Category Archives: Nihilism

Tired of the bleak February weather? You are not alone. Kevin Killeen feels your pain.

A longtime general assignment and feature reporter for KMOX (1120 AM) radio, Killeen is acutely aware of the hopeless futility of February in St. Louis. In a video recently shared by KMOX (and initially filmed this time last year), Killeen shares his thoughts on the calendar's shortest month. His outlook really couldn't get more bleak.

"February is the worst month of the year, but it's an honest month," Killeen says at the outset of the video. "It's a month that doesn't hold up life any better than it really is. I mean, look around here. These buildings, they look like they don't even have any lights in them during a work day. Something great happened here, but it's over with. And that's the way February is."

"This says it all," Killeen proclaims. "This has a spring-like or floral pattern on it, but somebody on this February day has abandoned it, with its broken shaft, like a desperate flinging-off of something that's not true anymore. The expedition is getting desperate people are throwing things aside."

Projecting his own intense nihilism onto the people walking the streets, Killeen speaks of downtown St. Louis as though it is a prison.

"Look around downtown on a February workday. This looks like a place where people who are being punished are sent," he says in a voiceover as his cameraman films the desolate streets. "If you notice the way people cross the street in February, it's different than in the summer. Nobody's tap-dancing or breaking into a Rodgers & Hammerstein song. It's their lunch hour and they're just barely able to get across the street and hunker over a bowl of chili."

Trapped in the impermeable darkness that is February, Killeen sees no light at the end of the tunnel. In his estimation, nature itself buckles to the relentless tyranny of the dreary month.

"Even the land is tired in February," he declares. "Most of the birds who can afford it have gone to Florida, and the trees that once cheered us they're hard to look at this month. It's as if there is some awful truth out there in the trees. It's hiding in the branches. Look at them. Something that's been bothering you for a long time is out there. What is it? You can almost see the shape of it when all the color is gone, when life is stripped down to the starkness of February."

The impermanence of life itself, and the inevitability of death these are what Killeen sees in the lifeless tree branches.

"To try to hide the bleakness of February, man invented Valentine's Day and also Mardi Gras," Killeen reasons. "But then February answered back with another holiday: Ash Wednesday. What other month could host a holiday that's designed to remind us that we're all gonna die?"

Are you.... OK, Kevin?

"My father used to have a saying," he says at the close of the video, "that if you can live through February, you can live another year."

This video was shot last year and Killeen is still active at his post, meaning he made it through February 2016. Here's hoping he has the wherewithal to make it through this month his charming style and sense of humor would be greatly missed if he went gently into that good night.

Might we offer a suggestion, though? A psychiatrist, Kevin. And maybe take the month off and head for warmer climates.

It works for the birds.

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Nihilist KMOX Reporter Discusses Existential Horror of February in St. Louis - Riverfront Times (blog)

To the editor: I would like to thank political scientist Jacob T. Levy for articulating the deepest problem with the Trump administration as we have seen it take shape over the last several weeks. The presidents recent interview with Fox News Bill OReilly, in which he brushed off Russian President Vladimir Putins misbehavior by saying the U.S. is not innocent of killing either, was particularly telling. (Hypocrisy isnt the problem. Nihilism is, Opinion, Feb. 8)

Americans generally seem to understand that those we elect to represent and govern us are imperfect humans, no matter the political party. Its good that we are offended by and point out what we believe is hypocrisy and flawed thinking of the other side. At least we are noting the shared principals we believe are being violated.

Trump is dismissive of the very idea that there are principles that are compromised. This is deeply disturbing.

Anne Tryba, La Caada Flintridge

..

To the editor: Levy cites as an example of Trump administration nihilism White House advisor Kellyanne Conways claim that people dont care about Trumps tax returns, which he refuses to release, because they voted for him.

No, the electoral college voted for him. The majority of actual voters supported Hillary Clinton, and we still care very much about and need to see Trumps tax returns.

