Category Archives: Nihilism

Doom metal is perhaps the perfect genre through which music can express the conditions of the apocalypse. Impossibly-long tracks ebb and flow like a boiling shoreline, an encroaching tide of guitars trudge and crawl like toxic sludge, cyclonic drums pound, crash, and whip against the scorched Earth. Add some hallowed vocals atop this distressing combination and an adroit approximation of the worst effects of the anthropocene starts to form.

Body Void's newest album Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth brutally channels this apocalyptic suitability, giving audible shape to humanity's worst nightmares about where our future may be headed. The New England/Bay Area duo recorded the album last summer during the height of the nationwide protests and pandemic confusion. The broiling mood that gripped the country is emulated brilliantly through Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth's anguished, venomous tone. Its four tracks (each of which run at between twelve and thirteen minutes) are mini-symphonies of agony, provocative and bold doom metal visions that speak of an unrelenting horror and despair.

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It's tempting to say that Body Void's approach is one that allows very little light in, turning away from the bright glow of goodness and scurrying off into the dark. Yet, as a close listen to Bury Me Beneath This Rotted Earth reveals, Body Void are lamenting the death of the Earth, rather than welcoming its demise. Their shrieks and howls cry out for justice and compassion, yet find little to hush their screams. Opener "Wound" makes this sense of despair literal: "we live here/by a hole/the earth has opened wide/to scream its curse". Rather than consciously turning away from the light, Body Void are eulogizing its absence, grasping around for whatever remains, their panicked cries echoing around the ever-growing chasm in the Earth.

"Forest Fire" utilises a more accusatory tone, taking aim at those standing by as the planet ignites and burns. Lines like "the problem's not yours/you're here to win/burn/the house" sardonically attack the capitalistic short-term mentality that matters little "until the flames/lick at your skin". The track is especially murky and viscous, even when compared to the rest of Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth. When it finally does kick up a gear, it erupts into a sort of half-blast beat, a ferocious caveman beat that comes from a place of pure, seething anger. It manages to speed up to a 'full' blast for about twenty seconds, but can only collapse in on itself, worn out and depleted.

While Body Void's lyrical approach intelligently channels the duo's impassioned rage at the state of the planet, the reason it works so well is because it's married up alongside some truly disturbing and macabre imagery. The hole-in-the-Earth metaphor of "Wound" and the scorched images of "Forest Fire" are both palpable and expertly-realized, however it's the horrific visions of the final two tracks "Fawn" and "Pale Man" that really succeed in burning themselves into the mind. "Fawn" imagines an elemental creature/spirit that takes control of its host, forcing them to see the world through its eyes ("you are the fawn/it grows inside you"), while "Pale Man" uses the titular creation as a metaphor for critiquing colonialism and general western self-appointed superiority. It contains a ton of piercingly smart lines, the best of which being "he kills to feel the power of his place/shits in fear if you look him in the face".

The album's greatest achievement is that its perspective manages to go beyond nihilism, despair or any such anthropocentric worries. Instead, it becomes the sound of the Earth itself, howling back at us, utilizing a mode of metal that is perfectly primed for dealing with such a spatially enormous and existentially weighty topic as the end of mankind. Body Void have given voice to the Earth, even though it cannot speak our language. Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth is not just a punishing, hallowed work of physical doom metal, but one that is also inherently moral and eerily soulful.

Tom Morgan

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Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth releases today via Prosthetic Records (with a limited-edition cassette from Tridroid Records).

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Body Void's Dismal Plea Reflects The Doomed Truth: Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth (Review) - Invisible Oranges

On Tuesday, hours after a former Minneapolis police officer was convicted of murdering George Floyd, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) made a poor choice of words at a news conference with members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice, she said. Because of you and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came out for justice, your name will always be synonymous with justice.

The online backlash was swift; Pelosi followed up with a tweet emphasizing that George Floyd should be alive today, and adding, He did not die in vain. She called for enactment of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a much-needed police accountability measure.

It is easy to take cheap shots at leaders who make gaffes, and this mini-furor will subside.

Her phrasing sat somewhere between awkward and offensive, but its clear that Pelosi did not mean to thank George Floyd for being murdered. Still inadvertently she underscored the fact that Black martyrdom has been an all-too-real phenomenon throughout Americas troubled history.

