the most valued standards of achievement, concluding that nothing we are capable of doing satisfactorily measures up to our highest aspirations.
The trap that past thinkers have commonly fallen into when dealing with the “problem of nihilism” is to conflate all of the negative associations that have become attached to the concept of nihilism with the concept itself. So it is that we find many of the nihilists and commentators on nihilism that I sur-veyed in both the Introduction and in Part One seeking a means for the “over-coming” of nihilism, and thus, they believe, the overcoming of despair. How-ever, despair is motivated by many factors in human life, and the “overcoming”
of nihilism no more implies the end of despair than does the overcoming of poverty. In stipulating the basic premises of nihilism, we have already gone far in clearing away many of the confusing, distracting, and superfluous elements that pull our attention from the core beliefs embodied in the authentically nihilistic philosophy. Our next step is to think through some of the conse-quences and implications of these premises.
The path that I shall follow in this chapter is an unusual one. Instead of try-ing to argue for or against the basic assumptions embodied in the nihilist philos-ophy, I shall instead grant the premises that contribute to this world view and in turn work out some of their consequences. I want to walk along with the nihilist, experiencing the phenomenon from the inside, demonstrating that even from such a perspective, desperation and negativity are not necessary outcomes. I want to show that nihilism may, in fact, be lived with and appreciated. This is an exer-cise that has rarely been undertaken. As I have already pointed out, it is far more common for critics to attempt to describe a manner in which they believe the philosophy of nihilism might be proven false, “overcome,” and left behind. These efforts are ultimately wrongheaded since they convince only those who already dispute the basic premises of nihilism and do nothing to change the minds of nihilists themselves.2However, we need not attempt such strong-arm techniques in order to show how nihilistic thinking itself might contribute to an active life approached with an attitude of good humor and a love of wisdom.
The philosophy of nihilism implies a situation that I have called “nihilis-tic incongruity.” Nihilis“nihilis-tic incongruity separates nihilists from all that they most highly desire and value, frustrating their every aspiration toward the absolute. We should be careful to note that strictly speaking, “nihilism” and
“nihilistic incongruity” are two separate concepts. I shall henceforth use the term nihilism to refer to a philosophy that rests upon the three premises reit-erated at the beginning of this chapter. On the other hand, I shall use the term nihilistic incongruity to refer to that circumstance implied by those premises. If the claims made by nihilism are accepted as true, then we must face the con-sequence that all that is most highly valued and desired lies out of the bounds of human accomplishment.
What I intend to demonstrate in the remainder of this study is that, con-trary to popular philosophical wisdom, the existential consequences of
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tic incongruity, and of the philosophy of nihilism, are not all terribly negative.
By reemphasizing some of the potentially positive philosophical, psychologi-cal, cultural, and spiritual ramifications of nihilistic incongruity, we may be able to balance the books, so to speak, and demonstrate that there are, in fact, features of this phenomenon that may act to motivate nihilists to engage in activity, progress, high levels of achievement, and spiritual growth. This being the case, an encounter with the phenomenon of nihilistic incongruity need not be threatening to the meaningful pursuit of life’s projects. Encountered as a useful and potentially pleasing sort of incongruity, it may be reacted to with an attitude of good humor rather than with one of despairing anxiety.
In accordance with this general strategy, I shall in this present chapter briefly attempt to explore and understand the inner experience that seems to underlie the nihilist’s acceptance of the philosophy of nihilism. I am especially curious to understand why it is that the nihilist remains committed to the sec-ond premise of nihilism. We have already come to understand that the nihilist cannot abandon loyalty to the absolute. I now would like to know why. An understanding of this will give us a point of entry not only into the nihilist’s psychology, but into the positively sublime, attractive, and downright amusing consequences that may possibly follow from the contemplation of nihilistic incongruity. Nihilistic incongruity, while promoting distance from all that is most highly valued, nevertheless also has the potential to open up a path of possibility that orients and guides the awareness of the nihilist toward the highest of goals. With this in mind, let us now follow along this path.
