Category Archives: Nihilism

Her chance of survival on Colony is slightly higher than on The Walking Dead. (Image: USA Network)

I gave up on The Walking Dead back in season two. While I like bleak slogs toward the extinction of mankind as much as the next girl, it had started to feel like the show had no interest in moving forward, and no interest in building a larger storyline. But imagine if it did? That is Colony.

The USA Network show, in which the citizens of Los Angeles are forced to live in a walled version of the city after an alien invasion, will end its second season tonight in a much bleaker place than it began. (Earlier this week, it was renewed for a third season.) And while we all enjoy cheer, this shows brand of gut-punching reality is as refreshing as it is shocking.

In Colonys first season, you were certain in every episode that the writers knew exactly where the show was headed, and it didnt hesitate in introducing a messy idealogical war between the primary characters. But the show also seemed poised to expand its world greatly by the season finale. Instead, season two emphasized claustrophobia.

Weve gotten more glimpses of the world beyond the walled city of LA, including extended stays in a hellish version of Santa Monica, and brief jaunts to Europe. Yet Earth is besieged by aliens who can incinerate with a look. They have all the power, have corralled all the citizens, and now its just a matter of destroying us in as expedient and useful a matter possible.

Another change this season: Colony gave humanity a ticking clock thats upped the stakes, and allowed the show to cut away any excess fat. Every storyline has a purpose and (so far) a payoff. From two sisters forced to choose between rebellion and collaboration, to two children challenged by their complacencythe show is pulling no punches and is taking its stories to their natural, and awful, ends. The plots have also been punctuated by shocking violence, the kind youd expect in a world where everyones number is going to come up before the series is over.

Whats more, Colony is a god damn bloodbath this season, and it has elevated a previously tame little alien invasion yarn into something deliciously rare and exciting. In an early season two episode, Colony featured one of the bleakest suicides on television. A few weeks ago I watched a likable side character pulverized into mist by an alien drone. Then another one exploded in a ball of fire. Two evil characters caught bullets in brutally shocking moments, and one poor schlub, well out of their league, was heartbreakingly murdered by their friends.

Ive never exactly understood the enduring appeal of The Walking Dead. The makeup is cool, and the violence is nice, but its a show steeped in nihilism and its made it difficult for me to engage. Colony is a very similar show in that the violence is well shot (at one point, theres a 10-minute tracking shot thats a beautiful combination of Children of Men and your favorite first person shooter) and its characters are all doomed.

But it still finds a bit of hope in each episode, and scrubs away just enough nihilism each week to give us a glimpse of the humans beneath that engenders that hopelessness. If youre wondering what the slow crawl towards the apocalypse might look like, Colony is giving you a great glimpse right now.

More:

What Colony Gets Right About Living in an Apocalypse - Gizmodo

In June 2014, a senior inspector from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection(the Partys top graft watchdog) warned thatthe Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) (an influential government think tank) had beeninfiltrated by foreign forces.This accusation came as two hallmark campaigns of the Xi Jinping administration were gaining momentum:Xisongoing Party corruption cleanup, and adrive to enforce ideological orthodoxythroughout both the Party and society.The warning of infiltration at CASS came afteraleaked internal Party memo known as Document No. 9exposed Xis ideological priorities: to resist false ideological trends, positions, and activities, including Western constitutional democracy, universal values, Western ideas of journalism, andhistorical nihilism. (Journalist Gao Yu was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2015 for allegedly leaking the document, but has since been granted medical releaseto serve the remainder of areducedsentenceunder house arrest.) Earlier, as hewas in the middle of his gradual accession to top Party and State leader, Xi hadwarned that aprimary reason for the collapse of the USSRwas due to their ideals and beliefs having been shaken.

Since the revelation of Document No. 9, Xi has overseen many related campaigns aimed at preserving Party ideas and beliefs.Xi hasreinforced Mao-era Party views on the role of the media,cracked down on liberal microbloggers, and subjected Chinese reporters tomandatory training in the Marxist view of journalism.Meanwhile, the nationsinstitutes of higher learning have seen a campaign against Western values,and a series oflegislation has been passed in effort to maintain ideological security.

Since CASS saw its ranks questioned, the think tank has been hard at work promoting the ideological orthodoxy that Xis policies have aimed at. On Weibo last month, user @TongZongjin (@) shared images and prefaces to CASS essay anthologies rallying against some of the undesirable ideological trends outlined in Document No. 9. The first CASS volume, published in December 2015, focuses on essays critiquinghistorical nihilism. Theterm, which came into favor in China after the pro-democracy movement of1989,essentially meansany telling of history that could challenge the inevitability of Chinese socialism orChinas correct place along that trajectory. CDThas translated the preface:

Edited by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Chinese Social Science Press

The leadership of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) places the highest degree of importance on the analysis, research, and critique of the current intellectual trend towards historical nihilism, and strives to actively engage in an unyielding struggle against this mistaken historical nihilist trend. Every year, in dealing with the problem of mistaken historical nihilism, my department takes the initiative on official media channels to make use of our willingness to speak out, and our aptitude for speaking out. At the same time, we make use of our full array of theoretical academic publishing and broadcasting platforms (newspapers, journals, websites, conferences and roundtables) to continue to put out a series of critical theoretical essays: This year alone we have completed more than one hundred works on this topic, setting the stage for a large-scale and influential public debate, and confirming our unequivocal opposition to mistaken historical nihilism. Using a critical approach, we have systematically exposed and profoundly explicated the fundamental character, danger, and means of expressing of historical nihilism, while establishing correct historical perspectives and ceaselessly strengthening the freedom of expression and freedom of influence of Marxist ideology and philosophy within the sphere of social science research. We have firmly asserted our right not only to engage in ideological work, but to manage and speak out on the work of others. These efforts have been met with widespread support from academic circles and individuals high and low, earning the overwhelming approval and praise of cadres of every rank.