Joanne Turner, Eagle Rock

..

To the editor: Hypocrisy is the fodder that nurtures our politics.

Railing against it is of no avail, nor should it be, leastways not for those of us who view politics as entertainment. It is mirthful, sustaining the status quo. Its absence would be jarring.

Memo to the concerned: Sit back, unclench your teeth and hands and revel in our foolishness, for it was ever thus.

Paul Bloustein, Cincinnati

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Why the White House's nihilism is so troubling - Los Angeles Times

By Brett Stevens

Manticore Press, 2016

Most people see the world in binary categories. They believe that there is either an inherent moral good that we must all obey, or there are no rules and life is pointless anarchy. Nihilism argues for a middle path: we lack inherent order but are defined by our choices, which means that we must start making smarter choices by understanding the reality in which we live more than the human social reality which we have used to replace it in our minds.

A work of philosophy in the continental tradition, Nihilism examines the human relationship with philosophical doubt through a series of essays designed to stimulate the ancient knowledge within us of what is right and what is real. Searching for a level of thought underneath the brain-destroying methods of politics and economics, the philosophy of nihilism approaches thought at its most basic level and highest degree of abstraction. It escapes the bias of human perspective and instructs our ability to perceive itself, unleashing a new level of critical thinking that side-steps the mental ghetto of modernity and the attendant problems of civilization decline and personal lassitude.

While many rail against nihilism as the death of culture and religion, the philosophy itself encourages a consequentialist, reality-based outlook that forms the basis for moral choice. Unlike the control-oriented systems of thought that form the basis of contemporary society, nihilism reverts the crux of moral thinking to the relationship between the individual and the effects of that individuals actions in reality. From this, a new range of choice expands, including the decision to affirm religious and moral truth as superior methods of Darwinistic adaptation to the question of human survival, which necessarily includes civilization.

Inspired by transcendentalist thinkers and the ancient traditions of both the West and the Far East, the philosophy of nihilism negates the false intermediate steps imposed on us by degenerated values systems. In the footsteps of philosopher Friedrich W. Nietzsche, who called for a re-evaluation of all values, nihilism subverts linguistic and social categorical thinking in order to achieve self-discipline of the mind. As part of this pursuit, Nihilism investigates thought from writers as diverse as William S. Burroughs, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Schopenhauer and Immanuel Kant. For those who seek the truth beyond the socially-convenient explanations that humans tell one another, nihilism is a philosophy both for a new age and for all time.

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Nihilism Manticore Press

By Stepan Soroka

VANCOUVER February is not the ideal time to tour Western Canada. Freezing temperatures, excessive snowfall and remote mountain passes are enough to deter most musicians from travelling through our part of the world. But Brendan Kelly, frontman of the seminal midwestern punk band The Lawrence Arms, sees this as an advantage, counterintuitive as it may seem. When I go up there people havent had any shows for a while. He says over the pone from his Chicago home. Im not Chuck Ragan or Dallas Green. Im a fairly obscure musician and it allows me to have a crowd of people that are excited and enthusiastic. Im very grateful for that.

Whether you agree or not with Kellys claims of obscurity, his body of work is certainly voluminous and includes six full-lengths with The Lawrence Arms, two albums and an EP with supergroup The Falcon (which features Alkaline Trios Dan Adriano on bass), a full-length with The Wandering Birds, and more. When asked what he enjoys about performing acoustically, as opposed to the above mentioned projects, Kelly replies that an acoustic performance allows him to have a deeper personal connection with the audience. I can reengineer and reimagine the songs in a way that is more emotionally resonant, the singer-songwriter says. He also laments that there is no one else to blame when mistakes are made.

When you succeed it is unbelievably rewarding. But when you fail, there is nowhere to look but in the mirror, Kelly says about solo performances. With a band, you can let the mistakes roll off your back. Mistakes do happen, and sometimes they are beyond the performers control. When asked about his worst performance, Kelly tells me about a Lawrence Arms show where someone dosed his drink and he spent the entire show face-down on the stage while my bandmates tried to work through the set. At a solo show, there would not be much to work through.

