Nietzsche's Active nihilism

[Kjertesvein]

What is your first thoughts on this in particular? Read it, and write down the first thing that hits you.

Nietzsche's relation to the problem of nihilism is a complex one. He approaches the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world is a problem that has "become conscious" in him.[33] Furthermore, he emphasises both the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "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!"[34] According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure.[19]
He states that there is at least the possibility of another type of nihilist in the wake of Christianity's self-dissolution, one that does not stop after the destruction of all value and meaning and succumbs to the following nothingness. This alternate, 'active' nihilism on the other hand destroys to level the field for constructing something new. This form of nihilism is characterized by Nietzsche as "a sign of strength,"[35] a willful destruction of the old values to wipe the slate clean and lay down one's own beliefs and interpretations, contrary to the passive nihilism that resigns itself with the decomposition of the old values. This willful destruction of values and the overcoming of the condition of nihilism by the constructing of new meaning, this active nihilism could be related to what Nietzsche elsewhere calls a 'free spirit'[36] or the Übermensch from Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the Antichrist, the model of the strong individual who posits his own values and lives his life as if it were a work of art.

Could it work? Would you try it? Would you recommend it to someone else?

And if your answer is "yes", then how far would you take it?

~Wille

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Yes, Nietzsche is an absolutely genius. We have only one life - we should all influence the world and bend to how we please. He is essentially advocating personal development of the will to power, with the Ubermensch being the ideal of a strong person at the climax of their personal development, who has developed their will to power to such an extent that the world around them is exactly as they want it to be.

It's basically life your life to its fullest extent. If anything isn't how you want it to be, then why not change it? You only live once.

Oddly he uses the concept of "eternal recurrence" to advocate this. He basically says if you had to live your life all over again every time you died, and you weren't allowed to change it after this first time, would you be happy? Well you should make it so you are happy.

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'

[Tuor]

Just because you said first thoughts, I voted Nay!. I don't really understand how you can go from nihilism to not nihilism when you are a nihilist. It's not that I'm totally against this with my Nay!, just that I don't really understand.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Nietzsche was a living god. Our society is one of passive nihilism and moralistic residues, he was the only one capable of creating a glorious materialistic morality akin to the ascetic and warrior's morality of old. A pity that his system was not enough, and he was eventually condemned to waste his inherent aristocratic virtue and strength into triviality.

What a tell tale of a tragic decandence. And what a life!

A nice try, I say. Very nice try. Nobody else has ever came closer to him. We must salute him, if only for his courage, and his capability to see far in the land of the thrice blind.

[SigniferOne]

Nietzsche was a living god.

If by a living god you mean "evil and immoral", "suicidal, corrupt, and intellectually bankrupt", then yes.

Our society is one of passive nihilism and moralistic residues, he was the only one capable of creating a glorious materialistic morality akin to the ascetic and warrior's morality of old.

Lol the "warriors of old" were CHRISTIANS.

Face it you're still an atheist underneath your pretensions to Christianity, and the fact that it is the Orthodox who allow you to fit within their worldview when you are so eminently opposed to every thing even the Orthodox stand for, is a condemnation of them.

A nice try, I say. Very nice try. Nobody else has ever came close to him.

Worship Nietzche's "virtue", and not Christ's, and dare not call people "heretics" before looking in the mirror.

[Nietzsche]

Yet, even as Nietzsche was admonishing us all for our hypocrisy, demanding we unfetter ourselves of slave morality, and daring us to walk up the mountain, he himself was stuck in the concrete of the classical age.

Nietzsche was brilliant in his dissection of post-Christian culture- laying bare its soul; and that his most important cultural contribution. We are not yet ready to answer his challenge... and I don't think you'll ever find the courage of anyone who could.

[Col. Tartleton]

Yet, even as Nietzsche was admonishing us all for our hypocrisy, demanding we unfetter ourselves of slave morality, and daring us to walk up the mountain, he himself was stuck in the concrete of the classical age.