In the struggle against historical nihilism and many other mistaken intellectual trends, the leadership of my department places the highest degree of importance on the cultivation of Marxist ideology for our leading cadres, in addition to the political studies and theoretical ideological education for our researchers and staff. To this end, we have organized annual book clubs for local leading cadres; implemented education courses for management level and above cadres; required ideological studies and Marxist theory composition courses for our entire staff; ideological research think tanks; and Marxist internet armies. These efforts form the basis of a nascent vanguard of Marxist and Party ideological workers.

Many of the essays in this collection were written and published by comrades from our organization or professional scholars from affiliated work units; others were composed by external scholars. Our goal in editing this book was to help strengthen our cadres grasp of historical materialism and make clear the fundamental character and danger of the intellectual trend, dispelling doubts and explaining away confusion, sorting sources, unifying our thinking, and improving our cognitive goals.

End of preface.

[Name Unclear]

Director and Party Secretary, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

December 8, 2015

[Chinese]

A prominent development in the Partys campaign against historical nihilism was the takeover last summer of the traditionally liberal journal Yanhuang Chunqiu. A former editor of the journal was also found guilty of defamation for questioning the orthodox account of one episode of revolutionary martyrdom, while blogger Sun Jie (aka Zuoyeben) was ordered to apologize and pay a symbolic one yuan in compensation for mocking two others. In February, two men were sentenced to three-and-a-half and five years in prison for distributing banned books including a history of the Partys rise to power. The landmark unified civil code whose preamble was a centerpiece of last months National Peoples Congress gathering seems set to institutionalize the war on historical nihilism: one controversial clause makes it a civil offense to harm the name, likeness, reputation or glory of heroes and martyrs.

The three volumes Critical Essays on Neoliberalism, Critical Essays on the Theory of Universal Values, and Critical Essays on the Concept of Western Constitutional Democracy,were each published in June 2016 withthe identical preface, translated below:

The actual progress of world history demonstrates that the eventual fate of a given nation or people is largely decided by whatever guiding ideology, social system, or path to development is chosen. Facing a new situation wherein our cultural ideology is undergoing a process of exchange, blending, and confrontation, the paramount task facing the frontlines of philosophical social science is not only to persist in upholding Marxism as our guiding ideology, but to engage in meaningful critiques of universal values, the concept of constitutional democracy, neoliberalism, historical nihilism, democratic socialism, and other mistaken ideologies from this position. We must place unfailing faith in the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, matched with an equal degree of faith in our theories, and faith in our systems.

After the Cold War ended, operating under the aegis of what the West calls universal values, one country after another was toyed with and torn apart, some falling into the flames of war, others to everyday chaos: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen are all classic examples. What is clear is that what the system of Western capitalist values brought to these countries was not the gospel or salvation but instead unmitigated unrest and disaster. The cruel lesson learned by these countries and regions demonstrates that there are no such thing as eternal values which can be universally applied to all societies, all countries, and all peoples.

Values have always been a product of the historical conditions of a specific social, economic, and political realities; and every value is specific, historical, transformative, and inseparable from certain socio-economic and political relationships. So-called abstract universal values, superseding social class and history alike, cannot independently exist in the real world. The universal values advocated by certain individuals contain an implicit political position and definite attempt: they are an ideological trap, aimed at our nation, with the goal of destroying the status of Marxism and replacing it with the ideology of the Western bourgeoisie. They are a fundamental negation of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a negation of the guiding status of Marxism, a negation of the state system of the peoples democratic dictatorship, and a negation of the socialist system.

In recent years, constitutional democracy has emerged in the ideological circles of our nation as another mistaken intellectual trend. Against the backdrop of the Party Central Committees comprehensive deployment of its rule by law strategy, certain individuals have seized this opportunity to intentionally confuse rule by law, rule by constitution, and constitutional power with the fundamentally different Western concept of constitutional democracy.

The development of the political ideal of constitutional democracy accompanied the emergence of Western capitalism, gradually developing into the mainstream political and systematic position of the Western bourgeoisie class. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it defines the national ideology, political mode, and institutional design of Western bourgeoisie. But the constitutional democracy they advocate for in reality completely negates our nations socialist rule by law, our socialist system, our national system of a peoples democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the CCP, and replaces it with Western capitalist concepts and methods of rule by law, enacting a tripartite separation of powers, a multiparty system, and a parliamentary system. In other words, a capitalist system with a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Constitutional democracy clearly does not represent some form of universal democracy or even a universal value because it cannot be used as the system of rule in every county. Our nation is a socialist nation with a specific history and unique realities. What system or methods are appropriate for our nation should be decided by the national circumstances of our nation. Simply copying the political system or political methods of another country would be pointless, and might even have dire consequences for the future of our nation. China is a socialist nation and a developing superpower. We must make use of the beneficial aspects of foreign political civilizations, but never at the cost of abandoning the fundamental political system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The intellectual trend of neo-liberalism entered our nation during the reform and opening period [of the 1980s]. At its most essential, neo-liberalism is the ideological position of the Western bourgeoisie, representing the core concerns and values of the global economic monopoly of capital. By advocating for complete privatization, total marketization, absolute liberalization, and global unification, it establishes a global arena of an international economic monopoly of capital headed by America.

