Why do we accept being flung into the world as-it-is?

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I think Heidegger was on to something when he said the basic question of philosophy was Being or ontology, a question which had basically been accepted and taken for granted since the pre-socratics. But I think seeing the world as it it, we need to question the world we are flung into without choice.

I'm not religious but the question of evil, is a good place to start. The best of all possible worlds. The two excuses are divine plan and free will. I think the Brothers Karamazov had it right when it declared no divine plan is worth the tears of a single child. Then there is free will. We need to be "free" to love God. But then why does God need free beings to love him. I used to love the idea of freedom. But as freedom as come to mean the libertarian freedom to bring tears to children, I question the value.

Schopenhauer reminds me of the "forbidden knowledge" of a HP Lovecraft occult novel. There is nothing more frightening in the world, than knowledge man is not suppose to have. And no knowledge more terrible than the sheer insignificance of life. The meaninglessness of existence.

But existence is worse than a neutral 0, it is a positive evil. I look back to Ancient Greece. The most beautiful period in man's history. Art, drama, tragedy, history, architecture, athletics, direct democracy, citizen. The sheer beauty of it overwhelms. IF there is any good in the world, it is Plato writing such sublime ideas, when living in such primitive times.

And yet is it worth it? Noble Achilles the hero of the Greeks. It is just taken for granted that these great heroes can slaughter thousands. Kill a girl's parents and husband, smash the skull of her newborn infant. And then take her as a sex slave. And these are great queens and princesses. The lives of slaves. Over 90% of the population, are out of Dante's hell.

So take Greece, and apply it to all of history. And most of history is far less beautiful, with just as much and many times more pain. Can the world we live in? The most advance and "humane" apex of human history justify centuries of hell?

I do not see how.

With the victory of libertarian ideas and values, what are the arguments against nihilistic rape and murder

The 19th century saw the death of God. The 20th century saw the rebirth of religion without God. We now have "human nature", the fall from grace, Calvinist total depravity, original sin. Without redemption.

What happens when all hope for God or utopia is lost? We could except the libertarian heaven, of man's evil nature being used to increase wealth. But as an individual one owes no loyalty to a evil humanity. So only the brute force of society and the state prevents rape and murder. police

Nihilism means more than "rational self-interest" it means open war against humanity.

But is that really enough? Its not as though the state is so omnipotent that, we can't get away with anything.

The way I see it the values of capitalist pessimism, leave the individual with two choices. Suicide or nihilism.

I acknowledged the brute power of the state and society in my first post. But its not as though external morality is the only thing that keeps us in check. An amoral person may choose not to commit petty crimes like shop lifting. But if there truly is no morality except for external threats, then its not like theres nothing you can get away with.

Basically you look at the history of humanity. The centuries of suffering. The living hell that existence was for 99% of the population. And what can justify it? Now we have the apex of science and technology. We are more "humane" than any time in history. But for the most part humanity has given up any hope of reaching utopia. If there is no God or utopia, then the centuries of suffering, the suffering of today can never be justified. Dostoevsky argued that even if we DID reach utopia, the infinite sufferings of the past would not be worth a temporary utopia before the sun exploded.

Perhaps the vanity of existence is justification more for suicide than for nihilism. But in another sense it encourages a deep misanthropy. Sure earthquakes and volcanoes suck. But the vast, vast majoirty of human suffering is brought on by man himself. And the ethics of our age tell us to accept man's evil as neccesary. That is the argument against utopia "human nature".

I read Camus' Myth of Sisyphus in which he states the main question of philosophy is suicide. OF course he never actually presents any logical rational reason to live, but simply states we must create our own meaning. Of course that meaning could just as well be murder and rape. Myth is also where I first read Dostoevsky's perfect materialist logic of suicide.

Suicide is a form of defensive nihilism as illustrated in Schopenhauer philosophy above. I would call Nietzsche and rape-murder offensive nihilism. Assuming God and Utopia are dead. We are stuck with nihilism. Mere taste decides offensive or defensive, strong or weak.

The argument can be made that self-interest necessitates a social contract. But one could simply study way to "get away" with crime. No state is powerful enough to prevent and punish ALL crime.

As for utopia. If the possibility of utopia is shut off because of "human nature", then I don't think simply "being happy" solves the issue. Instead the more logical course would be a nihilistic assault upon humanity.


