Category Archives: Nihilism

An exclusive excerpt on the wonders of a meaningless life from Wendy Syfrets book,The Sunny Nihilist.

The search for meaning, in theory, is a noble pursuit. One that asks us to interrogate our choices, the treatment of others, what we value and prize, what we condemn and dismiss. Many people seek meaning through the service of others, the creation of art, the protection of nature. Most religions preach humility, poverty, taking responsibility for your fellow human. But glancing around, how often do we truly see those values in practice?

If were truly honest, more commonly the pursuit of meaning is selfish. Its an opportunity to obsess over ourselves, to reroute the whole world directly to us and become the absolute centre of the universe.

A belief in our own specialness allows us to welcome a reality where our needs and feelings are the supreme priority. Where agonising over your appearance, purpose, moods, sleep patterns and diet isnt obnoxious or self-obsessed. Instead, all this anointing and fawning over our minds, bodies, lives and habits is elevated to a near-religious act.

Youd hope that all this self-obsession would at least result in a level of pleasure. But the kicker is that the search for meaning through the endless examination and worship of ourselves is only making us feel worse.

As Richard Layard observes in Can We Be Happier?, the result of all this interminable self-care isnt self- satisfaction. He notes, We have told our young people that their chief duty is to themselves to get on. What a terrible responsibility. No wonder that anxiety and depression are rising among the young. Instead, people need to get out of themselves to escape the misery of self-absorption.

Which brings us to one of the central challenges to any sunny nihilist. To ask: what if Im not special? To gaze at a world carefully engineered by advertising, technology, religion, love, jobs and our parents to make us feel central and unique, and admit we are, just like everything else, meaningless.

After a lifetime spent in a strange diorama of self-obsession, youd think that facing your own pointlessness would be an existentially traumatising process. But it doesnt have to be. Ironically, in a reality constructed to make us feel significant, but which more often leaves us anxious and miserable, this reminder of our own insignificance offers a strange sense of peace.

Admitting that in the reach of all time our presence is meaningless eases fixations on legacy, ego and purpose. Allowing us to shift focus from one day to the immediate moment, and take pleasure in the random existence we were wildly lucky to be gifted at all. But beyond offering a mindful break, or a check-in with our chronic self-obsession, this reduction of self leads to other deliberations. Namely, what do you do with the part of your brain that was formerly so singularly occupied with yourself?

Unfortunately the belief that nothing matters doesnt free you from the need to participate in the exchanges of time, money and energy that make a society a society and not just a scramble of philosophers walking around wondering who is going to make lunch.

So when pondering how to spend said time, money and energy, sunny nihilism leads you to ask: if I dont matter, and am therefore not the centre of everything and the priority, then what is? If I will be forgotten and lost to time, what will be remembered, at least for a little while?

The American poet Walt Whitman asked something similar in his 1882 collection Specimen Days & Collect, written during, and in the aftermath of, the Civil War. He posed the question: After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear what remains?

For Whitman, the answer was nature. He recognised it as something so much larger than himself that deserved the love and attention he might otherwise pour into more insular pursuits.

For each person, the answer is different. Personally, Im with Whitman. Like many people of my generation, accepting the futility of my small life led me to deepen my commitment to environmentalism. Understanding that the only constant (at least until its absorbed by the sun in a few billion years) is the Earth itself, its protection becomes more important than any singular interests of mine.

Id encourage you to try the exercise for yourself. If you accept that you dont matter, your name, ego, reputation, family, friends and loves will soon be gone, how does the way you understand your own time, money and energy change? Maybe the process reframes your attention to things you hope will last for a little longer than yourself: nature, art, culture, institutions and causes you believe will benefit generations whove long forgotten your name. Or perhaps the question draws you back to that present moment: the small pleasures you can access today, the people you love, their right to feel safe, respected, well, heard.

This is an edited extract from The Sunny Nihilist by Wendy Syfret (Profile Books) RRP $34.99

You can buy your copy of The Sunny Nihilist here and learn more about Wendy here.

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An extract from Wendy Syfret's book, The Sunny Nihilist - Fashion Journal

The idea that meaning and values are without foundation is a form of nihilism, and the existential response to that idea is noting that meaning is not 'a matter of contemplative theory,' but instead, 'a consequence of engagement and commitment.'

In his essay Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote "What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself." Here it is made clear what is meant by Existentialists when they say meaning is "a consequence of engagement and commitment".

The theory purports to describe the human situation to create a life outlook and create meaning, which has been summarized as, "Strut, fret, and delude ourselves as we may, our lives are of no significance, and it is futile to seek or to affirm meaning where none can be found."[3] Existential nihilists claim that, to be honest, one must face the absurdity of existence, that they will eventually die, and that both religion and metaphysics are simply results of the fear of death.[2]

According to Donald A. Crosby, "There is no justification for life, but also no reason not to live. Those who claim to find meaning in their lives are either dishonest or deluded. In either case, they fail to face up to the harsh reality of the human situations".[3]

Existential nihilism has been a part of the Western intellectual tradition since the Cyrenaics, such as Hegesias of Cyrene.[citation needed] During the Renaissance, William Shakespeare eloquently summarised the existential nihilist's perspective through Macbeth's mindset in the end of the eponymous play.[4] Arthur Schopenhauer, Sren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche further expanded on these ideas, and Nietzsche, particularly, has become a major figure in existential nihilism.

The atheistic existentialist movement spread in 1940s France. Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus discussed the topic.[5] Camus wrote further works, such as The Stranger, Caligula, The Plague, The Fall and The Rebel.[6] Other figures include Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. In addition, Ernest Becker's Pulitzer Prize-winning life's work The Denial of Death is a collection of thoughts on existential nihilism.

