Author: smadman

Objective Morality and “Living Without Morals”

Posted on by smadman

As you can probably tell from my previous post, I’ve been spending some time looking into atheism and the similarities between it and nihilism, and one similarity that I’ve come across that grabbed my attention was the theistic argument for objective morality. Basically, objective morality is the idea that there is a set of universal morals that prove to be factually true in all scenarios, forever. This usually works into religion because a deity of some kind implements these moral laws that are presented in whatever holy text is particular to that religion. Jehovah in the bible, sets forth 10 commands that should ALWAYS be followed. Those commandments are considered objective morals.

What atheism and nihilism share is the rejection of moral absolutes. Atheism, because of its lack in a belief in any supernatural beings to assert said laws, and nihilism for basically the same reason. A theistic “argument” for the existence of moral absolutes is that, (and I’m paraphrasing here) “if absolute morals don’t existence don’t exist, than what’s keeping anyone from doing whatever they want, whenever they want? Since there are no God-given moral guides to keep humanity in check than what is the problem with murder, rape, etc.”

The answer that seems to baffle those asking the question is, “nothing”. We don’t kill each other for no reason because it goes against (the majority) of our instincts. We share and help one another because it benefits the tribe and propagates the species. Humanity is designed (just a figure of speech) to do what benefits not just a singular person, but the most people possible. If we didn’t have those instincts we wouldn’t have survived this long as a species. We form subjective morals based off these instincts and societal consensuses. Laws are created not because some mythical sky daddy said so, but because it is what most people believe will result in a healthier society. Just because someone doesn’t accept proposed universal moral absolutes doesn’t mean that they’re going to automatically reject all preconceived morality.

Living without the belief in absolute morals won’t give any mentally sound person an excuse to do horrible things just because. Morality is derived from man, and as such suffers from imperfections, and varies from culture to culture. It is affected by outside forces and advancements in thought. I could get into why moral absolutism doesn’t make too much sense on it’s own merits, but for now I’ll leave it as a defense of moral subjectivity.

A Call to Inaction (Micro-Post)

Posted on by smadman

Disclaimer: This post will focus on a few topics outside, but related to, nihilism. If you don’t want to read about atheism than this post isn’t for you. Just to clarify, to be an atheist one does not need to be a nihilism or vice versa, I’m just acknowledging the connection I see between the two.

I’ve been thinking about the public perception of atheism and nihilism recently, and it seems to me that many think of these as “edgy”, pseudo-beliefs (or non-beliefs) that only prove an amount of immaturity on the part of the believer or non-believer. This misconception is not helped by the few who wish to propagate these ideas through intense and constant arguments and unnecessarily bring these ideas up. Even though the people who do this are in the minority, I just want to ask those who might find themselves bringing up these ideas just to start a debate or conversation to give pause and really think about the context of the situation. Is it appropriate to bring it up? Is everyone involved interested in having a discussion? Will bring it up seem arbitrary or forced? If you answer yes to any of these questions than please reconsider your course of action.

Recomended Reading (And Watching in Two Cases but There are also Film Adaptations of Some of the Books but That’s Up to You)

Posted on by smadman

Need some (mostly fiction) books to read to get a better idea of nihilism? Just want to sound pretentious and get a head start on your peers at hating life?  Well than do I have the list for you!

Bladerunner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Prod. Ridley Scott. Warner Brothers, 2007. DVD. A science fiction classic, Bladerunner follows a private detective, Deckard, on his mission to destroy rouge synthetic humans. Like most noire stories it uses Nietzsche’s idea of an ubermensch and translates it into modern society. Bladerunner gives the viewer a picture of how a man might function by sticking to his own morals and ideas of existence independent of the society around him.

Cultural Marxism the Corruption of America. Dir. James Jaeger. Matrix Entertainment Corporation, 2010. Video File. Youtube. Web, 26 Oct. 2014. A documentary film that covers the supposed rise of cultural Marxism in American society, and its detrimental effects on our society as a whole. Although it labels itself as a documentary, many of the facts and assertions presented are not cited nor a source referenced.

Bukowski, Charles. Factotum. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow, 1975. Print. Factotum is a semi-autobiographical story about a drunk and his attempts at both surviving in the real world and becoming a writer. Like The Stranger, the main character is bogged down by the meaninglessness of life, but instead of giving up on life like Meursault from The Stranger, he strives to live a hedonistic, self-centered lifestyle.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground. New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Print.