The roster of Black martyrdom to the cause of civil rights and racial equality just since the 1950s is staggering: Emmett Till. Medgar Evers. The four little girls in Birmingham. James Chaney. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

These are the famous ones. Among the Black Lives Matter movements many accomplishments has been the insistence, as with Breonna Taylor, on saying the names of victims of police violence, to ensure they are not forgotten. To acknowledge Black humanity and dignity is only a tiny first step but a necessary one if America is ever to move forward from the tragedies of genocide and enslavement that accompanied this nations birth and emergence and have tarnished its noble ideals.

The dead cannot be thanked; they are indifferent to the gratitude (or any other emotions) expressed by the living. In a nation with strong Christian traditions, it is understandable to seek meaning in the nihilism of death, especially violent deaths. Yes, we must remember our martyrs, but the only true path forward is to achieve justice the justice that our martyrs were denied.

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Opinion: Nancy Pelosi's gratitude, and the problem with Black martyrdom - Los Angeles Times

Those of us who had hoped America would calm down when we no longer had Donald Trump spewing poison from the Oval Office have been sadly disabused. There are increasing signs that the Trumpian base is radicalizing. My Republican friends report vicious divisions in their churches and families. Republican politicians who dont toe the Trump line are speaking of death threats and menacing verbal attacks.

Its as if the Trump base felt some security when their man was at the top, and thats now gone. Maybe Trump was the restraining force.

Whats happening can only be called a venomous panic attack. Since the election, large swathes of the Trumpian right have decided America is facing a crisis like never before and they are the small army of warriors fighting with Alamo-level desperation to ensure the survival of the country as they conceive it.

The first important survey data to understand this moment is the one pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson discussed with my colleague Ezra Klein. When asked in late January if politics is more about enacting good public policy or ensuring the survival of the country as we know it, 51 percent of Trump Republicans said survival; only 19 percent said policy.

The level of Republican pessimism is off the charts. A February Economist-YouGov poll asked Americans which statement is closest to their view: Its a big, beautiful world, mostly full of good people, and we must find a way to embrace each other and not allow ourselves to become isolated or Our lives are threatened by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants, and our priority should be to protect ourselves.

Over 75 percent of Biden voters chose a big, beautiful world. Two-thirds of Trump voters chose our lives are threatened.

This level of catastrophism, nearly despair, has fed into an amped-up warrior mentality.

The decent know that they must become ruthless. They must become the stuff of nightmares, Jack Kerwick writes in the Trumpian magazine American Greatness. The good man must spare not a moment to train, in both body and mind, to become the monster that he may need to become in order to slay the monsters that prey upon the vulnerable.

With this view, the Jan. 6 insurrection was not a shocking descent into lawlessness but practice for the war ahead. A week after the siege, nearly a quarter of Republicans polled said violence can be acceptable to achieve political goals. William Saletan of Slate recently rounded up the evidence showing how many Republican politicians are now cheering the Jan. 6 crowd, voting against resolutions condemning them.

Liberal democracy is based on a level of optimism, faith and a sense of security. Its based on confidence in the humanistic project: that through conversation and encounter, we can deeply know each other across differences; that most people are seeking the good with different opinions about how to get there; that society is not a zero-sum war, but a conversation and a negotiation.

As Leon Wieseltier writes in the magazine Liberties, James Madison was an optimist and a pessimist at the same time, a realist and an idealist. Philosophic liberals whether on the right side of the political spectrum or the left understand people have selfish interests, but believe in democracy and open conversation because they have confidence in the capacities of people to define their own lives, to care for people unlike themselves, to keep society progressing.

With their deep pessimism, the hyperpopulist wing of the G.O.P. seems to be crashing through the floor of philosophic liberalism into an abyss of authoritarian impulsiveness. Many of these folks are no longer even operating in the political realm. The G.O.P. response to the Biden agenda has been anemic because the base doesnt care about mere legislation, just their own cultural standing.

Over the last decade or so, as illiberalism, cancel culture and all the rest have arisen within the universities and elite institutions on the left, dozens of publications and organizations have sprung up. They have drawn a sharp line between progressives who believe in liberal free speech norms, and those who dont.

There are new and transformed magazines and movements like American Purpose, Persuasion, Counterweight, Arc Digital, Tablet and Liberties that point out the excesses of the social justice movement and distinguish between those who think speech is a mutual exploration to seek truth and those who think speech is a structure of domination to perpetuate systems of privilege.

