Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 00:11:31 +0200
From: Yair Mahalalel <yairm-AT-tabs.co.il>
Subject: Re: Smirking at Nihilism




Tristich wrote:

> Paul S. Rhodes writes:
>
> > Wait a minute!  You're going to tell me that I don't believe what I
> >  believe.  How mighty Orwellian of you!
> >
> >  Paul S. Rhodes
> >
> Who gives a shit what you believe?  All I want is for someone to show me what
> makes Nietzsche a nihilist.  It's not like I wanted to take some partisan
> viewpoint. If he was a nihilist, that's okay, just show me where.  But don't
> tell me it's because he was an iconoclast, especially with respect to the
> icons of nihilism.
>
> Fritz
>

I'm sorry Fritz, but it seems to you won't get a straight answer from anybody
here for this question.
N. has shown every value he could think of to be false. As an addition he claims
that no absolute values can exist. Viewpoints, beliefs, truths, knowledge and the
like can only be useful ad hoc and no more.
This qualifies N., in my opinion, to be as nihilist as one might hope to be. But
this is only the beginning which seems to N. to be almost trivial - when
Zarathustra meets the old man in the forest it merely surprizes him that he
didn't hear of God's death, of the non-existance of ever-lasting values which can
allow us to judge the world in terms of "Good" and "Evil".
The more interesting problems arise later on - After depriving himself of any
solid ground of the theological/metaphysical sort all he can supply us morbid
mortals with are a few guidelines he constructed from his historical observations
and from his own personality.
These guidelines - "The will to power", "The affirmation of life" etc. - as much
as they are appealing and well established cannot be constructed into a fully
constructed system since such a system will have to have metaphysical roots,
turning these guidelines into absolute values, which, as he has previously shown,
cannot exist.
N. basis for his dislike of anti-semitism, racism, murder, genoside and such
range between personal reasons and historical examples that such phenomena
contradict his guidelines, but since there are no "Good" and "Evil", there is no
way for N. to label any of these as they appear to us - Evil.
This is why no one on this list gave a serious answer to Rhodes question - can we
find a way, according to N.s thinking, to denounce a thing such as the holocaust?

An honest answer to this question should have been - no.
If you're stating that not "Good" nor "Evil" exist, you have to admit that the
systematic slaughter of tens of millions of people cannot be regarded as
absolutely evil. And there are no ways around this - if you give up on absolutes
everything is relative, everything.
Of course N. could have pointed out why the holocaust was a stupid act, or a weak
act, or a "life denying" act. We all can, but none of us will, since none of us
can look at himself in the mirror, or to be more exact - in this list, and
explain why the holocaust was not evil, since "Evil" does not exist.
N. himself saw himself as writing for the rarest of individuals, to those who
will be able to see things as he saw them without fear. I am afraid to say we
have none of these individuals on our list. All we have is a variety of
hypocrites which aviod the major, terrifying, points in N. thought - Callihan who
thinks that merely mentioning the holocaust must be some sort of demagogy,
LambdaC which always prefers personal insults to a straight discussion etc. etc.
The only one who might have been suspected of relative consistancy is, of all
people, dear Mr. Rhodes, who has admitted that he is to weak to have
responsibility over his own decisions and has chosen a faith he knows to be based
on a lie to judge for him what is true, what is beautiful and what is true. But
his lowly attacks on those who at least pretend to be interested in this evasive
notion called freedom cleans him of all such suspicion.

Hope this has helped somewhat in your discussion,

Yair.



	--- from list nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---