The value of nihilistic thinking

[Pam Seeback]

When there is a desire to understand how the “I” relates to existence when cultural-religious definitions are silenced, it is likely the self will encounter the philosophy of nihilism. An encounter with the philosophy of nihilism is an encounter with definition that is different dependent on the philosophical position, but fundamentally an encounter with nihilistic thinking is the encounter with profound loss. Because the nature of the cultural-religious self is one wherein identity and purpose is assigned and assimilated, when one has an encounter with nihilistic thinking, the sense of belonging that cultural assimilation provided is stripped away. What have I done, is the cry in the wilderness of the cultural-social self - can I turn back, can I rebuild what has been torn away?

The answer of course, is no. What is gone, is gone, what is lost is lost. However, it is here that the opportunity to realize the value of nihilistic thinking appears, specifically of having the opportunity to underpin its foundational premise of an arrival of the I to a permanent state of meaninglessness. How does the underpinning of ‘meaninglessness’ as a concrete thing happen? By observing that although the defined, meaning-given I can be silenced, the defining, meaning-making I cannot. Another way of putting this is that although the making of the self can be silenced, self-making cannot. As hard as the nihilist may try, he or she cannot stop the process of thinking and what is thinking but the appearance of the self?

What is the difference between the defined, thought-made, meaning-given self and the self of defining, of thinking, of meaning-making? At the core, the sense of self is the same, the I is driven to speak, to write and to act, but where the defined self suffered in its misguided notion that my assigned and assimilated definitions and your assigned and assimilated definitions are the same or can be made to be the same, the new self suffers not this delusion. In short then, allowing the defined self to die by enduring and eventually transcending nihilistic thinking is to end suffering.

[Santiago Odo]

Nihilism

An encounter with the philosophy of nihilism is an encounter with definition that is different dependent on the philosophical position, but fundamentally an encounter with nihilistic thinking is the encounter with profound loss. Because the nature of the cultural-religious self is one wherein identity and purpose is assigned and assimilated, when one has an encounter with nihilistic thinking, the sense of belonging that cultural assimilation provided is stripped away. What have I done, is the cry in the wilderness of the cultural-social self - can I turn back, can I rebuild what has been torn away?

The answer of course, is no. What is gone, is gone, what is lost is lost.

I am not certain that your statements are true.

I think you are like attempting to explain and to justify your particular and very personal choices, whatever they may be. Nihilism, it seems to me, has a different root and, really, a different meaning. I suppose you are associating nihilism with desperation or 'loss of hope', and surely that can come about with some tremendous loss. But I do not think you are taking into consideration nihilism (as perhaps it could be demonstrated through Turgeniev's Fathers and Sons (where the term was first used?) as an aspect of youthful and wilful rebelliousness. Not as a result of profound loss and even, perhaps, a result from boredom. Perhaps even lack of intelligence (though I would not say that Diebert is non-intelligent, lest anyone think I am taking -- yet another -- jab with a stick at his orbed, spidery body suspended in a fantastical web).

Real nihilism, in my own view, comes about through irresponsibility; through lack of seriousness perhaps. I might also add confusion as when very different strains of ideas enter the mental stream and make *clear thinking* difficult. But again, this could indicate childishness, lack of discipline, and rebelliousness -- moods or even feelings that can be countered.

As I have said now 1,286 times so far (and I have carefully counted and kept tallies which I will present if asked) DD&K can best be explained in a similar fashion as one might explain Bazarov (and I did read Fathers & Sons, though long ago, just after it was written, and in Russian of course (and I have a signed copy which I will also present if asked).

Immature minds, filled with immense wilfulness, impelled by forces they did not really understand, but under-structured, in essence, by scientistic view. All things are connected, eh?

(You, my dear Pam, have a pony in the race as it were and are constantly on about heaven-knows-what. When Buddha crossed your path you did not kill him! It makes no sense to me at all, but you know that. Please don't bother to explain! I am in a good mood today).

Finally, to say 'What is gone is gone, what is lost is lost' is, if you look at it again, a false statement. It cannot be true. Not when it comes to the sort of understanding and the valuation that must underlie the assertion, what it implies.

If something -- an understanding fundamentally, a relationship to the foundation of being -- once *existed*, and if it is real, can be recovered. It would amount to a shift in consciousness. True, if you have lost an arm 'what is gone is gone'. And nihilism is, perhaps, a reaction to contingency and mutability (?) But what is eternal and constant cannot, by definition, be lost. But a mind that can perceive it could indeed be lost, just as the arm can be chopped off.

The 'transcendent idea', and the Transcendent, are understood to be ever-existing and ever-constant. Thus they cannot be *lost* and yet one can fail to understand that they exist (and are constant, eternal etc.)

If I can be of further help look for me at The Help Desk where I have set to work on you-know-who! (Not expecting great things of course but I will do my part!)

[Pam Seeback]

There you go again, proving my point that when one tries to insert their meaning-world into another's meaning-world as you do with painful regularity, a mucky mess results. Oh well, wallow in your muck of keeping count if you must, but if you should feel a sudden push from behind....:-)

[Pam Seeback]

Alex: As I have said now 1,286 times so far (and I have carefully counted and kept tallies which I will present if asked) DD&K can best be explained in a similar fashion as one might explain Bazarov (and I did read Fathers & Sons, though long ago, just after it was written, and in Russian of course (and I have a signed copy which I will also present if asked).

