Philosophy Now Forum

The realization of Nihilism as the ultimate truth for all life forms, would be the benchmark of the maturity of the human race. By first understanding life's relation to the physical world. Once this is common knowledge, that nothing in the physical world in and of itself has meaning, all meaning depends upon life. In the absence of a conscious subject, the world is utterly meaningless. Meaning is how stimulus affects a biological subject, this gives more knowledge about effects than about the sources of the effects, thus it is a reality known only to the consciousness experiencing the stimulus, basically the energy forms around us which manifest for us as object. Wonder why you seem to experience yourself as the center of a personal universe? This is what each manifestation of a life form experiences, for biology is the meaning and measure of all things, and without which there is no meaning, no measure whatsoever.

For Friedrich Nietzsche, nihilism is a terrible psychological problem – a coping mechanism with deadly consequences
Kaitlyn Creasy

So far, nihilism has been presented as a cognitive phenomenon involving various belief-states and the absence of certain value commitments. In order to understand a second sense of nihilistic life-denial in Nietzsche’s thought – and, in turn, to understand why Nietzsche presents nihilism as a terrible problem – we must look to his analysis of nihilism as a psychological phenomenon. Any belief or judgment involving a negative evaluation of existence as a whole – whether overt or covert – will be designated life-denying, and thus nihilistic, by Nietzsche. But he also thinks that such beliefs and judgments are life-denying in a much deeper sense: they either originate in or provoke various forms of psychological life-denial.

Well, for me, of course, the psychological angle revolves around what I call the "psychology of objectivism" in this thread: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

Then back to this:

Kaitlyn Creasy wrote: Let us return to the individual who believes that life is worth living only if there is some higher purpose to it, in which all human beings participate. For such an individual, it is not only nihilistic to disavow her belief in a higher purpose; it is also nihilistic for her to believe in a higher purpose.

That's confusing. How is it nihilistic to believe in a higher purpose? Other than by way of being so obsessed with embracing one's own Kingdom of Ends that any and all behaviors are then justified in going after those who do not or will not share it. It's like those who argue that fascism can be rationalized given a certain set of assumptions about the human condition, but the Nazis were nihilists when they took it too far and endorsed and participated in the Holocaust.

I simply do not construe nihilism in this manner. Either that or I am not understanding her point. Everything ultimately revolves around what you deem to be the source of meaning in your life. And if you do manage to "think yourself" into believing in a higher purpose, that is the opposite of nihilism for me. Unless "life denying" itself is understood to be based on the assumption that there is no essential meaning and purpose to human existence. Something akin perhaps to the existentialists who argue that in predicating one's values on the assumption that essence is prior to existence is to live one's live inauthentically?

First, on Nietzsche’s view, life-denying beliefs and judgments tend to originate in individuals who are alienated from or averse to life and existence.

Gasp!

Of course that is likely to be true. If [philosophically or otherwise] you are in the asshole of life your beliefs and judgments will be all about either ending your own life or fomenting the next revolution to configure the world around you more to your liking. But from my frame of mind denying life or afforming life is still no less rooted existentially in dasein. And thus beyond the reach of philosophers in a No God world. And what some insist is life-denying others will insist in life-affirming.

This is what he intends to capture when he insists in The Twilight of the Idols that the same judgment of life that the ‘wisest sages of all times’ have reached – that ‘it’s worthless’ – originates in these individuals’ ‘fatigue with life’ and ‘hostility to life’. To judge that life, as it actually is, is not worth living is a symptom of a dangerous weariness with life, an inability to effectively engage with one’s world, grow in one’s form of life, and flourish.

So, what do some do? They conjure up the Übermensch and make them the new masters of the universe. A life-affirming narrative for the very. very few who are "one of us".

Here, for example: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

Then back to this:

This holds regardless of whether such a judgment is covert (for example, if one believes in a higher purpose, and takes that as a reason to affirm life) or overt (for example, if one disavows a higher purpose, and takes that as a reason to reject life).

