Alisha Schor

Ms. Gupta

English 10 Honors, Period 5

10 May 2001

Nihilism: The Evolutionary Perspective

            Who are we?  Where did we come from?  What are we doing here?  Nearly every human being has asked him or herself this question at some point.  Self-questioning and self-exploration is a natural part of the human mind as a person goes through certain developmental stages (Novak, 43).  “In the child,” Novak states, “the drive to question reveals itself in the delight at being held and cuddled…in sensual and affective exploration” (43).  Inevitably, at some point in this process of questioning, man will encounter questions that he cannot answer.  People respond to this dilemma in different manners, some through belief in God as the ultimate answer, or through various other personal philosophies.  The belief of nihilism is one of the many responses to the discovery that not all metaphysical questions can be answered (Fandozzi 6-7).  “It is…an end result, a discovery,” declares Helmut Thielicke (25).  Nihilism, the questioning and eventual rejection of generally accepted beliefs and values, is a logical part of an evolutionary progression of the human mind and philosophy in general.

            The word “nihilism” comes from the Latin nihil, meaning nothing (Pratt).  Nihilism is a philosophy that originated with ancient Greek thinkers and evolved through time (Freydis).  Ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, who urged Greeks to question the world rather than simply accept it, are often credited with being the first to have nihilistic ideas (“Heidegger, Martin”).  The first substantial movement that could be considered nihilist was the Skeptics (c. 400-350 BCE), who suggested that many of man’s beliefs were subjective rather than definitive (Taylor).  This concept of subjectiveness is one of the main sources of the rejection of values that leads to the emptiness of nihilism (“Nietzsche and Nihilism”).

            Modern (or European) nihilism, in the sense that it is commonly referred to today, originated during the nineteenth century (“Nihilism” Britannica).  The term itself was popularized by Ivan Turgenev in Fathers and Sons published in 1862 (“Nihilism” Britannica).  The main character of the novel, a scientist named Bazarov, “explicitly reveals the double-perspective of his view…” (Fandozzi 36), reflecting the nihilist realization of a subjective world.  This emergence of nihilism in Russia led to many of the political uprisings during the revolution.  Many say that the group People’s Will, responsible for the assassination of Tzar Alexander II, was a nihilist group (Crosby 9).  Many other revolutionary groups in Russia were labeled nihilists as well, because of their destructive nature.  However, the nihilist revolutionaries in Russia simply recognized that the existing government was not adequate, and hoped to overcome it (Pratt).  The only means to this end, they argued, was through destroying all existing institutions (“Nihilism” Columbia).  The instances in Russia, however, are only examples of political nihilism.  In a much broader sense, nihilism is a philosophy that governs the way a nihilist lives, much like Confucianism is a guideline for those who follow it.

Many philosophers agree that the three most prominent and influential nihilist thinkers are the Germans Stirner, Nietzsche and Heidegger.  Chronologically, Max Stirner came first, and inspired many nihilists, existentialists, and anarchists, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche (Stirner xi-xii).  Stirner was the pseudonym of Johann Kaspar Schmidt, used in his famous discourse The Ego and His Own (“Stirner, Max”).  As suggested by the title, Stirner’s nihilism focused on the idea of egoism.  According to Stirner, “there [is] no objective social reality independent of the individual; social classes, the state, the masses and humanity are abstractions and therefore need not be considered seriously,” (“Stirner, Max”), essentially saying that the only concrete object in life is the self.  He wants man to not only recognize but accept that he is alone, and become the ideal Unique One, who is completely self-centered (Carr 234, 243).

Similarly, Fredrich Nietzsche believes that “the foundations on which humanity’s ideals and values have been constructed become subjected to critical self-reflection and self-examination…” (Ansell-Pearson 200), in accordance with Stirner’s belief that truth is subjective.  Although it was never directly asserted, Nietzsche was heavily influenced by many of Stirner’s declarations.  Through self-exploration and questioning of the world around him, Nietzsche found that the “Christian-moral interpretation of the world” varied from person to person (200).  Since every individual had different beliefs on God, life, and values, he reasoned that everything was subjective, and therefore not concretely present.  “Every belief, every considering something-true is necessarily false because there is simply no true world” (qtd. in Taylor 14).  Nietzsche takes this idea one step further in declaring that God is dead, along with all morals and values that arose from the belief in God.

The greatest recent event—that “God is dead,” that the belief in the Christian God has ceased to be believable…is even now casting its first shadows over Europe…What must collapse now that this belief has been undermined…all that was built upon it, leaned on it, grew into it, for example, our whole European morality. (qtd. in Fandozzi 5)

Nietzsche certainly did not intend to say that if an actual God existed, that He was now dead, but rather was declaring that people have reached a stage of questioning.  There was no longer blind belief in and allegiance to religion, and with this skepticism, the concreteness of God was lost.  This empty, meaningless perspective of the world is what people most commonly consider the intention of nihilism.

