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Nothing for Soylentils: On Nihilism

Recent journal talk has brought things on SN to a head. It is time we had a talk about absolutes again, about truth, and justice, and beauty, all the big things. Mostly it is khallow, again, but fustakrakchich as well, that have been spouting some pretty, philosophically, fascist stuff. Perhaps it is time we had "the talk". The talk about Nothing.

What makes philosophy itself so confusing, and so reviled by the, um, less intellectually curious, is that it deals with foundations. And it deals with foundations by questioning them. For the edices that stand upon these foundations, this is tantamount to sabotage, and indeed it is. Perhaps everything we know is wrong? Maybe Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" or the Wachoski (former) Brothers Matrix, are true representations of our "reality", and we are actually living in a dream world. Of course, the real question, is what happens when we wake up from that world of appearences? Is there a world of reality, like Plato's True Sun, waiting to blind us with the blazing truth of reality? Or, is it possible that behind the world of appearence, there is nothing, or worse a crappy hovercraft with the same old slop everyday that is supposed to taste like Tasty Wheat? And more bad Matrix movies? *shudder*

We are here right now to understand the relation between the two paths. Not so much as the red pill vs. the blue pill, but the red pill versus no pill. It is one thing to reveal that experienced reality is not really all that real, we all know that to a certain extent, but we expect the shimmering water of a mirage to become a solid roadway by the time we get to it. It is another to find onself hurtling through empty space, when the pavement ends. But either of these is an exercise in sublation. We take what we see, and we subsume it under a larger understanding, erasing its significance as mere phenomena. And this sublation may be the real point, regardless of what we use to do it.

Now the point came up in a journal by acid andy, purportedly attempting to get away from politics. He cited a very common worldview, what is some times called "Realism" or in political science, Realpolitik, the idea that everyone is selfishly motivated:

"We want Tribe X to get more money, power and/or freedom, at the expense of Tribe Y."

[cite] I pointed out that this is a common presumption by certain political views. And of course, there was a response.

Here is khallow's scathing obvious rebuttal, such as it is:

"We want Tribe X to get more money, power and/or freedom, at the expense of Tribe Y."

This, in a nutshell, is the Libertarian/Republican/Fascist view of human nature.

Or in other words, your view. Ideological nihilism only says something about you.

Followed by my response:

Oh, noes! I have "touched" khallow! You are so deep into the nihilism you cannot see outside it?

Nihilism trouble appeared in a comment by by fustakrakich (#1080231):

Why do you hate nihilism?

To which I replied,

Nothing there to hate! Why do you think there is? Are you empty inside, Fusta?

And thus it begins.

So our question is, what is "nihilism", and why does aristarchus hate it so? What provoked all this talking about nothing was my original comment on acid andy's "Tribe X" comment.

This, in a nutshell, is the Libertarian/Republican/Fascist view of human nature. Was just reading an interesting review of the alt-right fascination with the fascism inherent in Dune, over a the The L. A. Review of Books [lareviewofbooks.org], how the inferior races are incapable of delayed gratification, and so we need aryan heroes to rule over the rest of us.

As you can see, the nihilism originates with khallow, which is strangely appropriate. And he is not wrong. Nihilism, as a philosophical position, has a long and varied history, but is often connected to eras of dissolution and disillusionment. Thus the Dune reference: the failing Empire calls forth a super-hero? But this is predicated on a recognition that the values of the past are corrupt, decadent, and in a word, not real. And this is the real kicker: if those values were not real, then no values can be real, and the only thing that matters is power. Relativism is the first step, fascism is the end result. But the use of state power to enforce values that the enforcers themselves admit are unreal never ends well. But this leads us to the connection between "standing up for values" and nihilism.

Nihilism, as most sources will tell you, is from Latin "nihil", or "nothing". English has the word "nil" remaining, as well as the related name of everyone's favorite dev/null. So Nihilism is the view that Nothing is, or to put it more correctly, "there is nothing". (Either of these, as existential claims, are problematic, as you can see.) Often this "nothing" is divided up into different types, political nihilism, moral nihilism, epistemological nihilism, and so forth, but really what it all comes down to is the idea that there is nothing. This may seem strange to many, but, if you seriously consider reality, it is vastly over-rated. I mean, what evidence do we even have that reality exists, outside of our own experience? It is a live possibility that everything we think we know and experience is wrong. And the real question is, how do we prove it is not. I like the call the the "possibility that we are Massively mistaken" hypothesis. And it scares the crap out of some people.

So, maybe there is nothing. It is possible. The real question, however, is why would anyone ever maintain that? What is to be gained by "nothing"? As they say, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!". As a negative, one purpose of nihilism is to counter something-ism. "Something-ism" is what the Hellenistic Greek Pyrhonnists referred to as "Dogmatism". "Dogma" derives from "doxa", or opinon, but the Latin word "doceō", to teach, gives the meaning of dogma in English: a teaching. The Stoics were of the opinion that reality is real, and that the proper discipline could lead to actual knowledge of reality. If you are going to teach (being a "doctor") you had better have something to teach, even if you have to make it up! It was the claim to access to the ultimate reality, to the objective truth, that riled up the Skeptics, and caused them to come up with a counter-program.

