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by
Alan Pratt, Ph.D.
Nihilism
Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can
be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism
and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would
believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps,
an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists,
nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that
its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and
metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human
history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure,
value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists,
social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the
existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to
blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential
despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference,
often associated with antifoundationalism.
Origins
"Nihilism" comes from the Latin nihil, or nothing, which means not
anything, that which does not exist. It appears in the verb "annihilate,"
meaning to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Early in the
nineteenth century, Friedrich Jacobi used the word to negatively
characterize transcendental idealism. It only became popularized, however,
after its appearance in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons (1862)
where he used "nihilism" to describe the crude scientism espoused by his
character Bazarov who preaches a creed of total negation.
In Russia, nihilism became identified with a loosely organized
revolutionary movement (C.1860-1917) that rejected the authority of the
state, church, and family. In his early writing, anarchist leader Mikhael
Bakunin (1814-1876) composed the notorious entreaty still identified with
nihilism: "Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and
annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative
source of all life--the passion for destruction is also a creative
passion!" (Reaction in Germany, 1842). The movement advocated a social
arrangement based on rationalism and materialism as the sole source of
knowledge and individual freedom as the highest goal. By rejecting man's
spiritual essence in favor of a solely materialistic one, nihilists
denounced God and religious authority as antithetical to freedom. The
movement eventually deteriorated into an ethos of subversion, destruction,
and anarchy, and by the late 1870s, a nihilist was anyone associated with
clandestine political groups advocating terrorism and assassination.
The earliest philosophical positions associated with what could be
characterized as a nihilistic outlook are those of the Skeptics. Because
they denied the possibility of certainty, Skeptics could denounce
traditional truths as unjustifiable opinions. When Demosthenes (c.371-322
BC), for example, observes that "What he wished to believe, that is what
each man believes" (Olynthiac), he posits the relational nature of
knowledge. Extreme skepticism, then, is linked to epistemological nihilism
which denies the possibility of knowledge and truth; this form of nihilism
is currently identified with postmodern antifoundationalism. Nihilism, in
fact, can be understood in several different ways. Political Nihilism, as
noted, is associated with the belief that the destruction of all existing
political, social, and religious order is a prerequisite for any future
improvement. Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of
absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and
values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and
emotive pressures. Existential nihilism is the notion that life has no
intrinsic meaning or value, and it is, no doubt, the most commonly used
and understood sense of the word today.
Max Stirner's (1806-1856) attacks on systematic philosophy, his denial of
absolutes, and his rejection of abstract concepts of any kind often places
him among the first philosophical nihilists. For Stirner, achieving
individual freedom is the only law; and the state, which necessarily
imperils freedom, must be destroyed. Even beyond the oppression of the
state, though, are the constraints imposed by others because their very
existence is an obstacle compromising individual freedom. Thus Stirner
argues that existence is an endless "war of each against all" (The Ego and
its Own, trans. 1907).
Friedrich Nietzsche and Nihilism
Among philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche is most often associated with
nihilism. For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the
world except what we give it. Penetrating the façades buttressing
convictions, the nihilist discovers that all values are baseless and that
reason is impotent. "Every belief, every considering something-true,"
Nietzsche writes, "is necessarily false because there is simply no true
world" (Will to Power [notes from 1883-1888]). For him, nihilism requires
a radical repudiation of all imposed values and meaning: "Nihilism is . .
. not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually
puts one's shoulder to the plough; one destroys" (Will to Power).
The caustic strength of nihilism is absolute, Nietzsche argues, and under
its withering scrutiny "the highest values devalue themselves. The aim is
lacking, and 'Why' finds no answer" (Will to Power). Inevitably, nihilism
will expose all cherished beliefs and sacrosanct truths as symptoms of a
defective Western mythos. This collapse of meaning, relevance, and purpose
will be the most destructive force in history, constituting a total
assault on reality and nothing less than the greatest crisis of humanity:
What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is
coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. . . .
For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a
catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to
decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach
the end. . . . (Will to Power)
Since Nietzsche's compelling critique, nihilistic themes--epistemological
failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied
artists, social critics, and philosophers. Convinced that Nietzsche's
analysis was accurate, for example, Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the
West (1926) studied several cultures to confirm that patterns of nihilism
were indeed a conspicuous feature of collapsing civilizations. In each of
the failed cultures he examines, Spengler noticed that centuries-old
religious, artistic, and political traditions were weakened and finally
toppled by the insidious workings of several distinct nihilistic postures:
the Faustian nihilist "shatters the ideals"; the Apollinian nihilist
"watches them crumble before his eyes"; and the Indian nihilist "withdraws
from their presence into himself." Withdrawal, for instance, often
identified with the negation of reality and resignation advocated by
Eastern religions, is in the West associated with various versions of
epicureanism and stoicism. In his study, Spengler concludes that Western
civilization is already in the advanced stages of decay with all three
forms of nihilism working to undermine epistemological authority and
ontological grounding.
