“To finish with a more concrete example: from the nihilistic perspective, while there is no real solid foundation for embracing a god or a religion, there is equally no solid foundation for (even if it was proven wrong or nonexistent beyond doubt (for not embracing a god or a religion. Likewise, while there is no solid foundation for embracing a given ethical position, there is equally no solid foundation for not embracing that ethical position.”
My main point here is that Nihilism (or the nihilistic perspective, like nothing, does nothing; it always has. But it has always been there waiting. Once again:
“To make things worse, those who embrace nihilism tend to compound this understanding of nihilism (or what I call the nihilistic perspective (through what I consider a rather shallow understanding of the implications of nihilism: that which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being tapped into the underlying nothingness of reality, the fact that we are when we could not be as we are as compared to the 6.5 million other people we could be. Ultimately, what it comes down is authentically trying to understand the implications of that underlying nothingness, that implied in Leibniz’s question:
“Why all this rather than nothing?”
It goes back to Socrates confession that he knew nothing through the romantic break from the classicist hierarchy as well as Enlightenment’s break from religion to Nietzsche’s (via Hegel (proclamation that God is dead on through existentialism’s experimentation with the underlying nothingness of consciousness to its full expression in postmodernism via (post) structuralism.
And given the history that Marmysz describes:
“This seemingly bleak and depressing philosophy of life has been wrestled with by many of the world’s greatest thinkers, most of whom, like Beauvoir, have endeavored to reject it, and move beyond it. Thus we find philosophers such as the Buddha, Immanuel Kant, Max Stirner, Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, and perhaps most explicitly, Friedrich Nietzsche, struggling with the problem of nihilism, proposing their own ‘solutions’, and suggesting ways that might guide us on a path toward the overcoming of our despair.”
:it is easy to see how the more pop-nominal description of nihilism would have taken hold like it did. And we can see the source of it in (neo) classism as Marmysz suggests:
“Traditionally, philosophers have recoiled from incongruity, seeing in it something illogical, irrational. As such, incongruities have normally been thought of begging for resolution, eradication, or at the very least, some sort of clarification.”
What we’re talking about here is a perfectly natural human need to maintain order. Hence, the recoil from incongruity in the face of the general ungroundedness of things which is an expression of the underlying nothingness. It comes out of a failure to really explore the implications of that ungroundedness (that nothingness (reinforced by the fact that the nihilistic perspective can never really be looked straight on, can only glance the corner of the eye because it always stands outside of the symbolic order we find ourselves living in. The problem lies in the classicist tradition described above that the nihilistic perspective has always lain in wait to undermine. And it’s not something you can just say, “Sounds like a good idea”, and embrace and understand. It is, rather, something that comes to you through an ongoing process of (self) deconstruction. In this sense, it’s a lot like Alan Watts’ (and I’m kind of revealing my influences here (concept of “letting go”: that which cannot happen until you let go of the idea of letting go.
But while I am perfectly empathetic with the conventional understanding of the nihilistic perspective (just a misunderstanding to me, what is truly odious to me is the self serving misrepresentation of the so-called nihilists –as was parodied in the movie The Big Lewbowski. They’re the ones that act like nothingness must have some kind of fixed trajectory into negativity. While Marmysz’s move from the pop understanding of nihilism to his conclusion (and even if I have issues (was consistent, theirs fail miserably in their failure to truly explore the implication of the underlying nothingness, ungroundedness, or the incongruity of reality for the sake of self indulgence.