The society we live in today as justified by sociobiology, and the dog eat dog notion of the world, justify the triumph of the strong over the weak. Essentially that is human nature. The right of the strong. In such a society there is no need to half *** nihilism. One might as well go all the way.

Well I would encourage you to read the arguments against "socialized" healthcare in the below posts, as a general idea of where history has ended up. Essentially the anti-socialist argument, which seems to have triumphed everywhere comes down to human nature. We will pursue power. Its about more than self-interest and shiny diamonds in a vacuum. Human nature is social. Greed is about more than having things. Its about having people. The will to power is about the ability to harm others. Essentially rape is the great engine of history. Read Ancient Greek history. Basically the entire female population endured a living hell of sex slavery, like the stuff you read in newspapers and bdsm today. And for what? 2009?

So lets say the "realist" position is right. Why bother to frame it in concepts of property rights? It is about those in power dominating the weak. It really doesn't matter whether you can prove them wrong logically or morally. At this historical moment they have won, and I see no way to drive them out.

So we live in a world that has despite all whining to the contrary by libertarians, whole heartedly embraced the philosophy of Ayn Rand, social Darwinism, brute force. And yet they have the gall to hide behind rights and morals. Actually it suits the nihilist quite well. Enough of mor

1) I disagree with your characterization of libertarianism. You are conflating men such as Max Stirner with Ayn Rand and others who really do believe in the notion of transcendent human rights, or at the very least hold human dignity as something of some importance. They are not social darwinists, as they do not appeal to sociobiology to justify strength, but human consciousness to justify free relations. They are also not typically just the realists you assign them as being, but also idealists, for an individualistic man, unconstrained by a governmental force(which they view as an artificial human relation as it violates free association in their eyes) is ultimately the most vital creature to exist, and they consider capitalism to best fulfill human potential and turn the entrepreneur to a mythical figure who plucks ways to recreate the world from the creative imagination and risks himself to use this to improve the world, and to improve himself. It is capitalist utopianism, and the inherent goodness of individual expression that drives libertarianism, not your claims of "pessimism" and "evil nature".

Now, you can disagree with this myth, but you have to recognize the myth to engage the idea properly. We cannot just say that Christianity is a cult devoted to obeying and eating a suicidal man-god who was born by his divine father screwing a virgin, as this is incomplete, and is dishonest to the Christian experience.

2) Greece isn't the height of humanity. The entire notion is absurd. You can say that they thought the first thoughts, but they were not the best age. If there is one, then I would say that we are it. We impose beauty onto the past, and nihilism onto the present, because we see present evils, but remember a whitewashed history, where only the glories and tragedies catch our eyes.

3) To be human is to be confronted with nihilism. All that capitalism does is refuse to give you a drug-god to comfort you for you, and rather leave you to your own opium. Does this lead to a truer, deeper nihilism? Certainly. But the problem has always existed, and it is one beyond the scope of a human being, as noted by Paul Tillich:
"If there is no authority, we must decide ourselves, each for himself. As finite beings we must act as if we were infinite, and since this is impossible, we are driven into complete insecurity, anxiety and despair. Or, unable to stand the loneliness of deciding for ourselves, we suppress the fact that there is a split authority. We subject ourselves to a definite authority and close our eyes against all other claims." ("By What Authority", in The New Being)

The problem is still there, and it is still insurmountable, and nobody has this pure and perfect answer. In the end, you must be oppressed by the values of others, or oppress by your own values. There might be a 3rd option, but the reason I think it might be true is probably due to some old religious sentiments. Is this nihilism? Sure, in a way it is, but it is also the foundation of all realities, both capitalist and non-capitalist, and you must face up to it. Nietzsche created his ubermensch to face down this reality. Kierkegaard presented a knight of faith. Camus used Sisyphus to represent this struggle. And Sartre supposed free will as the thing to fill this void. All of these things are nonsense and stupidities. They accept nihilism and then go to war with it, and knowingly engage in a contradiction. Where would you go though? You have nothing to accept or reject. You are. You affirm this with every action. Even in suicide, you cannot hide your being, only try to run. So what is the point?

Do I agree with your definition of nihilism though? "Nihilism means more than "rational self-interest" it means open war against humanity." No. I do not. Nihilism is the death of meaning, not the death of man. Why would a nihilist *have to* murder? What would compel nothing? Nothing is itself, not war, but rather it is nothing. And in a sense, no man can truly be a nihilist, for each person has a something to them, compelling them to act, rather than leaving them to a nothingness.