The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving it was possible. Their answer was a qualified "Yes," advocating a formula of passionate commitment and impassive stoicism.

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Existential nihilism - Wikipedia

This is Part II in our series The Longest War.

The U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is officially over.

But for the more than 800,000 men and women who served there not a day goes by that they dont think about it.

Some feel a measure of success:

"The genie is out of the bottle in Afghanistan, the Taliban may try to turn back the clock, but they can't," Bajun Mavalwallasays. "We have moved that country forward and it's irreversible. I'm actually slightly optimistic for the long haul."

Others feel no optimism at all:

"It felt awful to be involved in a conflict that was pointless because every every bad thing that happens didn't have to," Laura Jedeed says. "The feeling that it was for nothing ... there's a nihilism to it. ... It rots the soul."

In the second installment of our series 'The Longest War,' veterans talk about how U.S. soldiers may have left Afghanistan, but the war has not left them.

Bajun Mavalwalla, retired intelligence officer with the California National Guard. He served with the Armys 19th Special Forces Group from 2002-2003. He now runs a small defense training and security company with his son, but theyve put their business on hold and are working to help Afghans leave their country. (@BajunMavalwalla)

Baji Mavalwalla, former sergeant with the California National Guard as an electronic warfare voice intercept operator. He deployed to Afghanistan from March 2012 until December 2012.

Laura Jedeed, former sergeant with the Armys 82nd Airborne, she served as an intelligence analyst. She deployed to Afghanistan twice for three months in 2008 and a year in 2010. (@LauraJedeed)

Tim Kudo, former marine captain with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. He served in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2009 and 2011. (@KudoTim)

There's the me before war and the me after war, and they exist simultaneously. And yet they have very little to do with each other. And so part of me tries to live in one version of myself most of the time, the current version, the person that has gone on to graduate school, and used the GI Bill and has a relatively kind of normal life. And the part of me that existed at war and before war.

I return to those moments before the war when I was a different person, and I kind of mourned whoever that was.

We lost five Marines when we were over there with my company. And there were missions that I sent them on often, and I think about could we have done things differently? You know, did we need to go into the wadi in the middle of the valley to set up an outpost that was only later to be taken over by the Taliban? Did we need to go on a patrol a particular day where we ended up getting in a firefight, where we ended up killing two Afghan civilians by accident?

We got in a firefight and there were these two men who came up over a hill on the high ground on a motorcycle. And as we were getting shot at and trying to figure out who was shooting at us and, you know, shooting back. And they just kind of stopped there right above us. Great position if they wanted to start shooting at us. And so we wave at them to go away, yell at them. And they just come closer. And so even then, the Marines didn't fire. They still were very disciplined about it. And they were just disciplined to the end.

But ultimately, one of them saw what looked like a muzzle flash. And so the Marines opened up fire. The people on the motorcycle immediately fell over dead. We rushed to the two men on the motorcycle, and they are dead. They were trying to get home. The home was a building that we were kind of crouched in front of.

And at that moment, the family of these two men who had seen all this happen in front of them comes rushing out of the building.

The women are screaming, the men are screaming, crying. And they surround us to get the bodies, to just take the bodies, to be buried. They were just two kids, basically. Maybe one was about 16 years old, the other a little bit older. And they're just trying to get home. And you kind of realize in that momentthose two dead young men ultimately lost that battle for us. Not just the battle of the firefight, but the battle for that village.

Because how can you kill two people that are everyone's cousins, uncles and nephews and expect them to support you in any way?

I made a decision. People are dead because of that. I could have made a different decision, and I'm responsible for that. And I have no right to forgive myself, because I'm not the person who was wronged. They were. The family could forgive me all they want, but the only people who can truly forgive me are dead. And so that can never happen. And that will always be something that I have to live with.

It's very difficult to recognize that the most important thing that I've done in my life, those seven months that I spent there, was ultimately a failure.

And so I go back to that regularly to wonder, is there something I could have done differently? Should I have done something differently? I think that for many veterans, there is a desire for either understanding, or acceptance or validation from civilians who simply are unable to give it. Because they don't understand that experience that you've been through.

And the paradox of it ultimately is that the reason that you went over there to fight and undergo those experiences is so the people back home could retain that innocence. And so part of the challenge is coming to grips with that. That that is inherently what the sacrifice is. ... That you will never be understood by these people who live innocent lives because of the things that you've done at war.

I'm not hopeful, I think at this point, that we will be able to prevent the next war. But I think about what we can tell ... the next generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, the Marines who are thinking about joining right now, to help them come to understand what it means to go to war.

And what it means to join as one person, serve and come back as a completely different person.

And I think a lot of those kids, they hope that when they come back, they're just going to restart their lives just like they left them. And the reality is that when you join the military, if there is a war and you go and fight in it, that will kill that person that joined.

Laura Jedeed's Medium: "Afghanistan Meant Nothing" "By the time you read this, the Taliban may already be in Kabul. If not now, then soon. Nixon wanted and got his decent interval between the United States pullout of Vietnam and the inevitable North Vietnamese takeover."

Washington Post: "I killed people in Afghanistan. Was I right or wrong?" "When I joined the Marine Corps, I knew I would kill people. I was trained to do it in a number of ways, from pulling a trigger to ordering a bomb strike to beating someone to death with a rock. As I got closer to deploying to war in 2009, my lethal abilities were refined, but my ethical understanding of killing was not."

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The Longest War: Veterans Reflect On 20 Years Of Conflict In Afghanistan - WBUR

Christopher Lloyd as Rick (left) and Jaeden Martell (right) as Morty.

