Nietzsche and Nihilism
"Nihilism" was the term used by Friederich Nietzsche to describe what he considered the devaluation of the highest values posited by the ascetic ideal. The age in which he lived was viewed by the German philosopher as one of passive nihilism, which he defined as the unawareness of the fact that the religious and philosophical absolutes had dissolved in the emergence of the 19th century Positivism. Since traditional morality collapsed, along with its metaphysical and theological foundations, the only thing that remained was a sense of meaningless and purposelessness.
The triumph of meaninglessness coincides with the triumph of nihilism, under the slogan "God is dead." Nietzsche believed that people would start seeking absoluteness in nationalism, just as they previously did it in philosophy and religion, a conception which later lead to catastrophically consequences.
Nihilism is most often associated with Nietzsche. The philosopher felt that there is no objective order or structure in the world except the subjective ones each person gives it. Consequently, the nihilist ends up discovering that all values are baseless and that reason is powerless. "Every belief, every considering something-true is necessarily false because there is simply no true world," Nietzsche writes in his "Will to Power." He also argues "Nihilism is . . . not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plough; one destroys," which is equivalent to saying that all imposed values and meaning have to be repudiated.
Under the scrutiny of nihilism, "the highest values devalue themselves. The aim is lacking, and 'Why' finds no answer" writes the philosopher in his "Will to Power." Nihilism will eventually expose all beliefs and commonly recognized truths as mere symptoms of a declining Western illusion. Meaning, relevance, and purpose shall collapse in an all destructive event, which will result in the greatest known crisis of humanity. In the "Will to Power," he writes "What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. . . . For some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end."
Believing that Nietzsche's evaluation was accurate, artists and philosophers further developed his thoughts. Oswald Spengler observed in his book "The Decline of the West (1926)" that religious, artistic, and political traditions were severely weakened and destroyed by the workings of certain distinct nihilistic postures. For instance, he stated that the Faustian nihilist "shatters the ideals," the Apollinian nihilist "watches them crumble before his eyes" while the Indian nihilist "withdraws from their presence into himself." Western civilization is crumbling because its epistemological authority and ontological foundation are gradually destroyed by nihilism. He also found that modern Western Epicureanism and Stoicism might be associated with the negation of reality and resignation, popularized by Eastern religions.
The events that caused nihilism to appear were the decay of traditional morality and the development of science. Nietzsche expressed his opinion regarding traditional morality by concentrating on the typology of the "slave" and "master" morality. He examined the etymology of the German words gut and bose (good and bad) and arrived to the conclusion that the original distinction between good and bad was a descriptive one, a simple non-moral reference to the ones who were masters as opposed to the ones who were slaves.
The moral aspect of the issue surfaced when slaves began to "avenge" themselves by converting attributes of mastery into vices. For instance, they believed that the meek shall inherit the earth, as opposed to the common truth that the favored were powerful and "good." Pride became a sin, so competition, pride and autonomy were gradually replaced with charity, humility and obedience.
Another important factor for the victory of this "slave morality" was the fact that it was claimed to be the only true morality. Absoluteness is essential to philosophical as well as religious ethics. Undermining the absolute character of this type of morality was the insidious and most notable work of nihilism. Judeo-Christianity was dying because it could no longer mange to make people believe in the absoluteness of traditional morality. "God is dead" because people manifest an ever-growing optimism towards science and technology and the benefits they bring to everyday life.
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