nihilism

I asked You for a break, and ill be back shortly. Don’t be so eager to disprove a partial derivitive

Back, thanks Iambiguous.

Now where was I?

Ok. The differing contextual history of Dasein. Try to put it as simply as possible , so that most of the confusion can be put to the disassociation between building up and tearing down of civilizations as we have come to know it.

Or, constructing it and deconstructing it.

One must agree, we should, that Nihilism, passive or active appear as opposite ideas, in fact deconstruction entails tearing down of rational apprehensions, again as we know it.

Tearing down started a long time ago, after Hobbs and those guys started to whack away the famous cogito, and that mode or the irrational sneaked into the equation.

Take equation as a metaphor if You like, for Leibnitz did in fact let it sneak in the back door , being a mathematician and a superb philosopher concurrently.

So. As time went on and modernity became more and more irrational- we arrived to post modernism, with the various methods , with differing post modern philosophers interpreting the trend, or the process with which to back up their volumes and volumes of flows of ideas, each one borrowing from the other, they shared knowledge and often became each others students and teachers.

But to return to Dasein, there were oriental authorities backing up the idea of Dasein, and will dig it up for You, not today, but tomorrow for sure, and You can hold me to that.

But the idea is someone faded, even though I reasoned with it only a month ago: but in a nutshell, it consists of the idea that da sein and das ein are relatable structurally as illustrative of the idea brought up, in this forum, that das is neutreal German, whereas der and die are masculine and feminine respectfully.

Again I will illustrate this when more time becomes available. This is an important idea, for Dasein is not a static idea, but moves along temporally from all the way back to Hegel I believe and through Heidegger and Jasper. Even now Jasper’s influence is taken up by more recent thinkers , and it would maybe worth it to follow that through, nominally at least.

So, with that, it is worth it to connect dots, that involve Dasein with what You and I must admit I find our self in a state of fracture, and as You suggested, another break occurs when the philosophy of Jaspers, who was both, psychiatrist and philosopher-compares with the earliest. and MORE inclusive definitions of Husserl-Heidegger.

I am for it, and it excites me to be able to delve into it, and as You can see, by now, from no other motive then that I really love philosophy.

I may, or should I say, I will have more time next week to go over some of the missed stuff, and hopefully search the soft drives that have the required references.

That we do, both of us, construct and deconstruct language, is no willful attempt to misrepresent anything, first-we are prevy to the times we are living in, and second- we try to do our best to express meaning and opinion with the cards we were dealt with and to use them in a manner that our tools can accord toward that objective.

So, since You have given me a certain engaging motive, with or without congruent participation, (or any other member’s) I shall further develop this forum.

Of course You can reserve the right to abrogate, or whatever, since it is, after all Your forum, if You wish to look at it in that manner.

I do agree with Your positing Dasein as the fulcrum upon which any further discussion can hinge.

As far as the tools are concerned , the three main ones that help to bring the study of nihilism together were, and still consistently are :

Transcendentals
Universals
and Game theory.

These are really the skeleton upon which the prime facie skin of most philosophical concerns appea. to be built upon , and muscle develops the ability to apply them , through them.

This method, corresponding to The Method written, again to the method Descartes so famously wrote about explains the pivotal paradigmn position he has been accorded within the lengthy history of philosophy.

I would consider Will Durant to be this type of analysis, and though it’s skin deep, I’d rather start with him then say the equally famous Tractatus of Wittgenstein.

But that choice is a matter of preference.

I wouldn’t have said it better myself.

Ok, but then, do You want to go into it , more in depth, or, refer to it by and by? Nevertheless I will search for the promised reference to begin with.

And another thing. How would You like Your orange juice pulp or no pulp, or some?

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

Just out of curiosity, to what extent did Nietzsche himself accomplish this?

In other words, it’s one thing to erect new values in a series of aphorisms in a series of books. To intellectually broach the uberman as a philosopher in a world of words.

But out in the world, given his interactions with others, what did he actually accomplish by way of embodying these bold new parameters?

Any advocates of Nietzsche here familiar with that part of the story?

Just doubts? How about the passive nihilist who remains passive because he has thought himself into believing that any new values are no less subsumed in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy? How about the passive nihilist who seems convinced that “I” can never really become this vaunted uberman because in making the transition from might makes right to right makes might, he is no less “fractured and fragmented”?