While we chat, the conversation invariably turns to the subject of US politics. The debacle occurring in Kellys home country is simply too loud to ignore. Let me put it this way. Kelly begins, when asked if it is possible to have a worse president than the one currently in office. You know how everyone talks about going back in time to kill Hitler as a baby? Nobody went back in time and killed Hitler. Nobody went back in time and killed Donald Trump. So you gotta figure that the babies these time travellers did kill were much worse.

Its this kind of grim but undeniably amusing humour that has given Kelly a voice outside of punk rock, even if the people hearing it have no idea about where it is coming from. Kelly curates a Twitter account called Nihilist Arbys, which he calls a parody of corporate cluelessness. With over 260,000 followers, Kellys fake Arbys account far surpasses the fast food chains actual online following. Started as a dumb joke that he did not expect anyone to pay attention to, Nihilist Arbys recurring themes include drugs (and running out of them), loneliness, and the general futility of everything. I may be more like the fictional narrator than I would like to admit. Kelly adds.

People in music, journalism, the arts we take this dumb shit that we do way more seriously than it is, Kelly says. It is not important at all. What is important is running water. People not being blown up. The soundtrack to all of that is secondary. While it is hard to argue with that, it is safe to say that anyone reading this far values the art that Kelly and musicians in general gift to the rest of the world. Its been eight or nine years since Ive played in Vancouver and Im really looking forward to going back, says Kelly. Anyone who has even the most remote interest in what Ive been up to, please come, because it could be another nine years.

Brendan Kelly plays The Cobalt on Saturday, February 11th with Ben Sir and Chase Brenneman.

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Brendan Kelly on politics, nihilism, and the benefit of intimate shows - BeatRoute Magazine

History is a methodology, a way of seeing thingsnot a cautionary tale.

Balickis job is to rescue objects and to safeguard them against future assaults. Founded in 1804, the New-York Historical Society is the oldest museum in New York. The hyphen in its name is a vestige of a time when New York had a hyphen in it. (The museums summer softball team is called The Hyphens.) Its collection is enormousover 1.6 million works of art.

What relevance does such an archive have nowadays? They say that if youre asked why you like history in a university interview, the only thing you should never say is because we can learn from the mistakes of the past. History is a methodology, a way of seeing thingsnot a cautionary tale.

But we seem to be living through a rupture. As the president pretends the traditional separation of the judiciary, executive, and legislative branches of government does not exist, the most basic lessons from historyby which I mean literal history lessons we all should have learned at primary schoolseem to need re-teaching. The New-York Historical Society has a very vibrant education program, and gears much of its exhibitions towards schoolchildren. It also recently ran an exhibition on the presidency, so that visitors could see for themselves the historical premises behind the office.

Our country also has subtler needs. When Donald Trump was elected, an artist named Matthew Chavez began a project in the Union Square subway underpass. He sat at a desk covered in colorful sticky notes and pens and invited travelers to write down their feelings and then stick them on the wall. Chavez discouraged his contributors from expressions of raw anger, and encouraged messages of love and solidarity. He called the project Subway Therapy.

Alan Balicki and his team had one and a half hours on January 23 to take the project down from the wall, after the Society partnered with Chavez, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority to place part of the work in its archive. Somewhat sadly, Balicki explained that he made the decision to break the original sequence of noteshe just did not have time to preserve them as they were. One of the PhDs with us observed that nobody owned the sequence or had declared that there was a wrong or right way to arrange the notes. She thought the project was beautiful as is, lumped pell-mell into gray archival boxes. The new display is called Messages for the President-Elect.

Alan Balicki with Messages for the President-Elect.

Some years ago, Balicki also put into the archive a rack of clothing from Chelsea Jeans that had been blasted in 9/11 and preserved by the owner as a kind of impromptu memorial.