Coming back to ask: do you not think that your need to keep track of perceived immature acts of others is not an immature act? The same question goes for your need to show us your intelligence by listing and quoting books you have read -- this time you have outdone yourself -- now we know how truly smart you are, you can read Russian! Perhaps you're just pulling my leg telling me these things, and if so, cannot the desire to tease also be perceived as an act of immaturity?

What is it like to speak with Alex when he's not counting perceived transgressions and his books are closed?

[Santiago Odo]

Fathers & Sons Published in 1862 ...

Perhaps you're just pulling my leg telling me these things, and if so, cannot the desire to tease also be perceived as an act of immaturity?

I am deadly serious when I make jokes. And when I am particularly heavy and sententious, don't believe a word I say!

What is it like to speak with Alex when he's not counting perceived transgressions and his books are closed?

Comme ça

[Pam Seeback]

Alex, your dogged pursuit of the ghosts of DD & K and now, of the living Diebert -- did you get tired of ghostbusting? -- and your frequent joking and book quoting is, as I see it, an irresistible distraction from having to argue logically the merits of restoring Greco-Christian ideals.

Which of course makes sense because it is not possible to use the universally understood language of logic when one is arguing for political-religious exclusivity. Perhaps you can't see this, or perhaps you can and you just don't care.

[Santiago Odo]

“I have no intentions,” said the hunter with a smile and, to make up for his mocking tone, laid a hand on the burgomaster’s knee. “I am here. I don’t know any more than that. There’s nothing more I can do. My boat is without a helm—it journeys with the wind which blows in the deepest regions of death."
___________________________

There you go again, proving my point that when one tries to insert their meaning-world into another's meaning-world as you do with painful regularity, a mucky mess results.

You are the worst person with whom to have intellectual or philosophical conversations with, Pam, though you are certainly a lovely person. Because that is so it is not possible to have any exchanges with you. They are pointless as I assume you have seen. But you do say things that require response. Such as what I have quoted.

Now, keep in mind the intention of the thread, and also the context of the thread when I suggest that: It all hinges on *values* and *meaning*. That is, the Culture Wars of our present and, also, the significant troubles we find ourselves in. This is the *context* of this forum and this was the problem and the issue confronted by those who began it (and none of that has much to do with you). That is, the Founders of this forum responded to their *time* and sent up a response to it. All of that has to do with *values* and *meanings*.

I have no idea in the world, and I assume now that I will never gain an idea of any sort as to what motivates you, but I can say that I share nothing in common with what you seem to *value* and to highlight. Therefor, I am confronted with choices -- or a choice -- when I come into contact with you. Is what you are valuing really of any value? How might that be approached?

In short (and jumping over the long process of explaining why what you value seems value-less to me), I reject almost to 100% what it is that you seem to value. But my objection goes further. By defining a value I must have done work to arrive at it. I must believe in it and I must serve it. Serving it means -- and I am speaking in the larger sense and not, obviously, to your ideas as they are expressed here on GF -- that I must oppose your value-set.

And this brings me back both to opposition to the tenets originally developed here by our Founders but extends well beyond them and their creation to a conversation about values generally, and of course *meaning*.

So yes, if there is an 'insertion' of values and a dispute, shall we say, about meaning, that conversation is entirely valid. Not of course in relation to you -- you can have no conversation outside of your excruciatingly limited frame (and you desire no other conversation).

But one makes these statements because, in our present, and in a period in history that supercedes your and your-plural minuscule concerns, a great many important concerns are coming up for examination. It is a question of values and meanings as I say.

I cannot make any sort of comparison between, say, you and Diebert, but I can say that in relation to both of you (and all others who put forth their ideas here) it really does come down to the determination of values and meanings: what has value and what has meaning.

The object being, in my view, to see and to combat 'the nihilistic choice'.

Alex, your dogged pursuit of the ghosts of DD & K and now, of the living Diebert -- did you get tired of ghostbusting? -- and your frequent joking and book quoting is, as I see it, an irresistible distraction from having to argue logically the merits of restoring Greco-Christian ideals.

Which of course makes sense because it is not possible to use the universally understood language of logic when one is arguing for political-religious exclusivity. Perhaps you can't see this, or perhaps you can and you just don't care.

Well, I have been *true to my project* and have not deviated (much) from it. It makes not very much difference to me if you or anyone else understands!

DD&K are not 'ghosts' but are symptoms and manifestations of Our Time. The only responsible thing to do is to confront them, to answer them. They are still here insofar as The Time we are in is very much here.

As to 'Ole Eight Eyes' I am not sure if the qualifier 'living' is really the best one. I think Diebert must be seen and understood in the degree that he is in fact *dead* or *dying*. But this is of course a critique not of his person but of what has brought him forth. He is one of the 'eloquent dead'; those dead which tell you, in dream-speech, all about their deadness. Diebert is certainly not resurrected even in the Nietzschean potential sense!

Now that you mention it, Diebert could well be *explained* by the Kafka story 'The Hunter Gracchus'.

• "I only know that I remain on the earth and that since that time my ship has journeyed over earthly waters. So I — who only wanted to live in my own mountains — travel on after my death through all the countries of the earth.”
  
