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What Nihilism Is Not

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

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Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#41

Post by syrrim »

Aperocky wrote: post #27
amitport wrote: post #7

"Nihilism: the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless;" Oxford. Concise and seems pretty clear to me. While the article is well written, it doesn't really adds much IMO.

> life is meaningless This is actually objectively true, our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface of Mars. Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however.

"The universe doesn't care about us" =/= "the basis for meaning doesn't care about us". That is, "the laws of physics" =/= "the source of meaning".

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#42

Post by thrwaway69 »

brazzy wrote: post #39
thrwaway69 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I see nihilism as part of strategic deployment like any other philosophical position. If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself). Nihilism opens door to countering positions such as above. By using it,…

>If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself). That's one outlook on nihilism As I understand it, that is, in fact, existentialism , not nihilism.

That's correct. I wasn't saying it was nihilism but proposing that by discovering nihilism (meaninglessness), you can employ existentialism or solipsism to your advantage as a response.

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#43

Post by ravenstine »

jariel wrote: post #30
ravenstine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nihilism has been a fad in the last 5 years. (I blame Rick and Morty) A lot of these "nihilists" that I've met use it as an excuse to be apathetic or even low-level belligerent, or to not put a mental filter on their disjointed thoughts. But it's not that they never gave a damn about anything; it's that they're either bored or were let down in some way by the establishment. I discovered nihilism before I even underst…

Morals don't need to be objective to be valid.

I don't disagree with that.

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#44

Post by mindgam3 »

mirimir wrote: post #8

Huh. I did maybe a couple decades of applied nihilism, as presented by Landmark Education. It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar and prone to pessimism and depression. So this makes sense to me: > If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then nihilism is actually much closer to optimism. But not this: > Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about hiding fr…

PSA, Landmark Forum was banned as a cult in France after the release of an investigative documentary [0] which they tried vigorously to suppress.

The group is a magnet for vulnerable people who respond to authoritarian style leadership and coercive psychological techniques including public shaming and gaslighting. They strongly discourage participants from taking notes. Anyone with a history of trauma, abuse or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) should know that attending this kind of group can cause severe psychological harm.

There is a way to do deep personal transformation safely, but this group isn’t it.

0. https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Suppressed_French_documentary_on_...

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#45

Post by Barrin92 »

evdev wrote: post #5

I think if your concept of nihilism holds that Socrates believing that justice is inherently good is nihilistic, it's not a very useful take on nihilism.

I think it's actually a great take. In my opinion there always has been something downright creepy about justice. The way some people talk about justice and the good society is eerily similar to Norman Bates in American Psycho or corporate modernity which the movie mocks.

There is a thin line where justice crosses over into complacency, maintaining order or just being a hollow PR slogan that instead of rallying people actually pacifies them.

I think the author is right that there is something liberating about pessimism and cynicism because they refuse to play, actually challening and mocking whoever claims to know what is just or correct.

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#46

Post by mirimir »

thrwaway69 wrote: post #34
mirimir wrote: post #8

Huh. I did maybe a couple decades of applied nihilism, as presented by Landmark Education. It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar and prone to pessimism and depression. So this makes sense to me: > If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then nihilism is actually much closer to optimism. But not this: > Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about hiding fr…

Personally, I see nihilism as part of strategic deployment like any other philosophical position. If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself). Nihilism opens door to countering positions such as above. By using it,…

> If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself).

Yes, that's exactly it.

It's amazing how just noticing that I'm making myself miserable can bring a smile to my face. Or at least, a grin.

> The feeling of being able to do anything devolving into sleeping like a rotten piece of meat within a few months.

Yeah, been there.

> Obviously, I can ignore the emotions and look at things objectively but then, I would start disagreeing with lot of people including doctors and become more 'robot' like.

Some doctors are competent, and some just push whatever's trendy, or heavily detailed. Generally I recommend ignoring them all, except for some psychiatrists. Based on my experience, SSRIs are dangerous for people with bipolar disorder. They made me seriously hypomanic, but emotionally numb.

Also, I used to think that emotions determine how I think. But eventually I got that patterns of thinking determine what I feel.

It's just that stuff reminds us of a morass of similar past experiences. And there are associated feelings, which have been reinforced through repetition since we were very young.

The three canonical ones:

   there's something wrong / I'm wrong (1-2 years)
   I don't belong (early school years)
   I'm on my own (teens)
But you can train yourself to realize that you're being triggered. And then decide freely how to deal. But it's never fixed. You just get better at catching it.

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#47

Post by mirimir »

brazzy wrote: post #39
thrwaway69 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I see nihilism as part of strategic deployment like any other philosophical position. If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself). Nihilism opens door to countering positions such as above. By using it,…

>If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past, nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more meaningful (to yourself). That's one outlook on nihilism As I understand it, that is, in fact, existentialism , not nihilism.

Agreed. But nihilism is the gateway.

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#48

Post by IggleSniggle »

skolskoly wrote: post #33

I wasn't satisfied with the essay, so I thought I'd share my understanding of Nihilism. This is coming from someone who has never read Nietzsche so take it with a grain of salt, I'm curious to know where I might be off. First, I think we've all most commonly seen the "colloquial" form of Nihilism, which is a sort of despair over a lack of meaning in life. I'm pretty sure most people are aware that this is oversimplif…

I won't speak to what "colloquial Nihilism" is because I think this will be highly dependent on your personal experiences.

I think you're basically right about what nihilism is, but I don't find the main insight to be disturbing at all. I never truly felt free, liberated, until I had that insight.

Prior to that insight, in young adulthood, I explored Hedonism and Existentialism, but it turned out that the secret is to just stop caring about it all so much and just live/die/whatever. Let it be.

It brings me joy to not care if I live or die, though my instincts will tend towards keeping me alive. It brings me joy to not care if I succeed or fail, although it's fun to Try sometimes. I enjoy trying to do right by others, raise good kids, but I don't worry about it when I fail.

It's just a ride; people get on, people get off.

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#49

Post by frutiger »

jariel wrote: post #37
Aperocky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> life is meaningless This is actually objectively true, our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface of Mars. Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however.

"> life is meaningless This is actually objectively true" Definitely not 'objectively true'. It's only 'objectively true' from a narrow materialist perspective, and there are other ways to look at it. "our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface of Mars. Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however." This is really quite some contradiction. First - the materialist assumption (which I…

> Consider what 'ourselves' (i.e. life, consciousness) are - something that's by definition not possible to describe with 'physics' because we've ruled it out (energy and matter acting according to rules cannot be 'aware' or 'conscious').

I’m not sure I follow.

Re: What Nihilism Is Not

#50

Post by claudiawerner »

jariel wrote: post #37
Aperocky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> life is meaningless This is actually objectively true, our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface of Mars. Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however.

"> life is meaningless This is actually objectively true" Definitely not 'objectively true'. It's only 'objectively true' from a narrow materialist perspective, and there are other ways to look at it. "our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface of Mars. Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however." This is really quite some contradiction. First - the materialist assumption (which I…

>It's only 'objectively true' from a narrow materialist perspective, and there are other ways to look at it.

Even though I agree with the nihilistic view, you're right. Too often people declare certain positions are 'objectively true' ("objective" in this way is usually a euphimism for "common sense" or "obvious") without actually looking at the arguments on the other side.

I don't know why people think this is more acceptable when talking about philosophical topics rather than physics or sociology.

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