Again, for those who either do or do not affirm life...how much of that is rooted in philosophy and how much in the actually circumstances of their lives themselves?

For Friedrich Nietzsche, nihilism is a terrible psychological problem – a coping mechanism with deadly consequences
Kaitlyn Creasy

...Nietzsche thinks that the adoption of life-denying beliefs is an unconsciously deployed coping strategy, utilised by individuals weary of life and unable to engage effectively with the world.

Well, if one believed this, what does that tell us about the limitations placed on philosophers in attempting to explore any beliefs about life? To the extent that our subconscious and unconscious minds play an important role in how we interact with the world around us, how much of those interactions are then "beyond our control"? Especially when coupled with the parts of our brain related to instinct and drives...all of the primordial "id" stuff.

And taking a leap of faith to autonomy?

And to some extent, this strategy works. If the disengaged, world-weary individual adopts the belief that there is a higher purpose to life around which she might meaningfully orient her life and action, she will likely experience an alleviation of her weariness with life and re-engagement with her world.

She and millions more...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...like her. Objectivists I call them. Those able to anchor their Self morally, politically and/or spiritually to one or another religion or ideology or Ism. And, in having been one myself for the bulk of my life, I know what it's like to have it all crumble away. And here I am hoping to find someone able to restore it all again.

Yet by adopting the belief in a higher purpose, Nietzsche argues that such a person is merely coping. While her investment in this belief secures her survival, it secures little else. Though she staves off that psychological form of life-denial Nietzsche deems ‘suicidal nihilism’, she is not thereby able to grow and flourish.

Or, as I put it, nihilism can be used by some to "liberate" them from one or another rendition of "What would Jesus do?". It's a trade-off. If you are able to convince yourself that there is a higher meaning and a higher purpose to living your life, that can be enormously comforting and consoling. Especially if it includes immortality and salvation. But it also anchors -- chains? -- you to a set of options ever and always in sync with the One True Path. Nihilism expands your existential options considerably. But there is nothing that you can attach those options to in order to bring back the comfort and the consolation you once sustained as an essentialist.

For Friedrich Nietzsche, nihilism is a terrible psychological problem – a coping mechanism with deadly consequences
Kaitlyn Creasy

This notion to which Nietzsche hopes to bring his reader’s attention – that a change in certain life-orienting beliefs or value commitments can provoke profoundly life-denying changes in one’s emotions and motivational states, and ultimately hinder one’s flourishing – makes good sense.

Yes, but it makes considerably more sense to some when ascribed to one's circumstances in life rather than one's philosophy. If enough existential variables in your life go south -- health, relationships, finances etc. -- not only is your flourishing hindered, but your very "will to live" itself can begin to crumble. Whereas if your objectivist philosophy of life collapses -- God or No God -- you can still sustain a life filled to the brim with experiences and relationships that fulfil you...that make your life well worth living.

If you were once energised by your belief that you participated in some transcendent purpose beyond yourself – perhaps the Christian God’s divine plan for your life – and you come to believe that there is no such purpose after all – perhaps you no longer believe in God – you lose a life-animating force. If that was the primary animating force of your life – or if you have no other animating force – you will feel unmoored, demotivated, disengaged from the world you thought you knew; your desire and/or ability to go on living as before may be compromised.

Yes, this can be the case. No doubt about it. For some, to lose God or to abandon a cherished political ideology or a philosophy of life can become so overwhelming, there is no coming back from it. This too is rooted existentially in dasein. Each of us come to anchor our Self in these objectivist fonts from different frames of mind and given different sets of experiences. I myself lost God and Marxism and socialism. Even existentialism in terms of imagining that a life could be lived more or less "authentically". In regard to value judgments "I" am now fractured and fragmented. But I was able to "carry on" given all of the things in my life that do still fulfil and sustain me. Experiences that simply do not need a "transcendent purpose beyond myself."