  “And have you no share in the world beyond?” asked the burgomaster wrinkling his brow.
  
  The hunter answered, “I am always on the immense staircase leading up to it. I roam around on this infinitely wide flight of steps, sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, always in motion. From being a hunter I’ve become a butterfly. Don’t laugh.”

Is there a melding in our age between the Butterfly and the Spidery Web-Spinner? This requires additional research ... (Diebert? Perhaps you will shed light here.)

But this is, in truth, a condition we are all living. I do not make the hard separations between any of us. We are all *products of this temporal modality*. We have to work to explain -- but really first to *see* -- how we came to this.

I know that you, Pam, can understand no part of this! But yet I explain it for my own benefit and in the (dim) hope that I may reach just one soul!

[Pam Seeback]

I have no idea in the world, and I assume now that I will never gain an idea of any sort as to what motivates you, but I can say that I share nothing in common with what you seem to *value* and to highlight. Therefor, I am confronted with choices -- or a choice -- when I come into contact with you. Is what you are valuing really of any value? How might that be approached?

Of course what I say has value to you or you would not answer me. As do I perceive value in answering you, as we have determined before, it seems as if we are great contrast for one another.

In short (and jumping over the long process of explaining why what you value seems value-less to me), I reject almost to 100% what it is that you seem to value. But my objection goes further. By defining a value I must have done work to arrive at it. I must believe in it and I must serve it. Serving it means -- and I am speaking in the larger sense and not, obviously, to your ideas as they are expressed here on GF -- that I must oppose your value-set.

As it should be.

And this brings me back both to opposition to the tenets originally developed here by our Founders but extends well beyond them and their creation to a conversation about values generally, and of course *meaning*.

So yes, if there is an 'insertion' of values and a dispute, shall we say, about meaning, that conversation is entirely valid. Not of course in relation to you -- you can have no conversation outside of your excruciatingly limited frame (and you desire no other conversation).

You seem kinda attached to Pam-the-limited. :-)

But one makes these statements because, in our present, and in a period in history that supercedes your and your-plural minuscule concerns, a great many important concerns are coming up for examination. It is a question of values and meanings as I say.

I cannot make any sort of comparison between, say, you and Diebert, but I can say that in relation to both of you (and all others who put forth their ideas here) it really does come down to the determination of values and meanings: what has value and what has meaning.

I value any speech and action that reveals the truth of no-separation between observer and observed. And what comes forth from this valuation, is, for me, full of meaning. My meaning fullness is not intellectual, if a label must be used, it is of philosophical intuition. So I do understand why for someone like yourself who is intellectually motivated, I appear limited (read simple?). I have no problem with this assessment of my intellectual scope, it rings true. As a matter of fact, I believe that it is just because I am intellectually simple that I do understand the condition of man that causes him angst and suffering.

DD&K are not 'ghosts' but are symptoms and manifestations of Our Time. The only responsible thing to do is to confront them, to answer them. They are still here insofar as The Time we are in is very much here.

But they are not responding to your confrontation.

Now that you mention it, Diebert could well be *explained* by the Kafka story 'The Hunter Gracchus'.

"I only know that I remain on the earth and that since that time my ship has journeyed over earthly waters. So I — who only wanted to live in my own mountains — travel on after my death through all the countries of the earth.”

“And have you no share in the world beyond?” asked the burgomaster wrinkling his brow.

The hunter answered, “I am always on the immense staircase leading up to it. I roam around on this infinitely wide flight of steps, sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, always in motion. From being a hunter I’ve become a butterfly. Don’t laugh.”

Is there a melding in our age between the Butterfly and the Spidery Web-Spinner? This requires additional research ... (Diebert? Perhaps you will shed light here.)

But this is, in truth, a condition we are all living. I do not make the hard separations between any of us. We are all *products of this temporal modality*. We have to work to explain -- but really first to *see* -- how we came to this.

I know that you, Pam, can understand no part of this! But yet I explain it for my own benefit and in the (dim) hope that I may reach just one soul!

First, I did not 'mention it', you did. Second, you do not know, because you cannot know, what I do or do not understand. It has always been your cry that language is important and I agree in the sense that it should be truthful. I have asked you to stop confusing assumptive thinking with knowledge when communicating with me, I ask again for this respect.

But this is, in truth, a condition we are all living. I do not make the hard separations between any of us. We are all *products of this temporal modality*. We have to work to explain -- but really first to *see* -- how we came to this.

This thread is about nihilistic thinking and how it has value in coming to see and working to explain how we came to our condition of "being products of this temporal modality". I offer you this link on the definition and history of Nihilism which comes close to my understanding, especially the quote of the philosopher Gorgias who lived long before Ivan Turgenev, the author of Fathers and Sons "“Nothing exists. If anything did exist it could not be known. If it was known, the knowledge of it would be incommunicable.” I realize Gorgias did not use the term 'nihilism', but as the author of the link points out, the principles of nihilism relate closely to the philosophy of the ancient skeptics.