In
1927, Martin Heidegger, to cite another example, observed that nihilism in
various and hidden forms was already "the normal state of man" (The
Question of Being). Other philosophers' predictions about nihilism's
impact have been dire. Outlining the symptoms of nihilism in the 20th
century, Helmut Thielicke wrote that "Nihilism literally has only one
truth to declare, namely, that ultimately Nothingness prevails and the
world is meaningless" (Nihilism: Its Origin and Nature, with a Christian
Answer, 1969). From the nihilist's perspective, one can conclude that life
is completely amoral, a conclusion, Thielicke believes, that motivates
such monstrosities as the Nazi reign of terror. Gloomy predictions of
nihilism's impact are also charted in Eugene Rose's Nihilism: The Root of
the Revolution of the Modern Age (1994). If nihilism proves
victorious--and it's well on its way, he argues--our world will become "a
cold, inhuman world" where "nothingness, incoherence, and absurdity" will
triumph.
Existential Nihilism
While nihilism is often discussed in terms of extreme skepticism and
relativism, for most of the 20th century it has been associated with the
belief that life is meaningless. Existential nihilism begins with the
notion that the world is without meaning or purpose. Given this
circumstance, existence itself--all action, suffering, and feeling--is
ultimately senseless and empty.
In The Dark Side: Thoughts on the Futility of Life (1994), Alan Pratt
demonstrates that existential nihilism, in one form or another, has been a
part of the Western intellectual tradition from the beginning. The Skeptic
Empedocles' observation that "the life of mortals is so mean a thing as to
be virtually un-life," for instance, embodies the same kind of extreme
pessimism associated with existential nihilism. In antiquity, such
profound pessimism may have reached its apex with Hegesis. Because
miseries vastly outnumber pleasures, happiness is impossible, the
philosopher argues, and subsequently advocates suicide. Centuries later
during the Renaissance, William Shakespeare eloquently summarized the
existential nihilist's perspective when, in this famous passage near the
end of Macbeth, he has Macbeth pour out his disgust for life:
Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
In
the twentieth century, it's the atheistic existentialist movement,
popularized in France in the 1940s and 50s, that is responsible for the
currency of existential nihilism in the popular consciousness. Jean-Paul
Sartre's (1905-1980) defining preposition for the movement, "existence
precedes essence," rules out any ground or foundation for establishing an
essential self or a human nature. When we abandon illusions, life is
revealed as nothing; and for the existentialists, nothingness is the
source of not only absolute freedom but also existential horror and
emotional anguish. Nothingness reveals each individual as an isolated
being "thrown" into an alien and unresponsive universe, barred forever
from knowing why yet required to invent meaning. It's a situation that's
nothing short of absurd. Writing from the enlightened perspective of the
absurd, Albert Camus (1913-1960) observed that Sisyphus' plight, condemned
to eternal, useless struggle, was a superb metaphor for human existence
(The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942).
The
common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the
emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and
they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving
it was possible. Their answer was a qualified "Yes," advocating a formula
of passionate commitment and impassive stoicism. In retrospect, it was an
anecdote tinged with desperation because in an absurd world there are
absolutely no guidelines, and any course of action is problematic.
Passionate commitment, be it to conquest, creation, or whatever, is itself
meaningless. Enter nihilism.
Camus, like the other existentialists, was convinced that nihilism was the
most vexing problem of the twentieth century. Although he argues
passionately that individuals could endure its corrosive effects, his most
famous works betray the extraordinary difficulty he faced building a
convincing case. In The Stranger (1942), for example, Meursault has
rejected the existential suppositions on which the uninitiated and weak
rely. Just moments before his execution for a gratuitous murder, he
discovers that life alone is reason enough for living, a raison d'être,
however, that in context seems scarcely convincing. In Caligula (1944),
the mad emperor tries to escape the human predicament by dehumanizing
himself with acts of senseless violence, fails, and surreptitiously
arranges his own assassination. The Plague (1947) shows the futility of
doing one's best in an absurd world. And in his last novel, the short and
sardonic, The Fall (1956), Camus posits that everyone has bloody hands
because we are all responsible for making a sorry state worse by our inane
action and inaction alike. In these works and other works by the
existentialists, one is often left with the impression that living
authentically with the meaninglessness of life is impossible.
Camus was fully aware of the pitfalls of defining existence without
meaning, and in his philosophical essay The Rebel (1951) he faces the
problem of nihilism head-on. In it, he describes at length how
metaphysical collapse often ends in total negation and the victory of
nihilism, characterized by profound hatred, pathological destruction, and
incalculable violence and death.