This is the sort of thing that the New-York Historical Society saves: flotsam, jetsam, things left behind. The curators follow closely in the wake of the citys human activity, collecting the materials left behind by protests and vigils and attacks. The museum treats these items with a reverence rarely seen in any part of our culture. The archive turns objects into art the same way that a devoted servant might turn everything the king has touched into treasure.

A basic appreciation for the American states machinery is threadbare among those with the greatest power in this country, as well as the broader electorate. Not even the secretary of education believes in equal access to schools for the nations children. What does the past mean for a society like this, under a government like this? For this administration, American history functions as a backdrop for racist fantasythe greatness that will be made againnot as a foundation of government.

In such anti-historical moments it can be difficult to see why Alan Balickis passion is important. He and his staff pour their labor each day into a delicate life support system dedicated to holding the material past in stasis. Conservators do not evangelize for change, nor do they really even have conversations with the objects they so tenderly care for. Things are as they are, for such workers, and long may they stay that way.

America is suffering a crisis of belief, and the opposition has to face up to a new nihilism at the heart of things. Old gods governing taboos and traditions are deadit is no longer forbidden to express racist thoughts frankly and crudely. Shame seems to have gone out of style, and historical thinking with it.

Its tough to deal with nihilism, because everything multiplied by zero makes zero. But conservation is an action that expresses tenderness toward and assigns value to things that otherwise would signify nothing; a Post-it note, a grubby old letter, a drawing. Conservators treat the material world with a deeply erudite form of respect, which is their profession. Its an honorable way to relate to the physical world around us. Honor has a politics.

I could not take my eyes off Balickis cuffs. They seemed to have been fabricated with love, perhaps by a person who cared for the jackets wearer. Later, turning over the days events in my mind, I ended up emailing Balicki to ask who had hemmed them. To my total delight, he emailed back: My pal Viv, as in Westwood. Call it honor, or conservation, or respect, or art: Reverence poured into an object shines right back out of it, and that light gets into the world.

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Donald Trump and the Uses of the Past - New Republic

For every car that exists, theres a shotgun blast of marketing hype to make it sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread. When you try to chuck that nonsense across cultures and languages with an instrument as imprecise as Google Translate, hilarity ensues. Actually, you might call it poetry, and the new Ford Raptor proves it.

Here in the United States, Ford uses phrases like Not just leaner. Meaner, beast, part rocket and nasty outside. Nice inside. Which isnt what Id call inspired but, sure, its fine.

Now as you may have heard, the high-performance Raptor is just about to hit the market in China. So naturally, the company has set up a website in Chinese, too. And from the perspective of me, a person whose only knowledge of the Chinese language is provided by Google Translate, the site for the Peoples Republic seems way better than ours.

Google Translated: Indestructible, also unstoppable.

Get a load of the clackers on this crew! Why mess around with half-measures of hyperbole when you could just come out and call your car indestructible and unstoppable? Whos going to call you out? Some dumb journalist who bends the frame?

Who knows, but this is a hell of a lot stronger than a flaccid clich like Not just leaner. Meaner. I mean, its stronger than anything. Its indestructible.

Google Translated: Heart majestic, in order to unimpeded, self-confidence to conquer every place.

The word majestic is tragically underused in American advertising. Heart majestic is even better. Sounds like the title of a free Netflix movie Id begrudgingly agree to watch with my significant other and then end up loving and casually referencing in my Jalopnik posts. Or maybe a race horse.

Either way, Im inspired.

Google Translated: Born in the journey of the Ford F-150 Raptor, than the road, more love mountain.

Im going to go out on a limb here and say the sentence structure here probably makes a lot more sense in Chinese, but you cant argue with more love mountain.

Our mountains do need love. The kind of love only the tires of my Ford Raptor can provide. Man, is it ski season yet? It is? God, Ive got to leave Los Angeles more often.

Google Translated: Advance with the times, in order to make the footsteps of conquest to nothing.

