Category Archives: Nihilism

Americas attempt to vaccinate the world against Covid is about to come to an end.

We are at a point now where without additional funding we are going to have to start winding down our programming, said Jeremy Konyndyk, the leader of the United States Agency for International Developments Covid-19 task force. Such funding does not appear to be forthcoming. Our gruesomely dysfunctional politics are going to lead to more illness and death across the globe, and were increasing the odds that a new viral mutation will once again upend American life. If it does, we might call it the filibuster variant.

Even for a body as broken and ineffectual as Congress, this level of self-sabotage is hard to fathom. The biggest risk we face domestically and globally is more new variants, said Konyndyk. Such variants, he said, are most likely to emerge in chronically immunocompromised populations, including people living with diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis; because they have trouble clearing the coronavirus, it lingers and has more opportunities to evolve.

Thats likely where Omicron came from, quite possibly where Delta came from, Konyndyk said. So making sure that we are targeting those populations for vaccination and then targeting them with the rollout of antivirals is the best insurance policy we have against new variants. Its not foolproof, but its the best we can do.

But it seems we are not going to do it. Part of the blame for this lies with House Democrats. Far more belongs to Senate Republicans.

The Democrats miscalculated last month when, amid internal dissension, they stripped a $15.6 billion Covid aid package from the $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill. Senate Republicans had insisted that the Covid aid come from money that was already appropriated but unspent. So congressional leaders devised a scheme drawing $7 billion from funds that had been set aside for state and local governments in last years American Rescue Plan.

House Democrats as well as governors in both parties had good reason to object, because state and local lawmakers had made their budgets with that money in mind. Twenty states got their American Rescue Plan money all at once, but in the remaining 30 states it was supposed to come in two tranches. Those states were suddenly looking at substantial budget cuts.

A bunch of House members said no, were not going to vote to cut our own state budgets and have to go home and explain why weve cut these budgets, said Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

After a revolt among her own members, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to pull the Covid aid from the omnibus bill. But if House Democrats thought theyd get another chance to negotiate international Covid funds, they underestimated the nihilism of the Republican Party.

Because of the filibuster, Senate Democrats need 10 Republicans to support a stand-alone Covid bill, and Republicans are balking at more money for international Covid programs. Im frankly struggling, Chris Coons, a Democratic senator known for his commitment to bipartisanship, said of trying to negotiate an agreement. He describes a basic disagreement between the caucuses over the threat posed by Covid. A number of his Republican colleagues, said Coons, have told him, Were done with this pandemic.

Since theyre largely indifferent to whether additional Covid funding passes, some Republicans have used it as leverage in their demand for tougher border policies. Theyre holding up authorization of any more Covid aid unless the administration reinstates Title 42, a policy adopted in 2020 to rapidly expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum, all in the name of protecting public health.

The U.S.A.I.D. funding is not fungible the agency cant simply transfer resources from other programs to keep its vaccine program going, or to start providing antivirals like Paxlovid. As a last-ditch measure, Coons tried to get Republicans to agree to give the agency emergency authority to move its own money around to address the pandemic, but he couldnt get enough of them onboard.

As a result of this intransigence, many of the vaccine doses America already donated could go to waste. At this point, theres no longer a global vaccine shortage the problem is that many countries lack the infrastructure required to transport and administer them. The impasse in the Senate, Coons said, means we arent delivering millions of vaccine shots that weve already paid for.

Coons holds out hope that there could be a breakthrough in the Senate in three or four weeks, after it returns from recess. But its not easy to restart programs once theyve been stopped, and in the meantime, were pointlessly imperiling both our own health and the health of people all over the planet.

Theres also a political cost to abandoning the rest of the world on Covid. At a time of renewed great-power competition, Americas effective vaccines could give us a diplomatic advantage. Last year, said Coons, both Russia and China made big fanfares about delivering planeloads of vaccines to dozens of countries in the developing world. Those vaccines are ineffective against Omicron. Our vaccines are effective. Our Congress, unfortunately, is not.

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Opinion | The Unbelievable Stupidity of Ending Global Covid Aid - The New York Times

When it comes to staying safe and secure in our digital worlds, sometimes it can feel like giving up is the only choice. This idea of "security nihilism" isn't new. Security teams have always faced incredibly challenging problems while trying to enable safe and trustworthy experiences across all the technology we use. It can be a difficult trap to overcome for security practitioners, but it's even more dangerous when employees start to feel it. Security nihilism creates new and worsens existing problems that put a company's data and the employees who are stewards of that data at risk.

Unfortunately, security and IT teams can inadvertently cause a sense of security nihilism. Some enterprise security tactics, while well-intentioned, can end up pitting IT and security teams against the employees they're trying to protect. Strategies that rely on scare tactics, that shame employees for making mistakes, or that overwhelm employees with information can lead to frustration and a lack of engagement. Worse, they can cause people to just give up. If breaches seem to be inevitable and getting security right is so difficult and burdensome for employees, why bother?

Security teams must take accountability for keeping employees engaged. It's time to shift the message to empower employees and create a culture where everyone is on the same side. Here are three steps toward that goal.

1. End "Gotcha"-Style Tactics That Shame Employee MistakesBlaming or shaming employees who make mistakes is counterproductive and can lead to security nihilism. Employees can get discouraged and give up, or they won't tell security teams when they receive a phishing email or click on a malicious link. Employees are not part of the problem; they're part of the solution. Security teams can't respond to a threat or a breach if they don't know about it, which means employees are important allies in safeguarding company data.

"Gotcha"-style phishing tests are a good example of this problem. One such test involves emailing all of a company's employees with information about a holiday bonus. The people who click the link are "punished" with more cybersecurity training. Tactics like this create an adversarial dynamic instead of uniting employees, security teams, and IT teams under a shared goal of keeping the company secure. Accountability must shift from employees to security teams. It's unreasonable to expect every employee to be a security expert while trying to do their jobs. The narrative needs to change from blaming employees to asking why they were in a position to make a mistake in the first place.