According to the first premise of nihilism, humans are alienated from absolute Being, Truth, Goodness, etc. Of course we are not always acutely aware of this, and nihilist authors commonly emphasize the manner in which human beings find themselves distracted from this basic truth about the human condition. One of the primary factors that many of these writers implicate as diverting us from our ontological state of separation from the ultimate is the force of society. Our social duties and projects, though they provide us with various rewards and interesting things to do, also very often encourage us to forget about our own finitude and mortality, thereby “entan-gling” us in activities that, were we to honestly reflect upon them, would be revealed as absurd. In this regard Nietzsche spoke sneeringly of the human
“herd,” which acts to disguise individual weaknesses and to shield us from ourselves and our own vain desires. “[D]uring the longest period of the human past nothing was more terrible than to feel that one stood by oneself,”3 Niet-zsche writes. But the comforts offered by the herd against the pains of reality are only shallow distractions that he claims can never fully silence our inner anxieties and our desire for the ultimate. No matter how engrossed we become with our social duties, and no matter how vigorously we attempt to abandon ourselves to the otherworldly promises of a religion, according to Nietzsche we always retain an awareness, muffled and covered over though it may
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become, of our own finitude and limited amount of inner “will to power.” The herd exploits this sort of apprehension, tapping the energy of individuals and utilizing it for its own purposes. In the process, individuals learn to “evaluate as others do, against the inner voice of our taste, which is also a form of con-science.”4By constraining and directing the energies of its individual mem-bers, the herd offers safety, survival, and physical comfort. However, these comforts are offered at the cost of individual freedom, spiritual vitality, and the unsettled, anxious, yet authentic awareness that all life teeters on an abyss of grand nothingness. The culture and conventions of society, along with all of its other wonderful accomplishments and pleasures, are ultimately understood by Nietzsche as attempts by the group to distract its members from the fact that all earthly achievements are doomed to dissolution and decay. As sug-gested by the second premise of the nihilistic philosophy, despite the pleasur-able rewards of fame, fortune, and worldly success, reality ultimately denies us the very things that are truly the most valuable.
Heidegger follows Nietzsche in this regard, indicting “The Crowd” as a potentially corrupting influence upon human existence. According to Hei-degger, inauthenticity is the result of our “publicness” which “obscures every-thing,”5pulling us farther and farther away from our own true Being. In over-whelming us with “busyness,”6the public world of the crowd forces a wedge between us and an awareness of our highest aspirations toward Being itself.
Echoing Nietzsche’s cynicism, Heidegger emphasizes the manner in which humans commonly become instruments within a society that pulls them away from themselves. “[B]ecause Da-sein is lost in the ‘they, ’ it must first find itself,”7and it does so, according to Heidegger, by heeding the inner “call of conscience.” It is this call that, if heeded, “reveals” to humans that they have been “thrown” into a world in which they are “not-at-home.”8This realization provokes anxiety and a feeling of “guilt” insofar as it makes us aware that we have allowed ourselves to be pulled away from an authentic relationship to Being itself. The inner “call” of conscience reminds us that we “care” about and desire commerce with absolute Being and yet have allowed ourselves to be dis-tracted from this most important of aspirations.
Though many nihilists devote a large amount of discussion to condemn-ing the corruptcondemn-ing influence of society on the individual, some nevertheless embrace and utilize this same property as a vehicle toward protest, activity, and social change. Mishima, for instance, referred approvingly to the power of
“The Group,” and its ability to obliterate individuality. In the group, Mishima found “the glorious sense of being the same as others.”9This sense of belong-ing provided him with the strength and self-confidence that he needed in order to proceed with his plans for the overthrow of the Japanese government.
