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What do you think about NIhilism and Nietzsche's opinions on Nihilism?

My information on this topic mostly comes from reading "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Nietzsche, especially the section "The Land of Culture."

• Needed: Morality

  from The Land of Culture: “Written all over with characters of the past, and these characters also penciled over with new characters—thus have ye concealed yourselves well from all decipherers!...For thus speak ye: ‘Real are we wholly, and without faith and superstition’: thus do ye plume yourselves—alas! even without plumes!...And this is your reality: ‘Everything deserveth to perish.”

  Why write this philosophy paper? None of my thoughts matter. I’m just “living” this life with no meaning for no reason. When it’s over, it’s done. That’s it. I know nothing. There’s nothing to know. 
                    • • •
  Why write this philosophy paper? Because I finally found something Nietzsche and I agree on. Throw out the old morality or not—whatever you believe, but have a morality. Actually, let’s be a bit more specific than a morality. Have your own morality, a morality that you understand enough to explain. Tradition and beliefs of past people are only as good at the current support for those beliefs. 
  If you have no morality, if your reality is nothing, you might as well stick a knife through your heart right now. 
  (So that’s what Nietzsche and I agree on. This part is all spewed from my head.) Writing this paper is really all about thinking and making the rest of philosophy think. I’m not trying to change your beliefs, and I doubt Nietzsche expected everyone to suddenly throw off the old morality just because he said so. Thinking about what Nietzsche (and all the other philosophers) said is important. We’re all making our own decisions and living our own life for some reason. At least, I hope you have a reason, because if not, I’m not sure why you’re living.

  (note: this is actually a paper written for my high school philosophy class.)

  100%  Voted for by magicflyingpig, Robbwindow.

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  • moshe alban
    September 19, 2006
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    You sound as confused about Nietzsche as he was confused about himself! I go back and forth on my feelings toward N. I think that with N., as with most authors, it helps to have a sense of who influenced him the most, and also what life events personally shaped him. Most philosophers or theologians don't spring up out of nowhere: they're the product of their times and also the product of personal life events. So with N. I think he suffered from a sort of obsessive compulsion to attack certain foundations of thought. I don't know where this bitterness came from. But it's hard not to read N. and be very worried by his obnoxious attitude toward traditions of thought in religion and philosophy. I think that theologians from all faiths need to counter Nietzsche's influence with a very clear argument that explains the beauty in the religious life. If we don't have respect and admiration for our religious/philosophical/political traditions then we are simply drifting like a ship lost at sea. The great danger in Nietzsche's writings is not nihilism as much as *relativism* - defined by www.wikipedia.org as the notion that "moral or ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths." My feeling is that the only rational response to Nietzsche is to proclaim the truth of ethical monotheism.

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