Instead, he sees any number of wannabe ubermen [like the folks over at Know Thyself] creating their own world of words reality out of “general description intellectual contraptions”. Autodidactic assessments in which their own “superior” intellect is predicated almost entirely on their own rendition of this:

1] I am rational
2] I am rational because I have access to the objective philosophical truth
3] I have access to the objective philosophical truth because I grasp the one true nature of the objective world
4] I grasp the one true nature of the objective world because I am rational

Thus the author trudges on in promulgating his own intellectual facsimile…

To believe in what? In what context? Regarding what conflicted behaviors? Pertaining to what conflicted goods? Derived from what particular sense of identity?

Come on, have “you” ever known a nihilist to drink orange juice?!

We all drink Dr. Pepper, Squirt or Mountain Dew.

And, incredibly enough, no one knows why.

Maybe akin and cause to the Zen of refreshment?:

‘Some have argued for an origin of Dasein in Chinese philosophy and Japanese philosophy: according to Tomonobu Imamichi, Heidegger’s concept of Dasein was inspired—although Heidegger remained silent on this—by Okakura Kakuzo’s concept of das-in-der-Welt-sein (being-in-the-worldness, worldliness) expressed in The Book of Tea to describe Zhuangzi’s Taoist philosophy, which Imamichi’s teacher had offered to Heidegger in 1919, after having followed lessons with him the year before.[15] Parallel concepts are also found in Indian philosophy[16][17]’

{ implying ‘in der Welt’ to BE a neutralized (nihilized assumptive synthesis)>>>>>placed in a role that is more suitable in neutral situational contexts<<<<< ? >>>>>}Schopenhauer - ‘The world as Will and Representation’

Now Nietzche pounces on Schopenhauer’s 'passive nihilism, and here it’s of interest to note Schpenhauer’s orientalism, and refer this to the following:

‘Passive nihilism, on the other hand, is epitomized by resignation; the prognosis that life is an “unprofitable episode,” (in Schopenhauer’s words). Nietzsche equated passive nihilism with Schopenhauer’s repudiation of life via the denial of the Will as a great threat. Nihilism in its passive form, while adopting the same prognosis of existence as active nihilism, thus nevertheless takes the opposite stance of active nihilism as to how we should respond to the problem of a meaningless, value-less, and chaotic existence.’

{See how the circle closes? }

{It ain’t broke, and promised to keep it alive }:

Anyway who thinks Nietzsche is a nihilist must have never really read anything he’s written. The great obsession of Nietzsche’s thought is to overcome nihilism; but to overcome nihilism you have to see it for what it is, look the danger of nihilism in the face with unremitting courage, and this requires recognizing that all the seeming bulwarks against nihilism — scientific culture (objective truth), Christianity — are themselves symptoms of nihilism. Overcoming nihilism requires new values, and indeed, values based on an affirmation of valuation itself.

From the preface of the Will to Power :

For one should make no mistake about the meaning of the title that this gospel of the future wants to bear. “The Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values”-in this formulation a countermovement finds expression, regarding both principle and task; a movement that in some future will take the place of this perfect nihilism-but presupposes it, logically and psychologically. and certainly can come only after and out of it. For why has the advent of nihilism become necessary? Because the values we have had hitherto thus draw their final consequence; because nihilism represents the ultimate logical conclusion of our great values and ideals-because we must experience nihilism before we can find out what value these “values” really had.- We require, sometime, new values.

{Can we/ i sustain the dots connecting any possible idea? That is in essence, is what structural good faith implies.
That is really the only antidote .available!}

On one hand you could call all those ‘tablets of faith’ aspects and symptoms of nihilistic thinking (what was that essay… how truth finally became fable or something like that). But on the other hand, the practice of ‘christian’ behavior and belief in objective truth are not things put into man by nihilistic thinking… rather something about his nature - prior to any analysis - is found in the character of christian morality and the practice of inductive reasoning. Man is naturally inclined to make just such errors in reasoning, and these errors have even helped him. Nietzsche’s nihilist is someone who has not come to terms with the aimlessness of existence, the absence of any unity or ends in nature, and the lack of freewill… someone who cannot, or I should say ‘doesn’t believe’, in creating values despite these missing features. And so far, no, we haven’t seen anything of real atheism yet. Who said it; our atheists are much too pious.

But that aside, christian and objective ways of thinking are not nihilistic in a functionalist sense because they’re trends of thinking that have proven to be useful. But in an essentialist sense they’re nihilistic because they require belief in falsities in order to create value. But they create value nonetheless and are therefore not ‘nihilistic’.