After economists in the Western economic capital monopolies of England and America were won over to neo-liberalism, what was once a purely economic system began to adopt a whole series of policies and behaviors advocating for specific ideological positions, concurrent with the rapid spread of neoliberalism across Latin America, Asia and Africa, and Eastern Europe. In the early 90s, the side-effects of neoliberalism first started to become apparent: serious harm was done to the economies of a series of neo-liberal countries, leading to social unrest and unspeakable hardship for the common people. In 2007, the subprime mortgage crisis exploded in America, eventually cascading into a global economic crisis.

For the past decade, wanting to kick start their economies while avoiding the developmental difficulties tied to economic deflation, major Western countries beginning with America have found themselves forced to approve ever larger government stimulus packages, infrastructure investments, and other interventionist policies. One might say that the global economic crisis, having its origin in Americas economic disaster, announced the complete bankruptcy of neoliberalism. This bankruptcy demonstrates that contemporary capitalism has not fundamentally solved the inherent contradiction which exists between socialized and private production. Periodic economic crises are an unavoidable product of this fundamental contradiction of capitalism. It is precisely because socialist market economics employs a different model, wherein the means of production are held communally, that economic crises are not only avoidable, but also predictable. The success of socialism with Chinese characteristics tells us that it is only the close integration of an allocation system based on communal ownership with market economics, making good use of the visible hand and invisible hand, that can express the true superiority of the socialist system.

[Chinese]

Translation by Nick.

Excerpt from:

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Four Big Critiques - China Digital Times

How dreadfully depressing life has become in almost all of the Western cities! How awful and sad.

It is not that these cities are not rich; they are. Of course things are deteriorating there, the infrastructure is crumbling and there are signs of social inequality, even misery, at every corner. But if compared to almost all other parts of the world, the wealth of the Western cities still appears to be shocking, almost grotesque.

The affluence does not guarantee contentment, happiness or optimism. Spend an entire day strolling through London or Paris, and pay close attention to people. You will repeatedly stumble over passive aggressive behavior, over frustration and desperate downcast glances, over omnipresent sadness.

In all those once great [imperialist] cities, what is missing is life. Euphoria, warmth, poetry and yes love are all in extremely short supply there.

Wherever you walk, all around, the buildings are monumental, and boutiques are overflowing with elegant merchandise. At night, bright lights shine brilliantly. Yet the faces of people are gray. Even when forming couples, even when in groups, human beings appear to be thoroughly atomized, like the sculptures of Giacometti.

Talk to people, and youll most likely encounter confusion, depression, and uncertainty. Refined sarcasm, and sometimes abogus urban politeness are like thin bandages that are trying to conceal the most horrifying anxieties and thoroughly unbearable loneliness of those lost human souls.

Purposelessness is intertwined with passivity. In the West, it is increasingly hard to find someone that is truly committed: politically, intellectually or even emotionally. Big feelings are now seen as frightening; both men and women reject them. Grand gestures are increasingly looked down upon, or even ridiculed. Dreams are becoming tiny, shy and always down to earth, and even those are lately extremely well concealed. Even to daydream is seen as something irrational and outdated.

***

To a stranger who comes from afar, it appears to be a sad, unnatural, brutally restrained and to a great extent, a pitiful world.

Tens of millions of adult men and women, some well educated, do not know what to do with their lives. They take courses or go back to school in order to fill the void, and to discover what they want to do with their lives. It is all self-serving, as there appear to be no greater aspirations. Most of the efforts begin and end with each particular individual.

Nobody sacrifices himself or herself for others, for society, for humanity, for the cause, or even for the other half, anymore. In fact, even the concept of the other half is disappearing. Relationships are increasingly distant, each person searching for his or her space, demanding independence even in togetherness. There are no two halves; instead there are two fully independent individuals, co-existing in a relative proximity, sometimes physically touching, sometimes not, but mostly on their own.

In the Western capitals, the egocentricity, even total obsession with ones personal needs, is brought to a surreal extreme.

Psychologically, it can only be described as a twisted and pathological world.

Surrounded by this bizarre pseudo reality, many otherwise healthy individuals eventually feel, or even become, mentally ill. Then, paradoxically, they embark on seekingprofessional help, so they can re-join the ranks of the normal, readthoroughly subdued citizens. In most cases, instead of continuously rebelling, instead of waging personal wars against the state of things, the individuals who are still at least to some extent different, get so frightened by being in the minority that they give up, surrender voluntarily, and identify themselves as abnormal.

Short sparks of freedom experienced by those who are still capable of at least some imagination, of dreaming about a true and natural world, get rapidly extinguished.

Then, in a short instant, everything gets irreversibly lost. It may appear as some horror film, but it is not, it is the true reality of life in the West.

I cannot function in such an environment for more than a few days. If forced, I could last in London or Paris for two weeks at most, but only while operating on some emergency mode,unable to write, to create and to function normally. I cannot imagine being in love in a place like that. I cannot imagine writing a revolutionary essay there. I cannot imagine laughing, loudly, happily, freely.

While briefly working in London, Paris or New York, the coldness, purposelessness, and chronic lack of passion and of all basic human emotions, is having a tremendously exhausting effect on me, derailing my creativity and drowning me in useless, pathetic existentialist dilemmas.

After one week there, Im simply beginning to get influenced by that terrible environment: Im starting to think about myself excessively, listening to my feelings, instead of considering the feelings of the others. My duties towards humanity get neglected. I put on hold everything that I otherwise consider essential. My revolutionary edge loses its sharpness. My optimism begins to evaporate. My determination to struggle for a better world begins to weaken.

