How to be a nihilist?

[The Dude]

I was reading through some past threads about nihilism and I've always been facinated with the concept. Taking a quote from an earlier thread (which was taken from a dictionary)-

"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."

The questions I have are-

Why can't a nihilist be pessimistic and skeptical about existance but still lead a life with morals and principals (just to coexist with society)?

Why do they have to have an impulse to destroy? Just because in their view life has no meaning or value doesn't mean they would have an impulse to destroy. Why not have an impulse to create? (to pass the time)

It makes some sense to me that a lot can not be known or communicated, can a nihilist live among society and be a productive member?

Let me know what you think! I'm still wresting with the concept and it seems like great discussion material.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by The Dude

I was reading through some past threads about nihilism and I've always been facinated with the concept. Taking a quote from an earlier thread (which was taken from a dictionary)-

"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."

The questions I have are-

Why can't a nihilist be pessimistic and skeptical about existance but still lead a life with morals and principals (just to coexist with society)?

Why do they have to have an impulse to destroy? Just because in their view life has no meaning or value doesn't mean they would have an impulse to destroy. Why not have an impulse to create? (to pass the time)

It makes some sense to me that a lot can not be known or communicated, can a nihilist live among society and be a productive member?

Let me know what you think! I'm still wresting with the concept and it seems like great discussion material.

Am I wrong here, but didn't that Nietzsche take that crisis to be necessary and good?

If I am right, all of those who most embodied nihilism generally felt that nihilism, the understanding that we are buried under mounds of nonsensical norms and values, was necessary for real creation.

Nihilism is analogous with clearing land in order to build a home.

[The Dude]

I never looked at it that way. Thats a very good interpretation. I was reading that statement and taking it for face value.

If that is the case, why aren't people warming up to nihilists? That analogy makes sense but nihilism still seems to get a bad reputation and gets related to laziness and sin.

[jgweed]

Nietzsche understood the crises to be real and a result of history, and realised that the adoption of Nihilism had two possible outcomes. Extreme relativism and criticism could result in a liberation of mankind to accept the necessity and responsibility of creating their own values, or to become diseased to the point of destroying everything and all values: in his words, Rather than be devoid of values, they would value the void.

To answer one question, it is certainly possible to be skeptical, even pessimistic, and to reject absolute values and truth, yet not be a destructive nihilist. Sartre's ethics, for example, rejects any absolute justification, but argues for an authentic existence in which the Self chooses his values and accepts responsibility for the consequences of his actions.

I should also point out that Nietzsche was a significant contributor to Nihilist thinking in that he questioned commonly assumed beliefs and prejudices of philosophers ("how to philosophise with a hammer") and he was aware of that, but was very far from being a Nihilist himself---just the opposite, as a matter of fact.

[xris]

It sounds like anarchy verging on lunacy for rebel philosophers..

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by The Dude

I never looked at it that way. Thats a very good interpretation. I was reading that statement and taking it for face value.

If that is the case, why aren't people warming up to nihilists? That analogy makes sense but nihilism still seems to get a bad reputation and gets related to laziness and sin.

Mainly because those that are labeled nihilists are generally opposed to the critical values of those who are doing the labeling.

I don't think nihilism is a possible position to hold. I don't know how anyone actually denies all values. I do like the nihilistic temperament of questioning or rejecting all values that one can possibly reject.

[OctoberMist]

Mr. Fight the Power said:

I don't think nihilism is a possible position to hold. I don't know how anyone actually denies all values.

I agree and it also seems that Nihilism is a self-contradictory premise: if one believes in Nihilism, then one is not truly a Nihilist. Right?

[Pangloss]

When I think of this hypothetical nihilist, a person comes to mind who is in a state of perpetual stupor or drunkenness. This seems like the mindset that would be required for someone to uniformly reject all principles.

An incredibly "drunk" person would not contradict himself being a nihilist, because he would not realize he is a nihilist, nor would he realize the possible existence of values that he is rejecting; it would be his natural state of existence, stumbling around in the void, knowing and caring to know nothing more than what he sees in front of him, valuing nothing. His very existence would thus be a rejection of all values, because as far as those around him can tell, he is governed by no values. In his own mind, "values" do not exist.

This may or may not be a good comparison, depending on your definition of nihilism. But it is what comes to my mind...

[boagie]

Hay Dude!

Yes I think someone has been playful, no one would idenitfy with the defination above unless they just wanted attention. To me the essence, and benifit of nihilism is in realizing that the physcial world is indeed without meaning period, it is without meaning in the absence of a subject which through the subjects biological experience of the physcial world and its feelings about that experience, the subject then bestows meaning on a passive world. Nihilism can be benifical, it can show us that as individuals we must create the meaning in our own lives, because ultimately that is the only way it happens. People get all excited about nihilism as defined above, it just silly. I think I am a nihilist because I know that it is up to me to bestow meaning and value to the things around me. I am the creator, I said there would be light, and there was light, and it was good, and it was good that it was good, and I stomped on that f---ing talking snake.

[Pangloss]

Originally Posted by boagie

Hay Dude!
Yes I think someone has been playful, no one would idenitfy with the defination above unless they just wanted attention. To me the essence, and benifit of nihilism is in realizing that the physcial world is indeed without meaning period, it is without meaning in the absence of a subject which through the subjects biological experience of the physcial world and its feelings about that experience, the subject then bestows meaning on a passive world. Nihilism can be benifical, it can show us that as individuals we must create the meaning in their own lives, because ultimately that is the only way it happens. People get all excited about nihilism as defined above, it just silly, I think I am a nihilist because I know that it is up to me to bestow meaning and value to the things around me. I am the creator, I said there would be light, and there was light, and it was good, and it was good that it was good, and I stomped on that f---ing talking snake.

Alright...except your "definition" is not Nihilism. As defined, Nihilism rejects all values. You are not a nihilist if you value your ability to "bestow meaning and value" upon things around you. The concept of Nihilism is "silly". The philosophy you just mentioned sounds like some type of self-empowerment program that you might read about in a book like "The Secret", where things become meaningful because you will them to become meaningful.