2. Use Positive Incentives to Combat Security FatigueRewards are far more effective than punishment. Positive incentives can help combat security nihilism, keep employees engaged, and cement a partnership mindset between security teams and employees.

Examples of this can be seen on the consumer security side and have worked well. Epic Games rewards users who enable two-factor authentication on their accounts by giving them new emotes (a dance move or other action you can take in the game Fortnite) and items for their characters. The company recognizes that it has a responsibility and an opportunity to combat end-user security fatigue and add some fun to consumer cybersecurity, which is often negative or overwhelming.

Positive incentives can be provided when employees spot a suspicious email, complete a training, update their password, or admit to a mistake such as sending sensitive data to the wrong person. Organizations don't have to commit a lot of resources to this; recognition and stickers go a long way.

3. Take the FUD Out of Security Awareness TrainingSecurity awareness training has gained a reputation for being boring and irrelevant. It's tempting to use fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) to get employees to pay attention, but a more effective approach involves individualized training that celebrates security wins.

Rather than quarterly, check-the-box training for the entire company, training should be tailored to smaller groups or individuals using relevant, contextualized scenarios. For example, the training for a new remote employee on the sales team could use real-world phishing techniques that commonly target that type of employee. The focus should be on what an individual employee needs to accomplish to detect and prevent security threats and practice safe behavior.

This kind of training also should share and celebrate accomplishments, such as when an employee flags a suspicious request. Highlighting wins and successful outcomes in the face of security risks reinforces the engagement and behavior from employees that are critical for company-wide success.

Security Doesn't Have to Be Scary One of the major roadblocks to protecting company data is security's association with punishment, fear, and difficulty. People tend to ignore or avoid things that are hard and scary, or they simply shrug their shoulders and say, "Who cares?" This nihilistic mindset must be addressed, and it's up to security teams to counteract it.

A better way forward involves creating an environment where employees can do their work while avoiding security risks. Bring them into the fold by rewarding wins, taking the shame out of mistakes, and creating training that celebrates employees as crucial to safeguarding an organization.

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Security Nihilism Is Putting Your Company and Its Employees at Risk - DARKReading

Sienna Miller has revealed in a new interview that she has reached a point of nihilism in her career due to peoples perceptions of her acting capabilities.

Miller, who turned 40 last December, was catapulted to Hollywood fame after her performances in Layer Cake and Alfie, both ofwhich were released in 2004.

However, in part due to her deep-rooted interest in fashion, the British-American actor struggled to win over some viewers and journalists despite several critically acclaimed performances in films such as American Woman, Foxcatcher (2014) and High-Rise (2015).

In a new interview with Elle magazine, Miller admitted that, while she has previously grown frustrated at the fact that her acting talents have repeatedly been underestimated, shes now reached a point of nihilism.

Miller told the publication she isnt sure what else she has to do to be taken seriously as an actor.

I feel like, from a young age, Ive proven myself, she said. Without sounding arrogant, because Im riddled with insecurity and the lowest self-esteem and thats the truth, Im not just saying it but I think Ive reached a point of nihilism, which Im quite happy about.

I dont know whether thats [because of] Covid, but I just dont really care. I do just wish that people would be a bit more original in their thoughts, the Golden Globe-nominated actor continued.

The actor will next be seen in the Netflix drama Anatomy of a Scandal, which is scheduled for release later this month.

In the six-part limited series, Miller plays the role of Sophie Whitehouse, the wife of a politician, whose world is thrown into turmoil after her husband James (Rupert Friend) is accused of rape by a colleague with whom hed had an affair.

Anatomy of a Scandal will be released on Netflix on 15 April.

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Sienna Miller says shes reached a point of nihilism in her acting career - The Independent

They denounce the West as a civilisation that has succumbed to degeneracy and nihilism and, until recently, they glorified Vladimir Putin as a lion of Christianity. The US Religious Right has long toyed with the idea that Mr Putin was sent by God to turn the tide against globohomo liberals who are corrupting the world.

Europes own Right-wing, like Hungarys Viktor Orban and Frances Eric Zemmour, has dabbled in similar ideas. But this love affair between Russias aspiring tsar and the Wests conservatives was always doomed. Post-Bucha, it is beginning to look positively grotesque.

The basis of this coalition on the Western side has always been anxiety about the direction of travel in liberal democracies. Demographic change, statue toppling, gay rights and the transgender wars have convinced certain Christians sects that Western civilisation is beyond redemption. Instead, they have bought into the idea, promoted relentlessly by the Russian Orthodox Church, that Mr Putin is a leader chosen by God, who is now leading a holy war to remake the old Christian empire of Holy Rus and the world.

Do Russian soldiers really believe this? Lieutenant Colonel Azatbek Omurbekov, the so-called butcher of Bucha in charge of the Russian unit stationed in the town, is known to have been blessed by an Orthodox priest before he went off to war. In the Holy Rus vision of the world, Omurbekov was leading a crusade of godly warriors to regather Russian lands and restore them to righteousness. Insofar as Nazism now represents Satanic evil in the modern lexicon, he was also there to denazify Ukraine, as the Kremlin likes to remind us.

Instead, Ukraine states that Russian troops killed at least 300 civilians in cold-blooded attacks in Bucha. Satellite imagery and the interception of messages between Russian soldiers by German intelligence both seem to back this up. But was this a case of bloodlust running out of control or a premeditated strategy? We still dont know the extent or the aim of such crimes.

We do know that the ranks of holy crusaders conducting this war include a surprisingly large number of rapacious mercenaries and inexperienced boys from Russian minorities, many of them Muslim or Buddhist, recruited from remote and impoverished regions of the empire. Rather than bringing back glory and Gods word, they brought only death and returned from their escapades bearing the unmistakeable portent of divine favour: looted fridges.

