"All right action flows from the breath"
- Hajakujo

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Another perspective on nihilism

Perhaps believing that we cannot know, or convey, the Truth to others, nor hope to have them believe something congruent to our beliefs, is not such a bad thing.

Nihilism: "Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief."

Can we imagine a perspective where we want to throw the baby out with the bath water?


Use of the above image is totally unpermitted - if anybody has a problem with that, please go read the rest of the blog while you're here. Then...unleash hell!

8 comments:

Patrick said...

Yeah, Nothing with a capital "N". No-thing. The thing that is Not. The Anti-thing. Then your whole ontology mutates radically, because all things are figments of your own imagination in a strong platonic sense.

Coke and hookers.

Unknown said...

Are you on the strong idea burn? It's late here, what's your excuse? :D

Coke and hookers I wish. My imagination isn't that nice to me.

nomad said...

I guess I agree better with Taoism. Tea or coffee? Yes please.
(In fact I believe that quote is stolen from a movie with Barbra Streisand viewed well over 15 years ago in a forgotten but certainly different context)

And may I say - hurray for comics! Are you familiar with "F minus" yet?

Chris said...

This cartoon is a validation of Buddhist ethics, and a blatant rejection of nihilism. Anyone excited to see a squirrel (as I always am!) has rejected the nihilist "anti-value" that no action can be preferable. :)

Best wishes!

nomad said...

Chris - :)

To the best of my understanding Nihilism is about objective truths. If someone chooses to enjoy a squirrel they can still belong to the Nihilist school - as long as they argue that this is a subjective search? Personally, I had a goal of bear hunting on roller blades in Praha and ended up rolling down a very prickly hill and disappointed with the fact that I didn't get lost in a beautiful maze. And yet I am non the wiser beyond possibly the fortification of my belief that few things remain static.

And besides, is it not through the realizations of mental incongruity that we continue to grow and learn different ways the pieces fit together?

Kris McGlinn said...

Nice comic. I am alarmed by just one thing none of you seem to have taken into account here. Whilst it may be exciting for the individual who is climbing the tree to have come across some squirrels, from the squirrels perspective his life and possibly the life of his family is now at threat from a bipedal beast. Surely the Buddhist in this scenario would not be harassing the squirrels (or the tree for that matter) whilst the nihilist would do as he pleases in the moment since ultimately, for the nihilist, the squirrels don't matter at all.

Kris McGlinn said...

I suppose what I am getting at is that while our intentions and as a result our actions may seem innocent, and while our philosophy may seem to contain wisdom and Truth. In fact, we as humans are often rarely aware of the effects of those actions and the suffering those actions cause (as in the case of the squirrels). So, when the obvious suffering of the squirrels is so hard for us to see (or we just don't care), how can we trust ourselves to ever act in a manner that does not result in suffering? And if on the other hand, you feel that chasing squirrels is ok, or chasing coke and hookers*, why not extend that behaviour to enslaving humanity, or exterminating the jews?

DIETER: Zere ARE no ROOLZ!

WALTER: NO RULES! YOU CABBAGE-EATING SONS- OF- BITCHES--

KIEFFER His girlfriend gafe up her toe! She sought we'd be getting million dollars! Iss not fair!

WALTER: Fair! WHO'S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! WHAT ARE YOU, A BUNCH OF FUCKING CRYBABIES?!


*its possible hookers have achieved a level of self awareness where by they can utterly disconnect their actions from their sense of self or see nothing wrong with selling their bodies for money...but I would say it is more likely they have been led into that profession by abusive behaviour and possibly greed. I suppose what I am saying is that I doubt hookers have eliminated the root of suffering in their lives and fucking them for money probably isn't increasing their sense of self worth.

Unknown said...

"Surely the Buddhist in this scenario would not be harassing the squirrels (or the tree for that matter)"

This is a nice point, but it ironically looks at the idea of passive involvement (like the Prime Directive) from a human perspective. Once we are here, we are involved. A person's presence affects the context for that presence. A planet doesn't actively affect the space around it (the way a star does), but it still has a gravity well.

We are each composed of something like 95% non-human cells, mostly single celled organisms. Should we have a duty of care to those organisms? If they all died at once, so would we. Is this a ridiculous question? If it is, at what scale in our ecology does the duty of care question become sensible?

There is a sense in which lack of sufficient knowledge makes it impossible to reason about what we should do. I think this is why it is so difficult to discuss ethics in terms of principle, rather than practice.