As Nietzsche puts it in his On the Genealogy of Morality, in such a case, there is a real risk that your ‘physiological capacity to live’ will decrease. If, furthermore, you continue to value such a purpose despite your disavowal, as scholar Bernard Reginster points out in The Affirmation of Life, feelings of existential despair – which can obstruct an individual’s ability to effectively engage her world, pursue her goals, and grow in her pursuits – are sure to follow.

Yes, from time to time "existential despair" creeps up on me. I think back on the years when I too was able to anchor my Self in some overarching Meaning and Purpose. And, sure, I wish that somehow I could get it back again. But it is still the existential parameters of my life that most rivet my own occasional distress and despondency. The part about oblivion for example.

For Friedrich Nietzsche, nihilism is a terrible psychological problem – a coping mechanism with deadly consequences
Kaitlyn Creasy

Teasing out these different senses of nihilistic life-denial is necessary in order to understand just how dire the problem of nihilism is on Nietzsche’s view. What is problematic about nihilism is not the adoption of surprising and controversial new beliefs or the rejection of conventional moral values.

On the contrary, for any number of men and women, it is precisely these controversial No God beliefs...beliefs precipitating the rejection of conventional moral values...that confronts them with all manner of problematic consequences: how ought one to live? And thus the birth of any number of secular dogmas...both political/ideological and philosophical/deontological.

If an individual can hold what looks to our eyes like a nihilistic belief – perhaps that there is no purpose to life – but continue to find life worth living and grow in her form of life, then this is a sign of psychological flourishing.

Exactly. Nihilism as a philosophy need not become a part of one's life at all. Or even if someone does accept that their own life is essentially meaningless, there are still any number of experiences they can pursue that make their day to day existence fulfilling. Millions go about living lives that are flourishing without ever giving Nietzsche a single thought.

And then on a more ominous note the psychological flourishing of the sociopath. Nihilism taken to the extreme. It's just that some sociopaths are more familiar with Nietzsche than others. Some are the way they are because of the circumstances in their lives. They don't spend much time thinking about why they are that way. Others do go down deeper...intellectually, philosophically...and actually rationalize/justify being sociopaths in a No God world.

In such a case, this apparently nihilistic belief poses no problem at all. Instead, whether various beliefs we adopt or intellectual stances we inhabit count as problematically nihilistic has to do with the psychological dynamics that both produce and are produced by those beliefs.

And how is that not rooted existentially in dasein...in the lives we've lived and live now.

The fundamental problem of nihilism consists in the damaging psychological dynamics it involves. The attitudes we typically associate with nihilism – such as those we find in The Big Lebowski or No Country for Old Men – are important to notice or disrupt only when they indicate or produce damaging emotions and motivational states.

Whoa...

Comparing the three buffoons in The Big Lebowski...

"Walter: No, Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of."

...with Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men?!

Chigurh seems in part to be just another sociopathic thug...but every time he flips that coin he is reminding us of something about life that does go deeper: the Benjamin Button Syndrome manifesting itself in a hitman.

You never really know when you meet someone new whether he or she is a sociopath. Someone out to use or abuse you for their own selfish gratification. Someone that, if things become dire for you, you can't reason with. You can't explain to them the part about categorical and imperative moral obligations.

Nihilism is the door to the freedom of the individual; the meanings and values laid down by our ancestors were their creations. When one understands that the physical world in the absence of a conscious subject/life form is utterly meaningless, one must realize that it is the conscious subject/life form that is the measure and the meaning of all things. So, choose your measures and meanings carefully. The ruffly uniformly meaning of things is due to our common biology.

10 Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić

Friedrich Nietzsche, who died in 1900, wrote in his book “Will to Power”: “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. This history can be related even now; for necessity itself is at work here.” Nietzsche defines nihilism as a process in which “the highest values devalue themselves.”