The more political forms of nihilism, such as Bakunin’s and Nechayev’s nihilistic anarchism, seek to harness this power of the collective for active, destructive purposes while the more individualistic forms of nihilism, as found
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in Nietzsche and Heidegger, bewail its constraining and inauthentic nature.
Regardless of their different attitudes toward its powers, however, nihilists of all stripes generally emphasize the group as a forceful influence on the indi-vidual, which is generally antithetical to uniqueness, individuality, and the pursuit of personal authenticity. Social obligations and duties tend to keep us busy, according to the nihilist, and to distract us from meditating too deeply on our own painful separation from the ultimate.
Mishima writes, “Two different voices constantly call to us. One comes from within, the other from without. The one from without is one’s daily duty.
If the part of the mind that responded to duty corresponded exactly with the voice from within, then one would indeed be supremely happy.”10This “inner voice” referred to by Mishima, and recognized by many of the thinkers that we have examined, is experienced by the nihilist as an energetic and unsettled impulse toward the absolute. As they struggle and work toward their worldly objectives, this impulse lies in the background, they claim, providing not only the motivation for striving, but also acting as a standard against which they judge their accomplishments. Its aspirations are very general and very ambi-tious. It seeks the superlative, the ultimate, and the infinite. It aims toward perfection. It wants to touch Being, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty themselves, and it remains unsatisfied so long as these things are out of reach. It is this aspect of nihilism that has led Gillespie to label it “Promethean.”11 Like Prometheus, the nihilist aspires toward godhood, yet is permanently and piti-fully bound to the earth. Camus uses another mythic figure, Sisyphus, to char-acterize this same situation. According to Camus, it is the innate “appetite for the absolute”12that pushes the “absurd man” to engage in the ceaseless, absurd, and rebellious struggle against the world, exhausting life and ultimately
“accomplishing nothing.”13If we are to believe Rauschning’s depiction of the Nazis, it was a similar sort of inner “dynamism” of the people that was tapped by Hitler in order to power his “permanent revolution,”14and it is quite clear that Bakunin, among the Russian nihilists, held that there is a natural force, or “current of life . . . which manifests itself in all living beings,”15and that this force stands behind and motivates the inexorable struggle of humankind toward absolute freedom.
What sometimes appears as a pronounced element of essentialism and vitalism is a recurrent feature of nihilist literature. The most vivid example of this characteristic is, of course, found in Nietzsche’s doctrine of the Will to Power, which holds that all of life’s phenomena may be analyzed in terms of, and reduced to, the struggle between energetic forces of movement that com-pete with one another for dominance.16 Whether or not we ourselves accept this as an accurate description of the nature of humans and the world that we live in, I think we need to be sensitive to the purpose that such proclamations are intended to serve. When authors such as Bakunin, Nietzsche, and Mishima refer to inner drives and forces of life, I believe that they are appealing to these
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entities not as things that they intend to explain, or as things that they believe permit of objective, empirical verification, but as descriptive metaphors that they find useful for characterizing the feelings involved in their own longing for perfection. Such authors are, in sum, offering reports that describe their unsettled, energetic inner states. To them, it just feels as though some inner force is straining for release and dissipation into infinity. Such authors have hit rock bottom in their search for the reasons that explain why they always want more from the world, and why they must remain unsatisfied with their own finitude. They have reached that point where reflection ceases to yield any fur-ther insights, and all that they can do is to report what has been found within.
In Heideggarian terms, they have discovered a “primordial” fact about them-selves. So it is that Mishima simply considers it “the most natural and decent of all desires, this wish that body and spirit alike should come to resemble the absolute.”17 When asked why it is that they want to experience perfect com-merce with the absolute, nihilists can only report that something inside of them naturally drives them toward it. The appeal to inner drives and forces is, I think, an attempt to formulate some sort of characterization of, or explanation for, this primordial fact. According to nihilists, their desire to move closer toward absolute perfection seems as natural a tendency as that of electricity to conduct itself through a wire.