Eight years after their animated 2013 debut, Rick and Morty have finally emerged into the live action world for 14 seconds, as can be seen by following this link.

None other than Christopher Lloyd appears as Rick, a riff on the shows original 2006 Justin Roiland debut, The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti. What has evolved as a captivating yet crude exploration of family, free will, absurdist nihilism, and bleak existentialism, began as a vulgar protest.

In a hilarious response to cease and desist letters for his House of Cosbys series, Roiland created a bawdy Back to the Future parody. Three other shorts were later created, the first to promote the comic Scud: The Disposable Assassin, the second to promote creative freedom for Dan Harmon and Rob Schraubs Channel 101, and the last as a satiric Gatorade ad.

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Though the show has strayed far from its roots over the last eight years, subtle references remain scattered throughout. In Big Trouble In Little Sanchez, a Tiny Rick drawing of his adult self screaming for help resembles Doc Smith. And in season fives opener, Mort Dinner Rick Andre, a scene from the short flashes on a crystal in the cold opening.

Titled C-132, the Tweeted teaser video is simple. Beginning with Rick and Morty theme music in a sparse garage, a green portal appears and brown pants and black loafers materialize. Panning up, the man who played Doc Brown (Lloyd) arrives as Rick in all his burping glory.

Jaeden Martells casting as the yellow-shirted, anxious Morty is equally on point. Martells most recognizable role to date, as a prepubescent boy battling an actual demon in It, parallels his fate as Morty.

Eagle-eyed fans will notice that the C-132 reality designation included in Adult Swims tweet is a reference not to the main C-137 Rick and Morty, but rather to characters from the first two volumes of Oni Press Rick and Morty comic. The Rick and Morty of the C-132 are generally similar to their C-137 counterparts save for certain details like Morty C-132 not having a son and Rick C-132s lack of faith in time travel.

Given Rick and Mortys penchant for dimension-hopping stories, its not hard to envision Adult Swim playing around with the idea of a C-132 universe in a live-action special or series of shorts. Considering already long production times for the main show, however, chances are probably slim.

Well keep an eye out, but for now, this will remain a fun, one-off teaser celebrating Adult Swims 20th anniversary and the Rick and Morty Sept. 5 season finale.

Read More: DeLoreans Legendary DMC-12 Will Rise From the Ashes

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Rick and Morty Goes Live (and Meta) with Christopher Lloyd and Jaeden Martell - The Manual

A short two weeks ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. This is a monumental scientific achievement, from development to approval and mass vaccination in less than two years. It is further important, as the Delta variant surges across the United States and the world, that more people get vaccinated. Fortunately, people can take comfort in knowing that at least one vaccine has gone through the gauntlet of experimentation and study to reach full FDA approval. Despite this incredible advancement, misinformation and denialism are to an extent where incentives like gun giveaways, as is the case in West Virginia, just wont cut it.

COVID-19 vaccine skepticism is prominent across the United States increasingly an outlier on the world stage according to Morning Consult polling (6). Despite the enormous amount of evidence of vaccine effectiveness and unanimous agreement between national health institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and institutions beyond the United States like the United Kingdoms National Health Service (NHS) and global World Health Organization (WHO), many people still refuse to get the vaccine. Survey data gathered by Axios show that those who refuse vaccination also tend to hold numerous incorrect beliefs about COVID-19. Polling data from The Economist and YouGov show a whopping 17 percent of the 1500 adults polled either definitely or somewhat believe that vaccines cause autism, and 20 percent believe the U.S. government is using the COVID-19 vaccines to microchip the population both completely debunked conspiracy theories.

Now, this is a lot of doom and gloom, but dont let that plunge you into nihilism. Vaccination, masks, social distancing and other safety measures can easily help protect you and your community. Remember: those most opposed to mitigation efforts, the most rambunctious anti-vaxxers, represent a minority of the country. The reality is a majority of Americans support policies such as mask mandates in schools and vaccine requirements for public venues, restaurants or workplaces.

There are some people who arent in favor of these mitigation measures but still vaguely believe one should get vaccinated and be responsible. These people tend to give arguments like, I got vaccinated, but its my personal choice if I want to or not. Its not the governments job to influence me. This is often invoked to argue against mask or vaccine mandates. As someone who strongly believes in protecting and expanding civil liberties and rights, I take these concerns seriously, but I think they are misguided. Allow me to make my case.

You and I both want personal freedom. And it is your choice to not wear a mask or get vaccinated, but your choice has effects on everyone around you. Imagine if I said its my choice to drive drunk, so laws preventing me are unjust because of my personal freedom to drive while intoxicated. I think all of us would rationally respond with the idea that my choice, in that case, puts others at risk without giving them any say in my decision to drive irresponsibly. Further, my choice would force everyone else to drive more carefully and be in constant fear that the next driver they see will crash into them. The drunk drivers personal freedom defense really doesnt stand up to scrutiny when we look at how it puts others at risk and curtails the freedom of other people to drive on the road. There are countless examples like this driving tests, car inspections, security at airports, vaccination requirements for attending public schools and many more. Yes, COVID-19 mitigation efforts do curtail your freedom in one respect, but they do so just like these other policies we all accept in our everyday lives. Its not radical, nor is it tyranny. Its society.

There are proven methods of preventing the spread of COVID-19, the newest of these being a vaccine fully approved by the FDA. There are people who are reachable, convincible, who just want to protect their family, but unintentionally put themselves and others at risk. Lets engage with these people to explain how and why mitigation efforts are effective. We should understand that there are costs to everyones freedom for inaction, particularly if you need to go to an overcrowded hospital. As long as COVID-19 is a large threat to everyones lives, we cant take mitigation efforts like mandates off the table. And the faster everyone gets vaccinated, both here and across the globe, the faster we can all get back to life as normal.