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-nihil ... ory-250581

There is much value and meaning in that one statement by Gorgias on how knowing that nothing exists may seem, at first, to be a negation of life and meaning is actually the way out of the negation of life and meaning. I call attention to the section entitled "Where does Nihilism Lead?", I quote "Many of the most common responses to the basic premises of nihilism come down to despair: despair over the loss of God, despair over the loss of objective and absolute values, and/or despair over the postmodern condition of alienation and dehumanization. That does not, however, exhaust all of the possible responses — just as with early Russian Nihilism, there are those who embrace this perspective and rely upon it as a means for further development."

So, I say again, nihilism (in its deepest sense) offers us a way to be free of believing "we are all products of this temporal modality." Note my emphasis on "products" -- :-)

[Pam Seeback]

Don't know if you are planning to respond, but since I'm waiting for Netflix to download some movies, I thought I'd expand on the OP re the value of nihilistic thinking as a way of transformation into a 'new' man or woman of God. I use the term 'God' here, but I could also use terms such as Existence, Consciousness, The Tao, etc. As you have pointed out in previous posts, we live as Westerners amidst Western cultural norms, so 'God' it is.

Why nihilism has the potential to transform one into a man or woman of God is that when one strips away all of their beliefs about God, what 'He wants' or what 'It desires' (the old way of thinking of God as an objective, moral absolute reality) they find themselves naked before God, which as it turns out is no different than finding oneself naked before Oneself. After all, there is no separation between God and me or God and you or God and anyone, this is truth undeniable. The suffering we experience is our belief that such a separation exists, ergo we pray to God rather than have absolute faith that God (Us) will find the way to resolve temporal conditions that are causing us stress. How that resolution or expansion happens is, of course, a mystery. Some call it the logic (or logos) of God, a rose by any other name...

There can be no stripping away for nakedness of waiting for an answer to appear to resolve a temporal condition until one knows without any doubt that there is no separation between the question(er) and the answer(er). In a nutshell, when thoughts of God are stripped away, the God of you and me is freed up to think clearly as to what is to be said or done 'to move that mountain'. In relation to your reference to 'being products', because we are God thinking, no such entity as 'a product' exists.

[Santiago Odo]

The only response I have is that I read what you wrote. I also read the article you linked to. It has no bearing on nor relevance to anything that I consider a *value*. I have no use for it. But someone else might.

[Pam Seeback]

Alex, it seems as if our value-clash vis a vis nihilism has, at least for now, come to an end. In the spirit of 'reaching others' I shall continue writing on this thread to express why I believe nihilistic thinking should be encouraged rather than discouraged.

Essentially, the value of nihilistic thinking is its ability to take us from our surface thoughts about things deep into the reality of our non-thing-ing nature and then, of our nature as our thoughts/things coalesce into a sense of self. In essence, by stripping ourselves of clinging to ourselves we see the truth of ourselves.

It is understandable why one would want to avoid the ‘naked’ encounter with the 'raw' condition of existence. I assert, however, that there is no one beyond the age of reasoning that has not wondered what lies beyond the thought of I? And that should we cease being afraid of the answer that we just might move beyond our fear of death via our projected worlds of escape or magical thinking.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

It has no bearing on nor relevance to anything that I consider a *value*. I have no use for it. But someone else might.

To me that's sounding as actual nihilistic expression. Values simply do not work that way, that there's "something from everyone in it". Life as sum of preferences, as style, of as a matter of "taste" (as in Nietzsche's hyperbolic 'all of life is a dispute over taste and tasting")?

This is the boy in Alex, starts of with bold, aggressive and demanding moves but let him post and it ends in pap and some ultimate defense of feminine values, how to live properly, build your house, raise a family and flag, a qualitative huddling. And with that the Alexian mating cycle [thanks Jupiviv!] normally completes as all that comes with increased bitterness, belittling and aggression, imploding into destroying the very thing he tries to promote, as far as any promotion is, in fact, happening.

But no, of course, value is a lot about total annihilation of what is not valued. It's doesn't cohabit. It is erected not just by its own strength but by proving the opposite as wrong, as destructive and undesired. Demanding eradication from the earth. Hence revaluation of all values as catastrophic event.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

What have I done, is the cry in the wilderness of the cultural-social self - can I turn back, can I rebuild what has been torn away?

Forces of destruction, at least when compared to many natural processes, give often way to new developments of a kind that would not grow if there's something else blocking the light. And is the new boss then not the same as the old boss in another jacket? Perhaps but meanings arise out of a context, out of connections and out of the many movements. They probably will keep arising but not necessarily understandable looking ahead. It's like the saying: "new wine in new wine skins". A radical concept when it's understood in a way involving your self to be an old sack :-)

While Nietzsche put 1850-1950 in the right context, for me someone like Baudrillard has done the same with 1950-20xx. He takes the analysis to the next level, which unavoidably becomes also nihilistic, or implosive. But purposefully so, or rather "self-aware", ironically. From a chapter called "On Nihilism" some perhaps hard to digest, "fractal" fragments which I find very powerfully going to the heart of the matter.

Nihilism no longer wears the dark, Wagnerian, Spenglerian, fuliginous colors of the end of the century. It no longer comes from a Weltanschauung of decadence nor from a metaphysical radicality born of the death of God and of all the consequences that must be taken from this death. (....) When God died, there was still Nietzsche to say so - the great nihilist before the Eternal and the cadaver of the Eternal. But (...,) there is no longer a theoretical or critical God to recognize his own.