Notes from the Underground is an existential novella (with heavy nihilistic themes) about a misanthropic Russian, the Underground Man, who lives a lonely and overall painful existence. Like The Stranger and Factotum is serves as a warning for those willing to accept the tenets of Nihilism. It presents a possible scenario of self-destruction that could envelop one if only accept the meaningless of life and do not move past that stage into acceptance.

Kafka, Franz, and Ian Johnston. The Metamorphosis. Auckland, N.Z.: Floating, 2008. Print. A novella about the physical transformation of Gregor Samsa, traveling insurance agent, into a giant insect. The story deals with the themes of family, and the modern disposability of the working class. It gives insight into why nihilism was formed to begin with, and the issues that it strives to address.

Camus, Albert, and Matthew Ward. The Stranger. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print. A fiction novel about the life and death of a Frenchman who has lost all meaning in life. It gives insight into the detrimental effect modern society can have on people and on how embracing the meaninglessness of life can lead to destruction rather than release. Along with Notes from the Underground and Factotum, it addresses the pitfalls of nihilistic thought that can be detrimental to those unwilling to move past their own reservations.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Walter Arnold. Kaufmann, and R. J. Hollingdale. The Will to Power. New York: Vintage, 1968. Print. Another classic by Nietzsche, no I will not stop gushing about him, that outlines his idea of the titular philosophy through a collection of notes. It is a great source for getting an in depth explanation of his ideas and bases for nihilism. The Will to Power covers the ideas of objective truth, the lack of need for Christianity, what truth is, and the reevaluation of values based on these ideas.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Chicago: H. Regnery, 1957. Print. One of the original pieces regarding Nihilism from Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra follows an enlightening man coming down from his 10 year reprieve in the mountains to share his new wisdom with the people around him. It focuses on Nietzsche’s idea of the Ubermensch and how he would function in the modern world; that is, his process of teaching those around him of self-reliance in all aspects of life.

Annotated Bibliography

Guest Post: A Scholarly Analysis of Dinosaur Debates

Posted on by smadman

This next post was written by my close friend through the power of coercion.

comic2-14

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=14

Comic writer Ryan North seems able to take any topic, even the destructive side of nihilism, and make it seem light-hearted, silly, and, albeit a bit scaly around the edges, cute. Utahraptor serves his usual purpose in dispelling the hastily-crafted philosophical opinions of his natural-enemy-yet-best-friend T-rex, suggesting a plaintive, peaceful alternative to the violent side of nihilism. Yet, as is often the case, we get little sense of the author’s opinion on the subject; our main characters merely lay out two conflicting, yet logical opinions and we are left with the humorous debate as readers. This style of non-writing clearly has its place cemented in the internet culture of today, allowing fans of a plethora of viewpoints to collectively enjoy badly-drawn dinosaurs rambling about philosophical bullshit.

Yet, are we as consumers supposed to assume that the debate is self-contained and completed, not extending out of the permanent six panels of North’s limited artistic vision? No, no, and probably not? I don’t know for sure. Perhaps I should just enjoy the comic and move on. I like to make things more complicated though, so instead, I’m going to go for it: here’s an analysis of comic number February 18th, 2003, concerning T-rex’s arrogant view on nihilism.

We begin with T-rex midway in an internal debate: he has become detached from his world’s need for meaning and vows revenge on this world for confounding his vision and perception. Already we see a profound ignorance born of a linguistic fallacy. T-rex confidently asserts that, simply because he has not found reason inherent in every stage of his life, that it must not exist. Yet, his assault on the falsehood of perception relies entirely on his assumption that his current viewpoint, a perception like any other, is ultimately correct without need for objectivity or fact. Suffice to say, a more accurate introduction to one’s personal switch to nihilistic thought might go, “after examining what I can of my life, I have found that my viewpoints are often biased and there seems to be a lack of logical fact proving or disproving that nature of God or the Eternal. Therefore, as I can be completely sure of almost nothing, I am going to be decidedly non-trusting of ideas and experiences new and old alike, and continually examine the opinions of others and my own, until perhaps one day I feel comfortable enough in the objectivity of a philosophy to adopt it as my own”. Those of you familiar with Dinosaur Comics will probably note that this explanation is not necessarily past the upper-limit guarding word count in North’s panels, although it is significantly less funny.

