The Rejuvenating Power of Nihilism

8/6/2019 The Rejuvenating Power of Nihilism

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THE REJUVENATING POWER OF NIHILISM

By John Marmysz

The essence of nihilism as a psychological phenomenon is defined by a perceived

incongruity between real-life capacities and ideal standards of achievement. From

the perspective of the nihilist, nothing that we do is of worth because nothing of

which we are capable measures up to the superlative standards set by absolute

Being, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Freedom, etc. Since perfection is always beyond

our reach, all of our accomplishments in this world are judged to be substandard

by the nihilist. Human life is, thus, a constant and hopeless struggle that involves a

perpetual falling away from the highest, most worthy ideals. The further we reach,

the more painfully we fall away from all that is true, good and perfect.

We might venture to inquire into the more general circumstances that occasion this

seemingly depressing incongruity. It is has often been suggested that the

psychological problem of nihilism is a phenomenon arising in response to larger

cultural and societal changes in the world. For instance, John Zerzan has claimed

that the march of technology, in the direction of the complete industrialization of


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society is the deep, causal factor in the emergence of modern, passive

nihilism.(1)He follows Heidegger in this regard, claiming that technology tends to

promote an instrumental sort of thinking in which human beings lose their sense of

freedom and happiness, in the process becoming alienated from nature itself.

Nihilism, Zerzan seems to believe, is a problem unique to life in late capitalist

societies where market forces and the drive towards profit and efficiency have

eroded our confidence in the highest moral values. The nihilist feels a sense of

passive despair as a result of being crushed under the heel of capitalist technology.

The ideals of Being, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Freedom, etc., come to mean

nothing, and the passive nihilist laments this incongruity between the way that the

world is and the way that it should be, feeling powerless to change anything.

While it is highly questionable that the sole cause of nihilism is the operation of

market forces and technology, it seems less questionable that nihilism certainly

introduces a distressing predicament strongly associated with cultural crisis,

change and transition. What I would like to argue here is that nihilism has less to

do with technology, as Zerzan claims, and more to do with cultural transition

generally. The phenomenon of nihilism becomes most apparent during times of

cultural upheaval and change because it is during these periods when the

legitimacy and desirability of the collective values and aspirations of a people are

most likely to be thrown into question. During such periods, individuals may lose

the strength of their taken for granted and unquestioned confidence in the socially


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sanctioned activities and undertakings encouraged and advocated by civilization.

The shattering of this confidence may encourage meditation by individuals on the

criteria by which valuable things in general are judged. When this occurs, a period

of reflective reorientation and crisis is ushered in, and the individual is called to

re-evaluate the highest values of civilization in light of the most unconditioned,

absolute and categorical standards of worth. With this, it becomes apparent that

the actual values of civilization that we are socialized into are not, in fact, the

objects of our highest aspirations. Rather, in participating in the projects of the

collective, we were all along motivated by a more ambitious, yet hidden, desire for

perfection. Though the consummation of this desire for perfection is doomed to

failure, in falling away from it we are able to appreciate and contemplate its

grandeur. Thus, nihilism, though often emerging from the painful and tumultuous

confusion of cultural upheaval, never-the-less announces itself as more than a

simple threat. It also ushers in a period of crisis, and thus opens up the opportunity

for action and the re-evaluation of values. Whereas authors such as Zerzan

commonly emphasize the passive and despairing side of nihilism, what I would

like to do here, rather, is to underscore its active and rejuvenating powers.

We know that the ends and goals we pursue as worthwhile are, to a great degree,

conditioned and reinforced by the groups that we find ourselves in. Though all of

us may, perhaps, initiate changes in our own communities, none of us may refuse

to be born into those communities or to be influenced by them. The manner in


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which we interpret and understand the world is irretrievably colored by our

upbringing, and as we grow and mature into adulthood we inherit traditional

ambitions from the various communities and subcultures that we belong to.

Society molds and conditions the individual from the outside, rewarding those

beliefs and behaviors that are beneficial to the group while discouraging and

punishing those that threaten collective cohesion.