Nietzsche tended to ignore the evolutionary basis for sympathetic and compassionate behavior. But anthropology was young then. In a sense he confused a cause with an effect; christian ethics and scientific methodology were memes expressing genetic qualities, not vice versa. The inclination to cooperate with others is already there. It isn’t ‘christian’. And the inclination to use logic in reasoning is already there. It’s isn’t ‘scientific or objective’.

Correct, but human merely human, as Jesus has trypartial truth as derivatives to sublimate lack of structural development.

Greco Roman, Oriental (Tibet and the Silk Road,) and Jewish: he could merely juggle the terms, where as induction is merely of retroeffective substitution for a necessity equally retrofitted to specification.

That is why he had to pass over.
I’m just guessing for the appropriateness of the term.

Maybe I’m close but I will look it up.

The holiday originated in the Torah, where the word pesach refers to the ancient Passover sacrifice (known as the Paschal Lamb); it is also said to refer to the idea that God “passed over” (pasach) the houses of the Jews during the 10th plague on the Egyptians, the slaying of the first born.

{The last Supper was the Passover meal} affirmed by the Apostles - Nitzche, could not help but including the Judio-Christian denial within a wider affirmation, in a transvaluatio n- that is why Wagner dismissed him , as a reductive effect of a relentless auto-erotic devolution: for was Nietzhe’s father not an instigator of a Lutheran conscious?

That is why the sinless orientalism ties into all 3: Schopenhauer, Heidegger , and Nietzche. It was a flow, -which Wagner tried to unsuccessfully and totally negate.

Wagner became to successful sentimentality, who set up the crusade toward annihilation. He either missed the mark, or, deliberately misrepresented it-reducing the will to apprehension.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE !

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

Actually, when others are described to be nihilists in accounts today the focus is either on the fierce means they employ in pursuit of one or another “kingdom of ends”, or because their views are such as to actually be an attack on one’s own.

I can’t recall a single reference to nihilism in the media these days that comes even close to my own entirely existential assessment.

Defined? Right. As though a thoroughly comprehensive definition can in fact be concocted and made applicable to a world as phenomenally complex and convoluted as to include, among other things, the “human condition”.

In any event, you know where I insist that any definitions “thought up” here must go. Not only out into the world of human interactions but made germane to an actual set of circumstances where the word nihilism might reasonably come up. When, for example, making a distinction between meaning derived from the either/or world or meaning derived from, well, take a wild guess.

Again, not my own rendition. Not an assessment derived from daseins confronting conflicting goods in a world ever and always embedded in political economy.

I challenge any Nietzschean here to explore that with me “in a particular context”.

As for the epistemological, ethical and metaphysical components of nihilism…how far from the domain of the “serious philosopher” will he go?

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

Again and again and again: here, in my view, we can only go back to what must surely be an enormous gap between what each of us as individuals think we know [about anything] and all that there is to be known given the perspective of some entity [which most call God] privy to comprehending everything there is to know about existence itself.

For some, like me, this encompasses a particularly grim sense of futility; one that is considerably more demoralizing than in how others seem to react. Some in fact just shrug it all off and seem more than content with embracing what they consider to be all that they need to know in order to propose all manner of completely “thought up” narratives about the “human condition”. There are any number of ILP members who have themselves offered us their own elaborate set of assumptions about the way things are and why and how they got that way. Some through God and some through sheer “philosophical” deduction. No need to mention names but you know the ones.

Of course from my frame of mind there tends to be two things they all share in common:

1] they almost never bring these “worlds of words” down out of their own theoretical clouds bursting at the seams with all manner of “thought up” assumptions

2] none [to my knowledge[ have ever succeeded in demonstrating why all rational [and in some cases virtuous] men and women are obligated to think the same…through a philosophical equivalent of the “scientific method”.

Instead, I construe their efforts as more a psychological contraption aimed at providing them with an intellectual foundation they can attach “I” too in order to attain and then sustain a measure of solace in a world that can often be brutally painful. Like ours todays.

I am not able to go this far myself. There are simply too many things that we can know [and share with others] in regard to the either/or world to make this frame of mind plausible. Do not mathematics, the laws of nature, the empirical world, the rules of language provide us “for all practical purposes” from day to day to day, with all of the standards, foundations and grounds needed such that “knowledge claims” exist that we are readily able to demonstrate as in fact true objectively for all of us?

This begins to crumble for me only in acknowledging at least the possibility of Sim worlds, dream worlds, computer generated realties, or the stuff explored in sci-fi accounts.

Or the possibility of solipsism or determinism.

