Is this nihilism? Does that matter?

[David McKerracher]

This is making the rounds. Wayne Brooks here is a cool guy (I don’t know the other person!). I think Brooks is a Deleuzean, though I’m not 💯 sure—that’s not really the point here. My question is this: do you agree with this laundry list of axioms? If so, is that nihilism? If so or not, why? Does it matter to you and what you value? Does this last question actually show that values are themselves relative to the “purely subjective?”

Many more questions can be generated from this, but I’m just trying to stir the pot. I may write something or do a stream on this topic sometime soon, because it is one that has provoked a lot of ideas and good conversation in the past. In a sense it is one of those questions that kept me up for years. I’m definitely curious to hear people’s thoughts.

Discussion

[Phillip Shinn]

I do not know if this is nihilism or not, but point 5 and 7 may offer insight into the tragedy of the ego. From one perspective, nobody is ever born and nobody ever dies. That being said, are personal values even possible? Might the appearance of personal values be hiding the power of subpersonal values which are conditioned communally? Definitely fun food for thought.

[Łukasz Silski]

When I read this I remembered how I heard somewhere (probably in some ‘why theory’ episode or a Zizek book) that “It is much more relieving to admit that nothing matters and you are just a spec of dust in a huge universe” than to admit that what we are doing truly matters. The second option seems much harder, because you loose the cynical distance, the ‘fetishistic disavowal’ (“I know very well that things matter, but nonetheless I don’t believe in it”).

[David Powers]

I can’t tell you if it’s nihilism, but point by point, it is just theoretically incorrect, which makes one suspect that such a statement is being made for some ulterior motive, which might include perverse enjoyment.
1. Life is decay.
Misleading because life is a cycle of growth and decay and regeneration.
2. You will always truly be alone.
“You” is a linguistic construct, whether “you are alone” is a question of which viewpoint is used to construct such a “you.” There is no reason to accord epistemological priority to that viewpoint which perceives “you” as absolutely alienated or separate from existence. See Nagarjuna. Also, the “truly” is a pointless rhetorical flourish.
3. You are expendable.
This statement is true from the viewpoint of capital accumulation, but it is context dependent, and since no context for the statement is provided, it is neither true or false.
4. Nothing happens for a reason.
If this statement is true, then language doesn’t mean anything, and this statement also doesn’t mean anything, so we can ignore it as self-contradictory because these meaningless statements about existence just appeared on the internet “for no reason.”
5. You’re going to die.
This is true, but nothing follows from it, since it is a fact that human beings seem to be capable of taking many different stances towards death.
6. You will be forgotten.
On the long scale of time, this is true, on the shorter scale of time, the truth varies based on your circumstances and participation in community. Regardless, nothing really follows from this statement; what’s wrong with being forgotten? For this to be negative, some other belief about being forgotten must be assumed, a belief that presumable not all humans share.
7. It will be like you never existed.
This statement is tricky, because of the “like”–I read it as going with #6: “Because you will be forgotten, it will be like you never existed.” Presumably, this is because although the consequences of actions in time will still be a part of the future, since your name and identity are forgotten, the consequences of your actions no longer matter or count. But this is only true if you believe that you ARE your name and identity: In fact, from another point of view, this is great, because it means that you are capable of truly ethical action; to act merely because people will honor you as a good person is foolish, since you will be forgotten, but if you perform an ethical action for its own sake, the consequences of that action will continue even if nobody remembers you.
Here I would like to tell a little story: Lewis Gordon talks about how abolitionist Frederick Douglas only became the Frederick Douglas because of the selfless acts of his mother. Douglas wrote:

“My mother had walked twelve miles to see me, and had the same distance to travel over again before the morning sunrise. I do not remember ever seeing her again. Her death soon ended the little communication that had existed between us, and with it, I believe, a life full of weariness and heartfelt sorrow. To me it has ever been a grief that I knew my mother so little, and have so few of her words treasured in my remembrance. I have since learned that she was the only one of all the coloured people of Tuckahoe who could read… I am happy to attribute any love of letters I may have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother.”

And Gordon comments:

“As things turned out, his mother Harriet worked on the fields of a plantation 12 miles away. Learning of her child’s location, she walked the 12-mile distance in the evenings to spend time with him into dawn, when she returned to the fields. On the last occasion, she came to his rescue from the cruel, enslaved cook who abused him. She soon thereafter passed away…. The world in which the child Frederick lived was one in which he was valued only as property. Yet Harriet Bailey managed, in her efforts, to introduce her child to something up to that point he had not imagined: love. Douglass’s value as far as he knew, even as a child, was as commodity. Love, however, offered a different kind of value; it is a judgement on existence against being.” (Gordon, Reimagining Liberation essay)

[Casey Kamarchik]

Thanks for taking the time to critique this piece of, what reads to me, embarrassingly earnest, overly sentimental, vaguely edgy rhetoric and answering it point by point. I myself have flirted with Pessimism in the past, and still do occasionally. However, I prefer my Pessimism to at least be rooted in a system of some kind of thought, metaphysical or otherwise (ala Schopenhauer, Mainlander, Zappfe, Cioran, Benatar, Brassier, Metzinger, or at least Ligotti) rather than a laundry list of someone else’s neurosis, which is what Julie Reshe’s alleged “axioms” come off as to me.

I can learn to make peace with being driven by nothing but a ceaseless, disembodied, undifferentiated Will-To-Life/Power/Death in the Black Iron Prison of some Demiurge, but I cannot abide Julie’s claims that “You are expendable” and “You will always be truly alone.” Expendable to whom, or what, and in what way? And what is meant by “truly alone?” Opposed to what, being “falsely alone?” And how does this Julie lady know so much about me, anyway? I don’t believe I’ve ever made her acquaintance (nor would I want to, frankly).

• This reply was modified 8 months ago by  Casey Kamarchik. Reason: spelling
• This reply was modified 8 months ago by  Casey Kamarchik. Reason: attributed the wrong person whoops
• This reply was modified 8 months ago by  Casey Kamarchik. Reason: i can't read nor spell. blaming it on sleep dep

[David Powers]

I hadn’t actually realized where that list of axioms came from. So I will first mention that Julie Reshe is actually a Ukranian psychoanalyst, and if her axioms are not philosophically justified, I would actually grant that such ideas are typical subjective responses to the nihilistic experience of modern war. Nevertheless we can use our critical thinking to help us see where pessimism might be leading our thinking into dead ends. And sometimes in that context, maybe it’s worth stepping back and doing basic naive philosophical critiques as I tried to do.
Anyway, Julie has done some nice interviews and YT videos, including McGowan and Zupancic interviews; I was actually watching her interview with Catherine Malabou, which I enjoyed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBQixz2qg6g

[Author]

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