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I personally hate Nihilism, but maybe some of the members of this forum are nihilists.
Check out this interesting website for nihilists: counterorder.com/index.html
Read through some of the articles and post your opinions. I got almost a cult like impression from this website.
'I personally hate Nihilism'. Why?
Because they believe that everything in the universe is baseless. Just like the website says, they believe in:
Death to Government
Death to God
Death to Ideology
Death to Purpose
Death to Culture
Death to Ego
Death to Money
Death to Love
Death to Philosophy
Death to Liberty
Death to Y
Death to Morality
The only thing I believe in on that list is death to ego and God (in part). The rest of it is just unreasonable. Lets see what happens when you put some of these "to death" in the real world.
counterorder.com/deathto.html
But sometimes it's necessary to destroy so that you can create something new.
So I don't think Nihilism must be negative.
Nietzsche is the "classical example" for a nihilist, but I don't think this is true. Because he doesn't only destroy, he also gave solutions or possibilities.
I have the luck to read Nietzsche in original language, therefore it's hardly possible to explain these thoughts in Nietzsche's words (I hope you apologize ;) ).
In my opinion nihilsm is a good possibility to wake up ones mind. If there is no god, no government, no ideology... everyone has to think about it, what is good, what is right - it's impossible to follow an authority. The individual person has to decide, what is true, what is right - and in my point of view this is very important.
Greetings
Nietzsche condemns nihilists, saying that they are the ruination of the world. Many people call him a nihilist because he said "God is dead". There are various interpretations of that quotation. I personally believe he meant that we have to carry on with our lives as if God doesn't exist. It's not really atheistic because one does not deny God's existence... we instead must forget about him because he has become "irrelevant to the bulk of humanity". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilis..._and_Nietzsche
I haven't read "Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard, and apparently it details "new nihilism". http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/cpace/theo...llard/lee.html
oh yea, and loe, it must be pretty cool reading Nietzsche's work in the original language. I sometimes wish I knew other languages so I wouldn't have to worry about the validity of different translations.
the great thing about Nietzsche is that his philosophy does make us re-look at the world. I suppose he could be called a nihilist, but his philosophy contained elements of so many different values and ideologies. The best philosophy is when it can appeal to a large range of people, when we can intepret and expand it to the point of understanding ourselves better. The best question is the one with many other questions attached. That's why I love Nietzsche, his thoughts were so novel and strange and beautiful for being so.
I would love to read Nietzsche as the original! Same with reading Dotstoevsky.
It's a it bit contradictory for nihilists to have a representative website isn't it? A bit like anarchists voting! I reckon that website is just one or two lonely embittered souls. Nihilism can take many forms not many necessarily destructive - most are simply depressing or pessimistic. Some great writers are nihilistic - even if they would not use that term of themselves. There are many people who would look at life at some point and say with the writer of Ecclesiastes, 'All is vanity' and that is a nihilistic position - even if only temporarily held
“Nihilism is best done by professionals.”
- Iggy Pop
;)
If people were left to decide what was wrong and right for themselves the world would look a lot worse than how it looks now. Nihilism is a very bad idea.
Don't worry hyperborean, most nihilists commit suicide ;) If there is no point, then why keep on living?
I personally think it is a very depressing belief... I can't imagine believing that there is no purpose or point...
nihilism is a good idea in as much as it saw through morals and ideals as relative, changing, not absolutes. in order for a culture or system of thought to question itself, it needs to be able to step outside the typical systems it works within. nihilism created this outlet for candor about sacred ideals. its a bad idea in that it equated this with life being meaningless. life of course has a meaning, a very simple one, as neo said, "the purpose of life is to live."Quote:
Originally Posted by sharpe123
Why not just believe in DEATH?Quote:
Originally Posted by hyperborean
Death to God: KINDA REASONABLE
Death to Purpose; LIFE HAS NO PURPOSE
Death to Ego; sure
Death to Money: why not?
Death to Love: it's already dead
Death to Philosophy: never
Death to Liberty: free will is only an ilusion
Death to Morality: few moral persons exist
nihislism is something not to be hated i beleive, and all as unltimatley all will be nihilatedandf thaat is what AI beleive, and confusion mest be wiped out once u realizeQuote:
Originally Posted by hyperborean
Why not? It is philosophy that brought about nihilism!!! :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakiryu
Humans lived in a paradise Earth - earth with all its richness and bounty - and then ruined it all by saying "Who made all this" :-)
Why? - "God" is one of the greatest ideas of humanity for all time :-)Quote:
Death to God: KINDA REASONABLE
Life creates it's own Purpose.Quote:
Death to Purpose; LIFE HAS NO PURPOSE
Yes - I am for all that. But I wonder if Ego is dead will we still have great literature?Quote:
Death to Ego; sure
Yes. We can all live on a Kibutz.Quote:
Death to Money: why not?