The “the highest values devalue themselves”? Of course, values are something that we create. They don't create themselves. And just as there are reasons why we value some things and not others, there will be reasons why we choose instead to devalue some things and not others. Which is why an "intellectual contraption" of this sort will only really make sense when it is situated out in a particular community of men and women. What specifically do they value and why. What might happen to prompt them to change their minds and devalue what they once did value?

With Nietzsche of course what changed is that we killed God. Or, rather, some did. And, among other things, killing God requires us to "think up" another possible moral font that we can turn to in order to justify one set of behaviors over another. But: what if there is no secular equivalent? Or [perhaps] worse, what if [as it turned out] there are many hopelessly conflicting fonts that come along and we can't be sure which one comes closest to God.

And, in any event, No God, and no immortality and salvation. And that in and of itself changes everything.

He believed that the advent of nihilism is an unstoppable process; the “preparations” for it had been taking place for decades, in art, philosophy, and history itself. Morality was a great antidote against nihilism, but those values are, according to Nietzsche, put in question; the Enlightenment failed to provide us with a substitute, thus nihilism is a logical conclusion of our realities.

On the contrary, the Enlightenment is the classic example of how, once God is no longer the center of the universe, any number of Humanisms can then scramble to take His place. But alongside the Enlightenment, the capitalist political economy surfaced. And that changed everything as well. With capitalism the moral compass shifted dramatically from the village and the community to the family and the individual. More and more things revolved around the market. And with the advent of the industrial revolution came nothing short of staggering changes for human interactions.

What of morality now in this brave new world?

He also writes: “The philosophical nihilist is convinced that all that happens is meaningless and in vain.” The spirit of a lack of meaning is omnipresent in “No Country for Old Men”, although Javier Bardem’s character Chigurh attempts to overcome nihilism and create meaning in the characters’ squandered lives, as it is suggested in the novel.

In fact, many of the characters here reflect this sea change that has unfolded over the centuries. The obsession with money. And with all of the material things that money can buy. That's the whole point of creating sheriff Ed Tom Bell. He's there to remind us of how things once had been. It was still capitalism back in his day but somehow the capitalism embedded in the 1950's had morphed hideously into "late capitalism"...a postmodern dystopia where almost everything really could be "rationalized". And a world where more and more the sociopaths were popping up everywhere.

A ‘Joker’ — and a world — gone mad from nihilism

Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix alike imbue the character with such fundamental dignity, even in his abasement, that we never forget that we are called to love him, not laugh at him.

Tara Isabella Burton

Whether you’re a comic books-to-screen movie fan or not, you’ve probably run across the rampant discussion of “Joker,” the last film in the Batman franchise.

Of course the Batman saga itself goes all the way back to 1939. And the Joker character made his first appearance in 1940. So, it would be interesting to note the gap between Joker as first imagined by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson and the TV/movie renditions of him over the years. Was nihilism [and mental illness] ever deemed to be a component of his character way back then?

In other words, will the real Joker please stand up?

The movie itself is a Scorcese-style pastiche directed by Todd Phillips that reenvisions Batman’s most famous antagonist as Arthur Fleck, a sad-sack failed comedian who has been driven, by a combination of mental illness, societal alienation and sheer nihilism, to absurd violence.

Hmm, let's connect the dots: https://screenrant.com/joker-king-of-co ... n%20common.

Rupert Pupkin/Arthur Fleck: "Robert De Niro as Rupert Pupkin, a struggling stand-up comedian with mental health issues who longs to appear on Langford's show." wiki

Only [to me] The King of Comedy was more about the "made in America" obsession with fame. No one gets killed.

To many of its progressive critics, “Joker” is a glorification of the plight of self-pitying white men, and those lonelyhearts known as “incels” in particular. Or maybe, if you read economist Tyler Cowen’s blog, Marginal Revolution, the film is a thorough condemnation of populist movements like antifa: One of Fleck’s early acts of violent self-defense inadvertently launches a wider and even more chaotic movement of resentment-fueled clowns, keen to bring down Gotham’s unjust elite.