Eleanor Gully is a senior triple-majoring in economics, French and philosophy, politics and law.

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FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine can curtail misinformation - Binghamton University Pipe Dream

Nihilism confuses its audience because it takes the form of an anti-ideology to most people: a belief in nothing. Then again, belief in nothing is not just an ideology in itself, but something we all affirm.

These seem universal, among other human mental tics and traits, because for us to process thoughts we need ones and zeroes just like a computer, but they take the form of extremes: nothingness, infinity; goodness, and badness that we must destroy.

To get to the root of nihilism we have to look at its most basic definition:

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.

In this context, we have to assume that this means universal values, knowledge, and communication, since the individual has some form of those at least within his or her own noggin.

When we say all values are baseless, we are saying that all values are human choices, more aesthetics than objective science. Most of life is a mystery; at some level, one must simply choose based on heuristics and then refine that knowledge later.

This nihilism rejects dualism, or the idea that there is a world of pure answers and absolutely correct truth, values, and communication that applies universally, or to all equally. Dualism reflects a belief in equality, which in turn reflects an ignorance of the specializations of others, which implies a fundamental solipsism.

Without dualism, we can also do away with pluralism, or the idea that many different ideas can be simultaneously correct; we have tossed out correct, and replaced it with the notion that some things work for some people at some times, and these people may have no idea what those things are. In fact, that type of mental disconnect is the norm.

With pluralism gone, we no longer need egalitarianism, or the notion of equality. Instead we merely have a landscape of conflict in which ideas and people struggle for supremacy.

This in turn abolishes the symbolic nature of ideology itself, since we now see symbols as weapons, not truth-objects in themselves. This in turn reveals to us the nature of Leftism.

Conservatives attempt to treat Leftism as if it were a serious argument when they need to view it as (a) a pathology and (b) a behavior based in justifications, meaning that its secret is that it has no goal except the method of seizing power.

Leftism is a pathology because it exploits the sunk-cost fallacy and displacement of the ensuing problems. A Leftist, typically, is an inflexible person who cannot change his own behavior, therefore finds himself ill-adapted to his environment and things go wrong. At this point, he could change but he sees how important his identity is to him socially, and repudiating that makes him look weak, so he doubles down. Since he cannot blame himself, the list of things to possibly blame includes everything but himself, and from it he selects a scapegoat usually the rich, the powerful, the alien, or the odd and attacks them.

People think of ideologies as arguments, or collections of reasons that point to a certain conclusion, instead of pathologies. We assume rationality on the part of those making the argument, instead of looking at what they might be deflecting from, hiding, and re-framing so that defeats appear as victories. Ideologies hide the ball by concealing human psychological trauma and lashing out as some kind of altruistic or at least future-oriented belief system, when in fact they are designed to conceal the actual belief system, which is not formed of rational notions, but consists of defending their current behavior against accusations of being anti-social.

We call this hiding the ball because the name of the game is to keep you looking at fireworks of the verbal kind while the real action goes on behind the scenes. A nihilist rejects the idea of universal communication or truths, which gives us an insight into ideology: it works not by communicating what it is, or a truth shared between people, but produces an image in the mind of those listening which is useful because it is vague.

The best advertisement makes no promise that can be disproved, but instead conveys the basic idea that this product will complete your life and bring happiness. Instead of doing the hard work of figuring out what you need, and then seeking something out there which fills that role, products offer a solution to a problem that you did not know you had, in the assumption that since we are all equal! whatever works for someone else will work for you, without context or recognition of your unique needs.

This tells us something disturbingly important: almost all ideology takes the form of a mild psychosis, accelerating over time. Ideology represents a disconnect between actual thinking and image, using the latter to obstruct and eliminate the former. In this way, ideology replaces concerns about reality and thinking in a logical sense (most say rational but this is inexact). It separates the individual from thinking about cause and effect in reality, and instead directs them into a social pose which rationalizes (justifies, excuses, explains) their behavior as good.

In a game theory sense, ideology functions in three roles:

In short, ideology serves as an argument only in the reactive sense of giving people reasons why they should misbehave and not be punished for it. Not surprisingly, most ideologies involve taking what others have and redistributing it for the good of humanity.

With this transfer of the question from honest leadership, or looking toward what we as a civilization and species need to do to survive well in the long term, to a little fake reality comprised of symbols for emotional needs, we move from a reality-based society to a socially-controlled one.

This is primarily what ideology does. It transforms a civilization oriented toward understanding its world into a utilitarian one, where whatever most people seem to approve of becomes the new Official Truth, whatever symbols and words seem to offend no one become the Official Language, and whatever allows temporary coexistence and keeping the system afloat conserving the immediate status quo, ignoring continuity of origins to future becomes the Official Values, a standard which quickly resembles denialism, narcissism, and radical seeking of personal wealth, power, and status at the expense of others, nature, and God/gods.

If we were thinking clearly, the primary questions of civilization would be Are you sane? and What is real?

We are a new species, all things told, and barely into the process of understanding how we must look at our world. Monarchy worked, and tradition worked, but few could see the benefits conveyed to them by living in stable and healthy civilizations. Like all things modern, the transition involved liberalizing rules and making the process of society cheaper through externalized cost, but now we see how those externalized costs including the vast waste pool of bad genetics produced will overwhelm civilization itself.

