Who would have thought that dismissing art, culture, tradition, sincerity, and religion, and basing the whole edifice in nothing aside what can be measured and bought and sold, while soaking the media with cynism and replacing ideals with financial targets and consumer crap would have resulted to this?
"Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my actions"
I find today’s “nihilism talk” in America confusing and reductive, not to say a bit juvenile sometimes. The type of “nihilism” described in most of these pieces isn’t really nihilism (as defined in the late 19c) but more like disengagement and apathy with the political process. This is a reaction to a string of events (Trump, Covid Woke, etc) has more to do with social fatigue, political disgust, disappointment. Nihilism is more of an aesthetic intellectual stand that embraces life in a sobering type of realism that has little to do with an “event” (recession, a rotting regime, etc). This intellectual nihilism is sobering, an elevated form of consciousness where one doesn’t quite but in fictions (eg. international law, moral foreign policy, etc). It’s a philosophy that denies the idealism of moral progress.
This is a good point, and part of the goal was to show how loosely people have been using "nihilism" in the media. But there is also something to be said for real existing "practical" nihilism which, even if it is not theoretically consistent, manifests itself in the apathy that you describe.
Most of these sources of the nihilism you are referencing (I don't agree that it is actual nihilism but think the first comment is correct) seem to be people on the left who are seeing their side lose its moral footing. And i grant that it is very upsetting to see one's own "good" side actually supporting policies that are corrupt and harmful. We have all woken up, to various degrees, to realize our side mandated bad vaccines and lockdowns, open borders and drugs and human trafficking, proxy wars on other continents, and mutilation of confused and depressed children, not to mention denial of women's rights to separate spaces. That is destabilizing- i know because it happened to me. And then seeing the bad, orange side actually attempting to fix our societal issues and stop the waste, corruption and harms... yikes, bring in the nihilism labels. How about trying to engage with the reasons we are experiencing a realignment in society rather than this labeling and name calling. I hear this as a polite and "educated" alternative to calling the other side nazis. You should be above this.
I'm not sure Milosz was right to call Weimar Germany "horrible" and "nihilistic." From Wikipedia:
"Germany, and Berlin in particular, was fertile ground for intellectuals, artists, and innovators from many fields during the Weimar Republic years. The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate. German university faculties became universally open to Jewish scholars in 1918. Leading Jewish intellectuals on university faculties included physicist Albert Einstein; sociologists Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse; philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Edmund Husserl; political theorists Arthur Rosenberg and Gustav Meyer; and many others. Nine German citizens were awarded Nobel Prizes during the Weimar Republic, five of whom were Jewish scientists, including two in medicine.[3] Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the prominent figures in many areas of Weimar culture."
I can't remember who it was at the moment, but I like a Christian writer I read recently who spoke of Nihil as a proper noun personification gaining traction in our society; just another idol, a false god.
Also, highly recommend😌 Fr Seraphim Rose, "Nihilism - The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age". This very slim volume 📓✍🏼 is published by the ☦️⛪🔔 St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, CA. - 1994,2009 🇺🇲🕯️📿.
Grace and peace to you on this 🎵 Vigil of the ANNUNCIATION, 2025 Anno Domini 🌐💫🪽
Who would have thought that dismissing art, culture, tradition, sincerity, and religion, and basing the whole edifice in nothing aside what can be measured and bought and sold, while soaking the media with cynism and replacing ideals with financial targets and consumer crap would have resulted to this?
"Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my actions"
George at this rate we're going to have to get our own podcast :P
Great idea! We could become rich beyond our wildest dreams!
I would listen!
I find today’s “nihilism talk” in America confusing and reductive, not to say a bit juvenile sometimes. The type of “nihilism” described in most of these pieces isn’t really nihilism (as defined in the late 19c) but more like disengagement and apathy with the political process. This is a reaction to a string of events (Trump, Covid Woke, etc) has more to do with social fatigue, political disgust, disappointment. Nihilism is more of an aesthetic intellectual stand that embraces life in a sobering type of realism that has little to do with an “event” (recession, a rotting regime, etc). This intellectual nihilism is sobering, an elevated form of consciousness where one doesn’t quite but in fictions (eg. international law, moral foreign policy, etc). It’s a philosophy that denies the idealism of moral progress.
This is a good point, and part of the goal was to show how loosely people have been using "nihilism" in the media. But there is also something to be said for real existing "practical" nihilism which, even if it is not theoretically consistent, manifests itself in the apathy that you describe.
Most of these sources of the nihilism you are referencing (I don't agree that it is actual nihilism but think the first comment is correct) seem to be people on the left who are seeing their side lose its moral footing. And i grant that it is very upsetting to see one's own "good" side actually supporting policies that are corrupt and harmful. We have all woken up, to various degrees, to realize our side mandated bad vaccines and lockdowns, open borders and drugs and human trafficking, proxy wars on other continents, and mutilation of confused and depressed children, not to mention denial of women's rights to separate spaces. That is destabilizing- i know because it happened to me. And then seeing the bad, orange side actually attempting to fix our societal issues and stop the waste, corruption and harms... yikes, bring in the nihilism labels. How about trying to engage with the reasons we are experiencing a realignment in society rather than this labeling and name calling. I hear this as a polite and "educated" alternative to calling the other side nazis. You should be above this.
Does this mean Damir, our very own Bazarov (though lately with doubts), doesn't even register on the nihilist scale? I'm crushed.
Turgenev’s Evgeni Bazarov was a doctor who was self assured and wanted nothing to do with drifting and pointless intellectualism.
All true. Yet love killed him.
I'm not sure Milosz was right to call Weimar Germany "horrible" and "nihilistic." From Wikipedia:
"Germany, and Berlin in particular, was fertile ground for intellectuals, artists, and innovators from many fields during the Weimar Republic years. The social environment was chaotic, and politics were passionate. German university faculties became universally open to Jewish scholars in 1918. Leading Jewish intellectuals on university faculties included physicist Albert Einstein; sociologists Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse; philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Edmund Husserl; political theorists Arthur Rosenberg and Gustav Meyer; and many others. Nine German citizens were awarded Nobel Prizes during the Weimar Republic, five of whom were Jewish scientists, including two in medicine.[3] Jewish intellectuals and creative professionals were among the prominent figures in many areas of Weimar culture."
I can't remember who it was at the moment, but I like a Christian writer I read recently who spoke of Nihil as a proper noun personification gaining traction in our society; just another idol, a false god.
Also, highly recommend😌 Fr Seraphim Rose, "Nihilism - The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age". This very slim volume 📓✍🏼 is published by the ☦️⛪🔔 St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, CA. - 1994,2009 🇺🇲🕯️📿.
Grace and peace to you on this 🎵 Vigil of the ANNUNCIATION, 2025 Anno Domini 🌐💫🪽