Meanwhile, far from denazifying Ukraine, Mr Putins regime is steeped in the ideological framework of National Socialism. Ivan Ilyin, the thinker whom Mr Putin quotes most often, was an overt admirer of Hitler and Mussolini, and saw fascism as a model for the revival of tsarism. Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt, two thinkers who inspire the Kremlin-endorsed philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, were the intellectual godfathers of Nazism. Nor is Mr Putin averse to a bit of coded Aryanism. In 2005, he paid a special visit to Arkaim, an ancient archaeological site in Russia claimed by its discoverer as the true home of the Aryans and the prehistoric cradle of Russian civilisation.

Unsurprisingly, the leaders of churches around the world have been vocal in condemning the invasion and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in it. Archbishop Welby, the Pope and Orthodox Church leaders outside Russia, including the most senior patriarch in Constantinople (Istanbul), have all called for Russia to stop this unholy war.

All of this adds up to an awkward picture for the pro-Putin Religious Right. At some point, surely, you have to ask: who is really most responsible for promoting nihilism, fascism and downright evil? Its true that Mr Putin would never hold a gay pride parade. But he would happily preside over ruthless civilian massacres in Europe, as he has before in Syria and Chechnya. I suppose Mr Putins fans will have to pick their poison.

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The US Religious Right's love-affair with Putin now looks positively grotesque - The Telegraph

There is much to be learned from the often overlooked Medieval philosopher Boethius, who composed his magnum opus, the Consolation of Philosophy, while he was in a prison cell awaitingdeath.

Boethius began his work depicting himself completely immersed in misery, I once composed verses with joy! Forced by grief, melancholy measures I now collect. He continued, Torn Muses bid me write- elegies drench my face Poems, once the glory of my green youth, console me now in old ages gloom Death, sorrowful in sweet years, called in sadness is welcomed.

Boethius continued to sulk and plead with the Muses to immerse himself in sadness and woe, when Lady Philosophy appeared and caught sight of the Muses of Poetry standing by my [Boethius] bed, giving me words to suit my tearful mood.

Lady Philosophy was furious and called out, Who let these whorish stage girls come to see a sick man? Its more pain they bring than remedies They make a mind more used to disease, instead of setting it free from pain.

There is far more to this passage than a critique of the Drama Department! The whorish stage girls refer to romanticism, chivalric courtly love (in the literary sense) and idealized masculine hopelessness.

The Medieval Christians found serious wisdom in Lady Philosophys words, and the careful avoidance of the stage whore muse remained more or less prevalent until the rise of Geoffrey Chaucer 700 years later. I would maintain that there is still wisdom in Lady Philosophys words that has been all but disregarded here at UD.

How exactly does this manifest at UD? This can be best answered by looking to a book in the Core: Herman Melvilles Moby Dick. In Chapter Three Ishmael finds himself in the halls of the Spouter Inn, when a painting catches his eye.

Ishmael begins to ponder its meaning, Its the Black Sea in a midnight gale. Its the unnatural combat of the four primal elements. Its a blasted heath. Its a Hyperborean winter scene. Its the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time.

The painting was nothing more than 19th Century hotel art; a generic painting of a ship at sea. Ishmaels philosophical romanticism led him to later ponder the hopelessness of his way of life in such a desolate world.

How often do we do this here in our city on a hill, overlooking the loud and busy Dallas with our Aristotle in hand, clutching at our philosophical pearls?

Another example is in chapter 94, when Ishmael accidentally squeezes a shipmates hand, and finds himself in ecstasy at his own philosophic genius, Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other.

Does this not remind you of the brilliant Freshman who, after reading the first two books of Plato, suddenly believes they have found the way to world peace? Or perhaps of the Upperclassman romanticizing the poverty of Old Mill?

Where does this problem come from in our school? Where does the poison of romanticism corrupt our youth? The most clear answer is the mandatory Lit TradIV course.

The course begins with a perverted, drama-filled love from Jane Austen. How fun is it to be in on the Victorian gossip, sipping our tea while watching peoples lives fall apart!

It is then followed by Ishmael in Moby Dick: a foolish romantic in love with his own intellect. He boards a whaling ship only to see his crewmates perish. What an adventure for young Ishmael to undertake! How misunderstood is his philosophical brilliance!

And after this romanticism is thoroughly ingrained into the minds of UDs students, we are dealt a healthy dose of Russian nihilism, just in case you thought you could do anything to fix the broken world.

I could not think of a better way to create insufferable hopeless romantics, dismayed at the state of the world but too posh to do anything about it!

We need to remove Lit Trad IV from the Core, institute forced hard labor on campus and put Dr. Roper in the stocks for the way he reads the Squeezing of the Hand!

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Remove Lit Trad IV from the Core - University of Dallas University News

Credit: A24

Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh as a mother and wife who discovers she can acquire many skills, thanks to the power of crossing the multiverse and experiencing her other selves. These skills include martial arts, professional cooking, and more. Stephanie Hsu plays her daughter, Joy Wang, and Joby Tupaki, different characters with one seeking to end life.

How are you feeling with just the reception so far?

Stephanie Hsu: Its pretty crazy. I have to say, I mean, I love this movie so much. Even when I saw the final cut before South by Southwest, I was feeling really shy about how much I loved it. Because I was like, Oh, no, what if people dont get it? I knew that some people would definitely get it. But then I was worried that it would be confusing to people or that people just wouldnt respond to it. And it has been the exact opposite, which is to say, they were like, This is the best movie Ive ever seen. Its crazy. Honestly, I feel relief and an immense amount of joy to get to fully ride this wave and celebrate this movie. As much as we love it and get to share it with as many people, I just feel like its such a collective moment of celebrating art. And that feels so cool to be a part of.

Its the multiverse, and you have to bring all these different personalities together. What were the challenges?

Stephanie Hsu: I think the biggest challenge was making sure that all the sort of chaos and the wildness and the craziness was still grounded in a very rooted place, and never letting go of that thread. The Daniels and I had a lot of conversations about nihilism, and what it means if nothing matters. and we definitely really enjoyed talking about the philosophy of it. So I think that was very much in the sort of soup of the characters and my way in. But also I usually enter through the body. Physicality is a helpful way for me to start to understand the parameters of characters. And of course, Joy is very downtrodden and has so much despair, and that really sinks into one body. And then Jobu on the other hand can be a worm, a squirrel, or an Elvis. So it was getting to play with everything and being like playdough almost, or goo.