This is when I know: it is time to run, to run away. Fast, very fast! It is time to pull myself from the stale emotional swamp, to slam the door behind the intellectual bordello, and to escape from the terrifying meaninglessness that is dotted with injured, even wasted lives.

I cannot fight for those people from within, only from outside. Our way of thinking and feeling do not match. When they get out and visit my universe, they bring with them resilient prejudices: they do not register what they see and hear, they stick to what they were indoctrinated with, for years and decades.

For me personally there are not many significant things that I can do in Western cities. Periodically, I come to sign one or two book contracts, to open my films, or to speak briefly at some university, but I dont see any point of doing much more. In the West, it is hard to find any meaningful struggle. Most struggles there are not internationalist; instead they are selfish, West-oriented in nature. Almost no true courage, no ability to love, no passion, and no rebellion remain. On closer examination, there is actually no life there; no life as we human beings used to perceive it, and as we still understand it in many other parts of the world.

***

Nihilism rules. Was this mental state, this collective illness something that has been inflicted on purpose by the regime? I dont know. I cannot yet answer this question. But it is essential to ask, and to try to understand.

Whatever it is, it is extremely effective negatively effective but effective nevertheless.

Carl Gustav Jung, a renowned Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, diagnosed Western culture as pathological, right after WWII. But instead of trying to comprehend its own abysmal condition, instead of trying to get better, even well, Western culture is actually made to expand, to rapidly spread to many other parts of the world, dangerously contaminating healthy societies and nations.

It has to be stopped. I say it because I do love this life, the life, which still exists outside the Western realm; Im intoxicated with it, obsessed with it. I live it to the fullest, with great delight, enjoying every moment of it.

I know the world, from the Southern Cone of South America, to Oceania, the Middle East, to the most god-forsaken corners of Africa and Asia. It is a truly tremendous world, full of beauty and diversity, and hope.

The more I see and know, the more I realize that I absolutely cannot exist without a struggle, without a good fight, without great passions and love, and without purpose; basically without all that the West is trying to reduce to nothing, to make irrelevant, obsolete and ridiculous.

My entire being is rebelling against the awful nihilism and dark pessimism that is being injected almost everywhere by Western culture. Im violently allergic to it. I refuse to accept it. I refuse to succumb to it.

I see people, good people, talented people, wonderful people, getting contaminated, having their lives ruined. I see them abandoning great battles, abandoning their great loves. I see them choosing selfishness and their space and personal feelings over deep affection and inseparability, opting for meaningless careers over great adventures of epic battles for humanity and better world.

Lives are being ruined one by one, and by millions, every moment and every day. Lives that could have been full of beauty, full of joy, of love, full of adventure, of creativity and uniqueness, of meaning and purpose, but instead are reduced to emptiness, to nothingness, in brief: to thorough meaninglessness. People living such lives are performing tasks and jobs by inertia, respecting without questioning all behavior patterns ordered by the regime, and obeying countless grotesque laws and regulations.

They cannot walk on their own feet, anymore. They have been made fully submissive. It is over for them.

That is because the courage of the people in the West has been broken. It is because they have been reduced to a crowd of obedient subjects, submissive to the destructive and morally defunct Empire.

They have lost the ability to think for themselves. They have lost courage to feel.

As a result, because the West has such an enormous influence on the rest of the world, the entire humanity is in grave danger, is suffering, and is losing its natural bearing.

***

In such a society, a person overflowing with passion, a person fully committed and true to his or her cause can never be taken seriously. It is because in a society like this, only deep nihilism and cynicism are accepted and respected.

In such a society, a revolution or a rebellion could hardly go beyond the pub or a living room couch.

A person, who is still capable of loving in such an emotionally constipating and twisted environment, is usually seen as a buffoon, even as a suspicious and sinister element. It is common for him or for her to be ridiculed and rejected.

Obedient and cowardly masses hate those who are different. They distrust people who stand tall and who are still capable of fighting, people who know perfectly well what their goals are, people who do and not just talk, and those who find it easy to throw their entire life, without the slightest hesitation, at the feet of a beloved person or an honorable cause.

Such individuals terrify and irritate those suave, submissive and shallow crowds in Western capitals.As a punishment, they get deserted and divorced, ostracized, socially exiled and demonized. Some end up getting attacked, even thoroughly destroyed.

The result is: there is no culture,anywhere on Earth,so banal and so obedient as that which is now regulating the West. Lately, nothing of revolutionary intellectual significance is flowing from Europe and North America, as there are hardly any detectable unorthodox ways of thinking or perceptions of the world there.

The dialogues and debates are flowing only through fully anticipated and well-regulated channels, and needless to say they fluctuate only marginally and through the fully pre-approved frequencies.

***

What is on the other side of the barricade?

I dont want to glorify our revolutionary countries and movements.

I dont even want to write that we are the exact oppositeof that entire nightmare that has been created by the West. We are not. And we are far from being perfect.

But we are alive if not always well, we are standing, trying to advance this wonderful project called humanity, attempting to save our planet from Western imperialism, its nihilist gloom, as well as absolute environmental disaster.

We are considering many different ways forward. We have never rejected Socialism and Communism, and we are studying various moderate and controlled forms of capitalism. The advantages and disadvantages of the so-called mixed economy are being discussed and evaluated.

We fight, but because we are much less brutal, orthodox and dogmatic than the West, we often lose, as we recently (and hopefully only temporarily) lost in Brazil and Argentina. We also win, again and again. As this essay goes to print, we are celebrating in Ecuador and El Salvador.