Ouch, this one gets me right in the guilt-guts. A screw-you with a slap of nihilism at the end to make you feel even worse. Get with the times, geezer, so you can move through the pointless struggle we call life harder and faster and eventually get nothing out of it.

Do you think Im getting a little too reflective?

Google Translated: Enough to accommodate your world, it is enough to accommodate your conquest of the king of the world pride.

I feel like somebody took that excellent Peter Gabriel song Big Time and condensed it into one sentence. The usurping concept is pretty dark for a car ad, too. Bold. I like it.

Maybe I should start feeding my articles through a few more languages before publishing them. Obviously, Google Translate doesnt shy away from hilarious and profound hyperbole.

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The Chinese Ford Raptor Website Is Profound And Crazy At The Same Time - Jalopnik

02 February 2017 | by Patrick West | Comments: 0

The Evenings GERARD REVE, translated by Sam Garrett

Gerard Reve, who died in 2006, is considered one of the greatest post-war Dutch authors and his debut novel, The Evenings, published in 1947, is regarded as a masterpiece in his native land and continues to be taught in schools. The existential tale has been called his countrys equivalent to Nausea or The Outsider, yet it is only now that it has it been translated into English.

Its protagonist, Frits, is an aimless and neurotic 23-year-old nihilist with an unhealthy taste for black humour. He lives with his parents, whom he resents: Im only waiting for them to hang themselves or beat each other to death. Or set the house on fire.

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The boredom of nihilism - The Tablet

This article is about the meta-ethical position. For a more general discussion of amoralism, see Amorality.

Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong. Moral nihilists consider morality to be constructed, a complex set of rules and recommendations that may give a psychological, social, or economical advantage to its adherents, but is otherwise without universal or even relative truth in any sense.[1]

Moral nihilism is distinct from moral relativism, which does allow for actions to be right or wrong relative to a particular culture or individual, and moral universalism, which holds actions to be right or wrong in the same way for everyone everywhere. Insofar as only true statements can be known, moral nihilism implies moral skepticism.

According to Sinnott-Armstrong (2006a), the basic thesis of moral nihilism is that "nothing is morally wrong" (3.4). There are, however, several forms that this thesis can take (see Sinnott-Armstrong, 2006b, pp.3237 and Russ Shafer-Landau, 2003, pp.813). There are two important forms of moral nihilism: error theory and expressivism[1] p.292.

One form of moral nihilism is expressivism. Expressivism denies the principle that our moral judgments try and fail to describe the moral features, because expressivists believe when someone says something is immoral they are not saying it is right or wrong. Expressivists are not trying to speak the truth when making moral judgments; they are simply trying to express their feelings. "We are not making an effort to describe the way the world is. We are not trying to report on the moral features possessed by various actions, motives, or policies. Instead, we are venting our emotions, commanding others to act in certain ways, or revealing a plan of action. When we condemn torture, for instance, we are expressing our opposition to it, indicating our disgust at it, publicizing our reluctance to perform it, and strongly encouraging others not to go in for it. We can do all of these things without trying to say anything that is true."[1] p.293.

This makes expressivism a form of non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivism in ethics is the view that moral statements lack truth-value and do not assert genuine propositions. This involves a rejection of the cognitivist claim, shared by other moral philosophies, that moral statements seek to "describe some feature of the world" (Garner 1967, 219-220). This position on its own is logically compatible with realism about moral values themselves. That is, one could reasonably hold that there are objective moral values but that we cannot know them and that our moral language does not seek to refer to them. This would amount to an endorsement of a type of moral skepticism, rather than nihilism.

Typically, however, the rejection of the cognitivist thesis is combined with the thesis that there are, in fact, no moral facts (van Roojen, 2004). But if moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, non-cognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible (Garner 1967, 219-220).