Your mother, father and grandfather are played by Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and James Hong, respectively. So what was that like acting opposite them?

Stephanie Hsu: We really felt like a family right away. And that sounds so cliche to say, but it really is true. Chemistry is not something that you can create. Its something that sometimes is either there or not. And we really just fell right into the family dynamic very quickly, meaning that we love each other, and we have. Everyone is also very silly in this family. And by this family, I mean, the James, Michelle, Ke, Stephanie family. And Jamie [Lee Curtis]. We just had so much fun with each other. And all of them really inspired me to just have fun. We had so much fun and surrendered to the process. Everybody worked their asses off but also just love to celebrate with one another. And I think thats a huge part of anything this huge, right? Like any story this complicated, you have to always come back to play with a sense of lightness so that it doesnt become alienating to anyone.

And in this movie with the different characters, you also get different outfits and makeup. And did you get to have any input on the ideas for that? And yeah, if you have a particular favorite to wear.

Stephanie Hsu: Shirley Kurata is our costume designer. I have to say, most come from her very beautiful, artistic, wild mind. But heres one of my favorite stories that is quintessential to the collaborative process. There was a day where we had a little bit of extra time, and I was in an alpha Joy outfit. No one saw my shoelaces, but my shoelaces were made out of like internet cables. And I went into Shirleys office, and I saw that she had more internet cables on her desk. I said, Shirley, can I make these earrings out of internet cables? I took a hoop earring and I wanted to thread the internet cable around the hoop earring. She was like, I love that idea. So we just did arts and crafts in her office, and they make a tiny little cameo. But what I love about that story is it just goes to show that all of us were really choosing to make this project together and really collaborating and saying yes to peoples ideas. And that, I think, is what makes it so special.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Stephanie Hsu on Everything Everywhere All at Once and Being Like Playdough - Nerd Reactor

US Rep. Tom Tiffany has taken another vote that is cementing his membership in what conservative writer William Saletan called Republicans who love Russia and hate America, based on their actions since Russia invaded Ukraine.

On Tuesday, all 219 Democrats and 143 Republicans cast votes in support of a nonbinding resolution reaffirming unequivocal support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as an alliance founded on democratic principles and calling on Biden to push to establish a center for democratic resilience at NATO.

Tiffany was among only 63 Republicans who voted against the resolution.

In earlier measures, Tiffany and fellow Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman were among only 17 Republican lawmakers to vote against a ban on Russian oil earlier this month. Days later, Grothman was one of only eight US House members to vote against a proposal to retract Russias most favored nation trade status.

In a recent Courier Newsroom/Data for Progress poll of 1,200 likely voters, 77% of respondents, including 68% of Republican voters, disapprove of instances when other Republican lawmakers have expressed support or admiration for Putin.

Writing on the conservative website The Bulwark, Saletan this week took aim at 21 Republicans who have opposed, or at least sought to constrain, aid to Ukraine or sanctions on Russia.

Saletan reviewed the various excuses given by Republicans to take votes that give aid and comfort to the atrocities being committed on orders of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Some of the reasons are rooted in isolationismto the point of even opposing America coming to the aid of fellow NATO allies if attacked, the very point of having the alliance.

Some Republicans continue to parrot the disinformation used by Russia to justify its attack. Others remain fixated on Mexican immigrants and contend US resources should be directed there instead of going to assist people being slaughtered in Europe.

Grothman went so far as to say trade sanctions on Russia are part of a gay agenda. He said the bill to remove favored nation trade status has language that would leave open the possibility of the US government weaponizing our vast financial wealth to threaten foreign officials that hold traditional views on life or marriage or oppose gay and transgender rights. But such language also existed under the Trump administration, and human rights leaders say the language authorizing punitive measures is about things like torture, killings, and harming whistleblowers, not a social agenda.

Saletan said those GOP lawmakers looking for excuses not to support Ukraine are embracing nihilism, cynicism, cowardice, partisan derangement, and a loathing of contemporary America.

Grothman noted that he has supported two other bills targeting Russia for its invasion.

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Another 'No' Vote From Rep. Tom Tiffany on a Measure to Stand Up to Russia - UpNorthNews

It hurts to watch the behavior of elected Republicans in Washington, but that wont stop the party from returning to power next November.

Donald Trump is no longer in office, but his toxic style, contempt for democratic norms, and rejection of some basic tenets of American politics remain popular in his party.

An unsuspecting observer may think this is a temporary aberration, but for many Republicans, its a winning formula that is here to stay.

Some recent drifts

In recent weeks, hearings over Justice Kitangi Brown Jacksons Supreme Court nomination have been enough to cause nausea, as the questioning of some Republican senators appeared to come straight out of the sewer.

Republicans have perversely criticized this judge for being accommodating to pedophiles, which is wrong, while implying that she is sympathetic to them, which is disinterested.

For days, we have witnessed the unfortunate scene of the first black woman appointed to the Supreme Court a high-ranking judge with an impeccable reputation being dragged through the mud trying to score points on the fringes of the extremist party, including criminal QAnon conspirators obsessed with entirely fictional allegations of sexual fetishism. For children among Democrats.

However, there was not a word about the serious allegations of sexual assault of minors against Representative Matt Gates.

Not to mention the outlandish or downright meaningless statements by Republican stars such as Marjorie Taylor Green or Lauren Poibert, who do not hesitate to rub shoulders with white supremacists, notorious fascists or apologists for Putin, with the blessing of the Republican leadership.

Speaking of Putin, Donald Trumps admiration for the Russian dictator remains a problem, as does his opposition to the United States unwavering commitment to its allies, which hurts his party. Thus, a third of Republican lawmakers recently opposed a symbolic decision to support NATO, at a crucial moment for the alliance.

winning formula?