In Kantian terms, the attraction of the nihilist to the ideas of absolute Being, Truth, Goodness, Justice, etc., might be characterized as a kind of “sub-lime” pleasure. The “sub“sub-lime” is a feeling of “liking” for that which is
“absolutely large.”18The “absolutely large,” according to Kant, is that “beyond which no larger is subjectively possible.”19Though we can’t actually perceive or imagine any particular thing that is absolutely large, we can, through the powers of our reason, conceive of such an idea. Though this superlative exists nowhere in the world of our phenomenal experience, we still have a notion of what the concept means. The experience of the sublime, thus, entails thinking beyond the world of phenomena. It involves an attempted encounter with the supersensible realm of the Ding an Sich. The sublime feeling is the feeling of awe and respect that is experienced when we attempt to touch the absolute reality of the noumenal realm.
Though, as we will see, an encounter with corporeal things is not a nec-essary component of all sublime feelings, according to Kant the sublime expe-rience often is triggered by encounters with overwhelmingly large physical objects found in nature. By way of illustration, he gives examples of both the
“mathematical” and the “dynamical” sublime. The former may occur when our perceptual and imaginative faculties are overwhelmed by the magnitude of certain expansive and vast features of a natural phenomenon. Kant mentions the Milky Way, and the seemingly infinite number of stars and solar systems that it contains, as spurring a sense of the mathematical sublime.20When we think of the Milky Way as a whole, we, in a sense, succeed in encompassing
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the vastness and the infinite number of heavenly bodies that it actually con-tains into our thought. Even though we can’t actually perceive or even imag-ine each and every one of these bodies all at once, we can think them as “an immense whole,”21 thereby demonstrating the sublime power of our own minds. The dynamical sublime, on the other hand, is often experienced when we encounter an object, the natural power of which overwhelms us and causes us initially to experience a sense of our own puniness. If we are able to main-tain a physically safe distance between ourselves and that object, we may resist its potential for destruction and find within ourselves a sense of “courage” that allows us to feel as though “we could be a match for nature’s seeming omnipo-tence.”22The sorts of physical objects that Kant mentions as being associated with the dynamically sublime include “bold, overhanging and, as it were, threatening rocks, thunderclouds piling up in the sky and moving about accompanied by lightning and thunderclaps, volcanoes with all their destruc-tive power, hurricanes with all the devastation they leave behind, the bound-less ocean heaved up, the high waterfall of a mighty river, and so on.”23The power and potential for destruction that these things possess is, strictly speak-ing, unimaginable and beyond our capacity for perception. Yet in our sublime enjoyment of them we experience a feeling of pleasure deriving from an awareness of our own inner strength and its ability to transcend nature’s potentially destructive might.
The sublime feeling is rather paradoxical in that while it is a kind of plea-sure, it is also associated with a displeasurable sense of being overpowered and with a feeling of discomfort and uneasiness. This feeling is triggered by an unsettling realization that there exists something beyond the apprehension of our perceptual and imaginative powers. These powers must forever remain foiled in any attempt to apprehend the absolutely large. Only by an appeal to the powers of reason can some sort of unifying principle be discovered that is able to comprehend such a supersensible target all at once, and reason provides this in terms of the “infinite.” “Infinity” is not a thing in nature, according to Kant, but rather a mental concept that allows us to encapsulate and unify the
The sublime feeling is rather paradoxical in that while it is a kind of plea-sure, it is also associated with a displeasurable sense of being overpowered and with a feeling of discomfort and uneasiness. This feeling is triggered by an unsettling realization that there exists something beyond the apprehension of our perceptual and imaginative powers. These powers must forever remain foiled in any attempt to apprehend the absolutely large. Only by an appeal to the powers of reason can some sort of unifying principle be discovered that is able to comprehend such a supersensible target all at once, and reason provides this in terms of the “infinite.” “Infinity” is not a thing in nature, according to Kant, but rather a mental concept that allows us to encapsulate and unify the