Not all forms of non-cognitivism are forms of moral nihilism, however: notably, the universal prescriptivism of R.M. Hare is a non-cognitivist form of moral universalism, which holds that judgements about morality may be correct or not in a consistent, universal way, but do not attempt to describe features of reality and so are not, strictly speaking, truth-apt.

Error theory is built on three principles:

Thus, we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken. Hence the error. These three principles lead to the conclusion that there is no moral knowledge. Knowledge requires truth. If there is no moral truth, there can be no moral knowledge. Thus moral values are purely chimerical.[1]

Error theorists combine the cognitivist thesis that moral language consists of truth-apt statements with the nihilist thesis that there are no moral facts. Like moral nihilism itself, however, error theory comes in more than one form: Global falsity and Presupposition failure.

The first, which one might call the global falsity form of error theory, claims that moral beliefs and assertions are false in that they claim that certain moral facts exist that in fact do not exist. J. L. Mackie (1977) argues for this form of moral nihilism. Mackie argues that moral assertions are only true if there are moral properties that are intrinsically motivating, but there is good reason to believe that there are no such intrinsically motivating properties (see the argument from queerness and motivational internalism).

The second form, which one might call the presupposition failure form of error theory, claims that moral beliefs and assertions are not true because they are neither true nor false. This is not a form of non-cognitivism, for moral assertions are still thought to be truth-apt. Rather, this form of moral nihilism claims that moral beliefs and assertions presuppose the existence of moral facts that do not exist. This is analogous to presupposition failure in cases of non-moral assertions. Take, for example, the claim that the present king of France is bald. Some argue[who?] that this claim is truth-apt in that it has the logical form of an assertion, but it is neither true nor false because it presupposes that there is currently a king of France, but there is not. The claim suffers from "presupposition failure." Richard Joyce (2001) argues for this form of moral nihilism under the name "fictionalism."

The philosophy of Niccol Machiavelli is sometimes presented as a model of moral nihilism, but this is at best ambiguous. His book Il Principe (The Prince) praised many acts of violence and deception, which shocked a European tradition that throughout the Middle Ages had inculcated moral lessons in its political philosophies. Machiavelli does say that the Prince must override traditional moral rules in favor of power-maintaining reasons of State, but he also says, particularly in his other works, that the successful ruler should be guided by Pagan rather than Christian virtues. Hence, Machiavelli presents an alternative to the ethical theories of his day, rather than an all-out rejection of all morality.

Closer to being an example of moral nihilism is Thrasymachus, as portrayed in Plato's Republic. Thrasymachus argues, for example, that rules of justice are structured to benefit those who are able to dominate political and social institutions. Thrasymachus can, however, be interpreted as offering a revisionary account of justice, rather than a total rejection of morality and normative discourse.

Glover has cited realist views of amoralism held by early Athenians, and in some ethical positions affirmed by Joseph Stalin.[2]

Criticisms of moral nihilism come primarily from moral realists,[citation needed] who argue that there are positive moral truths. Still, criticisms do arise out of the other anti-realist camps (i.e. subjectivists and relativists). Not only that, but each school of moral nihilism has its own criticisms of one another (e.g. the non-cognitivists' critique of error theory for accepting the semantic thesis of moral realism).[citation needed]

Still other detractors deny that the basis of moral objectivity need be metaphysical. The moral naturalist, though a form of moral realist, agrees with the nihilists' critique of metaphysical justifications for right and wrong. Moral naturalists prefer to define "morality" in terms of observables, some even appealing to a science of morality.[citation needed]

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Moral nihilism - Wikipedia

The Two Nihilist RevolutionsEdit

Russian nihilism (rus. "") can be dissected into two periods. The foundational period (1860-1869) where the 'counter-cultural' aspects of nihilism scandalized Russia, where even the smallest of indiscretions resulted in nihilists being sent to Siberia or imprisoned for lengthy periods of time, and where the philosophy of nihilism was formed.[2] The other period would be the revolutionary period of Nihilism (1870-1881) when the pamphlet The Catechism of a Revolutionist transformed the movement, which was waiting and only striking mild propaganda, into a movement-with-teeth and a will to wage war against the tsarist regime, with dozens of actions against the Russian state. The revolutionary period ends with the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II (March 13, 1881), by a series of bombs, and the consequential crushing of the nihilist movement.[3]

