Submitted by d4rk in nihilism (edited )

What does it mean to not believe? Although the entire point of Nihilism is that there exists nothing and everything ultimately is nothing. But is this considered belief or non-belief? I genuinely think Nihilists should stop focusing on the "nothing" aspect and focus more on the "belief" aspect of their philosophical theories. This is the main reason why, for the rest of this article, I will dedicate it to the question of the two schools of Nihilism. Believers and Non-believers.

For the rest of literary History, Non-believing in Nothing was the question being pondered by the great gap of philosophers inspired by Nietzsche and even Nietzsche himself. The point being that there exists Nothing, (in this case G-d is dead), He then proceeds within Thus spake Zarathustra to detail what non-belief in Nothing looks like in the form of the Ubermensch. Man constructs himself to become the thing that isn't (G0d). The last man is man who believes in Nothing. When one believes in this something, and that something doesn't exist, therefore all the things that something entailed doesn't exist either. This last man, which the wiki informs is the antithesis to the Ubermensch in that it seeks only passive comfort and routine, avoiding everything that could potentially bring risk, pain, or disappointment.

Nietzsche neatly separates these two kinds of men into Apollonian for the former and Dionysian for the latter. So from here on out we'll use his terms. Within the Apollonian school of non-belief in Nothing, you have Existentialism, Absurdism, and to some extent Marxism. The Apollonian refuses to believe in the Nothing, although it acknowledges that the Nothing is a fact, in this way, he tries to create something where nothing exists purely on the basis that he wants to believe in something. He wills its creation. What this implies is that Man, or such men, have full control over his own destiny.

Existentialism argues that we are the creators of our own meaning. Marxism, or in this case Marxist Freedom, argues that we should be able to plan out our lives as we see fit as opposed to believe in nothing and accept the futility of things. Absurdism is the purest form of Apollonian Nihilism as it would rather believe in the Absurd than it would believe in Nothing.

Dionysian Nihilism is to fully immerse in a Belief in Nothing. As all things are futile, there is no morality, no law, no state, no G-d, nothing. To summarize their ideas, I would like to borrow the famous maxim from my favorite video game franchise, "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted". In this school, there are two classes, equal in regard, Structuralism and Consumerism.

The people who go to the Structuralist class believe that society is comprised of mutually conflicting but compromising social constructions. This is the basis for contemporary Neoliberalism. Those who chose the Consumerist class believe that all that exists is by desire-production meaning that all that exists is by desire for those who think of it favorably like Foucault and Land, this is best exemplified in Postmodernity.

For the growing few of us who do believe in something like the author of this article. The question of belief has always been a question that became of interest as I do not believe in at least the 40,000 other g-ds that exist in the world and I practice this non-belief Apollonically. But such non-belief exists only in the assumption that nothing exists and all we can ever do about it is chose how to react, which is a rather stoic and pessimistic attitude to life. Nonetheless it is a really interesting philosophical question to ask about

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Fool wrote

I will dedicate it to the question of the two schools of Nihilism. Believers and Non-believers.

Silly dualistic logic. Though you touch on it at the end, non-believers are bound within the concept of belief, but overall if one considers themself either they're bound by the logic of belief.

I would like to borrow the famous maxim from my favorite video game franchise, "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted"

You know that this quote is much older... and directly related to the topic?

I like to think of "Nothing is True" as a positivist statement, not a negation of Truth, but an affirmation of Nothing. While "Everything is Possible" is a negative statement, towards boundaries placed on this thing known as Everything.

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d4rk OP wrote

On your first point, I guess a negation of the negation would be to socially construct nothing into something and use that to justify whatever acts that you want to do. It is neither Dionysian, since it is bound by an internally consistent although rudimentary, moral code. Nor is it Apollonian, since it (being the something from nothing) can impress its will on others. But this could no longer be a form of Nihilism since Zarathustra preaches against this type of old order of man.

I'd like to thank you for that second point for leading me down the rabbithole of Czechoslovak philosophy. It was definitely a good read considering that they were on the correct side of history.

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Fool wrote

I guess a negation of the negation would be to socially construct nothing into something and use that to justify whatever acts that you want to do.

It's not what I was alluding to, but what you described has quite a number of historical examples... So it appears it's the more common way to understand such a point, so I'll leave it at that.

I also cut out mention of a certain omnipresent construct built upon "Everything", which relates to what you mentioned.

But this could no longer be a form of Nihilism since Zarathustra preaches against this type of old order of man.

On the one hand it's like a cop out (with heavy colonialist basis) excluding ideas because they're outside the academic school of Nihilism, but I suppose that it can make sense to keep the discussion of Nihilism to things actually called Nihilism, and not things that are similar but not actually called that thing.

were on the correct side of history.

The side that has not been expunged and forgotten, and as such can be considered history?

Or those that appear to have not been falsified?

...Don't feel like you need to respond to that... Using good or correct as adjectives just creates too many questions....

...I wonder if there's a way I could actually let myself go full stream of consciousness on this sort of topic... Actually I'd probably quickly run into the age old, how does one describe non-concepts without using concepts?

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