Nihilism

This link can explain it much better than I can!

Link to Nihilism

IMO nihilism is best explained by Marylin Manson lyrics:


1996
anti choice
anti girl
I am the anti-flag unfurled
anti white and anti law
I got the anti-future plan
anti fascist
anti mod
I am the anti-music god
anti sober
anti whore
there will never be enough of anti more
I can't believe in the things
that don't believe in me
now it's your turn to see misanthropy
anti people now you've gone too far
here's your antichrist superstar
anti money
anti hate
anti things I fucked and ate
anti cop
anti fun
here is my anti-president gun
anti Satan
anti black
anti world is on my back
anti gay and anti dope
I am the faggot anti-pope

(bridge)

(chorus)

anti peace
anti life
anti husband, anti wife
anti song and anti me
I don't deserve a chance to be

(chorus)

Irresponsible Hate Anthem
I am so all-american, I'll sell you suicide
I am totalitarian, I've got abortions in my eyes
I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper
I am not the animal who will not be himself
**** it

Hey victim, should I black your eyes again?
Hey victim,
You were the one who put the stick in my hand
I am the ism, my hate's a prism
let's jut kill everyone and let your god sort them out
**** it

Everybody's someone else's nigger/I know you are so am I
I wasn't born with enough middle fingers/
I don't need to choose a side
I better, better, better, better not say this
better, better, better, better not tell
I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper
I am the idiot who will not be himself
**** it

(chorus)

Cryptorchid
Each time i make my mother cry an
angel dies and falls from heaven
when the boy is still a worm it's hard to
learn the number seven
but when they get to you
it's the first thing that they do
each time I look outside
my mother dies, I feel my back is changing shape
when the worm consumes the boy it's never
considered rape
when they get to you
Prick your finger it is done...
the moon has now eclipsed the sun...
the angel has spread its wings...
the time has come for bitter things...

The Minute of Decay
there's not much left to love
tootired today to hate
I feel the empty
I feel the minute of decay
I'm on my way down now, I'd like to take you with me
I'm on my way down
I'm on my way down now, I'd like to take you with me
I'm on my way down
the minute that it's born
it begins to die
I'd love to just give in,
I'd love to live this lie
I've been to black and back
I've whited out my name
a lack of pain, a lack of hope,
a lack of anything to say
there is no cure for what is killing me
I'm on my way down
I've looked ahead and saw a
world that's dead
I guess that I am too

(chorus)

I'm on my way down now, I'd like to take you with me...

The Reflecting God
your world is an ashtray
we burn and coil like cigarettes
the more you cry your ashes turn to mud
it's the nature of the leeches, the virgin's
feeling cheated
you've only spent a second of your life
my world is unaffected, there is an exit here
I say it is and then it's true,
there is a dream inside a dream,
I'm wide awake the more I sleep
you'll understand when I'm dead
I went to god just to see, and I was looking at me
saw heaven and hell were lies
when I'm god everybody dies
scar/can you feel my power?
shoot here and the world gets smaller
scar/scar/can you feel my power?
one shot and the world gets smaller
let's jump upon the sharp swords
and cut away our smiles
without the threat of death
there's no reason to live at all
my world is unaffected, there is an exit here
I say it is and then it's true,
there is a dream inside a dream,
I'm wide awake the more I sleep
you'll understand when I'm dead

(bridge)

(chorus)

"each thing i show you is a piece of my death"
shoot shoot shoot ************
no salvation, no forgiveness
"this is beyond your experience"
forgiveness...



Man That You Fear
the ants are in the sugar
the muscles atrophied
we're on the other side, the screen is us and we're t.v.
spread me open,
sticking to my pointy ribs
are all your infants in abortion cribs
I was born into this
everything turns to ****
the boy that you loved is the man that you fear
pray until your number,
asleep from all your pain,
your apple has been rotting
tomorrow's turned up dead
i have it all and i have no choice but to
i'll make everyone pay and you will see
you can kill yourself now
because you're dead
in my mind
the boy that you loved is the monster you fear
peel off all those eyes and crawl into the dark,
you've poisoned all of your children to camouflage your scars
pray unto the splinters, pray unto your fear
pray your life was just a dream
the cut that never heals
pray now baby, pray your life was just a dream
(I am so tangled in my sins that I cannot escape)
pinch the head off, collapse me like a weed
someone had to go this far
I was born into this
everything turns to ****
the boy that you loved is the man that you fear
peel off all those eyes and crawl into the dark,
you've poisoned all of your children to camouflage your scars
pray unto the splinters, pray unto your fear
pray your life was just a dream
the cut that never heals
pray now baby, pray your life was just a dream
the world in my hands, there's no one left to hear you scream
there's no one left for you

I posted those lyrics because Marylin Manson epitomizes nihilism to me.

