Western Nihilism

"The Politics of Nihilism: From the Nineteenth Century to Contemporary Israel", 2014

Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 2014

This essay examines the use and understanding of the term ‘nihilism’ in liberal discourse. It argues that this discourse originated in Ivan Turgenev’s 1862 novel Fathers and Sons and developed in the series of commentaries on exegesis the anti-revolutionary novel received over time. The essay consists of three parts. After examining the context in which Turgenev wrote his novel, it discusses three historical moments that were central to the development of this discourse: (a) the immediate aftermath of the novel’s publication in the 1860s; (b) following the 1905 Revolution; (c) the Cold War liberal discourse that tied the New Left of the 1960s with the Russian prerevolutionary intelligentsia of a century earlier.

Leo Strauss and Contemporary Thought: Reading Strauss Outside the Lines, 2021

Jacques, dizzy with the rapidity of a victory he had not even hoped would be so complete, could hardly hear the congratulations around him and the already embellished accounts of the fight. He wanted to be glad, and somewhere in the vanity of his ego he was glad, and yet, when he looked back at Munoz as he was leaving the green field, a bleak sadness suddenly seized his heart at the sight of the crestfallen face of the boy he had struck. And then he knew that war was no good, because vanquishing a man is as bitter as being vanquished. 1 Albert Camus The present Anglo-German war is then of symbolic significance. In defending modem civilisation against German nihilism, the English are defending the eternal principles of civilisation. No one can tell what will be the outcome of this war. But this much is clear beyond any doubt: by choosing Hitler for their leader in the crucial moment, in which the question of who is to exercise military rule became the order of the day, the Germans ceased to have any rightful claim to be more than a provincial nation; it is the English, and not the Germans, who deserve to be,

The phenomenon of nihilism becomes most apparent during times of cultural upheaval and change because it is during these periods when the legitimacy and desirability of the collective values and aspirations of a people are most likely to be thrown into question. During such periods, individuals may lose the strength of their taken for granted and unquestioned confidence in the socially sanctioned activities and undertakings encouraged and advocated by civilization. The shattering of this confidence may encourage meditation by individuals on the criteria by which valuable things in general are judged. When this occurs, a period of reflective reorientation and crisis is ushered in, and the individual is called to re-evaluate the highest values of civilization in light of the most unconditioned, absolute and categorical standards of worth. Thus, nihilism, though often emerging from the painful and tumultuous confusion of cultural upheaval, never-the-less announces itself as more than a simple threat. It also ushers in a period of crisis, and thus opens up the opportunity for action and the re-evaluation of values. Whereas authors such as Zerzan commonly emphasize the passive and despairing side of nihilism, what I would like to do here, rather, is to underscore its active and rejuvenating powers.

Unlearning Nihilism Conference / Joint Event of Royal Holloway's Centre for Continental Philosophy and The New Centre for Research & Practice / Senate House Library, 2022

Ø Call for Papers The term “nihilism” has received conflicting definitions throughout the history of modern European thought. Its first appearance is in Jacobi’s pessimism, where it is considered to be the inevitable consequence of German idealism and is defined as a horrific loss of meaning and reality. In contrast, Russian revolutionaries, feminists and anarchists found the meaning of nihilism not only in the recognition of the meaninglessness of the established powers, but above all in acts conducive to revolution. Later, many continental philosophers — following Nietzsche — understood nihilism as the establishment of values superior to and hostile to life, and hence the overcoming of nihilism became a basis for a radical critique of metaphysics and power. Today, however, while currents such as new materialism, speculative realism, afro-pessimism, non-philosophy, and neo-rationalism have retained these objectives, nihilism has either been cast to the wayside or provocatively embraced with inspiration from neurobiology, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. Nihilism can thus be conceived of as one of the inflexion points from which the continental and its beyond are to be articulated as distinct discourses. This conference will be a space to discuss, learn and unlearn how numerous manifestations of nihilism have been addressed throughout the history of philosophy. With that being said, nihilism has always been a theme that has taken on not only conceptual but also artistic and cultural forms, a theme underlying the theory and practice of the sciences and a theme present in political, spiritual, and theological thought. Hence, by bringing together various metaphysical, aesthetical, epistemological and western and non-western theoretical perspectives, this conference is also an attempt to think about conflicting narratives of the renunciation and embrace of nihilism as a problem across disciplines. We invite proposals for 20-minute paper presentations from researchers, scholars and practitioners working in different fields, using different interpretations of nihilism. Contributions can respond to the following themes, but also to many others: • Historical and comparative studies in nihilism (ancient and medieval philosophy, German idealism, Nietzsche, existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction) • Lived experience and nihilism (phenomenology of the body, spiritual techniques, Eros and Thanatos, psychoanalysis) • Nihilism in sociology, human geography, anthropology and other social sciences •Political philosophy and nihilism (anarchism, feminism, post-Marxist thought, capitalist realism, real abstraction, foundations of community, value of life, bio-politics, resistance and revolution, queer theory) • Nihilism, theology, and Eastern philosophy (Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, yogic and other perspectives on creation, being and nothingness) • Post-continental thought and nihilism (new materialism, speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, accelerationism, afro-pessimism, non-philosophy, neo-rationalism) • Scientific theory, epistemology and nihilism (scepticism, scientific realism, information theory, cognitive sciences) • Aesthetics and nihilism (existentialist and Russian literature, decadence and the arts) • Analytic approaches (defining nihilism, nihilistic consequences of the pluralisation of logic)