I do not agree with your claim that capitalism is evil, if nuns hold a bake sale to fund charity for orphans, then aren't they engaging in this capitalist system as much as Baird's bread? How about if they cut out the bake sale and create ads for a charity? Isn't this just as individualistic? Capitalism does not destroy virtue, but rather it strips man naked before his individuality, and undoes the given bonds to make all bonds self-created. The difference is only aesthetic, not fundamental as you seem to think. Of course, I know, there is a trend amongst continental philosophers to side with Marxian criticisms, but I think this is often ideological more than it is fundamental.

Perhaps I just speak nonsense, but who doesn't? You speak of the death of God, a terrible event, but you still exist, and you cannot deny this through suicide or nihilism, so what will you do with this emptiness? Shall you build like the others have? Or shall you language upon a contradiction, too cowardly to be a yes, and too something-ish to be a no.

What you speak of mostly in this post is destruction, not nihilism.

Interesting read though..

It seems we are left with the choice of suicide or the "harm principle".

What would we mean by the Harm Principle. Inflicting the greatest pain on the greatest number. However this suffers from the same problem of utilitarianism. If I inflict maximum harm right now, I will be stopped by the law or society very quickly, and be prevented from future crime.

So there has to be a time limit. I set it arbitrarily at 10 years. So every action I take has to inflict the maximum harm in 10 years. So if it ends up with me going to jail or society shunning me in less than 10 years, it is not an acceptable action. Of course once you adopt any time restraint, your day to day evil can't be all that radical.

What are the roads? You can embrace egoism and compete in "this world" and try to land on top. Beat them at their own game. But that is in essence to become the individual. Or you can withdraw into your own ideas. This is ironically to embrace individualism even more so than to compete.


This would be the only way to express "freedom" in a world of "individuals". Faced with the libertatian alternative, it would be antithetical to freedom to simply "live and let live" and say I have my stoic virtue, and so am free in my head. Internal individualistic virtue would be the greatest form of capituation. What needs to be embraced is the Kantian radical evil. Kant did not believe anyone could will evil for evil's sake. In willing evil for evil, the radical bounds of ego realism are broken. It goes beyond the war of all against all.

Of course the ironic perhaps scary thing is that you wouldn't really be all that different from your average man, adapting the harm principle. But that makes sense, the perfect hedonist is also religious, since why deny yourself the pleasures of self-right and an afterlife?

There are probably less intellectual ways of expressing idiotic vicious nastiness but I suppose this wll do. It's certainly more convoluted than 72 virgins.

Umm.... no, we aren't. I don't even see what leap you create to arrive at the "harm principle". I mean, nobody but perhaps Marquis de Sade has EVER promoted the harm principle, and this even includes the more counter-cultural figures of Nietzsche and Stirner. So, in taking this leap you have gone beyond the fact to already impose your view onto reality.


Sure, you are forced into individualism by capitalism, as capitalism denies the power of authorities. This does not seem like much though, it just *is*, and I do not see what your ranting accomplishes, for you seem to just be spewing out words and air, but not ideas.


Umm.... how is it antithetical to freedom? I mean, it is conformist, but freedom is not the same as defiance. If you have to defy to be free, then freedom is enslaving, and that kind of paradox seems absurd and unnecessary, given that freedom is better conceptualized as a will guided by the self. Max Stirner spoke of a radical individualism in his book The Ego and It's Own, which stands against capitalism, but Stirner did not promote evil for evil's sake, but rather he promoted an ego above all else, including morality itself. I would think that would be better than to be a slave to some conception of good and evil, forced to pick the latter when I would rather not care about either. I think you are taking a leap because you want to take that leap, because that leap fulfills your desire to be neurotic and "deep" but not because you have found some great discovery. Perhaps I am wrong, but by what force must I care about *these* word games you put forward? Why should I give a damn about the radical evils and freedom vs slavery? I am, and that's all I need to say.


It is hard to say. Have you done a calculation? After all, one can do a lot of crappy things while being within the law, while the average person probably doesn't. Not only that, but the law only applies if you expect to get caught. Or do you *want* to impute evil upon to others? I'd say the latter, as you bounce about with your obsessive pessimism, this above any effort of rationality or metrics. You can say that your truth is beyond metrics, but I would say that you just speak of your own ideology and that by denying a language, you merely force yourself into a pointless solipsism, as why are your intuitions higher than the rest of ours?