Nietzsche was brilliant in his dissection of post-Christian culture- laying bare its soul; and that his most important cultural contribution. We are not yet ready to answer his challenge... and I don't think you'll ever find the courage of anyone who could.

Nietzsche can be likened to Moses. He can't tread the fields of the land he promised. It wasn't for him, it was never for him. He was simply a vehicle.

The vision he created is a grail, nirvana. It's something to seek, not achieve.

We must always remember: Pursuit of Happiness

[Denny Crane!]

Tapping into a common theme of authenticity, I have a few times drawn together Nietzches and particularly Heideggers work and paralleled it with Buddhists thoughts or at least their goals since there are such different approaches.

It is the breaking of conditioning, though I fail to see or perhaps I just don't remember if Nietzsche ever offered any path towards it since an intellectual understanding is not enough.

[Kjertesvein]

It is the breaking of conditioning, though I fail to see or perhaps I just don't remember if Nietzsche ever offered any path towards it since an intellectual understanding is not enough.

That is were my crazy mind come in. I have a tendency in life to do empirical (and moral) experiment to my mind, and I must say I love it. One time, I donated about 1500$ to a charity organisation. Completely anonymous and I never told anyone - just to see how it effected my brain to simply give away money for nothing in return. I'm not rich at all, but it was a fantastic experiment to feel the strong effect it had on me, empirically speaking.

My case in point is this. About 3 years ago, I hit the wall. Mentally, really smashed it(we all do this from time to time, when our energy is tapped from exercises, work or a relationship going hell wire. There was this one evening - I remember saying to myself - "Now I will become crazy and therefor be genuinely be perceived as crazy." Yeah, it sounds stupid, I know, but I felt I just had to take the oppurtunity...


It was not because of Nietzsche (I barley heard of the guy back then), but more like an instinct I had about 'loosing yourself, and then be grateful for one day be appreciated for having those things back" (if you know what I mean). So it was not about Nietzsche's Active nihilism back then, but more like those victims of natural disasters who love life to the fullest after they had looked death in the eye. How could I pass such an experiment and that kind of energy as a reward?

I dropped my really good (nepotist) paying job, all my friends, my whole family, everything out the window. I then lived off on my (decent) savings, travelled to some interesting places and did things I always wanted to do. I also made quite alot on stocks those years and it was something out of the usual. The crux of this was that I was a complete nihilist, narcissistic, etc. you name it the whole time. I was not acting, this was real, and I had walked down this path on my own. Now, I was a real :wub: if you will... in every conceivable way.ha ha, a real lunatic.

I'm not a fan of letting outsiders affect my current experiments before it's gotten to a point were it's over, so I will wait maybe one or two weeks before I tell you how it has effected me and weather the Ubermench experiment worked or not...

Part2 comming....

~Wille

[Kjertesvein]

How are you. I'm aware this is not the most active part of al the forums, but the quality of the posters clearly make up for the lack of quantity (and that says quite alot on a TWC forum, ha ha). I will note that I'm a practical guy (carpenter), ergo my formulation of (the philosophical) concepts are certainly lacking ( at least relatively to other posters), but do try to make sense as I post along. This will be jet another post were I will lose a huge amount of credibility with most of he Greek-bearded fellows in here, so enjoy the circus and do ask any questions should there be any. :-) I don't bite... most of the time.

The reason why I wanted to wait weeks was to be in a position were reflection on my empirical experience would be possible, less subjective and not up to the gust of the wind, however. Right now, I have come to the conclusion that this "experiment" will probably never end - for that I'm very grateful and I therefor consider it a success. The best way to describe how I am is to compare it with... lets say the difficulty settings of a video game. From I was young, this was always at [Very hard], it was the default of my personality and my life no matter were I was or what I did. Now it's on [Very easy], nearly all the time. Even as I face the same physical and mental hardships as before - Everything is naturally handled in a clear, easy, calm, logical, reasonable, etc. manner from the core of my bone without giving it a secconds thought.

