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> Charles: Wasn't Nietzsche a Nihilist ? ( I got deja vu of asking this question on this list and this exchange before).
No. Far from it. Nietzsche was calling for a transvaluation of values i.e. a paradigm shift away from Christian values to a more creative aesthetic value system.
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> I'm not defending Nihilism, (nor condoning nor celebrating the latest school tragedy) , but it seems Nietzschean Nihilism gets some praise from some post-modernist lines of thought. What's the difference between good and bad Nihilism ?
Nihilism is either the denial of values (subjective or objective) or the denial that the word "value" has any meaning. I don't think you can draw a distinction between good and bad nihilism because nihilists have no values. Its an extreme moral skepticism.
The term "Nihilism" was coined in (where else?) Russia in the 19th
century. The character Bazarov in Turgenev's *Fathers and Sons* was
supposed to be a prototypical nihilist: disbelief in authority and
tradition, belief in reason and science and materialism. A more
representative statement was provided by Pisarev, which curiously
sounds like something out of the mouth of a NATO spokesman:
" Here is the ultimatum of our camp: what can be smashed should be
smashed; what will stand the blows is good; what will fly into
smithereens is rubbish; at any rate, hit out right and left--ther will
and can be no harm from it."
cited in Avram Yarmolinsky *The Road to Revolution*.
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> To me much of nihilism, including as reflected in Nietzche, Heidegger, and most rightwing existentialism , is unconscious petit bourgeois alienation in bourgeois society. (See _Existentialism and Alienation in American Literature_ by Sidney Finkelstein, International 1965). It is rebellion without a cause. Or in the case of Hitler, diversion of legitimate protest and rebellion against alienation into world historic gangsterism.
Perhaps. Nihilism is sometimes seen as rebellion against morality itself, claiming that morality itself is repressive. Nietzsche was not against morality per se but only a specific type of morality.
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> My dilemma is will anything but tragedy and sacrifice shake the great American masses out of their Rip Van Winklism with respect to the rapid decay of American morality, politics and socio-economic order ?
A 20% unemployment rate will do the job everytime.
> Things are horribly wrong in this country , yet the vast majority are going along with it. Even the Oklahoma City bombing was not any kind of a wakeup call. The proto-fascist implications of it have been completely whitewashed. The same is true of the Littleton tragedy. Reaganite plausible denial of capitalist alienation, including denial of racism ,is a clear and present danger to the health, safety and welfare of the vast majority of the People of the country and the world.
Not only a danger to people, it has wrecked a great many people's lives.
Sam Pawlett