Why? Because, again, the gap between “I” and a definitive understanding of “all there is” is still very much the reality we all interact in.

But it’s not for nothing that the overwhelming preponderance of us go about the business of living our lives day in and day not at all paralyzed by the thought our interactions cannot “philosophically” be made to correspond with “reality itself”.

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

Again, in regard to creating and then sustaining meaning, all we can ever really hope for is embedded in our capacity to demonstrate [to the best of our ability] that which we have ourselves come to conclude is true objectively for all of us.

What in particular are we claiming to be true…based on what particular past experiences? Do we have both the argument and the empirical evidence to back up our claim? What actual scientific evidence is being claimed? How might others replicate that claim themselves? What specific words in what specific passage relating to what specific event or occurrence is able to be examined as logical or not logical?

I can only keep going back myself to the gap between whatever experience, science and logic seem to tell us about “I” out in the world, and how all three are fully understood only by going back a complete understanding of existence itself.

Until that day, the meaning [and the breadth] of nihilism can only be explored one context at a time.

The fact that mistakes are made in regard to what something is said to mean seems to indicate that there is in fact a correct meaning. And science comes a hell of a lot closer to that than do ethicists. There are simply things that all of us can know in regard to the natural world and its material laws. What then does it mean to be a nihilist here? Unless, of course, you go all the way out on the limb and probe those things that science is not nearly as certain about. The really big questions for example. But even that doesn’t necessarily lead to the conclusions that some ascribe to nihilism. Meaning is just murkier out there.

But what are the “foundations” available for ethicists that might lead to discovering even broader foundations still? Here, for me, nihilism revolves more around the possibility that in a No God world the first foundation may well be derived from the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. Here, as in the either/or world, there are facts that revolve around meaning that we all can understand and share. Until different people reacting to the facts come to very different conclusions when it comes concurring in turn about the answer to such questions as, "what does it mean to choose moral behaviors in regard to _________________.

Just fill in the blank with any conflicting goods that matter to you.

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

In this case it would seem there really isn’t much at all – if anything – that isn’t encompassed epistemologically in nihilism. Aside perhaps from determinism. In a wholly determined universe even knowledge itself – our own or that of some extraterrestrial species – is inherently subsumed in what can only possibly be.

As though any of us can even wrap our heads around that.

But given some measure of human autonomy, we don’t even know all of the things that we don’t even know at all about existence. Or, rather, I don’t.

My own understanding of nihilism then is predicated on the assumption that I do have the capacity to freely speculate about my own knowledge. But only in the context of acknowledging all that I don’t know that can be known. And only insofar as I make this distinction between [b][u]I[/b][/u] the either/or and “i” is the is/ought world.

Sans God, I am not able to grasp how one can know which behaviors are able to be demonstrated as either good or bad. Morally, ethically, politically.

Back again to this distinction:

“Passive nihilism is more the traditional ‘belief that all is meaningless’, while active nihilism goes beyond judgment to deed, and destroys values where they seem apparent. Passive nihilism signifies the end of an era, while active nihilism ushers in something new.”

Of course once again the author leaves out any actual context. Being or not being a “radical skeptic” in regard to what? What alleged knowledge relating to what human interactions in which the “active nihilist” as opposed to the “passive nihilist” would explore nihilism as an epistemologist might? What might the active nihilist come up with as “new” in any subsequent “era”?

Instead, for the pedant…

Got that?

Actually, it is completely over my head. In that I cannot connect these words to anything substantive relating to the life that I actually live.

Can you?

Hell, for all intents and purposes, it could have been written by Satyr.

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

Here things get tricky for me.

Until we are able to grasp an understanding of existence itself [which may not even be possible] what does it mean to speak of nihilism epistemologically? After all, in regard to what we either can or cannot know about the totality of reality itself how are we are not always back to this:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

Instead, my own understanding of “moral nihilism” revolves around the distinction I make between objective knowledge derived from interactions in the either/or world and subjective/subjunctive claims of knowledge in the is/ought world. The gap between knowledge that we seem able to demonstrate as applicable to all of us and opinions embedded in our reaction to human interactions in which conflicts occur regarding behaviors deemed to be either right or wrong. The part I root in dasein.

But: As long as there are things in which objective claims of knowledge appear to be exchanged and then sustained year after year after year, where exactly is the line to be drawn between truth and opinion in regard to conflicting goods?

And each of us here is basically in the same leaky boat that has capsized philosophers going back now thousands of year. Boats filled with holes that are unable to be plugged with arguments that settle once and for all what really is the right and the wrong thing to do.