Pick one:

1] your rendition of "woke"
2] their rendition of "woke"

Is Arthur Fleck your champion or is he really just a ludicrous -- demented -- clown?

At least until the workers of the world do unite and bring down the elite as disciplined revolutionaries. After all, much that unfolds in Fleck's life is clearly "inadvertent".

But at its core, “Joker” is less about any specific 2019 political phenomena — be it incels or Occupy — than it is about nihilism itself: What does it mean to live in a world without any meaning at all?

Of course...nihilism as far out as one can take it: no meaning at all.

On the other hand, my nihilism revolves more around the manner in which the world we live in today is bursting at the seams with meaning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

Go ahead, pick one. Then insist it is in turn the One True Path to, well, whatever you believe that to be.

10 Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić

Death of old values; nothing replaces them

This is applicable to me because some years ago I was [time and time again] able to reconfigure my own value judgments from one objectivist font to another. Both God and No God. Now, however, given the assumption that we live in a No God world, I have come to conclude instead that objectivism itself revolves more around wanting there to be an overarching "meaning of life" that one can anchor their Self to. In other words, in order to sustain a certain measure of comfort and consolation. It's basically a way to feel as though one's life is a part of something that transcends what might be construed to be an utterly insignificant [and essentially purposeless] existence given the staggering vastness of all there is.

When a madman in Nietzsche’s “Gay Science” proclaims the “death of God”, it does not mean simply that there is no God. Atheists proclaimed that much earlier. What it means is that old values are in a tailspin. The tragedy lies in the fact that nothing replaces them. This void that comes to being is the essence of nihilism.

Here, of course, we know better. Mere mortals, even in rejecting God, were, are and probably always will be able to "think up" secular equivalents of God. Either philosophically or politically:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

In fact, there are actually very, very few men and women around the globe who would call themselves nihilists. Instead nihilism is more likely to be manifested in the policies of those who run the world economically and politically, or in the amoral pursuits of the sociopaths. Nietzsche isn't likely to come up much at all among them.

The very name of the movie “No Country for Old Men” implicates that there is no place for “old men” and old values in the new world devoid of meaning. They are obsolete. References to this idea are made at various points throughout the movie. For example, when Sheriff Bell and his colleague from El Paso discuss the radical changes in their society, the latter says: “It’s all the goddamn money, Ed Tom. Money and the drugs. It’s just goddamn beyond everything. What’s it mean? What’s it leading to? You know, if you’d have told me 20 years ago I’d see children walking the streets of our Texas towns with green hair, bones in their noses, I just flat out wouldn’t have believed you.”

On the other hand, there are lots and lots of young men and women embracing the likes of these political communities: https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingm ... -extremism

Though, sure, it is certainly the case that with respect to things like money and drugs and those far-out lifestyles, there are many, many, many men and women "out there" who don't give a shit about much else.

A ‘Joker’ — and a world — gone mad from nihilism
Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix alike imbue the character with such fundamental dignity, even in his abasement, that we never forget that we are called to love him, not laugh at him.
Tara Isabella Burton

That the Joker’s humanity is never in doubt is the movie’s greatest strength. Phillips and Phoenix alike imbue the character with such fundamental dignity, even in his abasement, that we never forget that we are called to love him, not laugh at him.

On the other hand, there will always be those "classists" who basically disdain any and all characters who are of, by or for the working class. Why? Because they are convinced that some of us are just naturally superior to others. In intelligence in particular. Think Plato and his Republic or Nietzsche and his Übermensch or Hitler and his Aryan super-race.

For them Fleck is a clown in more ways than one. And if he has been shat on by "society", well, what would one expect of that caste. Either that or they brought it all on themselves. And Fleck is also a "nut case".

If there is a moral criticism to be made of “Joker,” it is that the film almost never challenges its unrelenting claim of the necessity for nihilism.

Again, we all take out of films like this what we first put into them: our own rooted existentially in dasein self.