But will it practicable with billions of people? I think not.
Nay. It lives. It has finally separated itself from sex.Quote:
Death to Love: it's already dead
What is Free Will?Quote:
Death to Liberty: free will is only an ilusion
[/quote]Quote:
Death to Morality: few moral persons exist
And they will light the sky by their very existence.
i agreeQuote:
Originally Posted by sharpe123
"It's a it bit contradictory for nihilists to have a representative website isn't it? A bit like anarchists voting!"
Absolutely, these people cannot live with themselves.
NIHILISM = antiphilosophy
as it is with most modern philosophies
Well, I consider myself a nihilist, but I don't believe in death to any of those things listed. I merely believe that they are all ultimately meaningless. In the here and now, though, they are nevertheless full of meaning. If minds ever cease to exist in the universe, the things on the list will once again become utterly meaningless, non-existent abstract concepts that don't exist at all independent of minds. If the universe reaches a "heat death", when there is nothing left but an expanding sea of radiation, then even the possibility of those things ever again having meaning will cease.Quote:
Originally Posted by hyperborean
But to wish death on abstract concepts, if they're currently useful, would not be pragmatic.
Nihilism is simply not taking anything for granted.
Turgueniev created the first nihilist character, Bazarov, in Fathers and Sons, and he said a nihilist doesn't bow before any authority and has no faith in any principle.
It doesn't mean absolute destruction or death to everything...
It just means that there are no absolut truths.
Yeah, I very much like that definition of nihilism. But maybe nihilism is in the mind of the beholder, like many other terms. Misconceptions abound.
Precisely. Your explanation of nihilism is perfect, in my opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unbeliever
If you think of it in different terms, such as, "How can I ever, truly, know what happened, in the world, before I was born?", you'll discover the basic principles of it.
The concept of the world getting together and creating the idea of WWII, in an attempt to conceal the fact they spent that time in one enormous, drunken party, and creating documentaries, books, poems, pictures, films, etc. to fool the next generation and "have a laugh" - although, highly unlikely - isn't completely beyond the realms of possibility. How can we know, for sure, what happened before we were born? We can only trust the words of our elders. There are no absolute truths.
This leads us to think about the fact that your world only begins from the moment you're born, and ends the day you die. What you do in your life - who you fall in love with, who you meet, etc. - won't make a difference to you, when you're dead (unless, of course, you believe in the afterlife).
So, thinking on a much wider scale, will it really matter, ultimately, what people did with their lives and our planet, when the universe ends and/or our planet dies (which we're sure it will)?
That's not to say that I don't plan on having as much fun as possible, for the duration of my life; that'd be pointless. As 'Unbeliever' said, wishing death on the government, and the such like, would not be practical or useful, in any way. The governments provide us with stability (for the most part) and love provides the individual with a sense of happiness (although, usually followed by sadness), and I can't think of a better reason to live, other than to be happy and have fun. It's merely suggesting that, in the end, everything is/becomes meaningless.
Just my thoughts.
Philosophy is gibberish to me. I read The Republic as a child, but it seems likely that it was Aristotle who started the trend of actually believing any of us had a clue to what the hell is going on. It is frightful to see these legions of Philosophers and their legion of theories which have gotten us absolutely nowhere. I swear, for every million thinkers, there is a million answers, just like shrinks. Marx is the only person that made sense; it is too bad he wasn't also a pessimist, or he would've known there wasn't a chance in hell mankind could redeem itself.
You are missing the point of philosophy and you are forgetting what it's done for mankind.Quote:
Originally Posted by linz
You can't really win an argument against a nihilist either.
Rob from the "philosophy now" forums says this
I suggest reading Nietzsche's opinion of nihilism.Quote:
This ad infinitum argument means that the nihilist always wins the debate .... because he's the only one that starts with no "given" premise by which to judge one view versus another, so he can always take your argument apart by questionining what you have taken as axiomatic in your argument (eg that true is somehow, by some standard, more, er, "valid" (??) than untrue, which requires you, not him, to defend some starting-point or other for the debate. And there's no invulnerable starting-point, according to the nihilist. In fact, that prob answers the earlier question as to what a nihilist thinks. Logic bites its own tail and says that even logic is an arbitrary way of deciding between competing views. Shifting sands. No standpoint from which to argue one view more valid than another, not even logic. Nothing axiomatic, nothing more valid than anything else, nothing having more validity than anything else, no foothold to start from, not even Descartes',
Philosophy has mainly served humanity as a creative outlet, a chance for innovative thought. Whenever we've seen human progress there's been philosophy flourishing, Ancient Greece had many schools of philosophy, the Renaissance had Descartes who conceived of 'modern philosophy' and the Enlightenment brought a wealth of political philosophy and anti-system philosophies like existentialism and nihilism.