            In contrast, Heidegger was less concerned with the rejection of values and focused more on the questioning of the self, or Being (Vattimo 20).  He claims that the individual is merely a subject of external forces, a plaything of circumstance (Vattimo 21).  This precludes Heidegger’s goal, which is to convince people to question themselves and not simply exist, noting that “metaphysics is undeniably the root of human knowledge” (Kemerling).  Heidegger believes that the world holds nothing, and that man must recognize this nothingness (Paterson 230).  He proclaims the Verwindung, or overcoming, of man’s recognition of the meaninglessness of the world and the fear of death (Vattimo 164).  From this perspective, one may say that Heidegger simply makes note of the truth that life will end in annihilation (death), and provides hope for overcoming it (Kemerling).

            The ideas of an empty world and self-evaluation are not unique to nihilism.  In fact, nihilism is an evolution, or extension, of other preceding philosophies, such as existentialism and atheism.  All nihilists are necessarily atheists, because nihilism is based on the concept that all popular belief, including law, values, religion, and God are subjective (Thielicke 28).  And the existentials had already declared that the world was full of nothing and was meaningless, yet still committed themselves to finding truth (Patterson 241).  Extreme existentialists realized, however, that in committing oneself to finding truth, one was admitting that truth existed in the first place.  If truth exists, then this contradicts the existential belief in nothingness, and thus existentialists are caught in a parody (Paterson 228).  Thus, the most diehard of existentialists became nihilists, believing in nothing and hoping for nothing.  In this way, the nihilist avoids all commitment to anything (Holbrook 108).

Just as nihilism is an evolutionary philosophy, it is part of an evolutionary pattern of individual human thought, in that it is natural for humans to question things, and it is a result of this constant questioning that nihilism developed (Novak 43).  Michael Novak asserts that “the source of the experience of nothingness lies in man’s unstructured, relentless drive to ask questions” (43).  This is logical once is it viewed from the perspective that “ignorance is bliss”.  Before one asks questions, the world around him seems straightforward and simple.  But once one begins to explore the world of metaphysics, he finds faults and inconsistencies in everyday life (“Nihilism, There’s Nothing to it”).  One might compare it to an adolescent, who, upon leaving the carefree days of elementary school, realizes that the world is actually quite complex and lacks in many of the areas that once seemed whole.

            Nihilism is not simply a result of questioning, however.  In fact, many assert that nihilism is a conclusion, a predictable end result of human thought.  As Thielicke put it, the “last ‘ism’ must necessarily be nihilism” (25).  Those who defend this viewpoint remind people that the basic guiding belief of nihilism is that the contradiction and hypocrisy of popular truth renders it false, and that this contradiction leaves man with no choice other than believing in nothing (Freydis).  Keith Ansell-Pearson asks the question,

How can new values be fashioned and legislated when the transcendental basis which would support them has been undermined?  In the age of nihilism, not only is it imperative to rethink the value of truth, but equally the value of morality, justice, and of law.  (102)

From this one can see the argument that nihilism is a consequence of the environment.  For instance, assume that Person A and Person B had been best friends for quite sometime, and had completely trusted one another.  One day, Person B discovers that Person A had told quite a sizable and significant lie.  Person B’s natural reaction would be to lose trust in Person A, and doubt anything else Person A said.  In the same way, if one questions society to the point where he or she discovers contradiction or untruth, he or she will have the tendency to doubt and/or negate many of the other popular beliefs of society.

            Nihilism develops from discovering that the basis for social values and generalizations has been undermined, but how does one determine that these foundations are meaningless?  In trying to declare this point, nihilists often note the example of religion.  The ideas of creation and evolution are two explanations for the same event, yet they cannot coexist and both be correct.  Thus, one of the beliefs must be wrong, meaning that the foundation of moral code for a significantly large portion of people is worthless (Novak 33).  If contradiction can be found this easily in such a broadly based idea, then there must be countless other, smaller contradictions present everywhere.  Since it is impossible to detect all of the contradictions, the easiest way to purely reject all inconsistencies is to believe in nothing (Paterson 229).

            Political nihilism evolved in very much the same way.  Stirner was a strong believer that law and government were meaningless (Carlson).  His concept of “ego” was based on the fact that because everything else was subjective, law had no foundation and the only reliable source of morality was the self (Carlson).  Additionally, political nihilism arose once people began to witness neighboring revolutions and realized that they too were being oppressed, so they pushed for change.  Nihilism arose and developed side by side with other “-isms” of the revolutionary time period, such as socialism and fascism (Miller).  Political nihilism was a transformation of the philosophical form into a set of beliefs that could be applied to the masses in hopes of overthrowing the government.  It suggested since the world held nothing anyway, “…the total destruction of the existing society was the only method for achieving any essential improvement of society…” (Polanyi 24).  Society was already to far corrupted to be righted, it simply had to be destroyed and the human race would have to begin again from scratch.

