Nihilism 1. .Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. “Nihilism" comes from the Latin nihil, or nothing, which means not anything. It appears in the verb "annihilate," meaning to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Early in the nineteenth century, Friedrich Jacobi used the word to negatively characterize transcendental idealism. Nihilists denounced God and religious authority as antithetical to freedom. By the late 1870s, a nihilist was anyone associated with clandestine political groups advocating terrorism and assassination. 2. Nihilism, in fact, can be understood in several different ways. Political Nihilism, as noted, is associated with the belief that the destruction of all existing political, social, and religious order is a prerequisite for any future improvement. Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and emotive pressures. 3. Among philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche is most often associated with nihilism. For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it. The nihilist discovers that all values are baseless. "Every belief, every considering something-true is necessarily false because there is simply no true world", You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”,” Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.”, “Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.- Nietzsche writes. For him, nihilism requires a radical repudiation of all imposed values and meaning: "Nihilism is . . . not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plough; one destroys" Inevitably, nihilism will expose all cherished beliefs and sacrosanct truths as symptoms of a defective Western mythos. This collapse of meaning, relevance, and purpose will be the most destructive force in history, constituting a total assault on reality and nothing less than the greatest crisis of humanity: 4. In 1927, Martin Heidegger observed that nihilism in various and hidden forms was already "the normal state of man " .Nihilism literally has only one truth to declare, namely, that ultimately Nothingness prevails and the world is meaningless" . 5. From the nihilist's perspective, one can conclude that life is completely amoral, a conclusion, , that motivates such monstrosities as the Nazi reign of terror.- our world will become "a cold, inhuman world" where "nothingness, incoherence, and absurdity" will triumph. 6. Existential nihilism is the notion that life has no intrinsic meaning or value, and it is, no doubt, the most commonly used and understood sense of the word today. William Shakespeare eloquently summarized the existential nihilist's perspective when, in this famous passage near the end of Macbeth, he has Macbeth pour out his disgust for life: Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player ,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage ,And then is heard no more; it is a tale ,Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” 7.It has been over a century now since Nietzsche explored nihilism and its implications for civilization. As he predicted, nihilism's impact on the culture and values of the 20th century has been pervasive, its apocalyptic tenor spawning a mood of gloom and a good deal of anxiety, anger, and terror. Interestingly, Nietzsche himself, a radical skeptic preoccupied with language, knowledge, and truth, anticipated many of the themes of postmodernity. It's helpful to note, then, that he believed we could--at a terrible price--eventually work through nihilism. If we survived the process of destroying all interpretations of the world, we could then perhaps discover the correct course for humankind: “I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength. It is possible. . . . “