For civilized shamans, there is perhaps no greater threat then Nihilism. Why is this?
Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. In the 20th century, nihilistic themes–epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness–have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Mid-century, for example, the existentialists helped popularize tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive potential. By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference, often associated with antifoundationalism.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Nihilism like any idea/belief it can take you to places that render you inert, paralyzed by the thought of it, or make us unstable and dangerous to other ideas/beliefs. Nihilism is portrayed by the civilized shamans as a toxic, spurious, and dangerous; a philosophy of nothingness that manifests in and from failure that leads to despair and suicidal despondency. Nietzsche gets this label because he smashes the civilized shamans with a hammer and leaves them for dead. He is one the most loved and hated thinkers in the last one hundred years and he is surrounded by controversy for a number of reasons. In my shamanistic training, he was not well thought of, yet a force because he questioned and questioned mercilessly the world view that makes the world, the world – the ideologies of reality, knowledge, and morality/religion – the foundations of civilization. The canon of western thought was in his sights and subjected it to the most corrosive skepticism. What made many the shaman dismiss him or take him less seriously was that he did not clearly replace what he broke. He laid waste to world views and most of all religion.
He killed God! Not really but he did bust up the metaphysics and epistemology of religion and much of philosophy’s/civilization’s most cherished ideologies. Both the religion and secular world views were dismantled before their eyes.
Nihilism is born of the collapse of of myth. – Raoul Vaneigem
The mythology of modernity – civilization are torched by the severe cynicism that is nihilism. In a sense that every time we impose thought systems of living, the nihilistic will shred the mountains of assumptions that are present in doing so. The cynic says, these are bullshit platitudes, like loyalty and sacrifice; the nihilist show quite unconvincingly that to be loyalty to king and country is but folly and the reality is closer to the reality that people are slaves and cannon fodder for those wealthy to say that they are wealthy because God wants them to be. The poor is poor because they are supposed to be poor, the subhumans are inferior in breeding and require management. This is racist/eugenics nonsense that justifies mass murder. Yet what makes the nihilist unconvincing is that people will dismiss it or see it as a threat because they have to.
Thought systems require symbolic structure, a logic that creates meaning that serves it purpose of mediation. To destroy a foundational ideology without another ideology readily available to put in place is catastrophic. Like the loss of a monarch and no clear heir, shit goes bad. The paradigm shift to nowhere, to the immediate.
Is nihilism my friend? Oh yes, yes it is very much so…
I am Resistance 