I didn't watch the credits roll at the end thinking the movie was making any claim for the necessity of nihilism. It showed a world where some citizens struggling to survive and living in an urban jungle are abandoned...and if pushed far enough they are going to react to that...to fight back. But not in a way that was really "thought through" by any of the characters. And not in the way in which, say, a Marxist would react to that world. Or the nihilists who embraced anarchism back in the day or the characters in books written by those like Dostoevsky or Turgenev.

It explores, wrenchingly and almost overwhelmingly, what contemporary nihilism is, but never once asks the question if it’s all there is. It’s a bleakly descriptive film, but never a proscriptive one. With the exception of a shared smile with a child early in the film, we never see Fleck positively connect with anyone.

Well, as the author here understands nihilism perhaps. But not in the manner in which I do. For me, there is no prescriptive moral narrative or political agenda to be had. There is only one or another rendition of democracy and the rule of law. And to the extent Fleck is "fractured and fragmented" that was seen by me to be more in sync with his mental illness. Connecting to others from my own cynical frame of mind is, at best, problematic.

10 Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić

Sheriff Bell replies with a quote from the Bible: “Signs and wonders”, the verse that foretells the Apocalypse. He also says: “But I think once you quit hearing ‘Sir’ and ‘ma’am’ the rest is soon to follow.” He gets the reply: “It’s the dismal tide.”

Of course, for some evangelicals, an increasingly nihilistic world is actually a sign that the Second Coming is nigh. The Apocalypse can't come too soon for them. And "sir" and "ma'am" are the least of it. More like their reaction to, among other things, LGBTQ.

In sum, that human life has lost its purpose and meaning, and there are no higher values that transcend “money and drugs”, the symbols of decay. One may wonder whether Bell and his colleague have fallen into a trap of idealizing the past and rejecting the present as meaningless; this is the form which nihilism can take.

Meaning. That's what often becomes crucial for many. It's not enough that they live their life from day to day accumulating any number of experiences that bring them considerable satisfaction and fulfillment -- food, music, sex, a career, the arts, sports, relationships, politics, etc. What does all of that matter if there is no essential purpose that their life is able to reflect? For most it is God, but for others it can be ideological. Or spiritual in the broadest sense.

Bell’s uncle, at the end of the movie, says: “What you got ain’t nothing new. This country is hard on people. You can’t stop what’s coming.” In other words, the killings and atrocities are trans-epochal, they have just taken a new form; what is new is nihilism, a lack of capability to comprehend violence and put it into perspective. Due to the corrosion of traditional values, things don’t make much sense anymore to most people, and Bell is one of them.

And, yes, I agree that nihilism can be embodied in very, very scary ways. A world in which sociopaths start popping up where you'd least expect them. A world where you may well find yourself largely on your own if one of them crosses your path. And it's not like you can reason with someone convinced that morality itself is merely a cultural and historical construct...something you accept when things are going your way, but simply abandon when they are not. And capitalism itself will always mass-produce those for whom "me, myself and I" is the bottom line. Or maybe they'll throw in a family or a circle of friends.

How else to explain why in America and across Europe right-wing autocratic political parties -- fascists -- are on the rise.

Then those like me who, in regard to moral and political value judgments, are fractured and fragmented. And simply hanging in there. Or drawn and quartered, tugged and pulled every which way and basically unable to contribute anything much beyond moral nihilism itself.

Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić

Chigurh – “prophet of destruction”

Chigurh, a psychopath who commits murders throughout the movie, may be incomprehensible for the viewer. His murders seem to be illogical; nevertheless, they do have some kind of regularity and guiding principles. Carson Wells says about Chigurh: “He is a peculiar man. Might even say he has principles, principles that transcend money or drugs.”

First, of course, is he a psychopath?