Antifoundationalism and Nihilism
By
the late 20th century, "nihilism" had assumed two different castes. In one
form, "nihilist" is used to characterize the postmodern man, a dehumanized
conformist, alienated, indifferent, and baffled, directing psychological
energy into hedonistic narcissism or into a deep resentment that often
explodes in violence. This perspective is derived from the
existentialists' reflections on nihilism stripped of any hopeful
expectations, leaving only the experience of sickness, decay, and
disintegration.
In his study of meaninglessness, Donald Crosby writes that the source of
modern nihilism paradoxically stems from a commitment to honest
intellectual openness. "Once set in motion, the process of questioning
could come to but one end, the erosion of conviction and certitude and
collapse into despair" (The Specter of the Absurd, 1988). When sincere
inquiry is extended to moral convictions and social consensus, it can
prove deadly, Crosby continues, promoting forces that ultimately destroy
civilizations. Michael Novak's recently revised The Experience of
Nothingness (1968, 1998) tells a similar story. Both studies are responses
to the existentialists' gloomy findings from earlier in the century. And
both optimistically discuss ways out of the abyss by focusing on the
positive implications nothingness reveals, such as liberty, freedom, and
creative possibilities. Novak, for example, describes how since WWII we
have been working to "climb out of nihilism" on the way to building a new
civilization.
In contrast to the efforts to overcome nihilism noted above is the
uniquely postmodern response associated with the current
antifoundationalists. The philosophical, ethical, and intellectual crisis
of nihilism that has tormented modern philosophers for over a century has
given way to mild annoyance or, more interestingly, an upbeat acceptance
of meaninglessness.
French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard characterizes postmodernism as an
"incredulity toward metanarratives," those all-embracing foundations that
we have relied on to make sense of the world. This extreme skepticism has
undermined intellectual and moral hierarchies and made "truth" claims,
transcendental or transcultural, problematic. Postmodern
antifoundationalists, paradoxically grounded in relativism, dismiss
knowledge as relational and "truth" as transitory, genuine only until
something more palatable replaces it (reminiscent of William James' notion
of "cash value"). The critic Jacques Derrida, for example, asserts that
one can never be sure that what one knows corresponds with what is. Since
human beings participate in only an infinitesimal part of the whole, they
are unable to grasp anything with certainty, and absolutes are merely
"fictional forms."
American antifoundationalist Richard Rorty makes a similar point: "Nothing
grounds our practices, nothing legitimizes them, nothing shows them to be
in touch with the way things are" ("From Logic to Language to Play,"
1986). This epistemological cul-de-sac, Rorty concludes, leads inevitably
to nihilism. "Faced with the nonhuman, the nonlinguistic, we no longer
have the ability to overcome contingency and pain by appropriation and
transformation, but only the ability to recognize contingency and pain"
(Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, 1989). In contrast to Nietzsche's
fears and the angst of the existentialists, nihilism becomes for the
antifoundationalists just another aspect of our contemporary milieu, one
best endured with sang-froid.
In The Banalization of Nihilism (1992) Karen Carr discusses the
antifoundationalist response to nihilism. Although it still inflames a
paralyzing relativism and subverts critical tools, "cheerful nihilism"
carries the day, she notes, distinguished by an easy-going acceptance of
meaninglessness. Such a development, Carr concludes, is alarming. If we
accept that all perspectives are equally non-binding, then intellectual or
moral arrogance will determine which perspective has precedence. Worse
still, the banalization of nihilism creates an environment where ideas can
be imposed forcibly with little resistance, raw power alone determining
intellectual and moral hierarchies. It's a conclusion that dovetails
nicely with Nietzsche's, who pointed out that all interpretations of the
world are simply manifestations of will-to-power.
Conclusion
It
has been over a century now since Nietzsche explored nihilism and its
implications for civilization. As he predicted, nihilism's impact on the
culture and values of the 20th century has been pervasive, its apocalyptic
tenor spawning a mood of gloom and a good deal of anxiety, anger, and
terror. Interestingly, Nietzsche himself, a radical skeptic preoccupied
with language, knowledge, and truth, anticipated many of the themes of
postmodernity. It's helpful to note, then, that he believed we could--at a
terrible price--eventually work through nihilism. If we survived the
process of destroying all interpretations of the world, we could then
perhaps discover the correct course for humankind:
I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of
the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity.
Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is
a question of his strength. It is possible. . . . (Complete Works Vol. 13)
Author Information:
Alan Pratt, Ph.D.
Email: pratta@db.erau.edu
Humanities Department
Embry-Riddle University
Daytona Beach, FL 32174
USA
HomePage: http://faculty.db.erau.edu/pratta/
© 2001
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