Is nihilism just a fancier moral life?
- Maffei
- Posts: 38
- Joined: September 7th, 2017, 7:34 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Spinoza
Is nihilism just a fancier moral life?
I have the impression that the rise of nihilism in youth is nothing but a permanence of what Nietzsche points out as the ascetic ideal in Genealogy of morals. Feel confortable to correct my reading of Nietzsche if I'm wrong.
Nihilism is here comprehended as a will based on nothing. Incapable of having an active role on society by his own will, the nihilist find his will reacting to the active forces that attack him, putting himself in superiority (resentment, "I need to destroy the bad people") or inferiority (guilt, "I need to destroy 'the bad me' by a 'better me').
Once these motivations always depends on other people (or things) and often make the individual return to a terrible existential void, he finds a solution in abandoning all worldly expectatives and embracing nothingness (ascetic ideal). But from a nietzschean perspective there is no novelty here: we did it already by embracing religion or pure concepts of reason.
In this perspective the new nihilism would be just another way of running away and protecting oneself from the tragical conflict of emotions – an inevitable conflict that happens when we assume the responsability in creating our own values.
If possible, it would be interesting to give some ideias about why philosophy has been a refuge to this no-religious nihilism, since we can find many people interested in philosophy that calls themselves nihilists.
- detail
- Posts: 171
- Joined: June 1st, 2019, 1:39 pm
Re: Is nihilism just a fancier moral life?
destruction of ethical and moral values and then afterwards the nihilism. But nihilism is nothing constant for nietzsche , the nihilistic society abolishes for the utility of a few again it's nihilism and then tries to establish again moral values , which are constructed for the benefit of the few until those breakdown again and nihilism is reestablisched. Nihilism is a periodic state for nietzsche which is the only constant existent for mankind and with it the only philosophy worth beeing a european way to a buddhist like society (at least mentioned in the german edition of will to power).
- Hereandnow
- Posts: 2837
- Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars
Re: Is nihilism just a fancier moral life?
I like the question this poses, but nietzschean nihilism is not what philosophers find refuge in. The philosophical tendency to embrace nihilism, moral or otherwise, is not grounded in resentment and he need to feel superior to those who would otherwise stand out; so, if I take your meaning, this philosophical retreat from affirmation in the world is a retreat, if you will, from metaphysical affirmation. Philosophers feel that they are bound to justification, metaphysics, which has ruled thinking from centuries, has to be cast out. Kant went to great lengths to show why. The Nietzshean proposition is that metaphysics is entirely unnecessary, and he exposes what is really going on: this resentment you speak of. The ubermensch overcomes this resentment and is redeemed thereby.detail
If possible, it would be interesting to give some ideias about why philosophy has been a refuge to this no-religious nihilism, since we can find many people interested in philosophy that calls themselves nihilists.
Interesting question, to say the least, whether this redemption is adequate. I am reading Wittgenstein and came across this which made me see clearly I never understood what was behind his uncompromising ideas about logic and understanding:
‘What inclines even me to believe in Christ's resurrection? … If
he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like every human being … & we are
once more orphaned & alone. And have to make do with wisdom & speculation. … But if I am to be
REALLY redeemed,—I need certainty—not wisdom, dreams, speculation—and this certainty is faith.
And faith is faith in what my heart, my soul, needs, not my speculative intellect. For my soul, with its
passions, as it were with its flesh & blood, must be redeemed, not my abstract mind.
Always thought Wittgenstein was not capable of such a thing. One can be, it would appear, rigorously grounded in clarity and yet yielding to "metaphysics". I really have to read more W.
- Maffei
- Posts: 38
- Joined: September 7th, 2017, 7:34 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Spinoza
Re: Is nihilism just a fancier moral life?
I will use the work you cited to state my premise about Nietzsche's conception:
“This world is will to power — and nothing else besides? And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing else besides.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967: 550).
The will to power is what lies behind all nature and human actions. It is totally something, not nothing. So if you take away all moral values, what appears is the will to power. Nihilism would be negating that one acts on this basis, like saying "no, I don't do this by will", but in every and each case you are indeed doing it for your natural force of self-realization, because this supposed 'self' is actually the will to power acting through you. So, when someone put morals as his motivation, he is negating that acts by the force of life.
Morality is a form of negating that one acts by life; then nihilism is a negation of life, an illusion of being detached from the positivity of the will. That's the fountain of all confusion about Nietzsche's statements about nihilism: he can be considered nihilist only as a negator himself of moral values brought by institutions, but when he speaks of nihilism, he refers to the moralists. Nihilism comes from moral.
Since is impossible not to be motivated by something, the asceptic ideal is a "nothing that is something" to rely upon. After putting down all moral values you were talking about, the individual can take two different ways:
1. Admit that values are creations and take the responsability of creating your own values an live by them, whatever the emotional cost would be.
2. Being coward to face the contact with the world and putting a mask of superiority (like a new version of a stoic hero) not affected by the world because he is attached to God, to reason, to a happiness ideal or to his fake character in the internet.
What I want to know is if you agree that nihilism can be a form of new idealism analogue to the old forms of idealism/nihilisms. If it is, how it would substitute the old practices? If it is not, how it can be a sucessful detachment from the world and not just a resented reaction towards the internal wounds derived from painful interactions with the world?
- Maffei
- Posts: 38
- Joined: September 7th, 2017, 7:34 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Spinoza
Re: Is nihilism just a fancier moral life?
To understand what I mean by "new nihilism", we have to include nothingness or apathy as one more of this list of possible ideals to embrace (I guess you got my point already... no?)
Yes, this is his most known critique, but Nietzsche done more than destroying other's thesis. I wouldn't say that Nietzsche label metaphysics as unnecessary like the empirists, because if it was unnecessary to him, he would anyway recognize that metaphysics was necessary to the moral of the weak. The question is not only ontological, it envolves politics and psychology. He was denouncing that those absolutes were used to reproduce the will to power of their owners. But if you ask them, they would justify themselves in neutrality, obedience or worshiping an ideal. Could this apathic nihilism of 21st century be a new faith in nothingness?Hereandnow wrote: ↑June 11th, 2019, 11:57 am this philosophical retreat from affirmation in the world is a retreat, if you will, from metaphysical affirmation. Philosophers feel that they are bound to justification, metaphysics, which has ruled thinking from centuries, has to be cast out. Kant went to great lengths to show why. The Nietzshean proposition is that metaphysics is entirely unnecessary,
I am not certain of your course of argumentation that arrived in Wittgenstein. I don't think Nietzsche was trying to redeem thought from deceit, so I don't see if there is an opposition here. Seems to me that this excerpt of Wittgenstein meets the nietzschean tendency to appreciate our instincts, but the later would point out that this need of certainty is already a symptom of not trusting in what life will bring to you. Therefore a sign of weakness
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023