I'm never mentally tired at all. All the time goes into thinking solutions and curiosity about life and the relationship for those around me. At most, today, I got really "put down" for 1hour, but now I'm fully back on the saddle again: Yesterday. I came home to my parents - my brother was as usual neck deep in his chronic deppression and his drug habits on my birthday, I lost my part-time minimum wage job today (ha ha, In a weird universe - I'm actually happy about that one) and my very very old and good grandmother is recently came to hospital for the 3rd time (and probably the last time) this week. If solving cross-road issues using 1 hour of instinctual reason with logic and talking with friends and family about this right afterwards - is what life can throw at me, then man it's easy being complete - all the time. What I'm feeling when I do it: "I'm feeling nervous right now, this means that I'm probably highly receptive to learning new things. It's a good opportunity to investigate what I don't know, learn, practise practise and then get he result I want." This sounds like a robot speaking, but it's how I automatically look at every hardship big or small unconsciously

In the last couple of weeks, when I started the practical bits, I've accomplished something completely different from what I used to do all my life (that is certainly an understatement).

• Initiative on the workplace
  
  • 2 different groups of people (the Latvian and Russians) independently asked me weather I wanted to join them start companies in various fields from Entrepreneurial construction, disco and bakery. It's alot of fun and great guys.
  • the funny Germans asked me to join them on something that I couldn't figure out(language barrier)
  • While my consultant ask me for my consideration on the other colleagues and weather I wanted to change them out or not
  • Every single day - I use my full physical potential and all my energy is drained every day while I come home I sleep like a silent 5 year old baby.
• The family (They want to know what I did to their family member, he he.
  
  • Yesterday, I made a 9 course dinner with 5 pounds of quality stake with spices of all kinds and butter cooked in the oven for 1,5 hours, Noisetta potatoes, and a souce which gives you orgasms, tomatos and cheese, some good French wine and Lithuanian beer, this is something I learned from a cook course I took last week after work. At the end of the day, I was creamed in good review and wish to write down the recepie. A success I think
  • the weekend before that I took my close family of 5 out on an american steak house .+ taxi both ways so they could all drink and relax - something they don't do very often.
  • I have come closer to my one aunt then never before and she wanted me to come on an all-inclusive vacation to Turkey with her in Eastern
  • My father wants to give me his car.
  • I talked to my mother today in a way I haven't done before, and how I wanted to find a concrete solution with my brother and how I'm going to infect him with positivity and solutions that work... away from his usual habits. BTW: This is were my OP Question comes in to play. You get the idea.)
• Friends
  
  • yeah, all new friends and new dates is packed nearly every other day for 2 weeks and one of them I met 3 weeks ago let me live in his big apartment for free while he is on a 3 week vacation - wtf? he he. Back on track again, making friends, getting people to do as I ask is the easiest thing in the world and yeah, it's eeeeeeeeeaassy. Ridiculously funny to now look back on those days, he he. The other day I even talked a video game hall into letting me and a group of people in for a WIP free time of choice. You see. What's going on?)
  • I have a confidence which... it's kind of funny, but I notice the good looking girls. Completly strangers always sit very close to me on the buss. It's like I can feel their eyes needing to be shower in this attention from this confident hunk. Grrrr! VoFF!
• In politics, I don't bother to care in general as I can't control it in the first place so getting riled up about it is mental :wub: and impotence put togaher. If I want to go into it, I've gone from your usual highly authoritarian centrist, to now a weak AnCap/Libertarian sympathiser (which in in of it's self must be proof that I'm now a very sane human being :-D So they say)

In reflection after writing this, I realise this 2nd report/desorption blog is more notes to my own gain for my future works, then what relevance it will have in a debate about Nietzsche's Active nihilism, so take it with a big bucket of salt because I don't care.

Just because you said first thoughts, I voted Nay!. I don't really understand how you can go from nihilism to not nihilism when you are a nihilist. It's not that I'm totally against this with my Nay!, just that I don't really understand.