2006

This book had its origins in a PhD thesis, and I must acknowledge the invaluable input of my principal supervisor, Aurelia Armstrong, and Associate Supervisors, Michelle Boulous Walker and A. T. Nuyen. I also wish to thank my two examiners, James Williams and David Webb, for their helpful advice and feedback. Thanks are also due to my friends and colleagues at the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy, both for their general support and intellectual companionship over the years, and for comments on parts of this book. In particular, I wish to thank Jon Roffe, Man Sharpe, and Jack Reynolds for their continued friendship and suppOrt. Thanks to my parents, Frank and Carmen Woodward, for their understanding and suppOrt. Finally, special thanks to Anna Szorenyi, for everything. I gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint here some material published in the following journal articles: "Nihilism and the Postmodern in Vattimo's

2019

The Slavophiles and the Pochvenniki сonsidered the society to be the main agent of nation-building-the reason why we refer to them as Conservative Democrats. Their ideologies were based on anti-aristocratic stance, a strive towards forming the national identity on the foundation of a peculiarly understood Orthodox spirituality. The main targets of criticism by Slavophile advocates were 'aristocratic opposition' and 'revolutionary conservatism': the forms of conservative politics and ideology that provoked revolutionary upheavals and were thus their root cause. Left radicalism was considered by the Slavophiles as a variety of 'tyranny of theory over life'. Not recognizing in it any positive content, the Slavophiles considered it a symptom of a disease afflicting the national organism. The unfinished cycle by K.K. Tolstoy printed in Aksakov's Rus' ushered in a number of publications on the issues of Nihilism by N.N. Gilyarov-Platonov and N.Ya. Danilevsky. Gilyarov-Platonov's considerations were further developed by his nephew, F.A. Gilyarov. However, his book "The Fifteen Years of Sedition" contained harsh attacks on the authorities and "Katkov's school". The numerous works of N.N. Strakhov were the most serious philosophical study of Nihilism. In the course of time, the revolutionary ideology changed. 'Pure' Nihilism was receding into the past in the 1870s; the Narodniki and the Marxists considered themselves to be the promoters of a positive agenda. But Conservatives did not recognize this positive element-and, arguing with the Marxists, continued to use the polemic repertoire of the old anti-nihilist discourse. At the same time, there was no single approach to Marxism in Conservative circles. Thus, for Ilovaisky it was a phenomenon alien to Russia. For Sharapov, on the contrary, it was a product of Russian life.

A new philosophical and psychological concept is needed for the alienated and radically different human being according to the nihilist Romanian-French philosopher E.M. Cioran. This concept of the not-man describes a post-anthropological subject, which is “inhumanˮ from a psychological point of view, emphasizing estrangement and otherness in the definition of humanity. I have compared Cioran's provocative and unusual term with Nietzsche's analysis of the overman – the difference between the two conepts proceeding from two conflicting nihilist perspectives – and I also have identified the not-man in the novel of the Japanese writer Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human.