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Originally Posted by Herculepoirot
Any word ending in 'ism' is an ideology. You presentation or definition is but one definition of nihilism. There are two. The full definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:
1
a : a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless
b : a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths
2
a : a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility
b capitalized : the program of a 19th century Russian party advocating revolutionary reform and using terrorism and assassination
I would have to sit down with you face to face to discuss the 'truth' there is in life. So many books have been written on truth it would fill a warehouse. To me truth is the following: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. They are constant in the human spirit. You are correct in your statement that much is subjective and of human construct. The pursuit of wealth(mammon), fame or power are three things that man seems to believe are of value but, for me these things are fleeting. Despite the human heart or, spirit as it were; not being tangible it is the deep things of life that this spirit searches.
I didn't mean to be flippant. Never give up your search for truth. You may be angered by some of the truth but pleasantly surprised by other truths.
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I just don't know. Well, I have ideas as to what I think, what makes sense to me - but I also keep hearing that it's wrong. I want so bad to be able to trust what I think and feel, but I know too much to do that anymore. At the moment my only solace is fleeing into fantasy. If this goes on much longer I might just give up on reality and escape into fiction for good.
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Don't be ashamed. You are of value. That is a truth. Regards, M Poirot
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Well, it might be. Nihilistically/existentially, no, it's not true. At best it's delusion. I think. I'm reading like crazy and writing elsewhere trying to get some sort of answer, but I guess my span of understanding is pretty limited.
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Originally Posted by Fizzyo
I looked up nihilism, it is as you say, but does that mean it's true?
Maybe you want to look into existentialism a bit more. I looked on wickipedia, it's not so much about deluding yourself but about creating meaning by the way you live your life.
For example, if, by the way you live, you make someone else's existence on this planet a little easier then that could create meaning as in if you can add to the sum of human happiness (or even just slightly lessen human suffering) maybe something positive has come from your existence.
It may be some art that creates beauty etc.
It seems it is more about facing up to the pointlessness of life and having the courage to create a point to being alive. That, to me is not delusional, it's courageous. |
That's what I think too! The interpretation I hear is that existentialism is about looking at all of existence's horrors, and finding a way to say "Yes!" anyway.
But what I keep hearing elsewhere, is that in order to say "Yes", you need to delude yourself that meaning can exist, that subjective meaning is relevant, that thinking something makes it so.
I feel an argument against this, but can't put it into words. Don't tell the people at PhilosophyForums I said that, it makes no sense.
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Maybe before you let this person's opinions about nihilism drag you down you want to read the original thoughts of some of the philosophers who came up with these concepts and decide which ones have merit and which seem to be unhelpful to a contented life, rather than go by someone's partial interpretation of what they think the particular philosophical idea might be.
Maybe you want to read some other philosophers before you decide that nihilism is "The Truth"
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One issue that keeps coming up, in my mind at least: is it better to live a truthful life (which would require embracing nihilism as truth) or a contented one. Existentialism tries for both, but if it's flaws are what people say it is, I need to fix those before I can accept it.
Or just learn to cast off the shame of being another delusional, weak idiot.