That's an interesting position, and thank you for your direct honesty. Rep-you-go. I have some theories about that in particular, but I want to think on it abit more before coming to a more accurate thesis.

Tapping into a common theme of authenticity, I have a few times drawn together Nietzches and particularly Heideggers work and paralleled it with Buddhists thoughts or at least their goals since there are such different approaches.

Interesting, please share your thoughts on it as I have jet to wonder into the world of Richard Gere, he he. (That is, if you get the time between... you know, translating the bits from the wikileaks South African Drug Authority's report.on Cannabis ;-)

~Wille

[Denny Crane!]

Interesting, please share your thoughts on it as I have jet to wonder into the world of Richard Gere, he he. (That is, if you get the time between... you know, translating the bits from the wikileaks South African Drug Authority's report.on Cannabis ;-)

~Wille

Totally forgot about this again but writing or a pm or a thread on it now.

[Ancient Aliens]

I think there are quite a few people in this thread who misunderstand Nietzsche and his ideas regarding the "ubermensch" and nihilism entirely. I think there are even a few people in this thread who don't understand what existential nihilism is...

[Kjertesvein]

oh I was just assuming someone or something or a combination of the two brought you to become paranoid?

Hmmm... I can't think of what you mean by that. Like what for example would "help me to get to that level"?

Well, no. Once one realizes the "meaninglessness of it all", one can become an active nihilist. It's just that you can't turn into one on the spot. It's a process that starts more often than not with depression, misanthropy and anomie.

I don't think anyone can chose to be depressed, so there is little room for a conscious effort.

In fact I believe most humans would just shy away from nihilistic thoughts. For starters it's not socially accepted to "believe in nothing". Plus the socially inherited notions of fate/a higher meaning/god serve as a strong defense against Nihilism.

A good post I would say, and something to think about. Still,on the other hand I'm not so sure you are entirely correct in every sense. Let me get back to this, as it deserve my full attention then my sleepy eyes can handle at the moment.

It's the old law making process for some north american indian tribes, according to some book I read.

Your kidding?

Totally forgot about this again but writing or a pm or a thread on it now.

Take it easy DC. If your life is so busy that it's keeping you away from TWC, then fix your life and the people in it, before returning to TWC with all the luggage on your back... pulling you down.
Enjoying TWC (modding, writing, etc.) is work. Work is entertainment. A job on the other hand is something you do because you have to do it (food on the table, paying the rent, etc.), thus make sure you have food on the table, before you entertain yourself. Then you won't be going in my QS thread writing crappy messaged Saturday night... drunk(?).he he

I think there are quite a few people in this thread who misunderstand Nietzsche and his ideas regarding the "ubermensch" and nihilism entirely. I think there are even a few people in this thread who don't understand what existential nihilism is...

What makes you say this? Where does "existential nihilism" come into the picture?

~Wille

[Denny Crane!]

Hmmm... I can't think of what you mean by that. Like what for example would "help me to get to that level"?

A good post I would say, and something to think about. Still,on the other hand I'm not so sure you are entirely correct in every sense. Let me get back to this, as it deserve my full attention then my sleepy eyes can handle at the moment.

Your kidding?

Take it easy DC. If your life is so busy that it's keeping you away from TWC, then fix your life and the people in it, before returning to TWC with all the luggage on your back... pulling you down.
Enjoying TWC (modding, writing, etc.) is work. Work is entertainment. A job on the other hand is something you do because you have to do it (food on the table, paying the rent, etc.), thus make sure you have food on the table, before you entertain yourself. Then you won't be going in my QS thread writing crappy messaged Saturday night... drunk(?).he he

What makes you say this? Where does "existential nihilism" come into the picture?

~Wille

Still didn't get around to it actually but I will!

I have no regrets about the philosophy forum post mate I was the driving force behind this and I can honestly see it as more of a bane than a boon, and since I enjoy these forums so much I take it seriously when someone tries to make what I consider a deleterious change I'm afraid and the segregation of forums is a distinct problem for me which I vehemently oppose though not with enthusiasm since I don't have that much enthusiasm to go around.