This is exactly the line-drawing that now confronts the right, which faces a more radical threat. Republicans and conservatives who believe in the liberal project need to organize and draw a bright line between themselves and the illiberals on their own side. This is no longer just about Trump the man, its about how you are going to look at reality as the muddle its always been, or as an apocalyptic hellscape. Its about how you pursue change through the conversation and compromise of politics, or through intimidations of macho display.

I can tell a story in which the Trumpians self-marginalize or exhaust themselves. Permanent catastrophism is hard. But apocalyptic pessimism has a tendency to deteriorate into nihilism, and people eventually turn to the strong man to salve the darkness and chaos inside themselves.

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Opinion | The G.O.P. Is Getting Even Worse - The New York Times

For all of the ground-breaking accomplishments the Marvel Cinematic Universe has achieved in terms of modern Hollywood franchise building, the products themselves are hardly ever as revolutionary. Films and TV series dont necessarily need to shatter the form and function of the genre to be well-received. The MCUs consistent high floor of quality is proof of that. But at this point, as The Falcon and the Winter Soldiershifts into its series finale, its become clear that every single MCU project is going to climax with a more-or-less traditional punch-em-up between good guys and bad guys. So whatever comes before that CGI-fueled action resolution damn well better be good.

Every MCU features third act boils down to a standoff between protagonist and antagonist that includes a fair bit of monologuing and a fair pit of punching. The same can be said for Marvels first Disney+ seriesWandaVision. Thats okayits how the blockbuster formula works. But the relatively generic culmination format needs to be built on the back of sound character development, thematic messaging and logical plot progression. Thats where The Falcon and the Winter Soldierwas never quite consistent.

The series failed to properly address the MCUs single most glaring flaw when it comes to true consequences for the choices of our heroes. They are awarded character development without ever actually being forced to change. But we knew that back in Episode 3. What the season finale, which does pack plenty of good at times, really fails to do is reconcile the two halves ofThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier finale, One World, One People below.

This series was at its best with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Isaiah Bradley (Carly Lumbly) exploring the ugly nature of systemic and cyclical racism that extends through this countrys history like a rotting root. This is where were given a fresh perspective on contemporary Americawhere we finally learn how the Captain America shield can represent different things to different people. For the entirety of the MCU, symbols have been treated at face value. For the first time in the franchises history, were starting to finally realize that even the noblest of intentions can be commandeered for other purposes.

Unfortunately, the show wasnt always as focused on this central element as it could have been. The mechanics of howwe fight the battles that matter seemed to supersede this theme in the middle episodes before the show returned to racial politics to close out its run. This gave the series a stop-and-start feel with a jumbled message.

The finale feels like it was constructed to optimize the easiest way out of almost every interesting question the show asked.

The realism ofThe Falcon and the Winter Soldiersemphasis on institutional and perception-based racism never blended with the idealism of putting Karlis (Erin Kellyman) politics and eventual death on a pedestal. Sam should be commended for being more interested in why oppressed peoples feel the way they do and how the world can better serve them. Hes right when he says that the helplessness that grips the world finally unites the powerful and the poverty-stricken alike.

But its also a fabrication. Call it nihilism and cynicism if you like, butThe Falcon and the Winter Soldiers strongest element was its uncompromising showcase of how nothing changes or improves in this country. Rather than live in that, the finale feels like it was constructed to optimize the easiest way out of almost every interesting question the show asked. People just get better at hiding their ugly truths. Reverting back to the common MCU formula in One World, One People after an uneven focus across the five episodes before it feels too comfortable and easy to be a satisfying conclusion.

The action-packed finale that was always inevitable didnt always earn its respite from the tough conversations. Instead, it slapped together the brutal honesty the series was always going for with the unrealistic hopeful optimism only found in Hollywood.

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The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Finale Just Feels Like a Fabrication - Observer

Embracing the Absurd

Optimistic nihilism deals with the existential concept of The Absurd. Human beings naturally seek meaning, but we live in a world with no innate meaning. We are tiny creatures that live only briefly compared to the universe too epically large and old for our brains to comprehend. The friction between incongruous concepts like these creates a dilemma: The Absurd.

