Philosophy Now Forum

Nihilism: the rejection of all religious and moral
principles in the belief that life is meaningless....

but that isn't my definition of nihilism...

the negation, dehumanization of human beings
and their values...

and in both senses of the word, nihilism, is America
a nihilistic country....

now, especially around here, people will react to this statement
without a moment's thought... Kropotkin is wrong...
and they might even offer up some superficial reasons as
to why this is true...but have you actually considered this thesis?

Is America a nihilistic country? and I will make the case that
this is true....let us begin with one version of nihilism...
that

"Nihilism is the rejection of religious and moral principles
in the belief that life is meaningless"

so, what values does America, as a country, seem to espouse?

umm, there are claims to being ''pro-life" but those claims
are easily disposed of given how in a so-called ''pro-life'' country,
the death penalty still exists.... and the police are allowed to kill
innocent civilians without any penalty... and that life is considered
to be cheap... and why is that so?

what is the major values followed by America and Americans?
why the trinkets of existence.... wealth, power, fame,
material possessions are the gods that Americans pray to....
we bend the knee to gain those trinkets... and in doing so,
we devalue life and the values that give us real meaning and
purpose..... love, hope, peace, justice, responsibility,
education, self-control.. to name just a few values that we
deny when we bow down to the trinkets of existence...
and in seeking those profits and materials goods, we devalue
the real values of existence... and we do so, with malice
and forethought...what is in it for me, we ask? and
when we are reminded of the real values of existence,
we don't care.... what is in it for me?
that is all that matters.... what can I get from that?
no other question matters..... if that is not a nihilistic
question, I don't know what nihilism is

but think of the driving forces of America today... that of
capitalism... first and foremost, we are as much victims of
capitalism as we are the practitioners of capitalism....
and the worse part is that we cannot see, see how capitalism
is denying our own being.....in searching for profits, all
other values are denied, devalued... including self...

we live and die in the ever ongoing pursuit of profits...
and to those who die in this endless pursuit, I would like
to say they are remembered but no, they are quickly forgotten
as soon as the next weeks schedule is posted on the board in back...
I have worked with people, who once they pass, are quickly and
easily forgotten... as I will be just as quickly forgotten if
I ever pass in a checkstand....

this nihilism is so much part of the fabric of American society,
we can't even see it anymore....

we can look back at the philosophy since Kierkegaard,
and see not only were they engaged in the pursuit of
morals and ethics, but they were in pursuit of something
even more fundamental... the point and reason
for human existence.... asked in the Kantian questions,
"what am I/we to do?" "what can I/we know?'' ''What can
I/we hope for?" for there is no singular question of existence,
for all questions of existence have a collective aspect to them,
even if we don't see it....

what is the point of existence and from that, we can
deduce our ethics and morals....

for ethics and morals requires some meaning/purpose to be able
to make sense.... for if I were to say, the point of
human beings should be to live in Hobbes "state of nature"
then we have the point, reason of existence to lie within
Hobbes, "state of nature" and we now have our ethics
and morals... the point, purpose of existence creates
the ethics morals we must abide by.....

if we were to regain our meaning and purpose, we
would then be able to see what our ethics and morals
should be....the first step leads us to the second step....

we cannot have ethics/morality without some point, or
reason for existence....

so we can see, by following the history of philosophy,
that we have a loss of meaning, of what is the point of
existence and we quickly come to the rise of existentialism..
the one point easily follows the other....

so what is existentialism? the attempt to create meaning
and purpose in existence...

in our modern world, ask the business world, do human beings
have any point other than the creation of profits?
and the business world, if honest, will admit the answer
is no.... but we have meaning and value outside of
making profits... but that meaning and value of
human beings and their values has been lost in the
vain search for profits, power, titles, material possessions.....

Personally, I find my value, my meaning in the pursuit of
knowledge... of seeking out what it means to be human....
and we can, each of us, find meaning and value, if, if
we find a value in which we can pursue... say a value
like love or justice or honesty or hope...if we take that
value and use it as ''a way of life"... every single decision
is based not on money or chasing material possessions,
but on the chosen value, in my case, the search for
knowledge and the pursuit of justice.... these are the
values I use as my goal, my meaning in existence...

if we were to chase our own chosen values, we would then
create meaning and purpose in our life....
we have created our own meaning and purpose in
existence....

what I imagine to be true, becomes true...
the search for justice becomes the meaning and point
of my own meaning...and it doesn't matter if we don't find
justice in our lifetime.... the search for justice is the creation
of value and meaning, and we might not ever actually achieve
justice... but the dream to achieve justice is valuable enough
to create meaning and value in our lives....

MLK dream of equality is a dream enough to create meaning
and value in our lives, if, if we pursue it with the vigor of
us seeking money or titles or fame...if we were to pursue
justice/equality with the energy we pursue money,
we would have a just and equal society today...

and one might, in fact one will say, but Kropotkin, that
is not possible, and there, there it is...
the voice of nihilism denying us our dreams and hopes
and values...we can only overcome if we were to actually
put more energy into seeking justice or peace, then we do
putting energy into seeking the trinkets of existence...

we create our own meaning and purpose by what we seek
and spend energy on... what will you spend your energy
and time on? and that will create your own meaning and
purpose....

