Amateur Nihilism

Most ought to know the concept of Nihilism, which is life-annulment and/or self-hatred.

A large portion, perhaps a majority, perhaps 99% of humanity, have degrees of self-hatred, self-contempt, and resentiment. I will argue and demonstrate that these feelings (of inferiority) are directly wrought from upbringing, genetics, and specifically, the reproduction of the (lower-inferior) slave castes of the world. In other words, Nihilism is an ideology produced by the slave classes, over time, that have evolved along with humanity and human history, as methods with ‘coping’ with reality, a specific reality insuch that people are enslaved throughout life.

You know what I mean, innately. So this will not require much of an argument on my behalf. Let’s call it “The Matrix” for the popular analogy. People live their lives in such ways that dissatisfaction and other self-doubts creep up and accumulate. Are you living the life you want? Do you feel restrained, in general? Are you free, or not? Aren’t you limited in various ways in life? Are you a victim? Do you identify as liberal-left? Are you “in control” of your own destiny? Do you have a faith, a morality, a sense of self-responsibility? Are you content with life? If you died tomorrow, or today, could you imagine being satisfied with what you had done or accomplished in life?

Perhaps there is a method that humanity could measure these “negative” feelings of life, the overall dissatisfaction and contempt. People refer to these as “negative” energy. Some people “suck the life” out of others, parasitically, a negative influence. Others, rarer, are more “positive”. The ones, usually younger, with a zeal for life, hopes, dreams, desires, idealism which has not yet confronted reality. Idealism and Nihilism mix well together. But a main point of this post is to clarify the differences between “negative” ideals and “positive” ideals.

Perhaps all ideals are Nihilistic in the sense that they express a discontent and dissatisfaction for “the way the world is” right now, currently. Who is ever truly and enduringly contented with life? And how does an individual become discontented in life anyway? Isn’t it by means of higher knowledge and wisdom, that the world could “be a better place”, or that any individual could reconfigure life and existence “to your own favor”? These are Platonic ideals spawning from the ‘Utopian’ concept. That is what is meant by “First Philosophy” of the Greeks. That life is not “as you wished it were”, and indeed, can never truly become.

This is the nature of Idealism. Idealism is very much alike Nihilism, because both represent a discontentment and dissatisfaction with “reality right now”. And this is a biological and genetic compulsion, an impulse, a reflex, an instinct. Because all life, all biology, operates and functions in such a way as to 1) propagate itself, and 2) manipulate environments according to its own benefit. The 2nd point is called ‘Adaptation’. And when organisms do propagate, known as sexual success, then the 1st point is called ‘Evolution’. Thus the Idealistic and Nihilistic components of life, are ultimately biological and genetic, innate within life.

Nihilism however is a different context, the “negative” force, the “bad attitudes” of life, the self-hatred which marks illness, disease, and mortality. People are weak. People are slaves. People struggle for power, control, authority, morality, throughout life. Every person, individual, has a different means to fight, compete, and gain ‘control’ in life. These struggles mean different things to different people. An “accomplishment” for one, is not the same for another.

To begin this thread or discussion, Nihilism is the avid rejection of reality, when idealism is confronted by and with realism. Ideals do not mesh with Reality. Ideal and Real do not mix. Nihilism is the absolute rejection of reality. Thus Nihilism represents a mix of self ‘hatred’, contempt, and fatalism, that clings onto some ideals. I will provide you with a few very popular examples:

The first major form of Nihilism is “belief in afterlife”, the Judeo-Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell.

The second major form of Nihilism is “Nirvana”, the ideal of being “at absolute peace”, annulling or rejecting reality (which is chaotic and conflicting).

The third form of Nihilism is Hedonism, rejecting reality and life by means of drugs, modern lifestyles, and frivolous (impotent) sex.

All of these, across the world, are the crutches and injections that most the world’s population use as means to ‘escape’ from reality. And perhaps it cannot be avoided, hedonism and decadence enjoyed in moderation only. But disease, illness, Nihilism demonstrate an addiction to these concepts. Just as Christians or Jews cannot imagine the universe and existence without (Abrahamic) god. Without an eternal, spiritual sky-daddy. Because to do so, to imagine existence, forced to confront reality, without a parental/authority figure, would force each and every individual, or society, into that direct confrontation.

You would become forced to take responsibility for yourself, completely, for the first time. You would be forced to fight and compete for your Autonomy, your self-locomotion, your destiny, all the subsequent choices of your lifetime. No excuses, no victimizaiton, no hope left, except to confront ‘Agon’ for the first or final time.

Imagine for a moment, a Christian or Jew, deprived of their god. What would life be like without that catharsis, without the indoctrinated hope and faith? Could people, the populace, survive without it? Can the populace become sober, and, for how long? How long until the relapse into drugs and pleasure-seeking?

Has humanity ever, really, managed to escape it?

You say all these things but have no understanding of anti foundationalism, entropy, or the crumbling of time.

Prove that you know what you’re talking about, give me several paragraphs demonstrating your knowledge.

Consider your bluff called.