To resolve The Absurd, optimistic nihilism advises us to accept it. It embraces the feeling of surrender. There are many things in life that we cannot control, and the optimistic nihilist is grateful for this. It narrows down what we have to worry about.

The more you believe you have control over something, the more you identify with it. When you think you have a choice whether or not to be depressed, you start to be defined by it. This can quickly turn into your depression swallowing you whole.

Surrendering to depression doesnt mean giving it control. It means you embrace the fact that it will always be a part of your life. Paradoxically, the less you try to control your depression, the more control you have over your life.

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What is Optimistic Nihilism? - Louis Laves-Webb

I wrote a book about nihilism because I see it as the gateway to all sane thinking. Nihilism rejects humanity in favor of reality, and says that we must pay attention to natural order instead of the utilitarian/individualist assessment of what people think about that order.

Most conservatives, brainwashed by recent history, think they should oppose nihilism in favor of an unprovable objectivism based in God and the Constitution. The lie in this is revealed as Communists take aim at historical nihilism:

The tip line allows people to report fellow netizens who distort the Partys history, attack its leadership and policies, defame national heroes and deny the excellence of advanced socialist culture online, said a notice posted by an arm of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on Friday.

Some with ulterior motives have been spreading historical nihilistic misrepresentations online, maliciously distorting, denigrating and negating the history of the Party, said the notice.

Through their use of the term, we see exactly what is happening at this point in history: a vast Crowd, dedicated to individualistic/utilitarian assessments of what is good based on what is popular, wants to oppose those who notice reality beyond the human sphere.

In their minds, not believing the official narrative (Communism, anarchism, we are all one, people are basically good, The Enlightenment emphasis on human reason which rapidly becomes if a human thinks it, it is true enough pluralism) equates to believing in nothing.

These Crowdists think that nihilism is a nasty insult, forgetting that to us it is a compliment. We believe in nothing; we assert the existence of a consistent and logical external reality, and accept that people perceive and analyze it differently.

With nothing to believe in, a nihilist is left with what can be perceived. It can be said that we believe in reality, but distrust human assessments of it, including our own if they become too distant from verifiable fact and pattern.

History will record that human civilization died by manipulation. We, the clever apes, got so good at using language, images, and symbols to control one another that we obliterated reality in our collective mindset, producing a zombie group which pursues illusion to its doom.

Communism takes up just one part of this movement. Cults, consumerism, fetishes, obsessions, addictions, and distracting activities consume our mental space, while the question of adapting to reality and keeping civilization sane and good comes only secondary.

Tags: communism, crowdism, nihilism

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Communism Takes Aim at Nihilism

Quote by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

"God is Dead" (German: Gott ist tot(helpinfo); also known as The Death of God) is a widely quoted statement made by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche used the phrase to express his idea that the Enlightenment had eliminated the possibility of the existence of God. However, proponents of the strongest form of the Death of God theology have used the phrase in a literal sense, meaning that the Christian God, who had existed at one point, has ceased to exist. Nietzsche's complete statement is, "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

The phrase first appeared in Nietzsche's 1882 collection The Gay Science (Die frhliche Wissenschaft, also translated as "The Joyful Pursuit of Knowledge and Understanding").[1] However, it is most famously associated with Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra), which is most responsible for making the phrase popular. Other philosophers had previously discussed the concept, including Philipp Mainlnder and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

Before Nietzsche, the phrase can be found in Grard de Nerval's 1854 Poem "Le Christ aux oliviers" ("Christ at the olive trees"),[2] and claims he was citing a speech from Jean Paul. The phrase is also found in a passage expressed by a narrator in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misrables':

Discourses of a "death of God" in German culture appear as early as the 17th century and originally referred to Lutheran theories of atonement. The phrase "God is dead" appears in the hymn "Ein Trauriger Grabgesang" ("A mournful dirge") by Johann von Rist. Contemporary historians believe that 19th-century German idealist philosophers, especially those associated with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, are responsible for removing the specifically Christian resonance of the phrase relating to the death of Jesus Christ and associating it with secular philosophical and sociological theories.[5]