Romanticism is its first great manifestation: it, along with the Enlightenment's Revolution, corresponds to the destruction of the order of appearances. Surrealism, dada, the absurd, and political nihilism are the second great manifestation, which corresponds to the destruction of the order of meaning The first is still an aesthetic form of nihilism (dandyism), the second, a political, historical, and metaphysical form (terrorism).

I will leave it to be considered whether there can be a romanticism, an aesthetic of the neutral therein. I don't think so - all that remains, is the fascination for desert-like and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance.

I am a nihilist. I observe, I accept, I assume the immense process of the destruction of appearances (and of the seduction of appearances) in the service of meaning (representation, history, criticism, etc.) that is the fundamental fact of the nineteenth century. The true revolution of the nineteenth century, of modernity, is the radical destruction of appearances, the disenchantment of the world and its abandonment to the violence of interpretation and of history.

I observe, I accept, I assume, I analyze the second revolution, that of the twentieth century, that of postmodernity, which is the immense process of the destruction of meaning, equal to the earlier destruction of appearances. He who strikes with meaning is killed by meaning. The dialectic stage, the critical stage is empty. There is no more stage. There is no therapy of meaning or therapy through meaning: therapy itself is part of the generalized process of indifferentiation.

The stage of analysis itself has become uncertain, aleatory: theories float (in fact, nihilism is impossible, because it is still a desperate but determined theory, an imaginary of the end, a weltanschauung of catastrophe).

One must be conscious that, no matter how the analysis proceeds, it proceeds toward the freezing over of meaning, it assists in the precession of simulacra and of indifferent forms. The desert grows. Implosion of meaning in the media. Implosion of the social in the masses.

Against this hegemony of the system, one can exalt the ruses of desire, practice revolutionary micrology of the quotidian, exalt the molecular drift or even defend cooking. This does not resolve the imperious necessity of checking the system in broad daylight. This, only terrorism can do.

We are in the era of events without consequences (and of theories without consequences). There is no more hope for meaning. And without a doubt this is a good thing: meaning is mortal. But that on which it has imposed its ephemeral reign, what it hoped to liquidate in order to impose the reign of the Enlightenment, that is, appearances, they, are immortal, invulnerable to the nihilism of meaning or of non-meaning itself.

It's a roundabout way of saying, yes, samsara remains nirvana. And yes, not too bad to be a nihilist as response, as expression of what unfolds around us in the world. It can become an expression of awareness if one not succumbs to its death knell.

[Pam Seeback]

How I make emptiness my form of awareness is to think of the eternal appearance and disappearance of form as God's self-made condition or price for awareness. This is why one of my favourite biblical quotes is one I believe refers directly to nihilistic or emptiness thinking: 'God [Existence] in Christ [knowledge of eternal forming] (is eternally) reconciling the world [of formation] into Himself.' Yep, even now I prefer metaphors of Self when expressing the eternal nature of existence.. It's a good time to be aware. :-).

[Pam Seeback]

Thanks for the piece by Baudrillard. I had never heard of him and will be doing some reading in the next little while. I sense a kindred spirit. :-)

Diebert: It's a roundabout way of saying, yes, samsara remains nirvana. And yes, not too bad to be a nihilist as response, as expression of what unfolds around us in the world. It can become an expression of awareness if one not succumbs to its death knell.

Not sure what you mean by 'samsara remains nirvana', but if you are implying that they are the same thing, this is not my understanding. They are co-dependent terms, yes, but as I understand their relationship, their definitions are not the same. Samsara is not just the appearance of the world, but to borrow Baudrillard's term (one you have used yourself in the past), Samsara is the act of being seduced by the world or as it is most often described, as wandering in the world. In relation to Samsara then, NIrvana, which means 'blowing out' is to cease being seduced. I'm not sure the Buddha meant to imply that when one is liberated from Samsara that one becomes fascinated with nihilism-emptiness as Baudrillard suggests, but as a form of support for awareness post-seduction, it makes sense.

As for the awareness support possibilities post-seduction -- besides fascination -- a juicy philosophical feast to be sure! As an aside, for some reason, Dennis Maher's bliss of meaninglessness come to mind. :-)

[Pam Seeback]

Found this poem today...a perfect fit, I believe, for this thread:

In the Country of Resurrection, Ada Limón

Last night we killed a possum,
out of mercy, in the middle of the road.

It was dying, its face was bloody,
the back legs were shattered. The mistake

I made was getting out of the car
(you told me not to), but I wanted to be

sure, needed to know for sure, that it could
not be saved. (Someone else had hit it.)

The sound it was making. The sound
folded me back into the airless car.

Do it, do it fast, I lowered my head
until the thud was done. You killed it quiet.

We drove home under the sickle moon,
laundry gone cold and dry on the line.

But that was last night. This morning
the sun is coming alive in the kitchen.

You’ve gone to get us gas station coffee
and there is so much life all over the place.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Not sure what you mean by 'samsara remains nirvana', but if you are implying that they are the same thing, this is not my understanding.

Following the same prose, it would be your understanding, any understanding, attempting to liquidate appearances.