Though human desires and aspirations are certainly shaped by outside social

forces, this does not mean that internal forces play no role whatsoever in this

regard. Humans are called from within just as forcefully as they are from without.

As Emile Durkheim observes, humans have an innate "longing for infinity"(2) that

expresses itself in the unquenchable desire for the ultimate. As we struggle for

achievement, this innate endowment provides not only the motivation for our

striving, but a standard against which we judge our accomplishments. Different

individuals have, at differing times, called this internal force by different names:

Elan Vital, Will, Will to Power, Spirit, Soul, The Animating Principle, etc. It is,

however, always represented as the internal, innate life force that makes us alive

and human. This internal drive seeks dissipation and expression, never resting

satisfied so long as some of its energy is held in reserve. Its goals are very general

and very ambitious. It seeks the superlative, the ultimate and the infinite in

whatever it attempts. It desires perfection. It wants to touch Being, Truth,

Goodness, Beauty and Freedom themselves, and it remains unsatisfied so long as


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these things are out of reach.

So it is that humans are called from both inside and outside. From the inside,

nature tells us that we must engage in activity and striving. What we possess is

never good enough, and we must always try to transform what we have achieved

into something better and different. This inner drive takes perfection as its

standard, pushing us forward when we might otherwise fall into complacent

satisfaction with our already actualized accomplishments. We are constantly

reminded by this inner daimon that there is always more to do and higher levels of

accomplishment to achieve. It makes us feel dissatisfied with what we have and

motivates us to reach for what we don't already possess.

From the outside, however, society tells us that we should pursue those ends and

goals valued by, and useful to, the group. The collective gives concrete shape and

purpose to our inner drives, allowing for the realization of hopes and plans. While

the call from inside is idealistic, the call of the group is more pragmatic and

realistic. It encourages us to reign in our desire for perfection and to pursue those

projects that afford the greatest chances of success. Unqualified perfection does

not exist, the group tells us, and so in order to avoid the senseless dissipation of

our life's energy, society claims that we should redirect our efforts towards those

more modest projects that may realistically result in fulfillment.


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The inner and the outer forces that shape humans are, thus, in conflict. The inner

drive for "infinity" perpetually struggles to free itself from the constraining force

of collective expectation, while the force of the collective never ceases to

tyrannize and direct the sum total of human aspirations. Locked in a war for

dominance, the individual and the collective encounter one another as on a

battlefield. Yet, like soldiers who find their purpose in fighting the enemy, neither

the individual nor the collective can do without one another. They are bound

together by their mutual antagonism. This antagonism brings into existence an

entity that is dependent upon both and yet transcends them both. Like the war that

is larger than any of its participants, this emergent entity acts to bind the individual

and the collective ever more tightly and intimately together, perpetuating

engagement and strengthening the commitment of each side to its respective role.

This emergent entity is culture. The force of culture cements the individual and the

collective into a discontented whole.

Social scientists and philosophers have speculated endlessly concerning the nature

of the "social glue" that binds people together in groups, and though they may

disagree on many details, one thing seems clear. Culture is a force that affects and

shapes both individuals and the groups to which they belong, and no group of

individuals is able to fully break free from its influence. Culture, however, is a

teacher whose method of instruction is sometimes very covert and subtle. We

often don't consciously realize what we have been taught until our presumptions


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are thrown into question and our worldviews have been challenged as dubious.

This sometimes happens when outsiders bring to our attention certain details of

our beliefs that seem curious and counter-intuitive to them. From the "outside," the

values and concerns that a culture takes seriously may appear odd. For instance, to

an American it may seem strange that Japanese custom requires one to remove

one's shoes before entering a domicile. When questioned why this is the case, a

person from Japan might not even know how to answer. It is just the way that

things have always been done, it might be claimed, and no one has ever bothered

to offer an explicit explanation or reason for the custom. Many of the customs,

assumptions, and values that are propagated throughout a culture are of this nature.

We unreflectively absorb them, and as long as they go unchallenged and remain

ungrounded, they continue to covertly color and direct our understanding and

perception of the world around us, binding us in comradeship to some people and

alienating us from others.