So what do you do with someone that is convinced they have a handle on the truth? Well, you have to disabuse them of that notion. The Skeptics did this by developing argument forms, called "Tropes", that were aimed at countering Stoic claims to knowledge. Their point was not to prove the Stoic claims false, but to show that a counter-position was equally plausible, leading to a draw, an ἐποχή ("epoche"), a suspension of belief, or a recision of a the truth claim. But this brings us to the crux.

        "Realists", used loosely as a term of deparagement for those who think there is an objective, extra-experiential reality, are bothered as much by sceptics as they are by nihilists. In the inaugural episode of Neil de Grasse-Tyson's resurrected "Cosmos" series, he goes right to the issue. Copernicus basically discorvered that the Ptolemaic model of the universe was clunky, and that a Heliocentric model was much easier mathematically. To which I said, "duh!!" I do that a lot. But it was not until Italians read Copernicus's book that trouble began. And, the trouble ended up not being so astronomical in origin, as philosophical. Giordano Bruno read not only Copernicus, but also Lucretius, a text that was on the Index Librorum Prohibitoum, De rerum natura, or "The Nature of Things. Now Lucretius work was neither sceptic nor Stoic, it was instead, materialistic. The Greek atomist school is pre-Socratic, and as Lucretius lays out, denies the divine, the supernatural, the post-biotic existence of persons. So here is our first irony: The church sought to ban the consideration that physical reality might be all there is.

        Now we are at the heart of the matter, so to speak. Scepticism opened up a range of doubt, materialism went whole hog with a non-metaphysical theory, but that is not the point. The point is, nihilism. Materialism has many advantages, in terms of scientific exploration, and technological development, but it promotes, or even asserts, a partial nihilism. What exists, exists, but it has no reason to, existence is meaningless. Now, scepticism is not so sure about this, being, after all, skeptical. Religion, then, is opposed to both the admission of doubt, and the assertion of a reality that doubts those things that religion claims to know. In other words, the Church was afraid of the possibility of nihilism.

        The skeptics, after all, are not so worried about nihilism. You tell me that the chair I am about to sit down on is only a figment of my mind, that perception is no indication of reality. As a sceptic, I say, maybe, maybe no, the only important thing is that when I sit, I sit. But the nihilist says, but how do you know the chair exists outside of your perception of the chair? We could be in a Matrix-like virtual construct! And the sceptic says, "Yeah, maybe, so what? As long as I can sit down." It is, however, much worse for the realist. They say, "But, you are sitting on a chair! How is that possible, unless there is an objectively existing chair that existed underneath your preception of the chair, and in fact both the cause of your perception, and your not falling on your arse?" To which the sceptic responds, "Maybe, maybe not." See? This is the problem. Do not try to sit on the chair, because obviously that is impossible. Instead, try to realize the truth, there is no chair.

Ok, who is more the moron, the "realist" or the nihilist? On the one hand, both of them claim knowledge of ultimate reality in a way that is demonstrably impossible for humans. On the other, the claim that something exists is something more a positive claim that saying that nothing exists. At least with "nothing" you are either totally wrong, or totally right, right? So the Realists, like the Stoic Dogmatists, are the ones with more exposure. And this is where I suggest that they are actually the greater Nihilists? This will take a moment to explain.

        Realists claim that some reality exists. They claim this "reality" has certain characteristics. And from these characteristics, they derive policy. Not all that different than the program of the Stoics. But, at a certain level, these claims are groundless, based on pure supposition. Take for example, our beloved khallow. He knows that the world works on greed and accumulation of wealth. Ergo, redistribution or social justice programs are doomed to fail. Of course, true by definition, an example of petitio principii, but the point is, by being so locked up in unestablished assumptions about reality, this is tantamount to a nihilism. If my ontological presuppostions are accepted, my policy prevails. If not then some other set of equally ungrounded presuppostions will prevail, and then they will be right, because they have won. Yes, culture wars. Not a matter of who is right, but only of who wins. And that, of course, is nihilism pure an simple. If your presuppostions are losing, you burn it all down, since that is all there is.

So, I call upon my fellow soylentils, ponder the nature of reality, and the utility of denying the existence of anything at all, and the perfidy of claiming to know what reality really is. In Greek we call this "ὕβρις", overweening pride, and we follow it with the observation that, Whom the Gods would destroy, they first drive MAGA"

More original source, and links!

Fusta gets accused of nihilistic centrism! Oh, the huge Manatees! https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=40886&page=1&cid=1082923#commentwrap

Nihilism, by Nolen Gertz in Aeon, 27 February 2020.

Race Consciousness: Fascism and Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, By Jordan S. Carroll

And, Breaking!! New Resource: Three Therapies for the Affective Nihilist: Talking to Kaitlyn Creasy, By Andy Fitch at the LA Review of Books, 12/26/2020, if anyone needs more Nietzsche.