However, T-rex’s argument, although sloppy, is not necessarily bad. Our culture promises both meaning and God, sometimes as a package deal. To be denied that which has been promised since before birth is to be denied identity, and to accept this is to entertain a controlled madness into one’s life, the primal nature of which finds relief in senseless violence, anti-social behaviors, hermitism or, in T-rex’s case, stomping. Utahraptor interrupts this hissy-fit by presenting what I consider to be a more mature viewpoint: perhaps T-rex is merely reacting to news he sees as bad, rather than accepting responsibility for his biases, examining life now that he had dismissed meaning, and acting not on impulse, but with the mission to make this life, however meaningless, worth it. Ah, sweet understanding. T-rex may argue that because his viewpoint is just as lacking in objective meaning as any other, that the philosophical “strong will beat out the weak”, but this is just a continuation of his reactive status. The true beauty in nihilism is it’s call, not to dismiss or destroy that which is there, but to act; to build a meaningful lifestyle from scratch, using equal parts skepticism and pragmatic judgment. Rather than getting angry at the world for not handing down your meaning to you on your 18th birthday, or in your first job’s contract, or in the face of your newborn child, take responsibility and make your meaning your own. If, in the end, it all matters not, take that for granted and start making your own path. Stick with Utahraptor and don’t let T-rex get you down!

Twitter Shenanigans and Nihilistic Misuse

Posted on by smadman

Having been browsing Twitter’s tag system for a little bit, I decided to do the ideological equivalent of googling my own name and searched for the nihilism tag. What I was confronted with was a deluge of idiocy and misspellings, but also quiet a large amount of people inappropriately using nihilism.

image

The user (of the word) seems to have included it to enhance his threat that he made on an online platform, presumably having never bet or seen the person he is threatening. Besides the ridiculous nature of the threat in the first place, what does “#nihilism” even mean in the context of his post? Being that he simply referenced its existence and implied that it had some sort of relevance to his post, I guess he thinks that: A. The simple act of including the world will make him seem smart, or B. The societal misunderstanding of nihilism and its meaning as a sinister non-philosophy will enhance the effectiveness of the threat. Both of these are completely nonsensical unless he’s threatening someone with a more skewed idea than him, so overall it’s simply a tacky non-word that serves no purpose for his statement.

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Without bringing #gamergate into this I will analyze this on its own terms. Anita (Feminist Frequency) is calling people who support #gamergate “mired in the nihilist misogynist mindset of 4chan”. Removing the nonessential parts of that phrase and we get “nihilist misogynist mindset”. By the accusatory tone of the tweet I’m going to guess that “nihilist” is used as an insult, further implied by its proximity to “misogynist”, a word that carries no positive connotation or denotation. Assuming the definition of nihilism that I stated in my first post, Anita seems to be implying that the #gg supporters have no intrinsic morals, and use that to support their misogynist mindset. First of all that is a large assumption on her part to call an entire group of people nihilist where in their collective goal and ideology has nothing to do with nihilism. Second of all, later in that tweet she claims that the #gg supporters are blinded by their beliefs, but isn’t that the exact opposite of what nihilism is? Wouldn’t a “true” nihilist (get me some sugar and a Scottsman) acknowledge their anti-women beliefs and continue on unabated rather than become blinded by their beliefs?

While this is pretty short I’m thinking of splitting this up into two parts. I just don’t want to go on for too long and turn this into a rant (he says sarcastically).

Anyway Happy Halloween and Scary Spooking!

Documentary Review: “Cultural Marxism – The Corruption of America”

Posted on by smadman

“Cultural Marxism – The Corruption of America” is a peculiar film, and one that I hesitate to call a documentary. A documentary film according to the Oxford dictionary is, “A movie… that provides a factual record or report.” I cannot in full confidence say that this film meets those standards as it fails to site or reference nearly every single assertion made in the film. Statistics are used without source, definitions are referenced from nowhere in particular, and connections are made without an in-between explanation. I will state that I found this film to clash with my own personal morals and beliefs, and my intense criticism is most likely affected by this clash in ideologies. Even with that disclaimer in mind I find it hard to excuse the film for its numerous assertions and presentations of “facts” that seem to fit its narrative rather than reality.

Before I go farther I should give a summery for those who wished not to partake in the film; I do not blame those who opted out of its viewing. “Cultural Marxism – The Corruption of America” presents a morally and politically conservative libertarian view of modern American society and on the rise of what it calls “cultural Marxism”. It claims that “cultural Marxism” is the weakening of conservative, Christian American values to make way for a Marxist revolution. This may sound crazy on paper, and it sounds just as crazy in the film. Tinfoil hats are a must.