Our religions tell us to look for evil rising from the depths in fire like a symbol come to life, but in reality, evil means the cascade of bungles that happen with error. We err; we go into denial; we conceal the error; then, to justify our current position, we become dedicated to error and concealment, and obscure reality. That makes us agents against all good.

It turns out that human downfall comes from the mundane and not the exotic. Yes, we face threats from invading Muslims and Mongols, but those problems are easy to figure out: fight back (then, the only question is the method of our resistance and counter-attack). But what about everyday insanity, especially that which becomes accepted?

When we adopt insanity by becoming an ideological society, or one dedicated to a symbolic goal, all of our efforts become designed to externalize our problems, both passing the mess on to others, and finding some external force to blame. That way, we as individuals face no need to change, or alter our solipsistic thinking in order to accept reality as it is instead of simply asserting what we want it to be.

As part of this externalization, we demand equality: that society do for us what we cannot do for ourselves without some work, namely become content with who we are; egalitarianism validates everyone, and in doing so, destroys the value of that validation, but this never occurs to those who thirst for it. To them, it simply means that they can do what they want, and never be ranked lower for having been in denial of reality, despite acceptance of reality being central to our collective and individual survival both.

This however creates a comfortable mental environment, which makes sense when we consider ideology a pathology and not a logical argument. It gives people something to blame for their failings (inequality) and something to strive for that will make everything better (equality). It also gives their lives meaning, since they finally have a goal, and so in a society made empty by the death of culture, they feel that they have a place.

Ideology confuses method and goal as part of its one-dimensional symbolic and categorical approach. This means that only method remains: work toward equality, since equality is the goal, and the quest never stops. The circularity of this approach makes egalitarianism simple and addictive, since it is never enough and the only solution is to find more.

This may be its greatest evil. Instead of having a goal, we replace the notion of a goal with circular repetition, causing us to stop striving toward civilization and instead to drop out of reality into this little navel-gazing loop.

Generally, ideology consists of justifying the costs imposed upon us by civilization so that we rationalize those costs as good by pretending that we get some benefit from them beyond the real. When, for example, a passing car drops a stone that nicks our windshield, we are trained to think, Oh well, just the cost of living in a free society, I guess. The same same soon applies to criminality, homelessness, vandalism, corruption, promiscuity, crass commercialism, and loss of culture. We write it all off as a sunk cost.

When a civilization is health, it has purpose. When it does not, the headless method carries on until it takes over everything, administered by a committee because no single person any longer has the authority to make the aesthetically-based and semi-arbitrary decisions required for leadership. Method dominates first as a way of perpetuating the good fortune of the past, and later from the assumption that nothing will change, it becomes a pathology of putting out fires, avoiding risks, and taking care of the wounded. From that comes egalitarianism.

All of this arises from the fundamental solipsism of the human mind. We conjure a sort of dualism, where what goes on in the realist sphere is not good but something like evil, however what we intend goodwill toward others, social feelings like approval, and universal benevolence is good therefore cannot be rejected. For this reason, we encode it into a method, and it becomes an equally headless ideology, expanding for its own conquest and dominating, any conjectured benefits long forgotten.

Tags: dualism, egalitarianism, ideology, nihilism

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Nihilism (#1) - amerika.org

Nihilism doesn't have a great reputation.

It's associated with existential dread, immorality and Nazis.

But writer and journalist Wendy Syfret says the philosophy can also lead to a happy, positive, fulfilling life.

Syfret says nihilism's basic message is that "life is meaningless".

"Anything around you that is trying to give you any kind of direction whether that is politics, religion or your understanding of love is kind of just made up," she tells ABC RN's Life Matters.

Supplied/photo by Ben Thomson

Nihilism says that, in the scheme of things, everything we do is pointless and everything we experience is irrelevant.

It can be.

In her new book The Sunny Nihilist, Syfret gives some examples of nihilism-gone-wrong, including being used by the aforementioned Nazis to justify their atrocities and by Russian anarchists to justify a political assassination.

Life Matters is here to help you get a handle on all the important stuff: love, sex, health, fitness, parenting, career, finances and family.

Today we see nihilism espoused by alt-right influencers and "black pill" incel groups.

Syfret says if you come to nihilism looking for something destructive, you will find it.

"Like all philosophies, you get out what you put in in many ways, it is a void," Syfret says.

And as a famous nihilist philosopher said:"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Well spotted.

Syfret describes FriedrichNietzsche as "the poster boy of nihilism".

Public domain

"He didn't invent it but he very much brought it to the forefront," Syfret says.

But, she says, Nietzsche didn't consider himself as a nihilist.

"He didn't say nihilism is this endpoint where you reject all meaning and then you just sit in a dark room," Syfret says.

"He was more saying, use nihilism as a way to look at the people who are telling you what to value and to ask, 'What are these people getting out of this? And how are they trying to control me?'"

Nietzsche was wary of systems of power religion, nationalism or any other system that claimed to offer easy answers to life's big questions.

Once we reject the morals and values promoted by existing systems of power, Nietzsche argued, we are free to explore for ourselves what we truly believe.

His rejection of the status quo can be seen in how, in 19th century Germany, he fiercely opposed anti-Semitism.

So while Nietzsche wasn't the cheeriest guy in the world, Syfret says, he was not an inherently bad person.

His sister on the other hand

Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth was a Nazi when she died in 1935, Hitler attended her funeral.

In 1943, a letter to a journal named Angry Penguins marked the beginning of one of the most sensational hoaxes in Australian history.

In 1887, she and her husband attempted to found a colony of 'racially pure' Germans in Paraguay.

It failed spectacularly. The couple returned home and her husband killed himself.

By this time, FriedrichNietzsche had experienced a mental breakdownand in the years following he suffered multiple strokes.