Of course, just because no justification for a particular cultural belief has ever

been offered does not mean that one might not exist. There are any number of

possible ways that one might justify, explain or account for particular cultural

beliefs. However, in order to make seemingly strange customs and beliefs

comprehensible to an outsider, such defenses must appeal to a common bond that

holds across differing cultural groups. A Japanese person might explain that by

taking off one's shoes before entering a house, it is hoped that the cleanliness of


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the house's interior will be retained. In this manner, an appeal is made to the virtue

of cleanliness, which is presumably a value that Americans adhere to in

companionship with the Japanese. Any time that we attempt to communicate,

argue and reconcile ourselves with others who possess beliefs, ideas and customs

or values different from our own we must do so by appeal to higher principles that

all involved interlocutors recognize as legitimate. Without access to such higher

principles and standards of legitimacy, no understanding would be possible

between individuals possessing seemingly inconsistent cultural beliefs. However,

since intercultural communication and understanding is possible, it follows that

there must be some general standards that human beings recognize as authoritative

and transcultural guides to correct thought and practice. When we try to

communicate with those outside of our own culture concerning issues of value and

worth, we are forced to make appeals to standards that transcend our own

particular cultural systems. The appeal to common values requires that we engage

in a process that involves abstraction from particular, concrete instances of

valuable things. No two people will agree on the value of every particular thing,

but they may agree on the more general standards by which particular things

should be judged valuable. Cultural particulars call our attention towards, and hint

at, some of the things that we consider important, but they can also obscure,

disguise and get in the way of our ability to recognize some of the more general

and abstract values that guide and condition our adherence to them. If we allow

ourselves to focus too closely on these sorts of particulars (as sociologists and


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anthropologists often do), we run the risk of misunderstanding the larger

significance and meaning that cultural practices possess for us as human beings.

Though we have become quite adept at dividing ourselves into a huge variety of

groups and subgroups, such diversity belies the fact that as human beings we share

an essence that unites us as one. This essence is the "longing for infinity."

The longing for infinity finds its voice in the struggle of individuals within the

collective, and it expresses itself through the accomplishments of culture. Yet

culture also has its own essence. Emerging out of the human struggle within the

collective, culture takes on a life of its own, reinforcing the bond between groups

of individuals. As culture develops and evolves it goes on to seek its own highest

values. This search is energized by the creative contributions of, and the battle

between, a wide variety of individuals, groups and subgroups. During periods of

cultural development, the needs of the collective and the innate drives of

individuals are most closely allied. At such times there is ample opportunity for

the individual to find a variety of means for expressing and exercising the inner

impulse for infinity. Likewise, particular collective norms and values have not

solidified to the point of reification, and so the expectations of the group are more

fluid and less unpliant than they may, at other times, become. This is a situation

that allows for cultural flowering and growth. Culture, at such times, is dynamic,

expressing itself in activity and the expansion of possibilities. It is a force of

becoming whose symptoms are animation and creativity.


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However, as Oswald Spengler has pointed out, the dynamism of culture has a

tendency towards the complacency of civilization.(3)In civilization, the drive for

infinity is quashed by the realistic and conservative forces of the collective. Its

emergence signals that the collective has won the war, and that the individual has

become a prisoner. Whereas culture is characterized by energy and creativity,

civilization is the crystallization of culture. It is rigid and static. It expresses itself

in the desire for preservation and conservation. As a culture moves towards

becoming a civilization, it experiences the realization of its latent possibilities, yet

in the process loses the impetus for further development. In civilization, culture

develops a firm identity with which it remains satisfied. The task of civilization is

the protection and perpetuation of this identity, and as civilization triumphs,

culture sings its swan song, leaving behind the very force of energetic life and

animation that made its accomplishments possible in the first place. Civilization is

earthly and lower. It dismisses the soaring visions of culture as overly general,

vague, impractical and, therefore, useless. Yet it was precisely because of these

very same characteristics that development and creative activity were first

possible. The energy of culture served to motivate the activity that led to the

realities of civilization. Whereas the accomplishment of civilization is that it has

already learned and discovered much, the liveliness of culture stems from the fact

that there are still many battles to be fought and that there is still much to do.