It would be interesting to go deeper into what "appearance" signifies here, like how it relates to the idea of thing, object or the illusive. But it might be a whole separate topic and needs a more focused question as it addresses "everything". And perhaps the question could defeat even the purpose: because can any analysis or discussion ever bring this topic any closer into focus?

Samsara is the act of being seduced by the world or as it is most often described, as wandering in the world. In relation to Samsara then, NIrvana, which means 'blowing out' is to cease being seduced.

Being seduced by a world still implies the presence of a world. Which is close to Baudrillards notion of "appearance".

I'm not sure the Buddha meant to imply that when one is liberated from Samsara that one becomes fascinated with nihilism-emptiness as Baudrillard suggests, but as a form of support for awareness post-seduction, it makes sense.

The fascination was described as "nihilistic passion par excellence", the emotional component of the process of (our) disappearance.

As for the awareness support possibilities post-seduction -- besides fascination -- a juicy philosophical feast to be sure! As an aside, for some reason, Dennis Maher's bliss of meaninglessness come to mind. :-)

His bliss, underneath it, was fueled by desire for power, the last desire, the one for destruction, the one of terrorism. The tragedy of Dennis was his ignorance of it as he was certainly under its spell. Philosophically a "dead end". And it might be true to say that nihilistic terrorism, this violence against the self, against reason, rule, government and "order" is the only answer left for many. To find some liberation and identity within. The "peace" found there is probably similar to the peace a mass murderer emits during his act, or the peace of a terrorist after he wholeheartedly signed on to his mission. It's the "all-in" that exhilarates and annihilates at the same time. This seems to me the reason for Dennis' ultimate demise, on this forum.

[Pam Seeback]

Diebert: It would be interesting to go deeper into what "appearance" signifies here, like how it relates to the idea of thing, object or the illusive. But it might be a whole separate topic and needs a more focused question as it addresses "everything". And perhaps the question could defeat even the purpose: because can any analysis or discussion ever bring this topic any closer into focus?

Whether this is deeper or not, I can't say, but what I am exploring at the moment is the possibility that underneath all of its philosophical analysis that what is actually happening to consciousness is that 'it' is seeking to silence Its Internal Critic. After all, since it cannot go outside of itself, on what criteria is consciousness applying value and worth to its things and/or how they appear or don't appear? I don't know if there is a philosopher who has specifically explored this question, but in doing research on Baudrillard's criticism of hyper-reality, I bumped into a quote by Bergson, the author of "Creative Evolution", from page 310: "Between thinking an object and thinking it existent, there is absolutely no difference". It sounds like a good place to start. Perhaps a new thread will be appear soon...:-)

[Santiago Odo]

This is the boy in Alex, starts of with bold, aggressive and demanding moves but let him post and it ends in pap and some ultimate defense of feminine values, how to live properly, build your house, raise a family and flag, a qualitative huddling. And with that the Alexian mating cycle [thanks Jupiviv!] normally completes as all that comes with increased bitterness, belittling and aggression, imploding into destroying the very thing he tries to promote, as far as any promotion is, in fact, happening.

Except that our physical world, family, house and flag (if you will) are precisely the field of life, and there is nothing outside of those areas. What I mean that we have a certain *field* that is given to us through having a bodily form and this does not -- cannot -- change. And yes, it is true, my position was long-ago established and stated. Long ago I referenced The Well and the community of fields that is established around the physical, and then also the metaphysical, Wellspring: the source of nourishment. In one way or another, neither with creative assent or through nihilistic dissent can one change one's fundamental circumstances. The Well 'stays the same'.

I think your, shall I say, contemptuous remark in relation to what are fundamental territories requires a detailed examination. This is 'the female' in your lexicon. Your contemptuousness has similar features to that of DD&K and for this reason, in my view, can be looked at as a phenomenon of culture. That is how I have taken it. It was once said that some part of the middle and upper middle class American rebellion of the sixties was less because of adherence to a genuine revolutionary value, but rather that kids had 'grown bored with Connecticut'. The nihilism of Fathers & Sons is quite distinct from that of, say, St John of the Cross. Thus, you mix categories (and so does Pam). If there is an inner process of relinquishing bondage, and I do not doubt there is, it occurs within a larger context in which the larger field (of the human) is honored. Understood and honored.

One could conceive of a defense of extreme forms of criticism of culture, of flowey femininity, of consumerism, of unconsciousness, and a great deal more, but when it becomes a blindly destructive *mood*, it is there that it needs to be examined more closely. But in your case, as certainly was the case (or is the case) with David Quinn, there seems to be a neurotic fixation on your *philosophy*: a quite definite position in fact, a precise creation revealed in repeated prose. But the *philosophy* looks like a neurotic machine. You are skilled at shooting down any sort of argument that takes aim at this 'neurosis' and, thus, you remain within this mired series of spidery caverns.

Obviously, you are exactly where you choose to be. But, as a philosophical position, and within the domain of the field of manifestation (the place we all live), I think your *philosophy* is terribly weak. This fits into a pattern of culture, as does postmodern *philosophy*, yet I think that with some effort it can be understood as hollow. And something for hollow men. But I do not deny that there is some attraction in striking such poses. A great deal of it is appearance though. My view is that these poses should be interrogated more, and yes, transcended. And I believe that they can, though one cannot, except spiritually, transcend the conditions of our life. That is, our life within matter (the feminine, the mother).

