Are you a nihilist?

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
hence finding a pastoral vocation if you’re inclined as such, many find their victories just getting through the day

coming through ultra nihilism I tried to shape it as when departing this life my metaphysical account has to be in the black

that’s not middle class existential angst, more you‘ve been loaned this body/time arc, try and leave a patch more functionally sound than when you found it
 

version

Well-known member
If we're talking in a cosmic sense, it seems you either have some form of religion or you inevitably end up at the nihilist position of an indifferent universe. Once you get down a layer or two, there's more choice as to what you assign meaning to.
 

wild greens

Well-known member

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version

Well-known member
But yes, conservatives would be one group who tend to use the term as a criticism. Some of the French theory lot, although accused of it themselves by the former group and others, tended to deploy it negatively, or at least neutrally, too. Someone like Lyotard or Baudrillard is describing rather than advocating.
 

wild greens

Well-known member
It's difficult to know what a nihilist is, really

If you think of Peter Stormare in Big Lebowski, floating about in an inflatable ring in a millionaires pool

This sort of flukey nihilism we can always believe in

To be a nihilist in a box room, wan and tired in a computer's blue light, bit different

I think for the most part once you have a kid such an idea becomes a ridiculous memory anyway
 

version

Well-known member
Yeah, I think there's the sort of cosmic nihilism mentioned earlier where you see an indifferent universe, but there's also the kind of nihilism where you have no morals and aren't motivated by anything beyond base drives. And yeah, I can see how having a kid could snap someone out of both. You've something more important than yourself at that point, although even that doesn't seem to stop some people.
 

version

Well-known member
But yes, conservatives would be one group who tend to use the term as a criticism. Some of the French theory lot, although accused of it themselves by the former group and others, tended to deploy it negatively, or at least neutrally, too. Someone like Lyotard or Baudrillard is describing rather than advocating.

Was wrong about this re: Baudrillard. He did actually describe himself as one and claim it was a good thing:

"There is no longer any ontologically secret substance. I perceive this to be nihilism rather than postmodernism. To me, nihilism is a good thing – I am a nihilist, not a postmodernist.

For me, the question is precisely this: why is there nothing, rather than something? To search for nothing, nothingness or absence is a good type of nihilism, a Nietzschean, active nihilism, not a pessimistic nihilism."


 

kid charlemagne

Well-known member
question cross posting here and poli. i was out with a girl and she broadly asked "if i have hope for the future". it wasnt tangetially related to anything entirely before in our convo, but i guess you could call us both "leftists". and as "leftists", who do we have to look up to? who is there for our beliefs? i will go see jesus before jesus comes to see us. but bernie sanders was i guess an option at one point, but he wasn't head strong enough and really built to win and lead as things played out. this is just a thought trap i fall into with my "beliefs". im not voting for trump or biden and i shun and disagree those who do, but i feel flat if rebutted with "well who then?". i dont fuckin know but not these two. the future doesnt look bright really either for my or "leftist beliefs" so is this how i have to live and think about politics for the rest of my life if things only look like theyre getting bleaker? and if this leads me to ignore politics and all, do i fall into nihilism? or is it just willful ignorance. sometimes i trouble myself in the balance between paying attention to politics and not. like i guess you should know whats going on, but whatevers going on is only getting worse
 

version

Well-known member
so is this how i have to live and think about politics for the rest of my life if things only look like theyre getting bleaker?

That's my experience, yes.

and if this leads me to ignore politics and all, do i fall into nihilism?

No, I don't think so. You don't have to be keyed into politics to create or find some sort of meaning for yourself. You can get it from all sorts of things.
 

Ian Scuffling

Well-known member
Agree with version. My experience has been that pulling out of this feeling, feeling as though I am metaphysically "in the black," requires a sort of paradoxical reengagement with politics with the knowledge that the American system especially is doomed. For me this has been labor organizing; the active participation in an effort to improve the lives of the marginalized. Kierkegaard's knight of faith comes to mind; the knowledge that one cannot effect the necessary change, but the movement, the "dance," towards it anyway.
 
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