Culture is the battlefield. Civilization is the armistice.


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As civilization triumphs, the individual must submit to greater and greater forms

of restraint in exchange for the guarantee of a role and a place within the

civilization. So it is, as Freud claimed, that humans undergo the repression of their

innate, anti-social drives, redirecting those energies into the service of civilization.

Such diversion has both benefits and costs. The growth and flourishing of

civilization takes place, at least to a large extent, by means of squelching our

innate, human drives. We usually don't even notice this happening, and we often

become unreflectively entangled within activities and relationships that dissolve

our unique, personal awareness of ourselves and our mighty aspirations. In our

everydayness we surrender to the public world and melt away into the projects of

civilization, becoming instruments rather than selves. Heidegger calls this

situation "falleness"(4)and characterizes it as the height of inauthenticity. To have

fallen is to lose one's way in the quest for that which is most important and

worthy. It involves becoming immersed in everyday activities which, in

demanding our attention, distract us from greater, more important pursuits. These

greater pursuits, though they may be consciously forgotten, still insistently call to

us from within, tormenting us with feelings of emptiness and anxiety. So long as

we turn away from the longing for perfect Being, Truth, Goodness and Freedom,

we are tormented with the feeling that there is unfinished business to be taken care

of. Though repression, sublimation and falleness help to produce all of the grand

and wonderful accomplishments that we take pride in as members of a common


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civilization, they also have the effect of producing latent feelings of discontent and

dissatisfaction that may become manifest through mental illness, disease and

spiritual malaise. These are the tradeoffs for the benefits of civilization.(5)

During the vital and dynamic period of cultural development, we generally accept

these tradeoffs as bearable. Through ongoing negotiation and compromise, many

of the contradictions between the individual and the collective might be smoothed

over and worked out, and the duties and tasks that civilization demands of its

members may serve as conduits through which individuals pursue their own

spiritual needs. A school teacher, for instance, might pursue ultimate Truth by way

of performing teaching duties, or a scientist might pursue Being itself through

research that produces useful products and technology. However, there are periods

of time when the incongruity between the needs of civilization and the needs of

the individuals becomes so pronounced that nihilism pushes to the fore and asserts

itself as a problem that can't be ignored. When a civilization demands of its

members that they sacrifice their own inner aspirations for the sustenance of the

collective, nihilism emerges as an especially pervasive social problem.

The apex of civilization occasions the most extreme manifestations of nihilism. It

is at this point that the ideals of the past crumble into nothing and all creative

possibility is forgotten. This transition to nihilism doesn't take place overnight;

rather it is a long, protracted decline, and so the people who live through this


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period are torn between the ideals of the past and the realities of the present. The

pinnacle of development in a cultures soul also marks the point at which it must

begin to wither and deteriorate. Individuals who participate in the life of a culture

experience this slow decline as a sense of loss. Their nostalgia comes from the

feeling that the highest, most noble accomplishments lie in the past, and that

measured against those accomplishments, nothing in the present world is really

worthy.

Nihilistic decline has occurred at various times throughout recorded history, but

the apocalyptic claim that nihilism necessarily signals the final and unequivocal

death and dissolution of a culture is overly dramatic. In this I agree with Zerzan

when he writes, "Nihilism is not a one-way street with no return."(6) It seems

obvious, simply by recognizing our own indebtedness to fallen civilizations like

the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, etc. that cultures often become so

inexorably intertwined that it makes no literal sense to speak of a "pure" culture

with a distinct life cycle. The biological image of birth, maturity, old age and

death, which became so influential with Spengler, may be a bit misleading, in

other words. Though cultures rise and fall, they do not literally die out. Rather

their influences reach into other cultures and find new life in the interaction with

foreign customs and folk ways.

In our present day, it has been claimed that it is this very intertwining of diverse


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elements that has contributed to cultural confusion and a widespread lack of

confidence in the traditional values previously taken for granted. Multiculturalism

and diversity, while intended to promote tolerance and liberality, may also run the

risk of encouraging the kind of relativism and confusion that contributes to

nihilism. This is a major point stressed in Alan Bloom's The Closing of the

American Mind.(7) His suggestion for combating this trend is to settle on a cannon

of basic texts from which we can draw our collective wisdom and ideals.