Although the statement and its meaning are attributed to Nietzsche, Hegel had discussed the concept of the death of God in his Phenomenology of Spirit, where he considers the death of God to "Not be seen as anything but an easily recognized part of the usual Christian cycle of redemption".[6] Later on Hegel writes about the great pain of knowing that God is dead "The pure concept, however, or infinity, as the abyss of nothingness in which all being sinks, must characterize the infinite pain, which previously was only in culture historically and as the feeling on which rests modern religion, the feeling that God Himself is dead, (the feeling which was uttered by Pascal, though only empirically, in his saying: Nature is such that it marks everywhere, both in and outside of man, a lost God), purely as a phase, but also as no more than just a phase, of the highest idea."[7]

Hegel's student Richard Rothe, in his 1837 theological text Die Anfnge der christlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung, appears to be one of the first philosophers to associate the idea of a death of God with the sociological theory of secularization.[8]

German philosopher Max Stirner writes in 1844 about the death of God and about the killing of God by humans during the Enlightenment in his book The Ego and its Own.[9] In philosophic literature there is a discussion of the possible influence of Max Stirner on Nietzsche.[citation needed]

Before Nietzsche, the concept was popularized in philosophy by the German philosopher Philipp Mainlnder.[10]

It was while reading Mainlnder, that Nietzsche explicitly writes to have parted ways with Schopenhauer.[11] In Mainlnder's more than 200 pages long criticism of Schopenhauer's metaphysics, he argues against one cosmic unity behind the world, and champions a real multiplicity of wills struggling with each other for existence. Yet, the interconnection and the unitary movement of the world, which are the reasons that lead philosophers to pantheism, are undeniable.[12] They do indeed lead to a unity, but this may not be at the expense of a unity in the world that undermines the empirical reality of the world. It is therefore declared to be dead.

Now we have the right to give this being the well-known name that always designates what no power of imagination, no flight of the boldest fantasy, no intently devout heart, no abstract thinking however profound, no enraptured and transported spirit has ever attained: God. But this basic unity is of the past; it no longer is. It has, by changing its being, totally and completely shattered itself. God has died and his death was the life of the world. [Note 1]

Mainlnder, Die Philosophie der Erlsung

The idea is stated in "The Madman" as follows:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

But the best known passage is at the end of part 2 of Zarathustra's Prolog, where after beginning his allegorical journey Zarathustra encounters an aged ascetic who expresses misanthropy and love of God:

When Zarathustra heard these words, he saluted the saint and said "What should I have to give you! But let me go quickly that I take nothing from you!" And thus they parted from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, laughing as two boys laugh.

But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint has not heard in his forest that God is dead!"

Nietzsche used the phrase to sum up the effect and consequence that the Age of Enlightenment had on the centrality of the concept of God within Western European civilization, which had been essentially Christian in character since the later Roman Empire. The Enlightenment had brought about the triumph of scientific rationality over sacred revelation; the rise of philosophical materialism and Naturalism that to all intents and purposes had dispensed with the belief in or role of God in human affairs and the destiny of the world.

Nietzsche recognized the crisis that this "Death of God" represented for existing moral assumptions in Europe as they existed within the context of traditional Christian belief. "When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident ... By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands."[16] This is why in "The Madman", a passage which primarily addresses nontheists (especially atheists), the problem is to retain any system of values in the absence of a divine order.

The Enlightenment's conclusion of the "Death of God" gave rise to the proposition that humans and Western Civilization as a whole could no longer believe in a divinely ordained moral order. This death of God will lead, Nietzsche said, not only to the rejection of a belief of cosmic or physical order but also to a rejection of absolute values themselves to the rejection of belief in an objective and universal moral law, binding upon all individuals. In this manner, the loss of an absolute basis for morality leads to nihilism. This nihilism is that for which Nietzsche worked to find a solution by re-evaluating the foundations of human values.[citation needed]

Nietzsche believed that the majority of people did not recognize this death out of the deepest-seated fear or angst. Therefore, when the death did begin to become widely acknowledged, people would despair and nihilism would become rampant.

Although Nietzsche puts the statement "God is dead" into the mouth of a "madman"[17] in The Gay Science, he also uses the phrase in his own voice in sections 108 and 343 of the same book. In the madman passage, the man is described as running through a marketplace shouting, "I seek God! I seek God!" He arouses some amusement; no one takes him seriously. Maybe he took an ocean voyage? Lost his way like a little child? Maybe he's afraid of us (non-believers) and is hiding? much laughter. Frustrated, the madman smashes his lantern on the ground, crying out that "God is dead, and we have killed him, you and I!" "But I have come too soon," he immediately realizes, as his detractors of a minute before stare in astonishment: people cannot yet see that they have killed God. He goes on to say:

This prodigious event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars and yet they have done it themselves.

trans. Walter Kaufmann, The Gay Science, sect. 125

Earlier in the book (section 108), Nietzsche wrote: "God is dead, but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we we still have to vanquish his shadow, too." The protagonist in Thus Spoke Zarathustra also speaks the words, commenting to himself after visiting a hermit who, every day, sings songs and lives to glorify his god as noted above.