Personally, I believe most crackhead females should be castrated so they can’t reproduce. Religious folks should be treated like clockwork orange, forced to watch videos demonstrating logic, reason, and the scientific method, over and over again until it is embedded in their brains.

What would the point be? You’re one of Satyr’s lackeys and even he has a misconstrued notion of what nihilism even is. Like him you think nihilism is the post-modern equivalent of the boogeyman for all the world’s problems.

Incidentally have you had any knowledge or understanding of nihilism you would understand that it is incompatible with liberalism. The real foundation of liberalism, egalitarianism, and communism is actually humanism not nihilism. Nihilism is anti humanism by the way.

i think both u and satman have a misconception of nihilism. while you are right that nihilism is just a boogeyman word, you are wrong that it is incompatible with liberalism. by liberal i mean the actual dictionary definition, not modern the political liberal party, an example of an actual liberal is the joker in batman.

Nihilism as explained by serious philosophers and Kids?

Personally, I don’t have access to the argument able to establish once and for all What Nihilism Is. Let alone the extent to which any particular take on it is or is not said to be “amateurish”.

Instead, my own interest here revolves more around engaging those who do claim to possess this knowledge.

And then taking the “philosophical” argument out into the world where all of us struggle to come to grips with, among other things, this: How ought one to live?

In a particular context with regard to particular behaviors in which different individuals insist that others ought to live as they do.

What then is the role that a more or less “academic”, “general description” assessment of nihilism plays?

Towards that end, I propose this:

1] we pick a moral/political issue that we are all familiar with
2] we note our own moral/political narrative regarding it
3] we note how this narrative either is or is not rooted in how I have come to construe – down here – the meaning of nihilism: embedded existentially in the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy out in the world of conflicting human behaviors

Anyone here care to go there?

I don’t even understand how it can be a position, but the many differing definitions definitely don’t help.

Nihilism is not for me a denial of reality only the notion that said reality has an objective raison d etre. The universe exists simply because it can. End of. So every
other explanation is superfluous from that point on. Regarding humans in this scenario you born you live you die in that order. After that brief existence you are in
a state of non consciousness till the end of time and beyond. Nothing matters in the grand scheme of things only in the here and now. You can accept it or you can
deny it. I prefer to accept it simply because it is true or at least true for me and it does not bother me at all. Nor should it for death [ again at least for me ] is the
end of all suffering so I have no reason to be afraid of it. Even more so as I cannot actually experience it so any fear would be entirely irrational. And that is what I
mean by nihilism and why I choose to describe myself in such terms

So to find out that you will not actually perish, only your human form, meaning you are an eternal conscious being, would that knowledge change a Nihilists mind or reaffirm that it matters not for I have no choice but to endure indefinitely?

I already gave a few obvious examples of Nihilism in the modern world, if you would just read the OP.

Well, if, in your interactions with others, interactions that revolved around conflicting moral and political narratives, you were entangled in this…

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

…nihilism would become less a position than a frame of mind that stymies you. In other words, for folks like me, nihilism renders the following assumptions entirely problematic.

1] there is a “real me” that transcends contingency, chance and change
2] this “real me” is in sync with one or another understanding of “virtue”
3] “virtue” is embedded in one or another rendition of God, Humanism, ideology, nature.

To me, the OP is just another “general description” of human interactions given the manner in which you construe the meaning of amateur nihilism.

There are no particular contexts in which the meaning of your words become more fully embodied in extant discussions [or behaviors] that revolve around the relationship between how meaning is derived by any one individual and how that comes to be intertwined in the actual behaviors that she chooses. Behaviors embedded existentially in particular moral and political trajectories.

So…

1] pick a moral/political issue that we are all familiar with
2] note your own moral/political narrative regarding it

Then we can discuss nihilism in that particular context.

Also, how do you react to this…

1] there is a “real me” that transcends contingency, chance and change
2] this “real me” is in sync with one or another understanding of “virtue”
3] “virtue” is embedded in one or another rendition of God, Humanism, ideology, nature.

…given the manner in which you construe nihilism?

Then who or what are nihilistic folks, automatons without a purpose?

You say this as if it was true even though you cannot provide any evidence for it at all now can you
You say it because you want it to be true not because it is true and can you not see the difference

In any case I much prefer being dead for ever than being eternally conscious as that for me would be my idea of hell

One of God’s mercies may be the memory wipe upon rebirth which only seems a rebirth since the memory wipe took effect.

Now back to your regularly programmed Nihilism rigmarole (back on topic people…geez!).

I would still rather be dead for ever even with a memory wipe which incidentally is straight out of science fiction
The thought of eternal existence in whatever form would be too much for me and so death is far more preferable

Whoever said, “Life is fair?” Least fair of all, eternal life.

Not forgetting your completely ridiculous evidence free astral projection rigmarole

It is not about what is fair but what is true. What is objectively true. That is what I am interested in. Living now then
dying then staying dead forever is what seems the most likely scenario so that is the one I hold to be true. And this is
what I plan on doing. So death can take me any time it wants including right now. It makes no difference to me at all