"NIHILISM, the name commonly given to the Russian form of revolutionary Socialism, which had at first an academical character, and rapidly developed into an anarchist revolutionary movement. ... ... ..."

This is, how the Britannica starts its explanation in 1911.
The latest version does so:



Phoenix' link leads to one of the best and understable explanations online.

What is missing here is that Nihilism, while it pleaded the obvious, that nothing matters, and that all is chaos, destined to languish and decay; the basis of the concept is to empower the individual, to dig in, take a stand, and create something from nothingness!

Nihilism - so that is what Neitzsche
was up to all that time ... I once
wondered what was up with him.
Sounds like another anti
everything, wonder theory
I imagine it prompts many persons
to attempt to disprove its validity.

Actually, it is part of the nature of this world, that if you eliminate negativity, there is precious little left.
And without the evil one cannot define the "good".

After reading the Nihilism article at the end of Phoenix's link, I wonder if all of intellectual and religious history is not an attempt to overcome the problem that Nihilism presents. The problem is that there is no meaning and no values. For the Max Steiner kind of Nihilist this means an eternal war of one against all. But for an ordinary slob like me, it means that survival depends upon recognizing and validating such values as arise as a result of our living together in a community. Sometimes these values get embedded in religion, and religion becomes the carrier. Religion also replaces the Nihilists sense of nothingness, and we prefer the more cozy feeling. But in the cold light of post-modern analysis, religion melts away and we are again confronted with nothingness and are forced, because we must be, to fall back on our purely human values. The values that we have invented in order that we might live together without the eternal war of each against all.

The Nihilistic analysis of the general situation may be near to correct. However, human beings are possessed of an imagination, and we can visualize a better way to live, and we choose that way: Community. Or as the Old Testament prophet said, "Choose life!"

Nihilism is an internal problem;
we begin with nothingness, internalize it, and proceed to search;
with luck we realize that "meaning" lies with "others"; caring for them as they should care for us.
Bring the "without" within.

BoGoWo, I like the way you put that.

This was what my conception was, I find things very difficult to put into words generally, expressing what is inside my head. It's a kick in the nads for me as i want to be a politician

Neitzsche was anti Nihilism was he not, he attempted to discover a new value system because the Christian value system is fundamentally flawed. Without values, life is void and aimless, a series of base desires and their fulfillment. I can see why Neitzsche went mad now

Nihilism


On second thought, BoGoWo, I think I take issue with this statement. I don't think the problem addressed by Nihilism is an internal problem. I think Nihilism addresses the idea that there is actually no set of absolute moral or social values. This is not just something going on in the mind of an occasional individual. The idea that there are no values may not be recognized by everyone, but the Nihilist would say that it is the case nevertheless.

My criticism notwithstanding, I'll still say that your idea was nicely expressed.

I am rereading the essay on Nihilism that Phoenix provided.

While I would agree with the Nihilist that there is no meaning and no values, I'd like to say that I don't think this idea is at all unique to the Nihilists. It has existed for ages.

Secondly, I think that when they try to analyse a culture for signs of decay, that analysis is necessarily subjective, and the data they collect would be open to other interpretations.

Thirdly, I would think that systems of values that become undermined in some way do not necessarily lead to the decay of the culture or civilization. When a crucial set of values is undermined, a vital civilization will attempt to repair the damage and keep going. As an example, we can think about Christianity. Here is a religion that has been an important carrier of moral values in our civilization. Christianity has been cogently attacked several times. Yet, it has always regrouped, developed a new underlying philosophy to answer the problems, and kept going. If, indeed, it does collapse some day, as Nietzsche predicted, and it could happen, I feel confident that it will be replaced with a new set of values and civilization will continue on.

Systematic Pessimism can be very compelling, but it is not the last word.

One more "clarification?" (and thanks for the comments H, btw)

I still maintain that the derivation of this depravity of moral direction is the primitive past from which we came, where activities contrary to positive civilized values were the "order of the day" by which we survived. Savagery and violence provided for our "wellfare", in competition with those less willing to express a total lack of restraint. (As an aside, this is evident in the goings on in the middle east today, strangely an area referred to as "the cradle of civilization")
And I still maintain that the solution to finding a path to a fair and just society, is the thoughtful overcoming of our basic instincts in developing a code of ethics by which we can all equitably share the resources of this planet.

Hazlitt, unless I am totally blind, Christianity IS in a state of collapse. The fact that we are living in America where evangelicals are so noisy obscures the fact that in Europe and England (also Canada) the Christian denominations have very few adherents. Even in America, the number of regular churchgoers is far below what it was 100 years ago. Christianity is dying just as Nietzsche predicted, and for the same reasons--nihilism and scientism. It is just taking longer to die than he thought it would.