What is more, Zarathustra later not only refers to the death of God but states: "Dead are all the Gods." It is not just one morality that has died, but all of them, to be replaced by the life of the bermensch, the super man:

'DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE OVERMAN TO LIVE.'

Nietzsche believed there could be positive new possibilities for humans without God. Relinquishing the belief in God opens the way for human creative abilities to fully develop. The Christian God, he wrote, would no longer stand in the way, so human beings might stop turning their eyes toward a supernatural realm and begin to acknowledge the value of this world.

Nietzsche uses the metaphor of an open sea, which can be both exhilarating and terrifying. The people who eventually learn to create their lives anew will represent a new stage in human existence, the bermensch i.e., the personal archetype who, through the conquest of their own nihilism, themselves become a sort of mythical hero. The "death of God" is the motivation for Nietzsche's last (uncompleted) philosophical project, the "revaluation of all values".

Martin Heidegger understood this aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy by looking at it as the death of metaphysics. In his view, Nietzsche's words can only be understood as referring not to a particular theological or anthropological view but rather to the end of philosophy itself. Philosophy has, in Heidegger's words, reached its maximum potential as metaphysics and Nietzsche's words warn of its demise and the end of any metaphysical worldview. If metaphysics is dead, Heidegger warns, that is because from its inception that was its fate.[18]

Although theologians since Nietzsche had occasionally used the phrase "God is dead" to reflect increasing unbelief in God, the concept rose to prominence in the late 1950s and 1960s, subsiding in the early 1970s.[19] The German-born theologian Paul Tillich, for instance, was influenced by the writings of Nietzsche, especially his phrase "God is dead."[20]

The October 22, 1965, issue of Time magazine contained an article in the "Religion" section, entitled "Theology: The God Is Dead Movement", that addressed a movement among American theologians who openly embraced the notion of the death of God. Then six months later the controversial Easter issue of Time appeared on April 8, 1966, shocking the public with the provocative questionin huge red type against a black background"Is God Dead?" The main proponents of this theology in the mid- to late 1960s included Christian theologians John Robinson, Thomas J. J. Altizer, William Hamilton, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul van Buren, and the Jewish theologian and rabbi Richard L. Rubenstein.

William Hamilton wrote the following about American radical theologian Thomas J. J. Altizer's redeployment of Nietzsche's view:

For the most part Altizer prefers mystical to ethical language in solving the problem of the death of God, or, as he puts it, in mapping out the way from the profane to the sacred. This combination of Kierkegaard and Eliade makes rather rough reading, but his position at the end is a relatively simple one. Here is an important summary statement of his views: If theology must now accept a dialectical vocation, it must learn the full meaning of Yes-saying and No-saying; it must sense the possibility of a Yes which can become a No, and of a No which can become a Yes; in short, it must look forward to a dialectical coincidentia oppositorum [i.e., a unity of the opposites]. Let theology rejoice that faith is once again a "scandal," and not simply a moral scandal, an offense to mans pride and righteousness, but, far more deeply, an ontological scandal; for eschatological faith is directed against the deepest reality of what we know as history and the cosmos. Through Nietzsches vision of Eternal Recurrence we can sense the ecstatic liberation that can be occasioned by the collapse of the transcendence of Being, by the death of God ... and, from Nietzsches portrait of Jesus, theology must learn of the power of an eschatological faith that can liberate the believer from what to the contemporary sensibility is the inescapable reality of history. But liberation must finally be effected by affirmation. ... ( See "Theology and the Death of God", in this volume, pp. 95111.[21]

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God is dead - Wikipedia

And so the Tuchel revolution roars on. In a manner of speaking. The second-best thing anyone could say about the second leg of Chelseas 2-1 aggregate defeat of Porto in Seville was that it was, on balance, an act of cardiovascular exercise. Everyone involved burned some calories.