            But the idea of overcoming was not unique to political nihilists.  Stanley Rosen writes that “[o]ne is tempted to say that the nihilist hopes for despair in order to be free of the possibility of hope” (142).  Rosen also argues that “…every new creation necessarily rises from the ruins of its predecessors…” (73).  Looked at from this aspect, nihilism can be seen as a stepping stone into a new society.  Nihilists do not claim to create nothingness, but rather recognize it and make themselves aware of it.  To them nihilism is not a proclamation but “the discovery that alleged ‘values’ and metaphysical structures are just a play of forces” (Vattimo 93).  Thus, the goal of nihilism, the overcoming of nothingness expressed through Heidegger’s Verwindung (Vattimo 164), is a positive and progressive goal.

            While many do not support or agree with the ideas of nihilism, its logical progression from external circumstances and preceding philosophies can easily be followed.  According to Michael Polanyi, “this process was historically inevitable, and so beyond human control” (24).  Nihilists truly believe that the negation of values is a necessary and linear step, resulting from hundreds of years of accepting religion, morals, and law without question (“Nihilism, There’s Nothing to it”).  They adopt this belief in order to provide themselves with some peace of mind (Rosen 142).  As ironic as it may seem to believe in nothing with the purpose of obtaining serenity, that is what the nihilist attempts to do.  He realizes “nothingness”, accepts it as truth, and is content with it (Paterson 242).  Perhaps, therefore, it follows that the nihilist himself is hypocritical.  If one’s goal is to believe in nothing and ask no further, then that goal in itself is a contradiction to the empty value system.  The exact interpretation of “nothing” poses a problem for those seeking nihilistic purity.  Some follow the traditional definition that “nothing” is the lack of something, meaning that nihilists don’t believe in anything.  But others argue that “nothing” in itself, the state of being “nothing” is actually something, that the concept of “nothing” is concrete, thus making it “something”.  By this definition, nihilists who believe in nothing actually believe in something.  The objective of nihilists’ attempt to avoid commitment could be argued in an endless circle, saying that nihilists are committed to avoiding commitment.  Maybe nihilism isn’t necessarily a conclusion, but it is certainly a part of the progressive nature of human philosophy, that will be a foundation for future philosophies.

Works Cited

 

Ansell-Pearson, Keith.  An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Carlson, Andrew.  “Philosophical Egotism: Max Stirner.”  27 Jun. 2000.  The Memory Hole.  30 Mar 2001  <http://www.blancmange.net/tmh/articles/carlson.html>.

Carr, Karen Leslie.  The Banalization of Nihilism: The Twentieth Century Responses to Meaninglessness.  Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.

Edwards, James C.  The Authority of Language.  Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1998.

Fandozzi, Phillip R.  Nihilism and Technology.  Washington, D.C.: University Press of America Inc., 1982.

Freydis.  “Nihilism’s Home Page.” 24 Mar. 2001.  <http://members.theglobe.com/FLN/ default.htm>

“Heidegger, Martin.”  Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 15 Apr. 2001. <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=406548tocid=0>.

Holbrook, David.  Education, Nihilism and Survival.  London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997.

Kemerling, Garth.  “History of Western Philosophy.” 07 Mar. 2001.  15 Apr 2001 <http://www.philosophypages.com/hy>.

“Life After Death, Nihilism and Modern Philosophy.” 6 Feb. 2000 Compact Library Publishers.  18 Mar. 2001.  <http://ws5.com/nihilism>.

Miller, Forrestt A.  “Nihilism.”  Grollier Multimedia Encycolpedia.  Grollier, Inc. 14 Mar. 2001 <http:///gme.grolier.com>.

“Nietzsche and Nihilism.” 14 Mar 2001 <http://ww.cwu.edu/~millerj/writings/nihilism.html>.

“Nihilism.”  Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 12 Mar. 2001 <http://www.eb.com:180/bol/ topic?eu=57221&sctn=1>

“Nihilism.”  The New Columbia Encyclopedia.  1975

“Nihilism.  There’s Nothing to it.” 18 Mar. 2001 <http://www.nodogs.org/nihilism.html>.

Novak, Michael.  The Experience of Nothingness.  New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998.

Polanyi, Michael.  Beyond Nihilism.  Cambridge: University Press, 1960

Paterson, Ronald William Keith.  The Nihilistic Egoist: Max Stirner.  London: Oxford University Press, 1971.

Pratt, Alan.  “Nihilism.”  1 Dec 1999.  Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  14 Mar. 2001.  <http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/nihilism.html>

Rosen, Stanley.  Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969.

Stirner, Max.  The Ego and His Own.  Trans. David Leopold.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Taylor, Ed.  “Nihilism from 1860-2001.” 09 Feb. 2001.  24 Mar. 2001. <http://www.stormloader.com/polywave>.

Thielicke, Helmut.  Nihilism: It’s Origin and Nature with a Christian Answer.  Trans. Doberstein, John W.  New York: Harper, 1961

Vattimo, Gianni.  The Adventure of Difference.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993.