1
" It is of course no secret to contemporary philosophers and psychologists that man himself is changing in our violent century, under the influence, of course, not only of war and revolution, but also of practically everything else that lays claim to being " modern" and " progressive." We have already cited the most striking forms of Nihilist Vitalism, whose cumulative effect has been to uproot, disintegrate, and " mobilize" the individual, to substitute for his normal stability and rootedness a senseless quest for power and movement, and to replace normal human feeling by a nervous excitability. The work of Nihilist Realism, in practice as in theory, has been parallel and complementary to that of Vitalism: a work of standardization, specialization, simplification, mechanization, dehumanization; its effect has been to " reduce" the individual to the most " Primitive" and basic level, to make him in fact the slave of his environment, the perfect workman in Lenin's worldwide " factory. "
3
" More profoundly, Nihilist " simplification" may be seen in the universal prestige today accorded the lowest order of knowledge, the scientific, as well as the simplistic ideas of men like Marx, Freud, and Darwin, which underlie virtually the whole of contemporary thought and life.We say " life," for it is important to see that the Nihilist history of our century has not been something imposed from without or above, or at least has not been predominantly this; it has rather presupposed, and drawn its nourishment from, a Nihilist soil that has long been preparing in the hearts of the people. It is precisely from the Nihilism of the commonplace, from the everyday Nihilism revealed in the life and thought and aspiration of the people, that all the terrible events of our century have sprung. The world-view of Hitler is very instructive in this regard, for in him the most extreme and monstrous Nihilism rested upon the foundation of a quite unexceptional and even typical Realism. He shared the common faith in " science," " progress," and " enlightenment" (though not, of course, in " democracy" ), together with a practical materialism that scorned all theology, metaphysics, and any thought or action concerned with any other world than the " here and now," priding himself on the fact that he had " the gift of reducing all problems to their simplest foundations." He had a crude worship of efficiency and utility that freely tolerated " birth control" , laughed at the institution of marriage as a mere legalization of a sexual impulse that should be " free" , welcomed sterilization of the unfit, despised " unproductive elements" such as monks, saw nothing in the cremation of the dead but a " practical" question and did not even hesitate to put the ashes, or the skin and fat, of the dead to " productive use." He possessed the quasi-anarchist distrust of sacred and venerable institutions, in particular the Church with its " superstitions" and all its " outmoded" laws and ceremonies. He had a naive trust in the " natural mom, the " healthy animal" who scorns the Christian virtues--virginity in particular--that impede the " natural functioning" of the body. He took a simple-minded delight in modern conveniences and machines, and especially in the automobile and the sense of speed and " freedom" it affords.There is very little of this crude Weltanschauung that is not shared, to some degree, by the multitudes today, especially among the young, who feel themselves " enlightened" and " liberated," very little that is not typically " modern. "
4
" In 1965, a psychologist named Martin Seligman started shocking dogs.
He was trying to expand on the research of Pavlov--the guy who could make dogs salivate when they heard a bell ring. Seligman wanted to head in the other direction, and when he rang his bell, instead of providing food, he zapped the dogs with electricity. To keep them still, he restrained them in a harness during the experiment. After they were conditioned, he put these dogs in a big box with a little fence dividing it into two halves. He figured if the dog rang the bell, it would hop over the fence to escape, but it didn't. It just sat there and braced itself. They decided to try shocking the dog after the bell. The dog still just sat there and took it. When they put a dog in the box that had never been shocked before or had previously been allowed to escape and tried to zap it--it jumped the fence.
You are just like these dogs.
If, over the course of your life, you have experienced crushing defeat or pummeling abuse or loss of control, you convince yourself over time that there is no escape, and if escape is offered, you will not act--you become a nihilist who trusts futility above optimism.
Studies of the clinically depressed show that they often give in to defeat and stop trying. . .
Any extended period of negative emotions can lead to you giving in to despair and accepting your fate. If you remain alone for a long time, you will decide loneliness is a fact of life and pass up opportunities to hang out with people. The loss of control in any situation can lead to this state. . .
Choices, even small ones, can hold back the crushing weight of helplessness, but you can't stop there. You must fight back your behavior and learn to fail with pride. Failing often is the only way to ever get the things you want out of life. Besides death, your destiny is not inescapable. "
― David McRaney , You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
7
" Dalin must have whiffed the anarch in me, a man with no ties to state or society. Still, he was unable to sense an autonomy that puts up with these forces as objective facts but without recognizing them. What he lacked was a grounding in history.
Opposition is collaboration; this was something from which Dalin, without realizing it, could not stay free. Basically, he damaged order less than he confirmed it. The emergence of the anarchic nihilist is like a goad that convinces society of its unity.
The anarch, in contrast, not only recognizes society a priori as imperfect, he actually acknowledges it with that limitation. He is more or less repulsed by state and society, yet there are times and places in which the invisible harmony shimmers through the visible harmony. This is obviously chiefly in the work of art. In that case, one serves joyfully.
But the anarchic nihilist thinks the exact opposite. The Temple of Artemis, to cite an example, would inspire him to commit arson. The anarch, however, would have no qualms about entering the temple in order to meditate and to participate with an offering. This is possible in any temple worthy of the name. "
― Ernst Jünger , Eumeswil
8
" Are we really moral monkeys? I don't think so. We only strike the nihilist pose selectively, to put to shame rules we no longer try to keep. When it suits us, we can be quite Puritanical: Right and wrong are in the eye of the beholder, .' The veneer is skeptical, but the core is rigid and punitive. The whole affair looks more like a fence around conduct that cannot bear close examination, than like a serious intellectual position.
The whole idea of a moral law is that it binds us whether we like it or not. If it really were just a social convention –< then it wouldn't be morality. >
St. Thomas denies that the basic structure of morality is a construct. It is not rooted in human will and power. Rather it is rooted in nature, in structure of creation, in the constitution of the human person – in something we cannot change by human will and power. The good and the right are not things we invent, but things we discover. They are not constructs, but gifts. These gifts are the fount of the law. "
― J. Budziszewski , Commentary on Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law