However, such utilitarian measures seem too self-conscious and calculated to be

truly convincing. Once exposed to the vastly divergent and contradictory wisdom

of the world's cultures, we just can't go back. We must now face the possibility

that many of the values, "truths" and ideals that we previously took to be universal

and objective are really, in fact, relative to our cultural upbringing.

This is our contemporary crisis, and it signals the beginning of the end for modern

human beings. But in the words of Giannini Vattimo, it is also signals a point of

Verwindgung, or an opportunity for convalescence and recovery. Caught in the

difficult stage of cultural transition, we must find a way of prospering in an

unfamiliar world as we reel from the shock of our passage. We must attempt to

develop concepts that make sense of our changed perception of humans and their

role in the universe. As we fall further away from traditional values, we only

prolong our feelings of homelessness and bewilderment the longer that we

stubbornly grasp at remnants of the past. This being the case, we should learn to


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refashion those remnants into something useful for the future. Our convalescence

must end at some point, and when it does humankind should emerge strong and

confident, rather than weak and grieving.

The undermining of the highest values of civilization has the effect of emphasizing

to individuals that these values were simply conventions all along, and in

revealing this fact, the threat of nihilism emerges. Once in the grip of nihilism, the

incongruity between desire and reality opens up an abyss in human life producing

a situation in which humans feels unfulfilled, incomplete and impatient with the

world. This situation, though unpleasant, is not necessarily one that should be, on

the one hand, passed over as quickly as possible, ignored or disregarded, or, on the

other, allowed to languish on forever. The problem of nihilism has the import of a

crisis, and as such it holds a transformative power that promises other things for

the future. Nihilism is the decline that follows a climax in human achievement,

and as such it allows the distance necessary for the appreciation of the completed

tasks of the past. In this way it is a bittersweet moment in the flux of life,

embodying both the pain of loss and the pleasure of beholding culmination.

Nihilism is neither a wholly negative nor a wholly positive situation. It is, rather, a

phenomenon that signals a turning point in the value structure of a civilization. It

is an opportunity to convalesce, meditate and to linger on our present condition.

"What is to be done?" This is the question repeatedly asked throughout the


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literature of nihilism,(8)and now we can begin to understand its force. The

question is in one sense a sincere request for direction and guidance, while in

another sense it is a cry of despair and confusion. It is a question posed at those

points when the highest values of civilization lose their legitimacy and people are

left in the lurch, floundering in the abyss of their lost faith. In losing the values of

convention, the nihilist is made aware of an inner drive that remains unchanged.

As it indicates a falling away from the hopes of the past, nihilism also attunes us to

our own spiritual depths. It signals the possibility for renewed growth and future

development. It is an indication both that something has gone wrong and that there

still remains an inner ambition for the pursuit of higher purposes and goals. It is a

downwards movement that creates room for an upwards movement.

If the history of culture is conceived of as a never ending vacillation between

ascent and decline, growth and decay, rise and fall, then nihilism corresponds to

those periods during which a culture experiences the exhaustion of its greatest

possibilities. Such periods have ambiguous characteristics. On the one hand, they

are the pinnacle of civilized achievement. When a culture has reached its full

potential, it has produced its greatest successes and experienced its most

wonderful triumphs. It has grown to its full height. On the other hand, such

periods also embody a climax or a pinnacle that signals consummation and

completion. There is nothing higher to reach for, and so cultural rigidity and

stagnation are initiated at the very moment when the highest achievements have


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been attained. These are the periods when the desire for conservation and the

perpetuation of the present order predominate. The symptoms of cultural nihilism,

then, may correspond with the greatest accomplishments of civilization. Whenever

these accomplishments are accompanied by the repression of the human drive to

push farther and higher, nihilism is inaugurated.