In the Republican Party, principled conservatism and adherence to democratic norms gave way to ideological nihilism and partisan tribalism. Meanwhile, the sacred equilibrium criterion of the mainstream media has led to this outlandish party being considered a plausible alternative to the Democratic Party.

In the prevailing cynicism toward politics, all concessions to democratic principles and violations of political norms by Republicans are downplayed.

This same irony leads voters to welcome the increasingly damned revelations about the events of January 6, 2021 with sarcasm. Even the criminal charges against Trump, if they do wind up, likely wont have much of an impact on voting intentions.

What matters above all to voters next November is inflation, which gives the impression that all is well when the US economy and employment are rising.

The scene presented by the opposition Republican Party is troubling. But that is nothing compared to what awaits us when he wins a majority in Congress next year and may regain the presidency in 2025.

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The unfortunate scene of the Republican Party - Vaughan Today

When a man proclaims nature malignant in all its parts and professes to hate life itself, ones first suspicion is that something is profoundly wrong with him. The mans grievance against creation must be the effect of some personal deficiency in body or soul or both, rather than a sound conclusion reached by a powerful, disinterested mind. Few things disturb ordinary, contented people more than the spectacle of a moral desperado (to borrow Thomas Carlyles phrase) ormetaphysical berserker raging against the order of the universe. Such raw and comprehensive loathing seems downright demonic. Human beings, however they might suffer, are expected to demonstrate some gratitude for the existence they have been granted. To scorn the gift of life, to regard it as a prescribed ordeal at best or a pointless torment at worst, strikes at the deepest human desire, which is for happiness. Normal people want more and more life in the hope of better things to come, in this world or the nextnot a prompt end to the whole tiresome business of living.

Giacomo Leopardi (17981837), revered in his native country and elsewhere in Europe as the foremost Italian poet since Dante, may be the great modern writer least known to an English-speaking readership. He was perhaps the most lugubrious man of artistic genius who ever lived, and he pretty well matched the description of the consummate nihilist sketched above. His works are the sepulcher he built for himself, and in which he entombed, while he was still alive, every last hope he had of love and light. His mind was as bleak as the arch-pessimist Schopenhauers in its rejection of revealed religion, its disdain for the nineteenth centurys philistine belief in endless progress, and its unstinting contemplation of human nullity and everlasting meaninglessness.

What held his mind back from a program of total spiritual annihilation was the hearts belief that art could provide solace to a great soul even in the abyss. No matter how certain Leopardi was that human suffering takes place in a void, that hope is futile, and that chaos is master of all, there remained the consolation that high art can irradiate the darkness with flashes of beauty and greatness. Works of genius can do this even when they represent vividly the nothingness of things, even when they clearly show and make you feel the inevitable unhappiness of life, even when they express the most terrible despair. They induce a passion for beauty and greatness even as they demonstrate the irredeemable vanity of all beauty and greatness. Nothingness taken straight up kills the spirit with an arctic blast, but nothingness rendered artfully by a master lifts one out of despondency and heats the blood. For these therapeutic purposes the encounter of Achilles and Priam, Petrarchs Triumphs, and Goethes Sorrows of Young Werther are more propitious than certain narrative poems of Lord Byron, though they all lay bare the vanity of everything. Byrons repellent coldness of soul infects the reader Leopardi and leaves him more wretched than before. The southern European temperamentwith which Leopardi even credits Goethe, whose midlife Italian journey saved him from fierce depression and left him the paragon of vitalityis life-affirming in its artistic handling of nihilist material, as northern iciness is not.

So Leopardi averred in October 1820 at the age of twenty-two, writing in the journal he called the Zibaldone, or hodge-podge. He kept the Zibaldone from 1817 to 1834, filling 4,524 manuscript pages with his ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical philosophizing; observations on men of action, who tended to be ancient rather than modern; shrewd aphorisms after the ironic worldly manner of La Bruyre and La Rochefoucauld; homely moralizing anecdotes of family life; ejaculations of horrific boredom, which made him want to kill himself; encomia to the wonderful precision of the ancient Greek imagination; subtle distinctions between crime and heroism; comparisons of the wickedness of Christian princes with ancient villainy; expositions of exemplary and unfortunate style in Italian prose and poetry; animadversions on ordinary persons instinctive denigration of truly superior spirits; eruptions against the wearisome unnatural graces of French literature; etymologizing turns, as only a philologist adept in six or seven languages can perform them; meditations on the various sorts of beauty to be seen in landscapes; and assorted other thoughts on the world at large, which gave Leopardi the unenviable reputation in his backwater hometown of being super-encyclopedic. The Zibaldone, as remarkable an omnium-gatherum as one will find, remained unpublished until the late nineteenth century and received its only complete English translation in 2013an admirable and somewhat frightening editorial feat. This vast book records the uncontrollable twitches and grimaces of a man in severe psychic pain, but also his tireless dedication to the life of the mind that takes all learning as its province and is curious even about the daily round of ordinary life, which most intellectuals consider beneath their notice.

Leopardi had nothing like the life he wanted. The life he did have comprised, according to his formula, equal parts suffering and boredom. Only boredom relieved his suffering, he declared, and only suffering relieved his boredom. Yet the long disease that was his life had started quite agreeably. As a little boy he dwelt for a Wordsworth-like moment in the enchanted world where fauns roamed the woods and lovely naiads disported themselves in crystal springs, and he could imagine himself one of the great Greek or Roman men of action, performing mighty deeds worthy of every available glory. His relentlessly pious mother brought his pagan fantasies up short. From the age of six, Leopardi was dressed in the black robes of a little abb, and at twelve he was tonsured. Instead of a noble warrior, he took to picturing himself a renowned saint, whose holiness would astound the multitudes. The aspiration to saintliness ran its course soon enough. The desire to astound never left him.