I do notice, once again, the 'feminine values' remark, but that too it is part of a pose essentially. But your career, the place you live, your dependence in these senses, is quite 'female' really. It is somewhat similar to DD&Ks 'rebellion' while on the State's dole. It rings hollow. And the pose takes shape with a seductive fascination with edgy thinkers such a Baudrillard. You are comfortable mimicking Baudrillard, and built a pose through doing it! and though I think his writing has clever aspects -- a certain insight and thus a certain use -- to imitate whatever position he took does not look very masculine from where I stand.

And for me the question What does it mean to be a man and to be 'masculine' is a very important question. It has to remain a question. DD&K did not ever approach an answer nor have you. My sense is that you have no qualification -- except through your poses -- to offer definitions. That is a large element of my critique of your fine self. You are a motherly spider in love with her spidery domains, and you are not an original thinker but a mimic! Though it may be 'aggressive' to point this out to you, you should know that I am less concerned about how you will react than in making *truthful statements* about a nihilistic condition that has infected culture. You will likely go on like this until time ends! ;-)

But no, of course, value is a lot about total annihilation of what is not valued. It's doesn't cohabit. It is erected not just by its own strength but by proving the opposite as wrong, as destructive and undesired. Demanding eradication from the earth. Hence revaluation of all values as catastrophic event.

This is an example of skilled mimicry. And pose. It purports to communicate something special, something important, but only embellishes that there is no substantial content.

[Pam Seeback]

Santiago Odo: The nihilism of Fathers & Sons is quite distinct from that of, say, St John of the Cross. Thus, you mix categories (and so does Pam). If there is an inner process of relinquishing bondage, and I do not doubt there is, it occurs within a larger context in which the larger field (of the human) is honored. Understood and honored.

Since you are acknowledging here that you have no experience with the inner process of relinquishing bondage, all you are accomplishing here is the horking of giant spitballs into the wind.

[Santiago Odo]

Since you are acknowledging here that you have no experience with the inner process of relinquishing bondage, all you are accomplishing here is the horking of giant spitballs into the wind.

I would not say that whatever you do, or are interested in, does not have to do with 'relinquishing bondage' and I have no reason to diss whatever your processes are. But I would say too that you do not at all understand what I am on about. And you do not desire to. It has no place for you.

All that you talk about has only to do with you -- with Pam -- and nothing at all to do with larger issues.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

..our physical world, family, house and flag (if you will) are precisely the field of life, and there is nothing outside of those areas.

Ah yes of course. This, what you state, your estate, is where your values lie and your heart is hidden. And for that you have to do battle against everything else, anything suggesting otherwise! Everything not your physical world, social passion or sentiment.

Philosophical aims have fundamentally the littlest of little to do with the physical world, family, flags and houses. Perhaps they all live on opposite ends of a scale, if there ever was such a scale in life. Of course there are all these attempts to draw philosophy back into pragmatism, life styling, refined tasting or like Marx: to build on some notion of historical materialism, that is, a pseudo-scientific, philosophically rather helpless conception of history, meaning and human nature. So in that way, your reasoning seems closer to Marxism than Genius Forum-ism! Social theory at best.

What is deeper philosophy then to our livelihood? It must seem to many alien, otherworldly, vague and anti-life or pointless one way or another. And that's understood and in some ways even "true". Philosophy is ideally about notions of existence and beyond morality & sentiment. That way the typical human ghostly existence can do nothing with it to save himself.

[Pam Seeback]

Since you are acknowledging here that you have no experience with the inner process of relinquishing bondage, all you are accomplishing here is the horking of giant spitballs into the wind.

I would not say that whatever you do, or are interested in, does not have to do with 'relinquishing bondage' and I have no reason to diss whatever your processes are. But I would say too that you do not at all understand what I am on about. And you do not desire to. It has no place for you.

All that you talk about has only to do with you -- with Pam -- and nothing at all to do with larger issues.

But you are dissing my processes by making unsubstantiated claims re what you believe they are about. Until you have walked in the shoes - walked, not talked - of nihilistkc/dark night thinking your words are without integrity. Does integrity matter to you?

[Santiago Odo]

"Such verbal mysticism, of course, is a rather simple and transparent trick. What is more dangerous is the manipulation of certain established relational schemata."

--Václav Havel, 'On Evasive Thinking'
_____________________

Ah yes of course. This, what you state, your estate, is where your values lie and your heart is hidden. And for that you have to do battle against everything else, anything suggesting otherwise! Everything not your physical world, social passion or sentiment.

To avoid getting pulled into what I term, I think fairly, one of your Rabbit Holes, I think it wise to take your statements in themselves as starting-points for analysis of who you are, where you stand. Not as revealing statements about philosophy, Philosophy, or 'philosophy' which you have no particular right or qualification to define.

I have been glancing through the selected writings of Václav Havel, the Czech dissident, and it occurs to me through comparison that a substantial part of your *philosophical situation* has to do with your Dutch situation. A little man holed up in his little redoubt scribbling little things. So, if I assert that it is wise, good and necessary to keep our focus on 'physical world, family, community and 'flag', and that these concerns arise in our present -- crudely or sophisticatedly -- as part of a general confrontation of the Hyper-Liberalism of our present, I only place emphasis on a general need, a general desire, to recover from *nihilistic processes* or the effects of certain forms of nihilism. Because that is my core assertion, and it is a way-and-means to dismantle nihilism and neurotic incapacity.