Well, there are generally two ways in which to construe this:

1] "a person affected by chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior"

2] "INFORMAL an unstable and aggressive person"

Now, if he is afflicted with a mental disorder, his behaviors may well be in large part "beyond his control." Back to the case of Charles Whitman:

"Charles Whitman had a brain tumor pressing on his amygdala, a region of the brain crucial for emotion and behavioral control." Scientific American

Same with being "unstable". Why? Because he had grim childhood? Or is it more a "clinical" or medical condition?

Or, instead, is he a sociopath? He simply views the world around him in terms of "me, myself and I". Others are merely a means to any particular end he craves. The end itself rooted in the complex nature of dasein.

On the other hand, for me it's the coin flips that set him apart from all the others. It seems to indicate the manner in which he has thought through the "human condition" and has come to recognize just how much our lives can become embedded in chance encounters. Or in luck. Just simply being in wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the right time.

For example, he does not kill the landlady who refuses to give him information about Llewelyn; he respects her courage to refuse his request out of her own principles. He wants to kill Llewelyn because he is an inconvenience, he is standing in his way, and also out of contempt. While Llewelyn wants money simply because he is greedy and wants to live an easy life, Chigurh wants it because he wants more power.

Or, again, given the complexity of human psychology and all of the vast and varied circumstantial contexts we might face, it could be any number of other explanations. If killing the landlady became important enough to him, she's a goner. And I didn't connect Chigurh, with his "captive bolt stunner" to any quest for power. He was hired to get the money. And he became basically just a hitman regarding anyone who got in his way. It's been quite a while however since I read the book.

In his “Will to Power”, Friedrich Nietzsche defines active nihilism as a “violent force of destruction.” That is exactly what Chigurh is.

On the other hand, down through the ages that's exactly what the moral objectivists could be as well.

He also writes: “At this point nihilism is reached: all one has left are the values that pass judgment – nothing else… 1. The weak perish of it; 2. those who are stronger destroy what does not perish; 3. those who are strongest overcome the values that pass judgment. In sum this constitutes a tragic age.” Chigurh sees himself as the stronger one and thus his mission is to annihilate the weak; those without any moral principles, whose lives lack meaningful conduct toward themselves and other people.

That and a flip of the coin?

Chigurh, the Übermensch? The embodiment of a strange, strange admixture of "might makes right" and "right makes might"?

How about this: you tell me.

Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić

In his “Do You See? Levels of Ellipsis in ‘No Country for Old Men’”, Jay Ellis states that Chigurh is a Socratic figure; he wants his victims to reach a level of self-awareness. He tries to achieve it using a dialectical method, through dialogues.

Socrates...the hitman? And, of course, for some he encounters all the self-awareness in the world isn't going to keep them around if they come between him and the money. And even those like the gas station owner who have absolutely nothing to do with the money are spared only because -- beyond their control -- they call the coin toss correctly.

Instead, what Anton Chigurh brings to this particular hitman is the awareness of just how precarious human life can be precisely because there are so many variables in our lives we either do not fully comprehend or control.

The philosophical sociopath?

This interpretation explains Chigurh’s character on many levels. He discusses their lives and tries to make them see how they ended up being his victims. In what ways they squandered their lives without being self-aware. Chigurh is one of the rare characters in the film whose actions are a product of self-examination.

Again, however, what's crucial for some of us, is that some of his victims more clearly "deserve" to die than others. Llewelyn Moss and Carson Wells were both deeply embedded in that two million dollar briefcase. But what about Carla Jean: "Chigurh still kills Carla Jean because Llewelyn didn't literally hand over the money himself."

The other is Bell, but he lacks the strength to create meaning and understand things that surround him. Chigurh is an example of an active nihilist, while Bell is, as Dan Flory suggests, a passive nihilist. He escapes reality, while Chigurh embraces it and acts on his instincts.

That distinction again. You tell me how close the author comes in pinning it down. For me, embracing nihilism "actively" or "passively" can mean many different things to many different people. And the bottom line here is that it all eventually comes down to that two million dollars. In other words, in a culture where "show me the money" may well be for all practical purposes the new religion.

Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić

Human life has no value

This is best shown in the scene when Chigurh asks the gas station proprietor to call heads or tails for his life. Although a 50-50 chance of survival is better for the victim than certain death, Chigurh offers him a chance for redemption. It is clear that Chigurh does not consider his life worth living. Llewelyn’s life does not bear much value as well; he does not reflect on his actions and puts his wife’s life at stake for profit.

Ever and always, it's not that human life has no value, but that in a No God world it has no essential value. Clearly, from the cradle to the grave, the existential value of human life is everywhere. The value of those who grow our food, who provide us with drinking water, who manufacture all of the "stuff" we want and need to go on living from day to day to day. Most value family and friendships. And on and on and on.

It's just that certain Übermensch among us make a crucial distinction between themselves and those who merely operate gas stations. That they are given a 50-50 chance at survival is probably more than they deserve?

As for "redemption", how is that applicable here: https://youtu.be/opbi7d42s8E

What "sin, error, or evil" has he done that he needs redemption for? For innocently asking where Chigurh comes from? Nope, from my frame of mind, here, Chigurh is basically just another extremely dangerous sociopath. Someone that you hope you never cross paths with yourself. Call him a nihilist if you must though.

Considering the weapon he uses throughout the film, the cattle gun, it is obvious that human life has no more worth than that of cattle. When the sheriff tells a tale to Carla Jean about killing livestock, his point of reference are human lives. Chigurh does not value all human lives equally; some have more value, some less value, but he indiscriminately murders those who are in his way in a cold and brutal fashion.

On the other hand, in a world where "show me the money" has, for some, become the center of the universe, moral nihilism can certainly be used to justify going after anyone who comes between you and two million dollars.

That's what makes Chigurh's encounter with the man at the gas station so ominous. He represents no real obstacle to him and the cash at all. But he still has to "call it".

That could you or me.

Reasons Why “No Country for Old Men” Is A Nihilistic Masterpiece of American Cinema
by Hrvoje Galić

People are presented as sacks of meat

Llewelyn is shot multiple times and stains of blood on people’s clothes are often showed. The scene in which Chigurh is lying in the bathtub wounded with blood all over his leg, presents him as a human being of flesh and blood. In the novel, he tells Wells that being injured changed him. He realized that he is a man too, that he can be wounded and bleed.

Again, if it wasn't for the coin toss and the occasional insights he offers in his discussion with the victims, he strikes me more as a sociopath. And any number of sociopaths not only treat others as sacks of meat but actually take pleasure in tormenting and torturing them as sacks of meat. It's not for nothing that many of them start out inflicting all manner of cruelty on animals other than their own species. For a few, in fact, it might be the only way they can get aroused sexually. With nihilists as I construe them, however, there is just a greater likelihood of engaging them in a deeper exploration of the behaviors they choose.

On the other hand...

When people are murdered with a cattle gun, they are just expendable meat, like cow meat, which is put on the table for dinner.

That may well be how someone like him thinks this all through. But is that more a philosophical component of his perspective on life or just another manifestation of a twisted psychology? Perhaps something more peculiar to a psychopath. Here, however, that would necessitate a prequel. A film in which the life of Chigurh is explored more in depth. How -- why -- did he become this way? The parts that revolve around dasein.

Only his creator is now dead and gone.

This reduction of sentient beings to meat can be made only by someone who denies people the rational component of their existence. Someone who does not use his brain at all, as Chigurh believes, shouldn’t be treated better than an animal. The scene at the end of the film, when the bone is jutting out of his arm after the car accident, shows this materialistic component that reduces people to meat.

Uh, maybe? The fact is that this may or may not be how Cormac McCarthy imagined him.

From wiki:

'Chigurh is devoid of conscience, remorse, and compassion. He is described by Carson Wells, a central character in the novel, as a "psychopathic killer"...'

So, pick one:

1] a nihilist
2] a sociopath
3] a psychopath
4] all of the above