Kropotkin

this question of meaning and purpose is often answered
by those who don't really understand the question...

we have those who proclaim the answer is found by putting
the bible in school, or having more education or by
being better Christians.....

most people think it is a question of better technique, just find
the right/better technique and all will be fine with the world...
but it isn't a question of finding the right technique...

the answer lies in overcoming... in seeking out what we really
and truly believe in and then, for there is always another step,
applying those beliefs in the valuation of the world...
and all that means is, by what standard do we value the world?
how do we know what has value and what does not?

only by the living of our values, can we make sense of
what values are actually important and what values are not....
values as ''a way of life" and that is how we understand the
world... through those values....

that is why experience is a great way to tell which values
are important and which are not.... because I have lived
said values, I can state, with some certainty, that
some values are worth living by and others are not....

having a long life tells us that we have some standards by which
we can judge and value, other values and beliefs....
but there are different ways we can also judge
and understand values... by the philosophically method,
which is really about comparing and contrasting values...
not with science or logic or math, but about comparing
and contrasting values....

Kropotkin

you want an example of American nihilism...

at a press conference, right after the start of the American
invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the President of the United
States, George Bush Jr. was asked, what can the average
American do to support the war effort?

and his reply was, "GO SHOPPING".. that is the quintessential
nihilistic American answer...

Kropotkin

so, how do we overcome the nihilism that has
infected America?

as with all problems, we must first accept/understand
that there is a problem...the first step is always
recognition that there is a problem.. and here
we are.. we are still trying to even grasp there
is a problem with the nihilism that is America...

let us take one example... that of nationalism.. I hold
that the belief in nationalism is, IS nihilism.....
and what is nationalism?

Nationalism: identification with one's own nation and support
for its interest, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the
interests of other nations....

this identification with one's country would have merit if it
weren't the fact that the concept of nation, is an artificial
construct...I have cross the borders of several countries
and outside of an artificial line, the land looks exactly
the same...the borders of a country are drawn and redrawn
many times, over may years....
or has a country like America looked exactly the same since
1776? our border has been redrawn several times... or perhaps
we can make a better example, the Alsace-Lorraine section of
of France or is it Germany? that territory has changed
hands dozens of times over the last thousand years...
it is now French because of a treaty made within the
last 120 years... who knows if it reverts back to Germany
in the near future?

to be born on one side of an artificial line will make
one a Frenchman or on the other side, a German....
to take pride in one's nation is to take pride in an artificial
line that can change tomorrow....
nationalism is taking pride in a line that can change in
a moment..

so, I hold that the pride of nation, the pride of being an American,
is an artificial pride because the lines creating nations are artificial...
it is an accidental pride.. because it is an accident that one
is born in a specific country... and how can we take
pride in something that is accidental? a testament to chance?

now one may argue that we are taking pride in what a nation
stands for? and what does American stand for? It used to be
the "shining city on the hill".. but no longer... because
we bend the knee to another false god, capitalism....
and our lives is spent on this false god... we are educated
in being a worker, a consumer, an producer... we are not
educated in thinking, we are not educated in seeking the
untraveled road, we are not supposed to have free will,
or to be blunt, the ''American dream is a nihilistic nightmare"
that leaves us in servitude to capitalism... our entire
life is spend working for the system and not for ourselves...
and in capitalism, a system about having choices, there
is no choice about the system of capitalism itself....
recall that in America, the very word socialism, is
attacked..... if you want to demonize a person in America,
call them a socialist, a communist... (which of course leave
out the fact that every single person in America by their participation
in America is a socialist.. taking a social security check is socialism
being educated by the state is socialism, being protected by the
police is socialism, the roads that are paved is socialism)

the very goals and values of America is an engagement
with nihilism.... so, what is America working for as a country?
What are we trying to achieve as a country? Its political,
economic and social structure is nihilistic.... for we
are not trying to work for some collective goal in which
all benefit from...... the atomism that has infected America
and turned our collective goals into individual goals is
nihilism.... the American dream is about achieving
individual dreams... not collective dreams...
the house in the suburbs, the two cars in the garage,
two kids, with a white picket fence and a dog name rover...
that is an individual dream meant to keep us in a nihilistic
state..

remember how I have defined Nihilism;

to dehumanize, devalue human beings and their values...

to make all our dreams be the "American dream" is to devalue
and dehumanize us and our values... to seek out money/profits, titles,
to seek fame or material possessions, or power is to seek out
the American nihilism/dream....

and how can we start to recover our live from this nihilism?
by, as always, becoming aware of, being "woke" to the possibility
that the American dream is a nihilistic one... we can only solve
a problem if we can recognize there is a problem....

and today, that is all I am doing, speaking about the nihilism problem
in America... I can't offer up solutions until there is some recognition
that there is a problem...

Kropotkin