This was when Elisabeth took control of her brother's archive and used it to further her own racist agenda.

She took bits and pieces of his writing and spliced them together into a manufactured book called Will to Power, which was published under Nietzsche's name soon after his death.

More than 120 years, yes. But Syfret says nihilism is now embedded in internet culture.

She gives the example of young pop music fans posting about their idols murdering them, or the gleeful memes shared at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when a Japanese theme park banned screaming, instead asking ride-goers to 'scream inside your heart'.

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Young people, Syfret says, have witnessed the decay of the structures that were supposed to bind society together: religion, government, the media.

At the same time, she says, those in power are failing to make choices that allow young people to have a steady job, own their own home or live on a planet that isn't wracked by fossil-fuel-induced climate change.

The uncertainty of the pandemic has many of embracing stoic and existentialist ideas, even if we don't know it.

Now, employers try to convince workers to find meaning in their jobs (Syfret devotes a chapter of her book to showing how destructive this can be) and advertisers pretend meaning can be found through the consumption of products.

In her book, Syfrettells of a meeting she witnessed where copywriters were desperately trying to imbuea popular brand of ice cream with meaning.

"It's exhausting when every single interaction you have with your day is trying to tell you that it's some meaningful, life-altering event," Syfret says.

"Sometimes you just want an ice cream."

So do I. But ultimately, millennia from now, neither younor Inor that ice cream will exist.

Pexels: Kindel Media

"Whether you have a great day at work, whether you absolutely nail your presentation, whether you're super charming on the zoom date you have tonight in the scope of human history, of the history of the planet, the reality is these things don't really matter," Syfret says.

"That can be a liberating way to step back from your life a little bit [and] not focus on the incredibly stressful things that we tell ourselves are the centre of the whole universe."

Hopefully, Syfret says, being confronted with how insignificant your life ultimately is also causes you to examine what is truly of value to you.

For some, she says, that might be art, music or social justice. For Syfret, knowledge that the planet will continue long after she's ceased to exist has led to her involvement in climate activism.

"As the idea of the self dissolves, it can also be a way to feel more connected to a larger community, or a sense of the health of the planet."

And, Syfret argues, by acknowledging that nothing you do ultimately matters, you're more likely to take time to enjoy the simple things whether that's patting a dog, breathing fresh air or eating an ice cream.

Enjoy it!

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Nietzsche didn't consider himself a nihilist and other things you should know about nihilism - ABC News

There are some shows that act as springboards. The Office led to Michael Schur and Mindy Kalings empires. Nip/Tuck marked the beginning of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuks seemingly limitless partnership. The Simpsons has launched more careers than anyone can count. And theres another show that has been not-so-secretly lifting up the next round of TV mega creators. Rick and Mortys producers, writers, and directors have been slowly overtaking television, and chances are theyre not going to stop any time soon.

Adult Swim has proven that Rick and Morty is absurd profitable on multiple occasions. Back in 2018, the series was renewed for a staggering 70 episodes, and earlier this summer, it was announced that the sci-fi animated comedy would be getting a spinoff series that revolved around The Vindicators. Thats nothing to say of the major projects coming up for series co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon. Roiland launched Hulus Solar Opposites back in 2020 alongside former Rick and Morty producer Mike McMahan. He also set up his own video game studio known as Squanch Games in 2016, which has produced the positively reviewed VR games Job Simulator and Trover Saves the Universe.And if you like Dan Harmons optimistic brand of nihilism, get ready to see a lot more of it soon. The creator is attached to Krapopolis, an animated comedy about fighting Greek gods for Fox; Strange Planet, based on Nathan Pyles comic of the same name for Apple TV+; and Sirens of Titan, a long-discussed adaptation of Kurt Vonneguts novel.

Thats an impressive and exciting list for any creative team. Its also only the beginning.

Speaking of Mike McMahan, the Solar Opposites co-creator and former Rick and Morty executive producer is also the creator of Paramount+s currently running Star Trek: Lower Decks. McMahans success with Lower Decks even led to him signing two-year deal with CBS Studios

Another former Rick and Morty writer and producer was responsible for one of the biggest TV events of the year. But before he created Loki, showrunner Michael Waldron was perfecting his multiverse skills with this grandfather and grandson pair. Waldron is also the creator of STARZs critically praised Heels and will be dominating the film industry soon. He and Jade Bartlett are the co-writers of Marvels upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And after hes done broadening the MCU, hes going to try his hand at Star Wars with a currently untitled project with Kevin Feige.

Then theres Jessica Gao. The writer of Pickle Rick will serve as the creator of Disney+s upcoming She-Hulk. She also received a pilot order from ABC about a comedy centered around a Chinese-American family and is set to executive produce Amazons upcoming The Undesirables. And Waldron isnt the only one heading for the big screen. Gao will be executive producing Jo Koys Easter Sunday and co-writing the Ice Cube-starring Oh Hell No.

Also that Vindicators show? That will be executive produced by Rick and Morty alum Erica Rosbe and Sarah Carbiener in addition to Harmon and Roiland. Both Rosbe and Carbiener worked as writers and producers on Youre the Worst, FXs critically-acclaimed romantic comedy, as well as writers and supervising producers on Amazons psychological thriller Homecoming.