Unlike in the West, in such places like China, Russia and Latin America, our debates aboutthe political and economic future are vibrant, even stormy. Our art is engaged, helping to search for the best humanist concepts. Our thinkers are alert, compassionate and innovative, and our songs and poems are great, full of passion and fire, overflowing with love and longing.

Our countries do not steal from anyone; they dont overthrow governments in the opposite parts of the world, they do not undertake massive military invasions. What we have is ours; it is what we have created, produced and sown with our own hands. It is not always much, but we are proud of it, because no one had to die for it, and no one had to be enslaved.

Our hearts are purer. They are not always absolutely pure, but purer than those in the West are. We do not abandon those whom we love, even if they fall, get injured, or cannot walk any longer. Our women do not abandon their men, especially those who are in the middle of fighting for a better world. Our men do not abandon their women, even when they are in deep pain or despair. We know whom and what we love, and we know whom and what we hate: in this we rarely get confused.

We are much simpler than those living in the West. In many ways, we are also much deeper.

We respect hard work, especially work that helps to improve the lives of millions, not just our own lives, or the lives of our families.

We try to keep our promises. We dont always succeed in keeping them, as we are only humans, but we are trying, and most of the times we are managing to.

Things are not always exactly like this, but often they are. And when things are like this, it means that there is at least some hope and optimism and often even great joy.

Optimism is essential for any progress. No revolution could succeed without tremendous enthusiasm, as no love could. No revolution and no love could be built on depression and defeatism.

Even in the middle of the ashes to which imperialism has reduced our world, a true revolutionary and a true poet canal ways at least find some hope. It will not be easy, not easy at all, but definitely not impossible. Nothing is ever lost in this life, for as long as our hearts are beating.

***

The state in which our world is right now is dreadful. It often feels that one more step in a wrong direction, another false turn, and everything will finally collapse, irreversibly. It is easy, extremely easy, to give up, to throw everything up into the air, and to land on a couch with a six-pack of beer, or to simply declare there is nothing that can be done, and then resume ones meaningless life routine.

Western nihilism has already done its devastating work: it has landed tens of millions of thinking beings on their proverbial couches of defeatism. It has spread pessimism and gloom, and a general belief that things can never improve, anymore. It has maneuvered people into refusing to accept labels, into rejecting progressive ideologies, and into a pathological distrust of any power. The all politicians are the same slogan could be translated clearly into:

We all know that our Western rulers are gangsters, but do not expect anything else from those in other parts of the world. All people are the same reads: The West has been plundering and murdering hundreds of millions, but dont expect anything better from Asians, Latin Americans or Africans.

This irrational, cynical negativism already domesticated in virtually all countries of the West, and has successfully been exported to many colonies, even to such places as Afghanistan, where people have been suffering incessantly from crimes committed by the West.

Its goal is evident: to prevent people from taking action and to convince them that any rebellion is futile. Such attitudes are brutally choking all hopes.

In the meantime, collateral damage is mounting. Metastases of the passivity and nihilistic cancers which are being spread by the Western regime are already attacking even that very human ability to love, to commit to a person or to a cause, and to stand by ones pledges and obligations.

In the West and in its colonies, courage has lost its entire luster. The Empire has managed to reverse the whole scale of human values, which was firmly and naturally in place on all the continents and in all cultures, for centuries and millennia. All of a sudden, submission and obedience have come to vogue.

It often feels that if the trend is not reversed soon, people will increasingly start live like mice: constantly scared, neurotic, unreliable, depressed, passive, unable to identify true greatness, and unwilling to join those who are still pulling our world and humanity forward.

Billions of lives will get wasted. Billions of lives are already being wasted.

Some of us write about invasions, coups and dictatorships imposed by the Empire. However, almost nothing is being written about this tremendous and silent genocide that is breaking the human spirit and optimism, throwing entire nations into a dark depression and gloom. But it is taking place, even as these lines are being penned. It is happening everywhere, even in such places as London, Paris and New York, or more precisely, especially there.

In those unfortunate places, fear of great emotions has already been deeply rooted. Originality, courage and determination are now evoking fear. Great love, great gestures and unorthodox dreams are all observed with panic and mistrust.

But no progress, no evolution is possible without entirely unconventional ways of thinking, without the revolutionary spirit, without great sacrifices and discipline, without commitment, and without that most powerful and most daring set of emotions, which is called love.

The demagogues and propagandists of the Empire want us to believe that something ended; they want us to accept defeat.

Why should we? There is no defeat anywhere on the horizon.

There are only two separate realities, two universes, into which our world had been shattered into: one of Western nihilism, another of revolutionary optimism.

I have already described the nihilism, but what do I imagine when I dream about that better, different world?

Do I envision red flags and people forming closed ranks, charging against some lavish palaces and stock exchanges? Do I hear loud revolutionary songs blasted from loudspeakers?

I actually do not. What comes to my mind is essentially very quiet and natural, human and warm.

There is a park near the old train station in the city of Granada, Nicaragua. I visited it some time ago. There, several old trees are throwing fantastic shadows on the ground, providing a desirable shade. Into a few big metal columns are engraved the most beautiful poems ever written in this country, while in between those columns stand simple but solid park benches. I sat on one of them. Not far from me, a couple of ageing lovers was holding hands, reading cheek to cheek from an open book. They were so close that they appeared to be forming a simple and totally self-sufficient universe. Above them were the shining verses written by Ernesto Cardenal, one of my favorite Latin American poets.

I also recall two Cuban doctors, sitting on a very different bench, thousands of miles away, chatting and laughing next to two goodhearted and corpulent nurses, after performing a complex surgery in Kiribati, an island nation lost in the middle of South Pacific.