Nihilism itself is almost anti-philosophy, as has been described it states that nothing has ultimate meaning or purpose. If you consider philosophy to be of little use the likes of postmodernism and nihilism may perhaps be significant hindrances on the future of philosophy. Those two systems (or anti-systems, if you wish), especially the former, were the last big impacts upon philosophy. Even though many philosophers discard them completely contemporary philosophy does seem to be a bit shaken up since their arrival.
Opinion: If we live "in a postnuclear world of kafkaesque alienation", then nihilism would be my philosophy of choice. Existentialism is upbeat next to it. Is the world that bleak or can a more life affirming philosophy be found? When you read "Notes from the Underground", you find a kind of nihilism yet I see humour there, in the background. I can't afford a nihilistic point of view; the depression of it would be too much.
I always thought philosophy served its purpose by allowing people individual freedom to question what they've always presumed to be axiomatic.
I'd rather keep questioning, than conform to conventional ideas.
Yes, yes and no. I'm just trying to eliminate a philosophical choice from earlier days which have become a workload instead of a holiday. Questioning can be replaced by re-evaluation. Semantics, right? quasimodo1
What happened to mankind? Did he digest God somehow, forgetting he shouldn't make idols, except of himself?
How would you re-evaluate the concepts which have no definitive answer, when, a lot of the time, it's all down to personal belief and opinions?
You said you can't afford a nihilistic point of view because the depressive nature of the idea would be too much for you, whereas, on the other hand, I don't really see my views on nihilism as depressing. It's hard to come to a solid conclusion, when people have different thoughts and ideas, and feel different things.
To Endymion: Nihilism doesn't have to be depressing; perhaps it can be liberating. If you/one takes the point of view that "nothing matters" which is a distortion of nihilism in that it extrapolates; this philosophy doesn't say yes or no to any value system but it does say no to deistic belief system. You have said (quoted) something in latin;mine is rusty...is it Cicero? I accept the point entirely, nihilism can be positive. quasi
Yeah, I like the way it was put by Clarence Darrow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Endymion
"We are born and we die; and between these two most important events in our lives more or less time elapses which we have to waste somehow or other. In the end it does not seem to matter much whether we have done so in making money, or practicing law, or reading or playing, or in any other way, as long as we felt we were deriving a maximum of happiness out of our doings."
And a similar thought by Will Rogers:
"We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can."
I used to fret over the state of the world, and what it would be in the future, but now I've realized that I can only affect, if anything, the near future. Anything beyond that is not my responsibility, since I can have no effect on it. In a million years (or probably much less time) the very fact of my having ever existed will be completely forgotten, and I might as well have never been at all, for all the effect my life will have had on that furture world. And a million years is as an eye-blink in the long stretches of cosmological time. Only the here/now has any real meaning for me, and the farther I try to look ahead, the less meaning I can see related to my actions.
Quite a bit of philosophy is meaningless to me, as well. I've had to wade through a lot of BS in order to glean what I considered nuggets worth considering seriously. But I won't say it hasn't been fun!Quote:
Originally Posted by linz
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ce/laie_21.gif
I don't see the distinction between questioning and re-evaluating. Is there one?Quote:
Originally Posted by quasimodo1
"Any man can make a mistake; only a fool keeps making the same one."Quote:
Originally Posted by quasimodo1
Indeed, Cicero.
Ha! And solipsists can't live without themselves! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by rsorad3
In case anyone wants to read Fathers and Sons, here's a link:Quote:
Originally Posted by jphb
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ist/fas.htm
Actually, I find the nihilist point of view very liberating. I think that although it renders everything worthless, that doesn't mean, at least for me, that there is no beauty in this world to be admired. I think beauty is perhaps the only thing that keeps its value for a nihilist.Quote:
Originally Posted by quasimodo1
In this sense, the nihilist can adopt an observer's point of view. Also because if everything is worthless then, in a cerrtain sense, everything is worth the same, and this is an impartial point of view that I think is a necessary starting point for an observer's activity.
Regards
Nihilists lack the will humanity needs to finally move forward. Theists lack the way of thinking it takes to move forward. If people would start putting faith in themselves (and out of imaginary entities [theists] or nothing [nihilists]), then maybe mankind will finally progress.
People are, generally, selfish. When it comes down to it, most of us don't care about the future generations and what will happen to them; whether they'll progress, create new weapons or cure all sickness, because we'll, most likely, be dead.
And that's why we have philosophy. To counteract this selfishness and open up people's minds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Endymion