Are you a nihilist?

V

version

Well-known member
If not, what's enabled you to reject it? Do you ever feel its pull? Some argue it's the default of our era, do you agree? Do you feel it in the air?
 
W

wild greens

Well-known member
I went through a stage of trying to read all those famous Russian books and failing- fucking boring- but if you read Fathers & Children i just got the impression nihilism is a way of describing depression before the yanks invented it
 
V

version

Well-known member
wild greens said:
nihilism is a way of describing depression
Click to expand...

Certainly can be, but I don't think that's the whole picture. There are people who don't see meaning in anything who are still motivated and do things and in fine spirits, and there are depressed people who aren't nihilists.
 
W

wild greens

Well-known member
Maybe by the modern definition but the original Russian nihilists were paralysed by their philosophy and did absolutely fuck all
 
W

wild greens

Well-known member
Tugenev was a fictional "realist" and the nihilist characters are caricature slurs of lazy depressed children, no? It's a terrible book
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Which great russian writers are nihilists?

Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol all devout Christians who satirised/slagged off atheists and nihilists. Chekhov was (presumably) a nonbeliever but his worldview seems far from nihilism to me.
 
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Deleted a post of hyper caffeinated bs earlier

No to the opening question. It’s endemic in Europe and combined with narcissism creates a potent twisted underlying foundation in creating and satiating our worldviews, sense of entitlement and material gluttony

No-one talks about death despite the fact we all die, despite the fact everyone we love dies, in an indifferent possibly infinite cosmos where in eternity nothing whatsoever remains of you. An event has happened and we are in it. The only sane response to me is living by the general rule - we are here to help each get through this thing, whatever ‘this thing’ is

You may have to pass through a figurative fire-cleansing ritual to pass through nihilistic persuasions to get to the conclusion, and no I am not stoned or thick enough to believe worldwide enlightenment is ever happening any time soon
 
W

wild greens

Well-known member
It has about ten different titles but Sketches from a Hunter's Album- you can get a different version called Sportsman's Sketches- is a load of Tugenev short stories that is really really good

Don't want to be unfair to the fella
 
mixed_biscuits

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
WashYourHands said:
Deleted a post of hyper caffeinated bs earlier

No to the opening question. It’s endemic in Europe and combined with narcissism creates a potent twisted underlying foundation in creating and satiating our worldviews, sense of entitlement and material gluttony

No-one talks about death despite the fact we all die, despite the fact everyone we love dies, in an indifferent possibly infinite cosmos where in eternity nothing whatsoever remains of you. An event has happened and we are in it. The only sane response to me is living by the general rule - we are here to help each get through this thing, whatever ‘this thing’ is

You may have to pass through a figurative fire-cleansing ritual to pass through nihilistic persuasions to get to the conclusion, and no I am not stoned or thick enough to believe worldwide enlightenment is ever happening any time soon
Click to expand...
You rightly disparage nihilism while leaving unscathed its cause: the hitherto almost universally acknowledged permanence of individual consciousness, reality of meaning and value, and existence of a powerful unifying force beyond space and time.
 
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