Under the stresses of Czech totalitarianism I have a strong sense that the rabbit-holely 'philosophy' which you define would have had very little appeal. And since philosophy does originate as a way of thinking about existence, and came into its form through Platonism and Aristotelianism, I do not think that your statements about *what philosophy is* hold any weight at all. Yet they very clearly reveal what you do with your *philosophy*.

What you do, it seems to me, is spin your wheels in inane considerations. It seems to be a way of filling up your Dutch Time, in your specific Dutch Situation (which is to say a particular spot and place within specific history, and determined history overall). Thus, you can afford the inane over the, shall we say, defined important. It stems out of the situation you find yourself in.

It is true that one is called to battle nihilism, insofar as nihilism destroys. Or it is saturation within destruction. Or perhaps a 'worship' of what has been destroyed. And there you have, I think, the Rabbit Hole and the Spider's Labyrinth. If you speak of my 'heart' and my 'estate', fine, but I'd suggest also turning that perception around and noticing your own strong desire. It is a childish grasping at the inane and has become quite common today.

Philosophical aims have fundamentally the littlest of little to do with the physical world, family, flags and houses. Perhaps they all live on opposite ends of a scale, if there ever was such a scale in life. Of course there are all these attempts to draw philosophy back into pragmatism, life styling, refined tasting or like Marx: to build on some notion of historical materialism, that is, a pseudo-scientific, philosophically rather helpless conception of history, meaning and human nature. So in that way, your reasoning seems closer to Marxism than Genius Forum-ism! Social theory at best.

Really? And who is making this statement? The statement seems to me patently false from any *sound* perspective and it has no relationship at all to any intellectual center within the Occident -- I mean taken from an historical perspective. If you were to now define *philosophical aims*, you dolt, you would immediately wind up in a tight spot! Because you have no idea what you are talking about. It is all pose.

Nothing at all has been built or achieved with the *idea* whose regime you live under, and nothing could be achieved. That is not to say that Pragmatism, whatever that means, is called forth. Part of the initial manoeuvre of the Rabbit-Hole gambit is to use evasive tactics. Or, send up an inky cloud the purpose of which is to dull intellect. The rest of what you have written here is pure rabbit-hole material.

Haul that cocooned carcass down deep into your lair and sip on its content to keep yourself semi-alive, son! It seems to be working...

What is deeper philosophy then to our livelihood? It must seem to many alien, otherworldly, vague and anti-life or pointless one way or another. And that's understood and in some ways even "true". Philosophy is ideally about notions of existence and beyond morality & sentiment. That way the typical human ghostly existence can do nothing with it to save himself.

Here you go further in enunciating what is your neurotic problem. Indeed, these are the Questions that stand on your path like spectral warriors. They have stopped you dead in your tracks. Or, like your spindled victim who you have stung and who stares at you in mute horror, you are your own victim, and your victim a mirror.

This is I think what a neurotic philosophy will do. The wires and the transistors have become dis-connected and re-connected in solipsism. The neurotic does his best under the circumstance though and weaves unending webs that support the neurotic position.

You can't stay here, Diebert. It is predicated by the tenets of your own declarations that you will have to -- eventually -- discover how to progress on.

[Pam Seeback]

Santiago Odo: I have been glancing through the selected writings of Václav Havel, the Czech dissident, and it occurs to me through comparison that a substantial part of your *philosophical situation* has to do with your Dutch situation. A little man holed up in his little redoubt scribbling little things. So, if I assert that it is wise, good and necessary to keep our focus on 'physical world, family, community and 'flag', and that these concerns arise in our present -- crudely or sophisticatedly -- as part of a general confrontation of the Hyper-Liberalism of our present, I only place emphasis on a general need, a general desire, to recover from *nihilistic processes* or the effects of certain forms of nihilism. Because that is my core assertion, and it is a way-and-means to dismantle nihilism and neurotic incapacity.

But in trying to recover from *nihilistic processes* by focusing on 'physical world, family, community and flag', can you not see that you are only postponing the inevitable return to nihilistic processes? Consciousness longs to find the permanent hidden in the impermanent, the stillpoint of movingalways, the absolute of the relative, and only the Path Negativa can bring it to this discovery.

Nihlistic thinking may be the beginning stage of the Path Negativa, but without a beginning, there can be no completion. It is most likely that those who identify as nihilists are unaware of the bigger picture when they first experience feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness; however, if the Path Negativa is consciously denied or forestalled out of ignorance of its value, which appears to be your modus operandi, what is left is naught but the hollow promise of identity with a self built on the ever-shifting sands of the relativity-drunk matrix.

Fight against the coming of the darkness of finite, cultural self consciousness, fight against the darkness of those who identify with philosophy, nihilism and mysticism, the Path Negativa, but if you do, be aware that you are also fighting against the coming of the light of consciousness of the unchanging-changing Infinite Self, the Path Positiva.

You may reject all that I say here, no problem. As I have stated before, your posts are a perfect launching-off point for me, a way to deepen my wisdom of the infinite and to reach those who are seeking to do the same.