[Taiji]

You're kidding?

Nope. If I remember correctly laws lasted for a year. Then they needed to be agreed upon again in order to have them reinstigated. So it's active nihilism in lawmaking. And that was the first thing that hit me, so it's exactly what you want according to you.

[Denny Crane!]

Oh bugger yeah I totally forgot about that sorry! I haven't got any serious TWC time but it is in my mental to do list.

[Justice and Mercy]

It seems to suggest that one must become a nihilist in order to find true meaning.

I disagree completely. I don't believe that a man can even live after truly becoming a total nihilist, anymore than he can live after becoming a total mystic or total altruist.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

If by a living god you mean "evil and immoral", "suicidal, corrupt, and intellectually bankrupt", then yes.

Siggy the moralist .

Lol the "warriors of old" were CHRISTIANS.

Face it you're still an atheist underneath your pretensions to Christianity, and the fact that it is the Orthodox who allow you to fit within their worldview when you are so eminently opposed to every thing even the Orthodox stand for, is a condemnation of them.

That's quite a pretentious accusation.

Worship Nietzche's "virtue", and not Christ's, and dare not call people "heretics" before looking in the mirror.

LOL, and you talk about this to me.

You don't worship Christianity, Siggy. Your worship consists in the very same thing as always: Humanism, "Natural Rights", "Freedom", and the petty moralism of the bourgeois class.

This is why you consider him "intellectually bankrupt". It's because you accept petty moral conditionings passively and because you twist Christianity to your own little moralistic goals - This is why you are Protestant, since that's a distinctively Protestant tendency. Regardless of all the debates in which your assertions about the veracity of your own faith have been soundly debunked, you sir, continue to be a Protestant because it suits your narrow idealism beyond anything else. It's easier to follow the profane bourgeois tenets of Calvin, the supreme pimp to material interest, than to truly understand the meaning of Salvation and Sacrifice.

Had you lived in the time of Jesus, you would have probably considered him as "too primitive for your tastes". You cannot conceive of anything besides the petty religion of Protestantism and its innate conspicuous and bankrupt conformism - To you, the notion of a Fool for Christ would be an aberration, as the notion of anyone daring to defy an innately bankrupt social order, like Jesus did.

Moral values are nothing in the long run. They are an accessory to specific goals, and that's it. Were they to stand alone for themselves, they would immediately fall; and that's what happened when Europe lost its religiosity, thanks again, to its persistent degradation since the Reformation and the Renaissance.

Now go rest with the Pharisees in merry heresy .

[Armatus]

Nietzsche's Active nihilism

What's the point?

[Kjertesvein]

I feel the OP's quote already defined the aim, purpose and end of Nietzsche's theory, maybe not. There are many others who can explain this far better then me, but let me have a jab at it: Nietzsche's Active nihilism, to actively engage in tearing down as many as ones own superstitious values (as a human you practically are a sin, priesthood, imperfection, etc.) to nothing but extreme scepticism of the possibility/existence of objective truth (nihilism/extreme relativism). Hitherto, one builds up from the ground. One keeps on building up each and every belief (political ideology, metaphysics, etc.) as if you were semi-new born to the point of a Ubermench (Super-man of the earth).

Try to be more specific next time ;-) Thanks

It seems to suggest that one must become a nihilist in order to find true meaning.

I feel it suggest that one must become a nihilist, if one needs it (that is, if you are not a Superman already). This is because it's about Christianity's self-dissolution, not humanity's self-dissolution.

I disagree completely. I don't believe that a man can even live after truly becoming a total nihilist, anymore than he can live after becoming a total mystic or total altruist.

Is there a diffrence between a total nihilist and a nihilist?

It may be logical, but I don't understand you premise. Can you bring forth some metaphores or examples to better underline your argument?

~Wille