• Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Could be. Nature seems to exist for itself, so it is possible that nihilist angst isn't really about meaninglessness but against meanings. This is nuanced as in the case of meaninglessness nothing has meaning but to be against meaning is a skepticism and incredulity about what the world, particularly the social world, has to offer. To live in a state of nature where you hunt your prey and gather the forest's offerings would not require artificial inducements like work ethic and a system of rewards that are a house of cards for the animal in us to want to knock down. Once all the houses of cards with all their meaningless symbols have fallen maybe that would be the end of nihilism.introbert

    Nihilism seems inevitable given the realization that despite what we say about ourselves, we're animals at heart, oui monsieur? We're beasts with post-human, divine ambitions; our hopes for meaning, meaning even an iota than the grandest possible we won't approve, is bound to be dashed to pieces.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    :roll: For those too "busy" to read Camus ...

  • introbert
    333
    I see this post has aggro'ed you for some reason. Possibly it is because you think I have not given the author his due, in term of diligence in giving him a fair interpretation. However, quite appropriately it is a nihilistic tendency to find meaninglessness or nonsense on what other find meaningful or sense-making. The Nietzche inspired Death of the Author opens up interpretation and subsequently criticism beyond the author's intended meaning. It is a doubly absurd nihilist that finds meaning in Camus' work and absurdly adventures into the hands of institutional moral realists. But it is this interpretation that the author's death can nihilistically criticize (no author). Also the interpretation of the nonnihilist who enjoys the story but sees the protagonist as a simple deviant. Giving the author his due doesnt account for the mass of casual readers and ultimately the effects of their interpretations that is the reality to negate.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Not "aggro'd", just calling you out on your conspicuously uninformed misinterpretations of Camus and the other philosophers you've mentioned, misinterpretations on which you seem incorrigibly fixated, introbert. I've posted a quite good youtube on Camus for the sake of other lazy neophytes who might be mislead by your superficial OP, etc.
  • introbert
    333
    ", just calling you out on your conspicuously uniformed m misinterpretations of Camus and the other philosophers you've mentioned, misinterpretations on which you seem incorrigibly fixated, introbert.

    I wouldnt take criticism of interpreting foucault from someone who shamelessly uses psychiatric discursive practices to defend realist tyrannical intetpretations
  • introbert
    333
    To claim that there is a reality about any text that is not interpretive is not in the established nihilist tradition. That there is a reality independent of the mind is one of the realist aspects of the psychiatric institution, that there should be concern that its discursive practices, for one, will narrow the scope of thought creating a normalization that slashes and burns through irrationalities that are harmless like intuition, nihilism, imagination, interpretation and other subjectivist phenomena. What I have posted here in the original OP may not be a high-quality post, but I believe it expresses a nihilistic distrust of authority, also irrational, and warns against acting upon influence of this authority. Personally, I found life absurd when I encountered the work of Camus for the first time and his message resonated with me, but there are other interpretations that are literal and not absurdist or nihilistic, such as institutional ones that will see the reality of the text as a characterization of nihilism reducible to a diagnostic category. Not as an existential condition through which we can appreciate the 'heroism' of the deviants that are detached from what is real.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    nihilismintrobert

    :cool:
  • praxis
    6.5k
    Does Camus make sense? Absurdly, yes.

    Just finished reading The Stranger, incidentally, and it did in fact make perfect sense to me, though I felt that Meursault, the main character the tale, was absurdly contrived.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Absurdism =/= nihilism. Absurdism =/= existentialism.

    I wouldnt take criticism of interpreting foucault from someone who shamelessly uses psychiatric discursive practices to defend realist tyrannical intetpretationsintrobert
    :rofl:
  • Tom Storm
    9.1k
    Meursault, the main character the tale, was absurdly contrived.praxis

    Indeed. I also sometimes think of this tale as the 'awakening' of someone with autism.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k


    Absurdism = Nihilism +/- ?
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Absurdly, yes.praxis

    How?
  • praxis
    6.5k
    How?Agent Smith

    Well, he makes sense in many absurd ways. Take death for instance, we’re all bound to die one day so what actual difference does it make if we die 10 minutes from now or ten years from now. It makes sense that there is no difference, absurd as that may be. Or take Sisyphus for another instance, we can imagine him happy, absurd as that may be.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I feel I'm a nihilist, not an absurdist and that's why I'm what I am - depressed.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Well, he makes sense in many absurd ways. Take death for instance, we’re all bound to die one day so what actual difference does it make if we die 10 minutes from now or ten years from now. It makes sense that there is no difference, absurd as that may be. Or take Sisyphus for another instance, we can imagine him happy, absurd as that may be.praxis

    Ok! Life is meaningless; death too, in the end, is meaningless. The universe also is meaningless. That's absurd because ... we're meaning-seeking beings (nah!). It isn't absurd is it?
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Tempermantally or clinically?
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Tempermantally or clinically?180 Proof

    You mean whether (just) a quirk or an illness? Hard to say from where I'm at - torn (to pieces) & yet still ...
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