I remember many things, but they are never monumental, only human. Because that is what revolution really is, I think: a couple of ageing peasants in a beautiful public park, both of them in love, holding hands, reading poetry to each other. Or two doctors travelling to the end of the world, just in order to save lives, far from the spotlight and fame.

And I always remember my dear friend, Eduardo Galeano, one of the greatest revolutionary writers of Latin America, telling me in Montevideo, about his eternal love for his wonderful lady calledReality.

Then I think: no, we cannot lose. We are not going to lose. The enemy is mighty and many people are weak and scared, but we will not allow the world to be converted into a mental asylum. Well fight for each and every person who has been affected, and drowned in gloom.

Well expose the abnormality and perversity of Western nihilism. Well fight it with our revolutionary enthusiasm and optimism, and we will use the greatest weapons, such as poetry and love.

***

Andre Vltchekis a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel Aurora and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: Exposing Lies Of The Empire and Fighting Against Western Imperialism. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through hiswebsite and his Twitter.

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Love, Western Nihilism and Revolutionary Optimism | Global ... - Center for Research on Globalization

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Occupy Wall Street: Nihilism And Communism - The Liberty Conservative

Danny Boyles two-decades-later sequel to his 1996 classic about Scottish heroin addicts is messy, sappy and hooked on its own supply of nostalgia. But its also frequently hilarious, moving and exhilarating. So basically ... its a Danny Boyle film.

T2 Trainspotting will appeal more to fans of the original, obviously. Its more or less the Gilmore Girls reboot but for lovers of cool/gross 90s cinema. Its inessential, its superfluous, yet its undeniably nice to have around.

Just as Carole Kings Where You Lead puts a lump in the throat of any good Gilmore fan, Underworlds Born Slippy still will make any Trainspotting fiend more than a little misty-eyed. Which is why Boyle uses snippets of the track again and again in T2. Its blatantly manipulative. Its cheating. But it does the trick. The nostalgic kick of seeing Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner and Robert Carlyle in the same frame for the first time in 21 years has a similarly stirring effect.

T2 kicks off with a clever callback to the original several scenes mirror iconic moments from the first film. Mark Renton (McGregor) is running. But this time not from the authorities or someone he just ripped off. Hes running on a treadmill.

Since Mark betrayed his friends all those years ago hes been living a square, safe and heroin-free life in Amsterdam. Hes married, he gets plenty of exercise, he works as an accountant for a company that makes stock management software for the retail sector.

Mark returns to Edinburgh for reasons initially unclear, first reuniting with his father (now a widower), then his kindhearted friend Spud (Bremner) and the sociopathic Simon (Miller).

Marks reunion with Simon is a pool-sticks-and-beer-mugs-busted-against-faces kind of a meeting. But before long Mark gets embroiled in Simons schemes.

In the years since Mark betrayed him, Simon has traded heroin for cocaine and become an entrepreneur: He pimps his Bulgarian girlfriend, Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova), to wealthy men and records them having lets call it unconventional sex. He then blackmails the johns with the life-ruining videos. His dream is to convert the family pub into a brothel.

Meanwhile, Franco Begbie (Carlyle) has also returned to Edinburgh, having just escaped a 25-year prison sentence. He blames Mark for putting him there, and hes more than justified in his blame. Hell kill Mark the first chance he gets.

John Hodges script based loosely on Irvine Welshs Trainspotting follow-up, Porno is more plotty than the first film, though nearly as loose. T2 is mostly a series of diversions that toggle between silly and sentimental.

Several sequences are priceless. Such as Mark and Francos abrupt reunion. Or Mark and Simons grift in Glasgow that ends in a musical performance. Or Spuds monologue about the vagaries of daylight saving time.

Its also a pleasure to see old friends pop up in cameos: Kelly Macdonald, Shirley Henderson and (in flashback) Kevin McKidd.

T2 often veers too close to maudlin, interspersing the story with grainy footage of Mark, Simon, Spud and Franco as young boys and then teenagers, buying and using the first hits of smack that would start them on their respective spirals.

Boyle has become a softer filmmaker since 1996. He still has the grand, caffeinated vision, and hes still capable of nailing the big moments, and he still knows how to choose a solid soundtrack (the Scottish hip-hop trio Young Fathers are all over this movie). But since he became an Oscar winner (for Slumdog Millionaire), hes unquestionably lost some of his viciousness.

Among the many things that made Trainspotting such a fresh breath of Scottish-toilet-stained air was its unapologetic nihilism and its heros commitment to self-annihilation. But now when Mark delivers a sequel to his Choose Life speech (updated for the Facebook generation), it feels a bit watered-down.

Still, a watered-down version of Trainspotting is as potent as anything else in theaters right now.

Rating: R for drug use, language throughout, strong sexual content, graphic nudity and some violence

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald, Shirley Henderson

Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes

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Review: 'T2 Trainspotting' relies on nostalgia from 1996 classic, but ... - Omaha World-Herald

Senate Republicans took the "nuclear option," to break the filibuster on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch on April 6, and both parties pointed fingers at the other for the divisive rules change. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The Senate just went nuclear. After Democrats successfully filibustered Neil Gorsuch's Supreme Court nomination Thursday morning, Republicans simply reduced the threshold for Supreme Court picks from 60 votes to a majority very likely changing the Senate forever.

Republicans cite Democrats' 2013 move to nuke the filibusterfor non-Supreme Court nominees to justify their actions, and Democrats cite the GOP's obstruction of Merrick Garland last year to justify their highly unusual filibuster. Both have extremely valid points.

But the truth is that it's all a rather predictable result. And the causes aren'tjust the things we often cite, like polarization, gerrymandering or fatefulmaneuvers by our leaders; it's also about our increasing political nihilism.