At fourteen, it seemed he had found the life he was made for when his father opened to the townspeople of Recanati the impressive library that occupied the third floor of the family home. The citizenry never had much use for this public benefaction, but young Giacomo found a trove of wonders. The library held all he needed. To the knowledge of Latin and the rudiments of grammar, rhetoric, and logic he had acquired from the age of eleven with a tutors oversight, he soon added self-taught Greek and Hebrew of the utmost nicety and picked up some modern languages on the way to a precocious passion for philological erudition. Dreams of martial heroism and dazzling sanctity gave way to the earnest labor of scholarship and the pursuit of whatever glory ardent bookishness can win. At fifteen, he wrote a History of Astronomy, then turned out in rapid succession a translation of Hesychius of Milo (whoever he was), a commentary on several second-century Greek rhetoricians (who shall remain nameless), and a translation into Latin of PorphyrysCommentary on the Life of Plotinus. Unwilling to be thought a mere pedant, eager to show that he had the common touch, he then produced a long Essay on the Popular Errors of the Ancients, slumming a little, in the hope of winning a wider audience. This deliberate dumbing-down failed to make the desired splash, but praise for his work and predictions of grand success rolled in from Roman eminences. His triumphant career as a marvelous mandarin looked to be a sure thing, if only he continued his perfervid studies.

But then, at sixteen, he discovered a hotter passion. Poetry had never excited him before; indeed, he had rather looked down on its supreme virtuosi. Now he breathed it. As he wrote to a friend in 1817 about this unlikely change in direction, My head was full of modern ideas, I scorned and rejected the study of our own language. . . . I despised Homer, Dante, all the Classics. . . . What has made me change my tune? The grace of God. The conversion, as he called it, was gradual but decisive. Reading Homer or Anacreon or Virgil now made his mind whirl joyously with a crowd of fantasies, which people both my mind and my heart. The verse translations he presently composed of portions of the Odyssey and the Aeneid were snapped up by a Milanese literary journal. These maiden efforts were no more than competent and dutiful, but soon he was inventing verses of his own, in Latin and Italian, posing as translations from Greek originals that never existed. And then came poems from the very soul. Later in life, he would say that the years of obsessive work leading up to the discovery of his true vocation were the only time in his life he knew happiness.

At eighteen, however, this happiness began to seem a bitter delusion. The quest for a limited mental excellence, seven years of mad and desperate study, had left him physically misshapen and unfit for the normal life he wanted. The years he had passed bent over his books and papers had aggravated his inborn scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that formed a hump on his chest and another on his back, wreaking havoc on his heart and lungs, which would give out completely in his mid-thirties. Leopardi had turned himself into a gobbo, a hunchback, something less than a whole man, a target for childrens gibes and missiles, and a hopeless loser with women, who averted their eyes when he came too close. I have miserably and irremediably ruined myself, by rendering odious and contemptible my outer appearance . . . the only part of a man that most people take into account. No one would love, he lamented to a friend, a man in whom nothing but his soul has beauty.

Leopardi for his own part did not readily fall in love with women whose souls were their most winning feature. Physical beauty drew him, and beautiful women tend to prefer comely men, as he understood only too well. The little gobbo was cut out for a lifetime of frustration and anguish. His first infatuation, at nineteen, was with a married countess who was visiting his family for two days; the sudden fever, the breathless anxiety to impress, the thwarted longing for something ineffable, and the sense of loss when she left for good established a pattern of false hope and inevitable disillusionment. He came to realize he was chasing a phantom that would always elude his grasp: la donna che non si trova, as he called her in the ode Alla sua donna, the woman who is not to be found. From repeated futility he learned to disparage all desire, all hope. Better to expect nothing when nothing is what you deserve. One would be hard-pressed to name another man who hated himself as ferociously as Leopardi did.

He began to see clearly that love would mean a perpetual seeking after happiness without ever possessing it. I need love, love, love, fire, enthusiasm, life, he exclaimed in a letter to his brother Carlo at twenty-four, and the vivid life he craved was what circumstance denied him at every turn. Unable to earn a living through his poetry or his scholarship, Leopardi remained subject to parental regulation throughout his brief life. His parents expected obedience amounting to reverence from their children, and they dispensed misery with a free hand. Leopardis mother, Contessa Adelaide, believed the kindest human fate was death in childhood, when an undefiled soul ensured eternal peace. His father, Conte Monaldo, held that a wise and Christian education had no place for such pernicious frivolities as dancing, riding, fencing. Irked that the boy Giacomo boorishly cut his meat with a fork, Monaldo would cut it up for him the proper way at every mealuntil his son was twenty-seven years old. In the annals of paternal petty humiliation, that one is hard to beat; and it is staggering to imagine how thoroughly disconsolate and defeated Leopardi must have been in order to put up with it. Gustave Flaubert observed that in creating the life of Emma Bovary he had tried to evoke the color of a woodlouse; and it is by such an ashen atmosphere, the worst of oppressive provincial dreariness, that one imagines Leopardi engulfed.

He was not entirely docile in captivity and made various attempts to break free of his parents grasp and taste the delights of the larger world. His friendship with the Abate Pietro Giordani, which began with an effusive letter written by the eighteen-year-old Leopardi to the Milanese writer and patriot twenty-four years his senior, certainly affected his spiritual trajectory. Leopardi bewailed his misfortune in having been born into the back end of nowhere:

The glories of nature and the magnificent works of man beckoned him from the distanceAnd must I say at the age of eighteen, In this hovel I will live, and die where I was born? Giordanis visit to Recanati in 1817 upended the Leopardi family proprieties. When Leopardi went to meet Giordani at the inn where he was staying, it marked the first time he had ever ventured out into the street alone, and Conte Monaldos hackles rose. Matters worsened when Leopardi joined his friend on an unprecedented day trip to Macerata, a town thirty miles away. Leopardi returned unrecognizable, according to a highly respectable lady of Recanati, appalled by the change; and family lore would blacken this day as the infamous occasion of Leopardis transformation from a dutiful Catholic believer into a pestilent freethinker. Conte Monaldo never forgave himself for having permitted his son the liberty to know that miserable apostate, whose breath contaminates whoever dares to approach him. One feels the fathers sorrow at his sons prodigality, though one suspects that Leopardis nature was not transformed suddenly, but that his unbelief had been brewing for quite some time.

