist however, and meaning for them also persists.

In this case, meaning is self-centered, subjective and temporary.

That is still meaning.

That's just an argument that everything is subjective; subjectivism is its own philosophy.

By definition, nihilism denies even the idea that one's own ideas have value, because it values nothing. That's a whole different animal.

There's a battle between subjective and objective viewpoints as-is, and both have profound arguments. Nihilism, however, can never, ever compete as a viewpoint, because it denies itself.

Logic that denies itself is not logic, and defeats itself, thus making it "lose" by default. You can never win with the idea that no one can win, so to speak. You cannot be correct with the idea that no one is correct.

If this were subjectivism, yeah, there's bad arguments in support of that, that are at least self-consistent. Nihilism can never be self-consistent and still be taken seriously, because it is basically the same thing as getting nude and painting "I AM NOT CORRECT" on your chest, and trying to win a debate by shouting that over and over.

It's the definition of futility.

 

[Takhisis]

So, from pizza and Pete, all we can say is that Nihilism is pointless, because if nothing (morality, customs, family, whatever) has any value at all then there's no point in living…

 

[Gustave5436]

Existential nihilism

This seems to be another kind of mental disorder. Such a person is basically homicidal or suicidal depending on their whims. It's assigning a status of a philosophical viewpoint to a type of mental derangement.

If life has no value, then shooting someone in the head is just as non-significant as reading a book. People who espouse these viewpoints are either liars because they haven't acted on their random whims to kill themselves or others, or they are hypocrites for denying themselves the opportunity, or they are sociopaths for being consistent.

Mental diarrhea, that's what it is.

If the only thing stopping someone from committing murder/suicide is a belief in existentialism, if anything that speaks against existentialism, not nihilism. Just like when religious people use "God will punish me" as their reason for moral behavior - that's evidence against the philosophical validity of religion, not for it.

edit: personally, I can see that a person is probably going to be happier as an existentialist than as a nihilist, but this is an "ignorance is bliss" sort of thing. Once a person takes the metaphorical red pill and discovers the true nature of reality, he no longer has the choice to either believe the philosophy he knows to be right, or the one which he knows to be wrong, yet comforting. You can't have faith in something, when you know that that thing is false. So, there is no real choice; either you're unaware as an existentialist, or aware as a nihilist. It isn't a matter of "this philosophy is more practical than the other," it's a matter of "I am capable of believing this philosophy and only this philosophy." Thus, we both have the same, yet opposite, finding; I find existentialism to be just as absurd as you find nihilism, and neither can ever really understand the state of mind of the other, because they are fundamentally different.

 

[Perfection]

I'm so nihilistic I don't believe in nihilism.

I miss nihilistic

 

[Millman]

Here's my assistant DA for you?

What's your case? Did you have a person you want to prosecute? Is there a certain time and date for this?

To not be a spoil sport, if someone has to feel that bad then they should have did everything they could to prevent it.

If you have to resort to killing everything and not believing anything, then it means you lost control of your life. You should have 'resigned' from your position.

No one has the right to force you to do anything. That's coercion. And if they take you against your will that's kidnapping. Physically and/or mentally.

 

[PeteAtoms]

So, from pizza and Pete, all we can say is that Nihilism is pointless, because if nothing (morality, customs, family, whatever) has any value at all then there's no point in living…

Do nihilist not believe in pain? One would think the point of living (and not dying) is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. . . and that assumes that living is a more pleasurable alternative to not living.