The best thing arguably the only thing is that Chelsea cruised through without a scratch and will now take their place in the semi-finals of the Champions League, setting up a mouthwatering denouement to their own peculiar season of two halves.

This game was decided by a stupendous overhead kick from Mehdi Taremi in the last minute of injury time, Portos second shot on target, but it felt more like a punchline than a winning goal.

Often occasions like these are described as forgettable. This one didnt get that far. In order to be forgotten, a thing must exist in some material form in the first place. Instead this was a conspiracy of nihilism, Chelsea happy to oversee 90 minutes of nothing, Porto struggling fruitlessly to escape their own part in it. Not that Thomas Tuchel will lose a microsecond contemplating any of this. The best way to win a quarter-final is to do it without breaking sweat. In which case: job done.

And from here Chelsea are quite capable of winning the Champions League, of overcoming two more opponents from Real Madrid or Liverpool, followed by either Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund or Paris Saint-Germain, all teams that Tuchel will view with informed interest and absolutely no fear.

Tuchel is often cast as a technocrat and a systems man, but there is a strong seam of pragmatism too. He doesnt want to play three at the back and edge forward behind his tortoise defence, shields locked together, because he thinks its more fun or more pure that way. He does it because in his opinion its the best way to win right now.

And so it proved to be over two games in Seville, despite some utterly misleading zest from Porto in the opening minutes. Srgio Conceio has clearly been studying Sam Allardyce videos. Here Porto pressed high and hard early on, eager to disrupt the deep, metronomic heart of this Chelsea team.

It soon become clear there was something strange about what Porto were trying to do. The white shirts were a trippy mix of pressing like maniacs followed by slow dithery possession when they got the ball. This was like watching the world sprint-knitting championships, or a particularly angry attempt to tickle someone to death. At one point early on three players pressed NGolo Kant, took the ball, then passed it backwards.

It was that kind of game. Porto attacked constantly without really ever attacking. Their total first-half offsides equalled zero, as did their total first-half shots on goal. This was like watching someone trying very hard to give an impression of wanting to win.

They did it again at the start of the second half, pressing high but with no real object in mind, passing sideways with an angry air of urgency.

There was still tension. Would someone have a shot, just to see what it felt like? Would Porto accidentally discover the physical plane known as forwards and instantly lose their minds at the scale of such a find, like the first Russian cosmonauts looking down and seeing the world an unfenced blue ball?

Steadily the game became an endless stream of shirt-tugging fouls, which is certainly one way of passing an entire half-hour of your own finite mortal existence.

If this game was a formality from about the five-minute mark, it was still significant in three things. It told us once again about Chelseas game management, their ability to oversee this lack of content.

It also flagged up the one obvious area in this team that still lags: the precise makeup of the attack. Tuchel went with the Havertz-Mount-Pulisic trident, one to run, one to pass and press, one to drift around like a dreamy-looking Jane Austen hero with talent to burn, a player so agreeably effete at moments you half-expect to look down and notice hes wearing a ruffled blue shirt and a pair of britches.

But Chelsea struggled to counterattack. They struggled to hold the ball in forward positions and move up the pitch. Tuchel will perhaps look again at the effectiveness of this system against teams that can dominate possession for long spells.

The third thing was simply to emphasise once again what a time this is to be a Chelsea fan, player, or manager. The fixture list from here is stupendously good: Champions League and FA Cup semi-finals, three deliciouslooking London derbies, and a late-breaking top-four shootout with Leicester.

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And Chelsea really do have very little to lose from here. This feels like fresh snow, an unspoilt peak, and a degree of overachievement already. It shouldnt feel like that given the money spent. But somehow Tuchel, an elite manager, and Chelsea, with their wealth of playing riches have the air of a sporty, unencumbered, underdog. Both have a free hit in this competition from here. They may not get a better shot at it.

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Conspiracy of nihilism suits Chelsea and pragmatic Thomas Tuchel - The Guardian

NewsOpinionColumnistsYoungsters rioting in Northern Ireland werent born when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, let alone lived through the Troubles.

Thursday, 15th April 2021, 7:00 am

But now theyre on the streets throwing stones and bottles, burning buses and confronting the police.

Some of it, no doubt, whipped up by insidious paramilitary forces able to wind them up and tool them up. But its as much just anger at the hopelessness of their situation.