After Leopardis death, Giordani described how his friend had steeped himself from youth in the wisdom of classical and biblical antiquity. He came to know the world of two thousand years ago, before he knew that of his own time; and what is more surprising, from this lost ancient world he learned what his own was, and how to value it. That is, in his research, Leopardi had gathered ammunition for his frontal assault on modernity, with its misconceived cult of reason, unreasoning belief in the perfectibility of man, supersession of religious faith by philosophy, extrusion of excellence by egalitarianism, and obsession with material progress. Although he remained an intractable unbeliever, his attitude toward Christianity sometimes conveyed a peculiar sympathy: Faith in the Redeemer was sheer illusion, but it was a life-enhancing untruth, and its loss extinguished an invaluable source of warmth and light. Nature had been surprisingly kind to humanity in its childhood and youth; only when reason had usurped the place of the most precious illusionreligious beliefas the fundamental guiding principle for human beings did life reveal its unendurable gruesomeness. For there is reason and there is reason: clarity of mind as Leopardi understood it, incapable of being deceived and sweeping away every falsehood in its path; and on the other hand, Enlightenment pandering to unreal visions of the earthly paradise. The triumph of cold reason at nihilistic absolute zero would blight forever the hope of human happiness.

Leopardi wrote as a prophet who believed he saw more deeply into the constructions of human intellect and the abominations of inhuman nature than the most exalted thinkers of his time, and thought he could foretell the direction mankind would take. The truth would set no one free. It was a terrifying sight to behold, naked reality in its most unflattering lightnature indifferent or even hostile to human needs and wishes, the invisible world simply a fantasy, the existence of God the greatest con job ever, all sentient beings born and bred in pain and horror, and extinction the universal end. The end all human beings strive for is happiness, but happiness eludes every pursuer: It is an impossibility, an illusion. The true end, which no one can fail to reach, is death. As the impossibility of happiness becomes apparent, death is what human beings will seek in its place: RIP QED.

Such is the teaching Leopardi propagates in all his major works: the Zibaldone, the collection of essays and dialogues he calls the Operette Morali, and the poems that made his illustrious name, the Canti or Songs. He sings the song of everlasting human woe at every opportunity, and in doing so sees himself as a benefactor to mankind, the most honest and most forgiving of humanists. As he declares in the Zibaldone entry for January 2, 1829, My philosophy makes nature guilty of everything, and by exonerating humanity altogether, it redirects the hatred, or at least the complaint, to a higher principle, the true origin of the ills of living beings, etc. etc.

George Santayana, who also remarked the brute stupidity of nature but was more appreciative of its glories than Leopardi, and who was rarely wrong about the bleakest writers, wrote that Leopardi was a hybrid of the Romantic and classical: Leopardi lived in a romantic tower, a dismal, desolate ruin; but through the bars of his prison he beheld the same classic earth and Olympian sky that had been visible to Homer, Pindar, and Sophocles. His romantic longings unfulfilled, Leopardi struggled to come to terms with the world the supreme Greek poets described, which was the world as he found it; and his art is the record of that struggle.

Leopardi enforced upon himself a discipline of mental austerity and took it to the point of desolationas though Homer or Pindar renounced all heroic glory, or Sophocles spoke his own ultimate truth when his chorus insisted that the best human fate was never to be born, a theme that echoes throughout Leopardis writings. For him, the best of men is he who accepts his fate even though he knows his life is meaningless; he fears nothing and tolerates no saving illusion. His satisfaction lies in his contempt for nature and fate, in the philosophic iron in the soul, which at least provides strong men with the fierce satisfaction of seeing every mask torn from the hidden and mysterious cruelty of human destiny, as he declares in the Dialogue between Tristan and a Friend in the Operette Morali. How to live without hope of happiness or even relief from misery in this life, or without hope of anything at all after death, is the true philosophic art. What Christians would think of as despair, Leopardi honors as lucidity and the courageous denial of all consolation except that provided by the beauty of the poem he creates.

And there are moods in which Leopardi strips away even that last stay against nothingness. Truth and beauty are incompatible, he writes in Memorable Sayings of Filippo Ottonieri, Leopardis alter ego in one of the Operette Morali: It is certain that truth is not beautiful. The Keatsian formula for combined aesthetic and epistemic rapture does not apply. Facing the truth is a thoroughly disagreeable experience; whereas Aristotle considered the theoretical man to be not only happy but godlike in his contemplation of the eternal things, Leopardi finds such philosophizing devoid of any pleasure. What he discovers is cause for sorrow, confirmation of mans negligible place in the universe. Of course, one may wonder whether Leopardi is legitimately laying waste to the beauty of the mind at its most ravishing, or whether he is concealing a secret joy in his own beautiful and great intellectual powers, which have revealed the eternal truths.

Mostly, one sees a soul thrust into an ordeal and weary of the fight, trying to summon the will to go on. It is hard even for a committed spiritual renegade to resist the hope that mans suffering does not go unheeded by the eternal Powers. The poem Alla primavera, o delle favole antiche (To Spring, or On the Ancient Myths) gorgeously evokes the time when the mythic world was real, when willow tree and nightingale were tormented women whom the gods had mercifully given a new form of existence, so that seemingly inhuman nature was in fact imbued with human sensibility. Today things are quite different, and the closing lines measure the unbridgeable distance between human and inhuman nature. Leopardi senses the importunity of human creatures in pain, who ache for their sorrow to be recognized by some more fortunate being. Addressing lovely Nature, the poet does not ask for anything as rarefied as compassion from her but would be content with a mere acknowledgement that he hurts: if indeed you live, / if there is anything / in heaven, on sunlit earth, / or on the oceans breast that, if not pitying, / can testify at least to what we suffer. So he wrote at twenty-three, knowing already that the evidence is definitive against any trace of sympathy from the clockwork universe, which operates on strict mathematical principles. (I have used the lovely and unexceptionable translations of the Canti by Jonathan Galassi.)