The list doesnt end there. After working on Rick and Morty, Jane Becker worked on Hulus Future Man, the twisted animated series Harley Quinn, and one of the greatest comedies of our time, Ted Lasso. James Fino and Kenny Micka went on to be producers for HBOs bizarre cult hit Animals. Director Stephen Sandoval has worked on Gravity Falls and The Owl House. And Jeff Loveness, the writer of some of your favorite Season 4 episodes including The Vat of Acid Episode, will be the second Rick and Morty writer to jump to the MCUs big screen. Loveness is the writer of the upcomingAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

It would be insane to suggest that all of these new projects are only happening because of Rick and Morty. No show has that much power, not even one with Rick Sanchez as its lead. But there is something about this aggressively wild cartoon that attracts talent. Shows like Loki, Solar Opposites, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and even Youre the Worst do the same thing as Rick and Morty, time and time again taking an established premise and flipping it on its head. That flip can be something as simple as writing a rom-com with hatable characters or as complex as dissecting the entire universe of Star Trek. Its not entirely surprising that highly creative people who would thrive writing about multiverses and pocket dimensions would bring that thinking-beyond-the-stars mentality to every project they touch.

Whether this is actually the case or not, Rick and Morty is starting to feel like a paid boot camp for some of TVs most narratively ambitious creators. It feels like a place where they can stretch the limits of their imaginations in Harmon and Roilands world before settling into other projects. Before it was ever an Adult Swim show, that show that would become Rick and Morty was a short in Harmon and Rob Schrabs film festival Channel 101. The entire point of Channel 101 was to give budding creators a platform to show the world what they could do and let the people decide what stayed. More than The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti,this contest is starting to feel more like Rick and Mortys predecessor. Pay attention to those names in the credits. Theres a good chance that with each passing episode, youre being introduced to Hollywoods future.

Where to stream Rick and Morty

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'Rick and Morty's Staff is Slowly Taking Over Television - Decider

Director Beth Bs documentary Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over profiles a key figure in the No Wave movement that came out of New York in the late 1970s. An angry, dissonant music with elements of nihilism, noise and dark, sometimes poetic literacy, No Wave was a gritty, stridently non-commercial backlash to both popular radio music and three-chord punk.

As the frontperson in Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, 8-Eyed Spy and other bands, Lunch rose to prominence as a sexually-charged singer and spoken-word artist, and she continued to thrive as a very vocal provocateur long after No Wave passed into music history books, and continued to collaborate with artists of every discipline, both over- and underground.

The War is Never Over, which screens Tuesday (Aug. 31) at St. Petersburgs Green Light Cinema, is a clear-eyed homage to the Rochester natives musical, literary and visual pursuits, starting with her arrival in New York City as a teenage runaway in search of an escape from her sexually abusive father a tragic circumstance that continued to force-feed her anger for decades.

Collaborators including Sonic Youths Thurston Moore and Donita Sparks of L7 sing her praises, one by one, accompanied by astonishing video clips of Lunchs various performance personas over the years.

Raved the Boston Hassle: Whenever the camera is trained on its subject, the effect is nothing short of electric. And Cinemalogue said This edgy portrait digs into her rage and rebellion with the same commitment as Lydia herself.

Lunch herself is traveling with the film. After stops in Miami and Orlando, shell be at Green Light following Tuesdays 7 p.m. screening, to answer audience questions.

The Catalyst caught up with the legend by phone, a few days before she departed for Florida.

St. Pete Catalyst: At the end of the film, youre onstage with the band and you lean over to this couple standing in the front and ask them each What is it that you want? After all this time, what is it that YOU want? What are you still looking for?

Lydia Lunch: Nothing. Its not that Ive had everything, its that I dont need anything. I dont know that I want anything on a personal level, not a political level, cause that would take too long to explain. I just want to keep doing what Ive always done, which I will continue to do. Thats not even like a want, thats a mandate. I dont know how to do anything else!

Are there still reasons to be angry? Maybe not what fueled you in the beginning, but fuel you now?

What fueled me in the beginning still fuels me right now, because the situation has not changed. And the problem is, we know more about it now than we did then, whether I was speaking about familial nuclear family insanity or political insanity, very little has changed. And its more fucked all the time. One of my mantras was always same as it ever was. Because, is it any different from feudal times? Or medieval times? Its still a feudal society, theres still the super-rich and the rest of us.

Yes, we have more freedoms. All right. No doubt. But on a grander scale, equality, where is it? Justice, where is it? So theres just as many reasons to be angry. Please.

The great thing about having my podcast The Lydian Spin for the past two years especially in 2020, when there were no performances and there was an ass clown in the seat of power, it was a great platform to espouse the horror, the horror. So that was great. We carry on.

Why was it time to make this documentary?

I dont know is it ever time? What about Part Two is my question. Couldnt get everything into it. Good thing a DVD is coming out with some extras you cant cram 43 years into 70 minutes. Beth did the best she could do, and she got quite a lot in there, obviously.

People have asked me for years, and Im like Excuse me, Im still living, and how are you going to keep up with me anyway? All the things Ive done since we finished doing this (the film), et cetera et cetera. But she did a pretty good job of condensing as much as possible into that format.

I liked that at no time did you feel the need to explain yourself. Its like if youre in this world, youll get it. Youll understand what shes talking about.

You got it right there. Look, if people think Im preaching to the converted, I like to think Im preaching to the perverted. I mean, converted to what? Im not espousing a dogma or a philosophy, Im just spouting off about the frustrations that a sexual and a political minority have. So Im a mouthpiece for that, and hence I continue.

Thats it, and if you dont get it, I dont fuckin care. What am I supposed to do? How much clearer can I be? Im not a solutionist.

And also, I feel that its very important to say this: I dont feel that Im just speaking for myself. I call it crab-walking sideways through my career. My fan base may be almost the same as it ever was, which is enough for me. Hello? But Im not speaking only for myself. I know there are other people.

How have you changed, philosophically, over the years? Are you angrier?