Here instead of there. Now instead of then.

Except of course in any particular philosopher’s head.

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

First, of course, if a God, the God does in fact exist, then whether your behaviors are ends in themselves or merely a means to immortality and salvation, what difference does it make if on Judgment Day there is an objective font from which to make that crucial distinction? If you behave virtuously on this side of the grave, is God really going to send you to Hell because your virtue was not motivated by/for the right reasons? Besides, one suspects that human motivation here is almost always going to be a complex intertwining of means and ends. You choose morality because you are obligated to, but also because doing the right thing creates and then sustains human interactions able to be construed subjunctively as the best of all possible worlds.

And if you are able to think yourself into believing that your happiness aligns perfectly with virtue how hard is it to conclude further that this a necessary interaction? After all, there are so many rationalizations available to you in order to embody further still the perfect combination of psychological defense mechanisms.

Where to begin! For example, when the reasons that liberals give for choosing progressive behaviors come into fierce conflict with the reasons that conservatives give for choosing their own rendition of that.

And out on the radical left and the radical right end of the political spectrum, reasons also come into conflict. Karl Marx meet Ayn Rand.

And then there’s the “fractured and fragmented” assessments of folks like me.

If this truly were the case would not every Kantian around the globe today be able to synchronize their own moral and political agendas so as to be as one in regard to the most reasonable behaviors that virtuous men and women are obligated to choose?

For example, in this day and age, is it more logical to continue social distancing policies or to open up the economy? Is it more rational to mandate that all citizens be vaccinated against this infection or to make it strictly voluntary?

And, besides, this logic is still no less backed up by a transcending font. The Kantian equivalent of God.

Nihilism
Nolen Gertz at the Aeon online site

And logic would seem to be inherently tricky given the gap between its use in the either/or world and in the is/ought world. For example, the rules of language made applicable to a description of a prison execution vs. the rules of language made applicable to a discussion of whether capital punishment is, in fact, rationally, “cruel and unusual punishment”.

Then the further leap extrapolating virtue from rationality. If executions are inherently rational, must they then be inherently moral?

And – rationally – should this be made a universal truth regarding all executions or given any number of mitigating and/or aggravating sets of circumstances should rationality be assessed only one execution at a time?

In other words, the subjunctive “I”. That aspect of my “self” in the brain intertwined with complex emotional and psychological states intertwined further in subconscious and unconscious reactions to the world around us intertwined further still in even more deep seated instinctual drives.

Then the parts rooted in ever evolving and changing historical, cultural and experiential memes?

Is it any wonder then that the biological evolution of matter into the self-conscious mind allowed for objectivism? The capacity of “I”, as of now, to just inexplicably “flick a switch” and make all of these convoluted complexities just disappear?

Then the only question is the extent to which it is all nature given a wholly determined universe.

Here, in my view, in regard to meaning in our lives, folks like Nietzsche are just alluding to this:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

The part I take back to the gap between what we think we know about the “human condition” and all there is to know going back to that elusive understanding of existence itself. Where does Kant fit in there?

There is what various philosophers have taught us to think about reason, there is what we have taught ourselves to think about it and there is how that is profoundly, problematically intertwined with “I” as an existential contraption rooted in dasein.

Symbolism, Meaning & Nihilism in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
Mark Conard reveals the metaphysical truths lurking under the rug in Tarantino’s cult classic.

Whatever it is one describes Pulp Fiction to be, it is clearly populated by characters that live far, far, far beyond the parameters of what most consider to be a moral universe. Basically these folks are sociopaths. All they ever seem to be concerned with is in satisfying the next itch – for drugs, for money, for sex. It is ever and always me, myself and I. The only hierarchy that seems to exist at all revolves around might makes right.

And, from my point of view, this is the most dangerous manifestation of nihilism. Why? Because, with people like these, the reasoning mind is “for all practical purposes” defunct. And forget about appealing to human decency. Plus, you can’t exactly shame or embarrass or humiliate them into doing the right thing. At least with nihilists who wrap their motivation and intention around an ideological or political agenda – anarchists, say – you can appeal to them with some measure of intelligence and coherent thinking.

But not with these grotesque postmodern caricatures. You get out of their way or you do what they tell you. After all, for them everything revolves solely around not getting caught. By the law. Or by those actually able to exact consequences.

The author then provides a three part summation of the movie plot and his take on the main characters.

This is something that has always intrigued me. The way our “late-capitalist-postmodern-world” has mass produced literally millions upon millions of citizens who seem obsessed only with 1] pop culture 2] consumption and 3] celebrity.