Nature vibrates at a different frequency for Leopardi than for the notable Romantic poets among his contemporaries. When Shelley listens to his celebrated skylark, from the incomparable joy, ease, truth, and depth of its crystal stream of song he hopes to learn the harmonious madness of poetry so superb that all the world will listen to it raptly. When Leopardi watches and overhears his solitary thrush in Il passero solitario, in comparing himself to the simple, happy creature he ends up mourning his own past, present, and future. Every stage of life holds its appointed pains, and the young man whose youth gives him no pleasure anticipates his old age, when he will reflect grimly on a wasted life: When these eyes say nothing to anothers heart, / and the world is blank to them, and the day to come / duller and darker than the one at hand, / what will I think then of this wish of mine? / And of my life? And my own self? / Ah, Ill repent, and often / look back, unconsoled.

Sometimes Leopardi sets aside the lyric poets conventional accoutrementsthe rose-lipped dying maidens and the infinite shining heavensand delivers his unsparing summation of a lifetime plagued by sorrow, boredom, and failure. In the sixteen lines of A se stesso (To Himself), the poet is terse, mordant, implacable, utterly disillusioned: forgiving himself nothing, but saving his richest hatred for nature, which hurled him so ungently into unwanted being. He does indulge in one traditional poetic maneuver, apostrophizing his heart, which he offers eternal rest:

The Italian original is even more chillingly unpoetic. Leopardi says what he has to say in short order and is done with it. Byronic world-weariness, the soul wearing out the breast, is peacock self-display by comparison.

For Leopardi, unlike Shelley and Keats, nature provoked no ecstasies, so he might seem an Olympian mind of an antique cast, icy, sublime, and forbidding. Yet in a crucial sense he was a Romantic rather than a Classicist. Whereas Sophocles saw the world steadily and saw it whole, Leopardi beheld his own pitiable self wherever he looked. What he touted as the rarest magisterial vision of the world exactly as it is was in fact the special pleading of an unfortunate whom nature had selected for a very hard time. Rather than a disinterested neo-pagan sage, he was a soul in torment, who could not forgive the Creator for his deformity and loneliness, and therefore preferred to cut God out of the picture altogether, replacing him with immemorial philosophic abstractions such as cruel Nature and inexorable Fate.

This does not mean that Leopardi was not a great artist and an intellect to reckon with. His principal artistic persona, the spirit who negates and who takes pity on human beings for the agonies they must suffer, is the most straightforward of nihilists, alluring in his clarity of vision and unwavering fortitude. In the closing lines of Leopardis best-known poem, La ginestra, o il fiore del deserto (Broom, or the Flower of the Desert), he addresses the only plant to grow on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius and praises its good sense as against human folly: Far wiser and less fallible / than man is, you did not presume / that either fate or you had made / your fragile kind immortal. Men choose to live within reach of the volcanos devastating eruption because they are foolish, whereas the broom lives and dies there because it cant do otherwise. And unresisting, / youll bow your blameless head / under the deadly scythe of the lava flow. To know your place in the world is to recognize that nature can snuff out your life in one terrifying instant, and when that time comes, men are as helpless as the broom. Acceptanceof sorrow, boredom, failure, and deathis the hardest part of wisdom.

It is of course Nietzsche who urges his readers to build their houses on the slopes of volcanoes, to live dangerously and say yes to life no matter how awful it gets. Leopardis is the more honest nihilism, the purest distillation of nothingness. Accepting ones own particular portion of the universal lot is a far cry from love of life. Whereas Nietzsche preaches the supreme wisdom and moral excellence of amor fati, loving your fate so intensely that it seems entirely the working of your own will, Leopardi sees nothing to love even in the fate of the man who is clear-sighted and strong enough to gaze imperturbably upon life and death stripped to their hideous core. Leopardis is the more severe teaching, offering no hope of transcending Christian transcendence (in Erich Hellers phrase) as do Nietzsche and his acolyte Rainer Maria Rilke in their glamorous prospectus of free-spirited modernity. One sees in Leopardi what godless life really is.

Algis Valiunasis a fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Nihilism for the Ironhearted by Algis Valiunas | Articles - First Things

But until then, we have, as the name suggests, Therapy?s oft-postponed So Much For The 30, 31, 32 Year Plan tour.

And my word, is it a big, beautiful cathartic release of a gig.

The Northern Irish trio come roaring out of the traps for a career-spanning set leaning heavily on their singles.

As such, tracks from their 90s commercial peak feature prominently no less than six tracks from the 1994 album Troublegum get an outing.

From their roots in chugging industrial rock to the punk/metal/alt-rock they soon settled into, Therapy? have never been shy of turning bleak subject matter into crowd-pleasing singalongs.

And Kakistocracy, a highpoint from most recent album Cleave, with its chorus of It's okay not to be okay is more apt than ever with frontman Andy Cairns devoting it to the events of the past couple of years.

Die Laughing is prefaced with a tribute to and their memories of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins the news of his tragic death at 50 having broken earlier in the day.

Their cover of Husker Dus murder-ballad becomes even more turbo-charged than usual, before rolling into the brutal riffage of Teethgrinder.

The main set finishes with 1992s Potato Junkie, which remains the best song ever with an obscene chorus about author James Joyce defiling the singers sister.

But its not all backwards-looking we get a debut outing for a new track, Woe, and it fits in nicely.

Of course they finish with their best-known hit the indie disco staple, Screamager.

The chorus goes: Ive got nothing to do but hang around and get screwed up on you, but as this sell-out crowd will happily attest, when hanging around with Therapy? nihilism is rarely this much fun.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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Review | Therapy? at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea: 'Nihilism is rarely this much fun' - Portsmouth News