My anger is on a grand scale, its never on a personal level. So I dont sit here stewing in my own juice 24 hours a day. And also, I allow the daylight hours to be where I absorb more of the fucking pus and poison that especially this country exports to every inch of the frickin planet, but when night falls around, forget it, I gotta shut it off.

I dont get mad at people. Its just not important enough. If youre being an asshole, hey, Im capable of being one too, but Ill just step away. You have an opinion I dont agree with, go ahead.

So are you rich?

(laughs) Ive been tied to the fucking gutter numerous times. Thats the price you have to pay for not knowing how to do anything but art. But its been worth it.

Right now, Im trying to sell my intellectual property rights. Part of it is a cultural guilt trip. They gave the Red Hot Fucking Chili Peppers $150 million for their catalogue. Hello!? I have 385 songs written, screenplays, books, thousands of photographs I took take me to the bank, motherfucker! This is all stuff Ive completed, that I could do no more with, because Ive done everything I could with it.

So I would love for someone to come and hand me a bag of cash. But it wouldnt be because I need the money I dont want fuckin anything. I dont want to buy a house, a car, an apartment I dont even drive.

But it would be nice to help other artists that are not as clever a juggler as I am. And do more projects.

People spend hundreds of dollars on the lottery every week. I figure I might win by not playing it.

Are you doing a reading in St. Petersburg?

No, Im just coming down to poke you in the side. If somebody has a question, Ill answer it.

If someone wanted to goad you into reading, would you do it?

If they paid me! Im coming down for free as it is. Whaddya got in your pocket, Bill?

Green Light tickets here.

Lydia Lunch official website here.

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Reasons to be angry: Talking with punk provocateur Lydia Lunch, due in St. Pete Tuesday - St Pete Catalyst

Americans typically consider questions about the meaning of the Constitution through the prism of their political views and values. As a consequence, they tend to defend as constitutional the acts of officials whom they support, and criticize as unconstitutional the acts of those representatives whom they oppose. This approach implies that the meaning of the Constitution turns on whose ox is being gored.

This method of constitutional interpretation converts the Constitution, to borrow Thomas Jeffersons homespun phrase, into a thing of wax, an object that is subject to political manipulation, devoid of any intrinsic, objective meaning. In this context, the Constitution can be made to mean anything the reader wants it to mean. This is constitutional nihilism, and it undermines the very premise of American Constitutionalism and the rule of law. It precludes achievement among the citizenry of shared understandings about the meaning of the Constitution which, in turn, prevents consideration of the constitutionality of policies and laws apart from the deep division and polarization that characterize contemporary America.

There is a better way, one that might help our nation overcome the deep polarization that besets us. Let me suggest that we think, constitutionally.

Chief Justice John Marshall set forth this standard in 1819, in the landmark case of McCulloch v. Maryland: The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional. A century later, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes similarly declared: The criterion of constitutionality is not whether we believe the law to be for the public good.

What this wisdom means for the public is that we should refrain from impulsive declarations of unconstitutionality simply because we object to the policy in question. Rather, we should distinguish the relative wisdom of a measure from the question of whether or not it is constitutional. Such an approach lends itself to critiquing and improving legislative proposals.

That is, we might be inclined to embrace a bill as good public policy, but conclude, upon reflection, that it contains provisions that are inconsistent with the Constitution and require some improvement. If all Americans would embrace this approach we could, at a minimum, sit at the same common table, despite differences of politics and ideology, to fairly discuss the legality of legislative and executive acts. This means of interpreting the Constitution would have the likely benefit of lowering the wall that polarizes the citizenry.

Grasping the distinction between the wisdom of a measure, and its constitutionality, constituted a formative moment in my development as a constitutional scholar. My own experience may prove valuable for readers.

Years ago, I was engaged in a project on the question of how the Constitution allocated the authority to terminate treaties. My initial premise, based on a review of the literature, suggested that the president enjoys the authority to terminate or abrogate treaties on behalf of the United States.

However, the more deeply I examined the issue, the more I realized that, for a variety of reasons, the framers of the Constitution could not have contemplated the idea of placing in the president the authority to unilaterally terminate treaties. Indeed, the location of such awesome authority in the hands of the executive would have undermined their design for the conduct of American foreign policy, which was grounded on the principle of shared or collective decision-making among the departments of government, and the rejection of independent presidential power.

This extensive research led to the conclusion that the framers had placed the termination authority in the treaty power, that is, the hands of the president and the Senate, to terminate treaties, just as they possessed the authority to make treaties. In short, the principle of symmetry governed. This constitutional conclusion collided with my view at the time that the Constitution wisely vested the termination authority in the presidency.

What was I to do? I might have manipulated my findings to serve my sense of the wisdom of unilateral presidential power to terminate treaties, but that would violate my conception of a scholarly duty to follow the evidence. I had no interest in converting the Constitution into a thing of wax. Thus I accepted the fact that my initial view of the allocation of authority to terminate treaties was, in the end, wrong. Now, I accepted the evidence. With that acceptance, and further contemplation of the framers reasons for locating the power in the treaty-making authority, I arrived at a clear understanding of the wisdom of the framers in granting the authority to the president and Senate.

That moment a teaching moment convinced me of the importance of thinking, constitutionally. I was free, of course, to believe that the framers had erred in their decision, but I was not permitted, if I was interested in maintaining my own intellectual integrity, to manipulate or bend the evidence to my own ideological preferences. If everyone did that, the Constitution would be deprived of its essential meaning and would, as Jefferson warned, become a thing of wax. There lies the path to the destruction of the rule of law and American Constitutionalism.

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Thinking constitutionally, not waxing it | The Journal - Journaltrib