In announcing his clearly reluctant decision to support the filibuster this week, former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.)conceded that the Senate he had served in for four decades had simply changed. I cannot vote solely to protect an institution, he said. I fear that the Senate I would be defending no longer exists.

Sen. Leahy (D-Vt.) delivered a strong rebuke of the changing partisanship in the Senate on April 3. "I fear that the Senate I would be defending no longer exists," he said of the impending GOP decision to change filibuster rules over Judge Gorsuch's Supreme Court nomination. "I will not, I cannot support advancing this nomination." (Reuters)

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), meanwhile,said anyone who thinks the nuclear option is a good thing is a stupid idiot two days before he voted to go nuclear.

Both of these senators and plenty of others projected profound reluctance about the steps they were embarking upon, but they still went through with it of their own volition. They hadn't changed, they insisted, but the other side had forced their hands. The Senate just wasn't what it once was.

More realistically, though, it's our politics that aren't what they once were. Fewer and fewer things are sacred, and political norms are being cast aside in the name of base politics with an alarming frequency. President Trump certainly cast a spotlight upon this trend and exploited it but it was already happening.

Democratsprobably wouldn't have filibustered Gorsuch if not for the immense pressure they received from their base. There were multiple times when a Democratic senator sounded as though he or she didn't want to filibuster Leahy and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), specifically and were forced to quicklyclarify that their stances were in line with the base.

So they launched what was basically an unprecedented filibuster. No, the filibuster wasn'tcompletely unprecedented as The Fix's own Amber Phillips reported,a mostly partisan filibuster blocked Abe Fortas's nomination to be chief justice a half-century ago butit was completely unusual in that Gorsuch didn't seem to have any disqualifying attributes, and it wasn't a lame-duck president's nominee. And in doing so, Democrats repeatedly and misleadinglyevangelized the 60-vote standard.

Going back to 2013, Democrats only invoked their nuclear option after Republicans spent the better part of the Obama presidency wielding the filibuster with unprecedented frequencyagainst his nominees. Republicans often argued that President Barack Obama's liberalism was unprecedented, so it must be met with such unprecedented obstructionism.

And last year, Republicans wouldn't even allow Obama's nomination of Garland a hearing, justifying this by citing a so-called Biden Rule that wasn't really that analogous. It was a nakedly partisan ploy, and it worked. Democrats tried hard to make it an issue in the 2016 election but quickly gave up.

The common link between all of these isthateach step was outwardly justifiable to the party that was taking it, and that justification was good enough for partisans even if it didn't hold water, strictly speaking. It was a gray area that politicians gladly exploited and that their bases, in fact, demanded they exploit. In none of these cases did breaking with political norms alienate anyone in the party's increasingly loyal bases, and in none of them did the gambit seem to have an appreciable effect on the political middle.

Against that backdrop and going forward, it's not difficult to see how the two parties believe they can justify any nakedly political moves. And the unraveling of these traditions is a slippery slope, in which both parties just assume the other side will probably take the next step when they're in power, so why wait?

The only things standing in their way now are tradition and a sense of thecollective good. And tradition doesn't seem to count for much anymore.

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We're all political nihilists now - Washington Post

wbur 100-Day Spotlight

President Trump takes on the Freedom Caucus. Will he work with Democrats instead? Should Democrats work with him?

Donald Trump was golfing again this weekend, trying to find some friends to help him get some legislation through. Hes promised a lot. But health care change stumbled in his own party. And the biggies straight ahead a tax overhaul, a budget deal, infrastructure are all in trouble without some more votes on his side. Who will those be? Freedom Caucus conservatives? Democrats willing to talk? This hour On Point, who on Capitol Hill will work with Donald Trump? Tom Ashbrook

Francine Kiefer, Congressional correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. (@kieferf)

Will Marshall, president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute. Co-founder of the New Democrat movement. (@Will_PPI)

Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ), U.S. Congressman from New Jerseys 7th Congressional District. (@replancenj7)

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), U.S. Congressman from Arizonas 7th Congressional District. (@RepRubenGallego)

"I hope we work on other important issues like tax reform, and hopefully an infrastructure bill. I would like to work in a bipartisan capacity...I would urge my Democratic colleagues to come to the table, because the American people cry out for bipartisan cooperation. " Rep. Leoanard Lance (R-NJ)

"We're working with a very irrational, erratic President...he is difficult to trust, it is difficult for us as Democrats to believe anything coming out of his mouth. We don't know where his money is, we don't know where his money is coming from...at the base minimum, we need to have a resetting of the norms...this president has accountability to nobody." Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ)

Christian Science Monitor: As House GOP tries to revive health-care reform, Democrats emboldened to stop it-- "The White House emitted a few bipartisan signals from the press secretary about working on health-care reform. Rep. Peter King (R) of New York urged President Trump to broker a political peace with fellow New Yorker Senate minority leader Charles Schumer. And the minority leader, as well as other Democrats, expressed a willingness to work across party lines to improve the law if the GOP stopped trying to repeal and undermine it."

New York Times: Why Democrats Should Work With Trump "Unlike depriving millions of Americans of health insurance, revamping Americas outdated tax code and modernizing our run-down infrastructure are progressive causes Democrats should be for. And unlike Republicans, whose ideological rigidity and strident partisanship often border on nihilism, Democrats still hew to the quaint notion that the people elected them to solve problems, not prevent them from being solved. McConnellism is not in the partys DNA."