Their political leaders have failed and its not rioting for a purpose, nor even against anything in reality. Instead, its just a rage. Its nihilism with nothing to be gained, just destroying whatever they can.

I feel sorry for them in many ways though nothing can condone their behaviour with the risks to life and the futile damage of property. Northern Irelands economy is a mess and that was before coronavirus. For many of these young people, itll be a life on benefits and already theyre marked out as failures in the education system, if theyre even still attending school.

But even the province they were born in and believed was their country is threatened. They dont feel secure in their land, let alone having a future in it. The political leaders of the unionist tribe have been sold out by the British state they claimed to venerate, Boris Johnson flat out lying about no border in the Irish Sea. Even the DUP are now left with little idea about what to do.

A united Ireland draws closer. But Germanys still trying to resolve issues brought about by unification. At least there it was something welcomed by all other than a few Communist die-hards.

A 32-county state burns deep in the soul of many in Ireland but theres still a significant Protestant minority that will forever begrudge it.

Would the Republic even want the financial basket case thats the six counties and could they cope with it? Theres challenged areas in the 26 counties already, such as Limerick. Would they welcome limited resources being pushed north?

Its economic as much as constitutional and these kids need a future whether in Britain or Ireland.

Kenny MacAskill is the Alba Party MP for East Lothian

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Northern Ireland's riots are born of nihilism, despair and Boris Johnson's lies about the Irish Sea border Kenny MacAskill MP - The Scotsman

Jonathan Taplin may not be a household name, but he has been behind the scenes of some of the most influential moments in 20th century American music. As the description of Taplins latest book notes, the University of Southern California professor emeritus has made waves in every one of the past several decades: he was tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band in the '60s, producer of major films in the '70s, an executive at Merrill Lynch in the '80s, creator of the Internet's first video-on-demand service in the '90s, and a cultural critic and author writing about technology in the new millennium. Taplin joins Robert Scheer on this weeks installment of Scheer Intelligence to discuss his fascinating career as well as his friendships and encounters with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Martin Scorsese, Eric Clapton, and many others, all of which is captured in his new memoir, The Magic Years: Scenes From a Rock-and-Roll Life.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Scheer and Taplin share personal stories about the 60s and 70s and break down how money corrupted the revolutionary music that emerged from that era. They specifically note the case of Bob Dylan, who started his career when music was not a lucrative industry and he and his music--partly inspired by the countercultural ideas the Beats had begun to explore before him--played a significant role in the political movements of his time.

We have to worry about who [are] going to be the leaders of the culture, says Taplin. If I can think about the role that Sam Cooke or Bob Dylan played in the early sixties in terms of thinking about supporting the Civil Rights Movement, or even the amount of money that Louis Armstrong gave to Martin Luther King, which was a lot, and then I'd look to what happened this last fall--quite honestly, I was more impressed with what LeBron James was doing in terms of trying to get people to vote and forcing the NBA to open up all its stadiums so that people could vote in those stadiums, than I was with what, you know, Kanye West or Jay-Z was doing.

Musicians are more thinking about selling their champagne company to Louis Vuitton than they are thinking about getting people to vote. So maybe now the sports stars are more the cultural heroes than the rock stars. That's a kind of strange change and I don't really know why that is.

The Magic Years author also warns against the nihilism that many cultural figures have fallen prey to in recent decades. In response, Scheer, who also played an active role in the activist movements of the 60s, points to what he sees as the main culprit behind what Taplin labels nihilism.

It seems that the ability of the [capitalist] system [is to get us] all to [sell out], Scheer posits, This is something that comes up in these podcasts all the time: don't sell out, don't sell out, don't sell out. Suddenly--and Bob Dylan played a role in this--selling out became fashionable. And to resist selling out, that became being kind of out of it.

Taplin, who joined Scheer previously on the show to discuss his book Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, also outlines how the arguments of his previous book were illustrated vividly by the attacks on the Capitol on January 6. Listen to the latest conversation between Taplin and Scheer as they also discuss the intersectionality of class and race in American society, as well as examine how the revolving door between Wall Street and D.C. has helped establish and promote a type of capitalism that is destroying main street while making the 1 percent richer than anyone thought imaginable.

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Capitalism Killed the Rock-and-Roll Star | Scheer Intelligence - KCRW