Mikhail Bakunin's (1814-1876) "Reaction in Germany" (1842) included a famous dictum, "Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!"[4] This piece of literature anticipated and instigated the ideas of the nihilists. In Russia, Bakunin was considered a Westernizer because of his influences that spread the ideology of anarchism outside of his nation to the rest of Europe and Russia.[5] While he is inexorably linked to both the foundational and revolutionary periods of nihilism, Bakunin was a product of the earlier generation whose vision, ultimately, was not the same as the nihilist view. He stated this best as "I am a free man only so far as I recognize the humanity and liberty of all men around me. In respecting their humanity, I respect my own." This general humanitarian instinct is in contrast to the nihilist proclamations of having a "hate with a great and holy hatred" or calling for the "annihilation of aesthetics".[6]

Nikolay Chernyshevsky was the first to incorporate nihilism in the socialist agenda. The nihilist contribution to socialism in general was the concept that the peasant was an agent of social change (Chernyshevsky, A Criticism of Philosophical Prejudices Against the Obshchina (1858)),[7] and not just the bourgeois reformers of the revolutions of 1848, or the proletariat of Marx (a concept that wouldn't reach Russia until later). Agitation for this position landed Chernyshevsky in prison and exile in Siberia for the next 25 years (although the specific accusations with which he was convicted were a concoction) in 1864.[8] The first group inspired by nihilist ideas to form and work towards social change did so as a secret society, and were called Land and Liberty. This group's name was also taken by another, entirely separate group, during the Revolutionary Nihilist period, with the first Land and Freedom conspiring to support the Polish independence movement and to agitate the peasants who were burdened with debt as a result of the crippling redemption payments required by the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Polish independence was not of particular interest to the nihilists, and after a plot to incite Kazan peasants to revolt failed, Land and Freedom folded (1863).[9]

After the failure, the Russian government began to actively hunt nihilist revolutionaries, so the first secret nihilist societies were created. One of the first to act in secrecy was called The Organization, and they created a boys' school in a Moscow slum in order to train revolutionaries. In addition they had a secret sub-group called Hell whose purpose was political terrorism, with the assassination of the Tsar as their ultimate goal. This resulted in the failed attempt by Dmitry Karakozov on the 4th of April 1866. Dmitry was tried and hanged at Smolensk Field in St Petersburg. The leader of The Organization, Nicholas Ishutin, was also tried and was to be executed before being exiled to Siberia for life.[10] Thus ended The Organization and began the White Terror of the rest of the 1860s.

The White Terror began by the Tsar putting Count Michael Muravyov (otherwise known as 'Hanger Muravyov' due to his treatment of Polish rebels in prior years) in charge of the suppression of the nihilists. The two leading radical journals (The Contemporary and Russian Word) were banned, liberal reforms were minimized in fear of reaction from the public, and the educational system was reformed to stifle the existing revolutionary spirit.[11] This action by the Russian state marks the end of the foundational period of nihilism.

The entrance on the scene of Sergei Nechayev symbolizes the transformation from the foundational period to the revolutionary period. Sergei Nechaev, the son of a serf, which was unusual as most nihilists came from a slightly higher social class, what we would call lower middle class, desired an escalation of the discourse on social transformation. Nechaev argued that just as the European monarchies used the ideas of Machiavelli, and the Catholic Jesuits practiced absolute immorality to achieve their ends, there was no action that could not be also used for the sake of the people's revolution.[12] A scholar noted that "His apparent immorality [more an amorality] derived from the cold realization that both Church and State are ruthlessly immoral in their pursuit of total control. The struggle against such powers must therefore be carried out by any means necessary."[13] Nechaev's social cache was greatly increased by his association with Bakunin in 1869 and extraction of funds from the Bakhmetiev Fund for Russian revolutionary propaganda.