Yet in nihilistic decline, possibility is, ironically, reconstituted and new ambitions

are discovered. The life force that animates individual human beings within a

collective may be siphoned off into the conservation of the status quo, but this

force will never remain happy and satisfied there. The spirit becomes bored,

frustrated and discontented if restrained for too long. It needs to expand itself,

seeking new projects and adventures. As culture solidifies into civilization, it

offers fewer and fewer concrete challenges to the individuals who participate in its

life. This being the case, the innate longing for infinity finds fewer and fewer

legitimate outlets. Discontent grows as a result and civilization loses its allies.

With the fragmentation of the citizenry, a civilization slides into a period of

decline, and its highest aspirations become curiosities of the past. But as its

successes crumble and disintegrate, new potential is created, and the vitality of

culture is reborn. The spiritual energy of individuals is again unleashed to seek

infinity. Nihilism, in this manner, emancipates the innate dynamism, creativity and

potentially destructive capacity of human nature.


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Situating the moment of nihilism within a grander cycle of ascent and decline

grants it a kind of inevitability and necessity. Conceived of in this way, nihilism

acts as a necessary condition for all else that is encompassed within the cycle of

cultural history. Within a nihilistic historical framework, decline is understood as a

necessary stage that must follow the glorious moments of cultural ascent. If the

great accomplishments of civilization are to be marveled at and cherished, then to

deny the worth of any condition making those accomplishments possible is to fall

short of fully appreciating the struggle and difficulty involved in the pursuit of

ideals. Decline is a necessary condition for the greatness of civilization. It fits into

a bigger picture, and so should be understood not in isolation, but in the context of

history's larger processes. When understood in this fashion, nihilism can not only

be endured, but appreciated.

A grand, "objective" perspective on history stands in sharp contrast to the lived,

subjective experience of individuals within history, however. From within history,

understanding is fragmentary, and the pains, frustrations and sufferings that one

experiences may seem to be without purpose or meaning. From this subjective

perspective, one's declining confidence in the values and ideals of the past might

be experienced as a reason for regret and passive despair. Hopelessness may

follow from the death of yesterday's unlimited hopes, and the present may seem to

be without purpose. In such times of crisis, the future becomes an unknown

"nothing" which, if meditated upon for too long, has the potential to absorb and


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dissipate all motivation towards activity and effort. The notion of an endless,

infinite, unstructured future, an abyss of unknown and unthinkable possibility,

tends to confuse and overwhelm rather than to direct, motivate and focus one's

efforts.

If it was possible to gain a God's eye perspective on the drama of human struggle,

and to ally our own passions and emotions completely with the collective history

of that struggle, we might be able to do away with the sort of incongruity between

ourselves and the world that leads to personal despair. But then we would be gods,

not humans, and the transformation from the finite to the infinite would be

complete. While this may be a worthy goal to strive towards, we have yet to

achieve it. As Aristotle observed in Poetics,(9) the human mind can only grasp and

truly appreciate dramas of a limited magnitude. Any production that goes on for

too long or that is too intricate squanders its significance on an audience,

producing not pleasure but confusion and discomfort. A clear beginning, middle

and end allow us to encompass and make sense of the horrors of tragedy or the

absurdities of comedy. However, we ourselves are caught right in the middle of

human history, and so we are fated never to have access to the beginning of the

end of this life drama.

My departure point for the present discussion was the observation that many

authors, such as Zerzan, tend to emphasize the negative and destructive aspects of


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nihilism. They characterize nihilism as a force of decline that should be fought

against with all of our might and overcome with haste. However, what I have here

attempted to make apparent is that this negative force may play an important and

positive role in the transitional periods of individuals and groups. As values

change and evolve, there is often a nostalgia and longing for the past. Such periods

are opportunities for people to come to terms with their situation, take stock of

those things they believe to be important to them as human beings, and to finally

orient themselves towards the future in a meaningful manner. Nihilism is a

moment of mourning that follows the death of old values and often precedes the

birth of new ones. As such it is an indispensable juncture between old and new

times.