But: It’s almost impossible to link this with nihilism because, well, there it is, everywhere: on TV, in the movies, on records, embedded in virtually every pursuit that the lowest common denominator “masses” are invested in. Even in the midst of a deadly pandemic the “party hardy” “youth culture” crowds are shown trekking to the venues that have come to encompass our me, myself and I pop culture.

In fact, even Pulp Fiction itself becomes just another part of it all. It’s not like most of those who left the theaters back then were bent on discussing the way in which nihilism was explored and depicted in the film.

Instead, when most conjure up cinematic nihilists in their head, they are more inclined towards the characters portrayed in Reservoir Dogs. Truly scary fucking men.

Symbolism, Meaning & Nihilism in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
Mark Conard reveals the metaphysical truths lurking under the rug in Tarantino’s cult classic.

Here’s the actual words from the Bible:

“And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”

But, really, what’s the difference? The whole point of having words of this sort to fall back on is to justify anything – even killing – in the name of the Lord. And what could possibly serve as a greater antidote to nihilism than that?

After all, as long as you have something to fall back on other than the crass motives of a sociopathic hoodlum, It allows for some measure of sanctity. Whatever is actually unfolding in the mind of Jules Winnfield at the time of each killing, the viewer can always imagine that he has convinced himself there is in fact righteous intent.

But: we know that this is not the case at all. Why? Because Jules himself, personifying the cold-blooded nihilistic psychopath, spills the beans:

“I’ve been saying that shit for years, and if you heard it – that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant – I just thought it was some cold blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass."

And if this isn’t construed by most to be what nihilism is all about, there aren’t many other film characters that surpass it. Unless it’s Maynard and Zed. Nothing cannot be rationalized when your point of view revolves entirely around “what’s in it for me”?

Not unlike the mentality that pervades street gangs, outlaw biker clubs and organized crime cliques…the infamous 1% hell bent on taking what they want and dispensing with anyone who gets in their way.

Aren’t they the nihilists that we most fear? The ones that, in today’s world, we are most likely to actually come across. The might makes right factions that can and often do get away with, well, anything that they can. They do unto others whatever suits them. The whole point is in not getting caught. Or, if caught, being able to thump the ones that caught you.

These folks:

I always construed the contents as being anything the viewer most fears about characters of this sort. Their own rendition of being in Room 101 with them.

Symbolism, Meaning & Nihilism in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
Mark Conard reveals the metaphysical truths lurking under the rug in Tarantino’s cult classic.

Again, the characters we come across in Pulp Fiction become particularly ominous for most of us.

On the other hand, they are just like us in having acquired value judgments and in ascribing meaning to the things that are important to them in the course of actually living their lives from day to day. It’s just like unlike most of us, these value judgments and this meaning is derived from the fact that for whatever personal reason [rooted in dasein] they have chosen to become sociopaths. And power becomes important here as the font which they can fall back on in determining a hierarchy of behaviors within any particular criminal community. And between “outlaw” communities. It’s just that some sociopathic entities have more rules than others. Organized crime families, street gangs, motorcycle clubs. Some actually have elaborate codes of conducts. Others don’t.

And then those who more or less operate on their own. And who is to say which are the most dangerous if you happen to come in between them and what they want.

And, for many, they have come to encompass nihilism at its most menacing and treacherous.

From my own frame of mind, however, a font is a font is a font. Whether, as a moral narrative, it is a God or a No God rendition, it’s basically providing one with a foundation that, psychologically, one can anchor “I” too. It’s just that with God that anchor continues on into the next world.

And, even with Aristotle, it’s not what he said or believed, but what he was able to demonstrate as being true for all of us. What is the essential reaction that all rational men and women must have in reacting to the characters in Pulp Fiction? I certainly cannot demonstrate that moral nihilism accounts for their existence, but that is because I predicate this on the mere assumption that we live in a No God world.

Bingo! Another “general description intellectual contraption” that crams concepts like “virtue” and “nature” and “essence” and “reason” and “best life” and “highest good” into a world of words. Right? But when the focus is on a particular set of behaviors in a particular context we come at each other from many different conflicting points along the philosophical, moral and political spectrum. Instead, there is only the historical gap between back then in Ancient Greece and right now in our postmodern technocratic world. But surely Aristotle would construe the world created by Tarantino in Pulp Fiction as anything but what he imagined human interactions at their best might be.

And so, as rational human beings, must we.