The image of Nechaev is as much a result of his Catechism of a Revolutionist (1869) as any actions he actually took. The Catechism is an important document as it establishes the clear break between the formation of nihilism as a political philosophy and what it becomes as a practice of revolutionary action. It documents the revolutionary as a much transformed figure from the nihilist of the past decade. Whereas the nihilist may have practiced asceticism, they argued for an uninhibited hedonism. Nechaev assessed that the Revolutionary, by definition, must live devoted to one aim and not allow to be distracted by emotions or attachments.[14] Friendship was contingent on revolutionary fervor, relationships with strangers were quantified in terms of what resources they offered revolution, and everyone had a role during the revolutionary moment that boiled down to how soon they would be lined up against the wall or when they would accept that they had to do the shooting. The uncompromising tone and content of the Catechism was influential far beyond just the mere character Nechaev personified in the minds of the revolutionaries.[15] Part of the reason for this is because of the way in which it extended nihilist principles into a revolutionary program. The rest of the reason was that the catechism gave the revolutionary project a form of constitution and weight that the men `of the sixties' did not.

Bakunin, an admirer of Nechayev's zeal and stories of his organization's success, provided contacts and resources to send Nechayev back to Russia as his representative of the Russian Section of the World Revolutionary Alliance, which was also an imaginary organization.[citation needed] Upon his return to Russia, Nechayev formed the secret, cell based organization, People's Vengeance.[citation needed] One student member of the organization Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov[citation needed] questioned the very existence of the Secret Revolutionary Committee that Nechayev claimed to be the representative of.[citation needed] This suspicion of Nechayev's modus operandi required action. Author Ronald Hingley, wrote "On the evening of 21 November 1869 the victim [Ivanov] was accordingly lured to the premises of the Moscow School of Agriculture, a hotbed of revolutionary sentiment, where Nechayev killed him by shooting and strangulation, assisted without great enthusiasm by three dupes Nechayev's accomplices were arrested and tried."[16] Upon his return from Russia to Switzerland, Nechayev was rejected by Bakunin, for his taking of militant actions, and was eventually extradited back to Russia where he spent the remainder of his life at the Peter and Paul Fortress.[17] He did, due to his charisma and force of will, continue to influence events, maintaining a relationship to People's Will and weaving even his jailers into his plots.[citation needed] He was found dead in his cell in 1882.[citation needed]

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Nihilist movement - Wikipedia

Therapeutic nihilism is a contention that curing people, or societies, of their ills by treatment is impossible.

In medicine, it was connected to the idea that many "cures" do more harm than good, and that one should instead encourage the body to heal itself. Michel de Montaigne espoused this view in his Essais in 1580. This position was later popular, among other places, in France in the 1820s and 1830s, but has mostly faded away in the modern era due to the development of provably effective medicines such as antibiotics, starting with the release of sulfonamide in 1936.

In relation to society, therapeutic nihilism was an idea, with origins in early 20th-century Germany, that nothing can be done to cure society of the problems facing it. Its main proponent was the novelist Joseph Conrad, whose writings reflect its tenets.

In politics, therapeutic nihilism is a defining principle of modern conservatism. The so-called "Father of Conservatism" Edmund Burke's imputation of "unintended consequences" the implicitly inevitable and undesirable results of political engineering, and Peter Viereck's assertion in "But I'm A Conservative!",[1] his also-definitive essay in the April 1940 issue of the Atlantic magazine, that socialists are nave to believe that society can be improved, are two prime examples of conservative arguments for therapeutic nihilism.

The phrase therapeutic nihilism is also included in a modern version of the Hippocratic Oath, traditionally taken by physicians upon graduation. The statement is "I will apply for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism."

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Therapeutic nihilism - Wikipedia