Eric Hoffer wrote, "...every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we

undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to

face drastic change without inner trembling."(10)I suspect that such self-

confidence is very rare, and that the "inner trembling" that characterizes the

experience of nihilism in the individual is more common than not during periods

of cultural transition. Widespread spiritual suffering, frustration and despair

normally accompany major changes in collective values. Sociologists and

psychologists have studied this phenomenon extensively, finding that the upset of

routine, habit and tradition tend to have unsettling psychological effects upon

communities of individuals. It is during such times of turmoil that the assumed and


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taken for granted are challenged and thrown into question, destroying the

coherence of the collective worldview. With the shattering of the taken for

granted, individuals lose the familiar framework that allows them to organize and

interpret the vast and chaotic phenomena of reality. They may become confused

and overwhelmed, being forced to recognize how easily their most dearly held

assumptions about the world are swept away by forces bigger than they can

control or even comprehend. Such challenges to our understanding of the world

are often experienced as painful and disruptive.

The pain, suffering and turmoil involved in cultural transition is not something to

be avoided, however. Change is not only necessary, it is unstoppable, and though

it often takes us in directions that seem progressive, we should also recognize that

change just as often occurs in directions that may be perceived as regressive.

Today, the contributions that nourish and feed our communities come from a wide

and diverse variety of people whose experiences and backgrounds differ radically.

Currently we are experiencing an explosion in the amount of serious and valuable

discourse that originates from increasingly diverse perspectives. Under these

conditions it is likely that not everyone will agree on exactly what constitutes

cultural ascent and what constitutes cultural decline. On the contrary, we may be

certain that in such a milieu the transitions considered by some to be favorable and

wonderful will be considered by others to be loathsome and nihilistic. For these

reasons it seems to me that the phenomenon of nihilism will never wholly


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disappear. Especially in the dynamic and multicultural world of today, it will

remain a persistent and chronic phenomenon that brings frustration and pain while

also spurring continued reflection and meditation on the nature of value.

Notes

(1)John Zerzan. "The Age of Nihilism." Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. Vol. 18. #1 (#49/Spring- Summer,

2000), p. 39.

Some other works suggesting that nihilism is a result of capitalism and technology include: Y. Sogomonov, P.

Landesman. Nihilism Today. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977; Gianni Vattimo. The End of Modernity. Baltimore:

The John Hopkins Press, 1988; Arthur Brittan. Masculinity and Power. New York: Basil Blackwell, Inc., 1989; Cornell

West. Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.

(2)Emile Durkheim. Suicide. New York: The Free Press, 1951. p. 257. (Durkheim, in the 1800s, conducted this

classic investigation into the phenomenon of suicide, finding that suicide rates in France tended to increase during

times of social change and industrial or economic crisis. He called this type of suicide "anomic," meaning that it

resulted from a sudden change in the character of the social values that constrain and shape the expectations of

citizens.)

(3)Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926. p. 31. In 1927 Freud wrote, "...I

scorn to distinguish between culture and civilization." He considered both to be those "respects in which human life has

raised itself above its animal status and differs from the life of beasts." See: Sigmund Freud. The Future of an Illusion.

New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1964. p. 2. This equivocal usage is continued in Civilization and Its

Discontents.

(4)Martin Heidegger. Being and Time. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. pp. 164 - 168.

(5)David Michael Levin argues that mental illness, and specifically narcissism, depression and schizophrenia are results

of the nihilistic forgetfulness of Being. He also claims that cancer has a similar cause. See: David Michael Levin (ed.)

Pathologies of the Modern Self. New York: New York University Press, 1987. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) offers descriptions of a variety of mental disorders, many of which

appear to have features similar to the experience of nihilism as I have defined it. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is the

affliction that I was surprised to find had the most nihilistic sounding characteristics. See: Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994.

(6)Zerzan. p. 41.


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(7)Alan Bloom. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Vattimo. p. 4.

(8)It even appears as the title of Nikolai Chernyshevsky's famous novel: What is to Be Done? Ithaca and London:

Cornell University Press, 1996.

(9)Aristotle. Poetics II.7.1450b.25.

(10)Eric Hoffer. The Ordeal of Change. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1963. p. 3.

Documents

The Rejuvenating Power of Nihilism