What this has to do with nihilism overall is it’s identification of nihilistic values (hehe, look a funny), no morals from a higher power, freedom based on personal choice, with this supposed Marxist infiltration of our culture. While I can see both sharing certain characteristics, demonizing any alternative philosophy other than western conservatism doesn’t lead to much. Picture and clips of Hitler and Charles Manson are played when the narrator talks about “modern cultural values”, and almost all quotes from Marxists are read in hilarious European accents that I think were used to make the information used in the quotes seem foreign and therefore, according to the film, evil. Overall, only watch if you have an hour and a half to burn, along with some serious curiosity about what goes on inside the minds of hardcore, evangelical conservatives.

Verdict: Old Man Yelling About the Jews/10

Link to Movie:

Nihilism is Not Dead

Posted on by smadman

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304743704577379830492408956
“Nihilism is Dead” by Robert Zaretsky
The name of the article seems to be used ironically rather than seriously. A joke for those already familiar with philosophy, and a seemingly unintentionally sardonic counterpoint to Zaretsky’s main idea. He describes Nihilism’s rise through Ivan Turgenev’s character Yevgeny Bazarov, from the novel Fathers and Sons. Turgenev represented that periods powerless cynicism; a hatred of the government and their future, and of their place in it. Zaretsky asserts that Turgenev’s death was thought necessary by his creator, who was terrified by the philosophical implications presented by his character. He links this to Nietzsche’s writings, providing a good retrospective of nihilism and how it compares to today; however, his main argument that the Wests’s modern, jaded cynicism proves a partial adoption of nihilism’s tenets, without the the reconstructive elements provided by Nietzsche ignore the idea of a natural progression for philosophy and of distortion through the cultural lens that is western society.
Much like a prophecy yet unfilled, although the groundwork is laid out, the entirety still needs to be carried out. In my opinion, today’s ironic use of the idea of meaningless is simple the first stages of adopting nihilistic theory. Although it could be seen as a bastardization of what nihilism truly stands for, the next steps in human thought, it seems to me to simply be a vague version of idea’s propagated by nihilism finally beginning to show themselves in our society. YOLO and it’s hedonistic effects are society’s natural response to adopting a new cultural outlook. Sexual transparency went through the 1960’s indulgent hippy culture before becoming a measured social norm. The first fee years after a new philosophy comes into the public sphere it will be twisted and misused by those only looking for personal gain. After the initial introductory period though, things will cool down, those looking for instant gratification will leave, and the movement will be reclaimed by those looking for real progress.
Nihilism will continue to evolve beyond it current form to suit whatever new environment it is introduced to. In this case it just turns out that 19th century Russia is far different than modern day America. If one doesn’t allow for the idea of a philosophy’s progression than the tracking of it though history and geography will prove impossible, and nihilism is no different. While strangly optimistic, my hope for the spread of nihilistic thought can only be proven or disproven by time, and looking at how long it’s taken to get this far, it might be a while before I get my answer.

What Nihilism Means

Posted on by smadman

Nihilism as a concept seems to have a very negative public perception. It is relegated to those we deem villainous; a philosophical justification easy pinned on those whose reasons behind their actions we cannot easily understand. It is a catch all term to mean the pointless expression of evil; accepted by most as a singularly destructive doctrine with no redeeming value what so ever. This simplistic caricature could not be farther from the truth however many times it is parroted to the masses. Nihilistic though is, in its simplest form, a rejection of all inherent meaning. It embraces skepticism without the ideas of facts or truths. Nothing can really be proven to be completely truth, thus we must look at everything with a consistent suspicion.

By itself this may seem an impossible outlook. One where nothing can legitimately be believed, and the holder in a constant state of distrust. This would be, if it were the extent of the belief. The sane thing to do is establish effective truths. Truths which, taking into consideration all of your knowledge and experiences, are as close to the truth as you are willing to admit. These establish the basis for your worldly perception; factors that you can usually take for granted when creating judgments. As an example, for my own sake, I believe that every human has a unique and singular consciousness. I cannot prove this objectively, but it is my effective truth. It is better to believe this than not.

But why is it better to believe? If nothing is absolutely true than how do morals or ethics exist? What makes anything ethical? This question is the true beauty of nihilism. It allows for the acceptance of personal, subjective morals without universal ethical laws. A person’s actions can only be guided by their own moral standard without the requirement for any divine or inherent laws. A moral code that facilitates murder, rape or other socially unacceptable actions can be justified with nihilistic theory, but in the end it will have been that particular person’s morals and choices that drove them to commit those actions. No code or guide was given to them by nihilism itself.