On Sat, 22 May 1999 09:20:06 -0700 S Pawlett <epawlett at uniserve.com>
writes:
>Charles Brown wrote:
>
>>
>> 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.
>
>>
>>
>> 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.
BTW many of the statements that Bazarov makes in Turgenev's novel were lifted almost word for word from editorials that Turgenev's friend, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, published in the magazine , *The Contemporary*. Chernychevsky, who was then an important writer and editor was the author of the novel *What is to be Done?* which despite the fact that it was panned by most critics, influenced several generations of Russian revolutionaries including the young Lenin who borrowed the novel's title for a famous political tract of his own. The Russian Nihlists were not nihlistic in our sense of the term. They were militant materialists who believed in science and reason and were implacable opponents of religious superstition, irrational traditions, and political autocracy. Chernyshevsky himself was eventually sentenced to prison by the Czarist regime, and later was releaed in broken health to live in exile in Siberia.
The popularity of Nihlism among Russia's intellectual youth during the mid-19th century both intrigued (and in some cases apalled) Russia's finest writers of the time. Turgenev devoted his novel *Fathers and Sons* to this issue, while Nihlism was figured in several of Dostoyevsky's novels including *Crime and Punishment,* *Notes from the Underground*, *The Brothers Karamazov* and *The Possessed.*
Ultimatelu Nihlism by popularizing the ideas of such materialistic and positivist thinkers from the West such as Feuerbach, Comte, Darwin, and J.S. Mill opened the door for the later introduction of such doctrines as Marxism and anarchism which ultimately had a profound effect on Russian politics.
> 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*.
>>
>>
>> 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.
Their brand of nihlism was quite different from the Russian variety. Russian Nihlism promoted reason and science whereas the nihlisms of Nietzsche, Heidegger and their disciples were hostile to science and reason. Indeed, these people were often avowed "irrationalists."
Jim Farmelant
>
>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.
>
>
>>
>>
>> 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
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