POLITICO: Democrats in Trump territory in no mood to deal "Trumps polarizing agenda and early stumbles have stiffened the resolve of moderate Democrats once spooked by his success in their districts. Though most say theyre willing to work with Trump if hes sincere about seeking common ground, theyre also not rushing to his side. And his recent overtures toward bipartisanship, they say, are falling flat.

This program aired on April 3, 2017.

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The President, The Freedom Caucus And The Democrats46:57 - WBUR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_nihilism

"He rages most of all at the thought that eternity might get it into its head to take his misery from him!" Kierkegaard

The TL;DR is that meaning and purpose are ascribed to things by intelligent and conscious beings, and that we as human beings find meaning and purpose in all sorts of things - in relationships, in marriages, in friendships, in children, in our jobs, etc. Those meanings and purposes have all the value that we give to them quite aside from whether there is any God or not. Adding God only means there is one more sentient being who can have meanings and purposes and in that sense is no more relevant or important than adding one additional human.

Doesn't existential nihilism follow naturally from atheism? That mankind, ultimately, is insignificant with no intrinsic meaning or purpose? If not, why not?

I, personally, might be considered an existential nihilist, insofar as I don't believe "meaning" is something which CAN be objective-- it seems like an inherently subjective concept, to me.

--Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

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I explained it The TL;DR is that meaning and purpose are ascribed to things by intelligent and conscious beings, and that we as human beings find meaning and purpose in all sorts of things - in relationships, in marriages, in friendships, in children, in our jobs, etc. Those meanings and purposes have all the value that we give to them quite aside from whether there is any God or not. Adding God only means there is one more sentient being who can have meanings and purposes and in that sense is no more relevant or important than adding one additional human.

If our species went extinct tomorrow how would effect anything for the worse?

"He rages most of all at the thought that eternity might get it into its head to take his misery from him!" Kierkegaard

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Not necessarily. There are atheists who believe that mankind has intrinsic purpose even among philosophical naturalists, let alone supernaturalist atheists.

"He rages most of all at the thought that eternity might get it into its head to take his misery from him!" Kierkegaard

And what would that intrinsic purpose be? Exactly.

--Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

The answers to that question vary, just as they do among theists. A humanist might answer that the intrinsic purpose of mankind is to help as much and to harm as little as possible. A Zen Buddhist might say that the intrinsic purpose of mankind is to discover the enlightenment latent in one's soul. A particularly morbid atheist might say that mankind's purpose is to die. Et cetera, et cetera.

"He rages most of all at the thought that eternity might get it into its head to take his misery from him!" Kierkegaard

Well I don't know about the Buddhist thing, but I think your atheist point lines up with nihilism. As far as the humanist - where would he ever get the idea of intrinsic purpose? Not from nature. Do they just assert intrinsic purpose without a rational?

--Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

Doesn't existential nihilism follow naturally from atheism? That mankind, ultimately, is insignificant with no intrinsic meaning or purpose? If not, why not?

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Existential Nihilism & Atheism...

New York Times

Why Brexit Is Best for Britain: The Left-Wing Case New York Times Although Lexiteers have little patience for the national nihilism of Davos Man, the globalist elite, we are no xenophobes. We voted Leave because we believe it is essential to preserve the two things we value most: a democratic political system and a ... and more »

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Why Brexit Is Best for Britain: The Left-Wing Case - New York Times

The term nihilism comes from the Latin word nihil which literally means nothing. Many believe that it was originally coined by Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and Sons (1862) but it probably first appeared several decades earlier. Nevertheless, Turgenevs use of the word to describe the views he attributed to young intellectual critics of feudal society generally and the Tsarist regime, in particular, gave the word its widespread popularity.

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The basic principles which underlie nihilism existed long before there was a term that attempted to describe them as a coherent whole. Most of the basic principles can be found in the development of ancient skepticism among the ancient Greeks. Perhaps the original nihilist was Gorgias (483-378 BCE) who is famous for having said: Nothing exists. If anything did exist it could not be known. If it was known, the knowledge of it would be incommunicable.Read More...

Dmitri Pisarev Nikolai Dobrolyubov Nikolai Chernyshevski Friedrich Nietzsche

Nihilism has been unjustly regarded as a violent and even terroristic philosophy, but it is true that nihilism has been used in support of violence and many early nihilists were violent revolutionaries. Russian Nihilists, for example, rejected that traditional political, ethical, and religious norms had any validity or binding force on them.

They were too few in number to pose a threat to the stability of society, but their violence was a threat to the lives of those in power. Read More...

Atheism has long been closely associated with nihilism, both for good and for bad reasons, but usually for bad reasons in the writings of critics of both.

It is alleged that atheism necessarily leads to nihilism because atheism necessarily results in materialism, scientism, ethical relativism, and a sense of despair that must lead to feelings of suicide. All of these tend to be basic characteristics of nihilistic philosophies. Read More...

Many of the most common responses to the basic premises of nihilism come down to despair: despair over the loss of God, despair over the loss of objective and absolute values, and/or despair over the postmodern condition of alienation and dehumanization. That does not, however, exhaust all of the possible responses just as with early Russian Nihilism, there are those who embrace this perspective and rely upon it as a means for further development. Read More...

There is a common misconception that the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was a nihilist. You can find this assertion in both popular and academic literature, yet as widespread as it is, it isnt an accurate portrayal of his work. Nietzsche wrote a great deal about nihilism, it is true, but that was because he was concerned about the effects of nihilism on society and culture, not because he advocated nihilism.

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Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky Man Without Qualities, by Robert Musil The Trial, by Franz Kafka Being and Nothingness, by Jean-Paul Sartre

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What Is Nihilism? History, Profile, Philosophy and ...