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Title: Nihilism is Not Nothing Author: No Wing Date: 3rd November 2019 Language: en Topics: nihilism Source: Retrieved on 22nd December 2021 from https://medium.com/@NoWing/nihilism-is-not-nothing-c9fd23df2706
Ask nearly anyone, and they will tell you that nihilism is a belief in
nothing. Popularized by the movie, the Big Lebowski, and perpetuated by
lazy academics and philosophers, this misunderstanding of nihilism has
led to a sort of demonization in anarchist circles. Primitivist John
Zerzan frequently laments about nihilism, saying things like “…you start
having people that are so nihilistic they don’t even care about life
anymore.” To Zerzan, nihilism is simply not caring about life.
Even someone opposed to primitivism, transhumanist William Gillis states
“‘‘’Can a nihilist be an anarchist?” No. Absolutely not. Nihilism is the
philosophy of our thoroughly sociopathic society. Everything we fight.”
If primitivists and transhumanists can both hate nihilism together so
actively, perhaps that shows they have more in common than one might
expect. Perhaps nihilism is a convenient boogeyman for anarchists so
entrenched in their own ideologies of primitivism/transhumanism/etc.,
that those ideologies have started to supersede anarchism?
Is nihilism merely “not caring about life?” Absolutely not! The first
nihilists were called so because nothing “that then existed found favor
in their eyes”. This does not mean that these people believed in
nothing, or did not care about life. Quite the opposite! To those who
would form the foundations of nihilism, life was important enough to
reject those things which would attempt to fetter life. The first
nihilists looked around, saw nothing that they approved of, and then set
out to destroy those things, while creating structures and circumstance
that did please them. Nihilism stems from people wanting to realize
their desires through action. If nihilism was simply people not caring,
as Zerzan claims, then nihilism could not make the claim of having
killed a czar, and nearly toppling an empire. History does not support
Mr. Zerzan’s claims.
Can one be an anarchist and a nihilist, as Mr. Gillis claims is
impossible? Of course! In fact, from Renzo Novatore, to CCF, to the FAI,
anarchists have been nihilists for over a century, and almost as long as
the phrase “anarchism” has been used in politics. Mr. Gillis is either
making grandiose claims, while being ignorant of history, or he is
claiming that people and groups who have done far more in terms of
creating anarchy than himself are not anarchist, and even the enemies of
anarchism! Again, reality flies in the face of those who would make
false claims about nihilism.
Mr. Gillis claims that nihilism “is the philosophy of our thoroughly
sociopathic society”. If only that were the case! If only our society
was rooted in the rejection of coercive social norms, and attack on
oppressive structures! That is what nihilists do…I am not quite sure how
that makes them the enemies of anarchism.
“Negation of every society, of every cult, of every rule and of every
religion. But I don’t yearn for Nirvana, any more than I long for
Schopenhauer’s desperate and powerless pessimism, which is a worse thing
than the violent renunciation of life itself. Mine is an enthusiastic
and dionysian pessimism, like a flame that sets my vital exuberance
ablaze, that mocks at any theoretical, scientific or moral prison.” —
Renzo Novatore
Renzo Novatore, an Italian nihilist anarchist from the early 1900s,
specifically combats this idea of nihilism as some exacerbated
hopelessness, and rejects nihilism as a “powerless pessimism”. Novatore
understands that rulers can come in many forms, “theoretical,
scientific, and moral” even. As anarchists, should we not be vigilant
towards all concepts as potential rulers? Should we not attempt to
tangibly oppose that which coerces us? Should we not attempt to create
circumstances that better suit our desires? For Mr. Gillis, these acts
would be far too nihilist, which leaves him holding an anarchism which
would seem quite ineffective. I would argue that nihilism is a
compliment, if not inherent, to anarchism.
Far from a belief in nothing, nihilism challenges us to act. It
encourages us to create the world we want to see, and to do it right
now. As the early nihilists took from Bakunin, “The passion for
destruction is a creative passion, too!” Nihilism is not some hopeless
end, it is a bright beginning!
“(Nihilism) stands like an extreme that cannot be gotten beyond, and yet
it is the only true path of going beyond; it is the principle of a new
beginning.” — Maurice Blanchot
So, why is there this concerted effort against the concept of nihilism
from many different corners of anarchism? Why are some people so bent on
opposing what is definitionally, and historically, something that has
been very much ingrained in anarchism? I would argue that it is exactly
because of the way that these figures have positioned themselves among
anarchism. The unwillingness of nihilism to accept dogma stands opposed
to the very dogmatic stances that anarchists like Gillis and Zerzan have
taken. Having painted themselves into corners as transhumanist or
primitivist, people like this likely feel threatened by a nihilism that
would reject transhumanism or primitivism as static ideologies. After
all, nihilism calls for a fluidity of ideas that moves along with the
fluidity of desires, and has no interest in “theoretical prisons” that
claim a certain way to anarchy. Gillis and Zerzan have built themselves
up on very specific sets of ideas, and they understand that nihilism
challenges these ideas that they sit atop….Either that, or they really
are just uneducated and ignorant as to the true origins of nihilism.
“Any society that you build will have its limits. And outside the limits
of any society, unruly and heroic tramps will wander with their wild and
virgin thought — those who cannot live without planning ever new and
dreadful outbursts of rebellion! I shall be among them!” — Renzo
Novatore
Nihilism stands against the prescriptivism and dogma of prefabricated
ideologies. It encourages action, and moves people to both negate which
oppresses them, while creating their desires. Far from being a passive
rejection of life, nihilism stands tall as an active celebration of
life, of our ability to create and destroy. Nihilism understands the
need for a constant vigilance against the calcification which occurs in
all ideologies and all societies. Without that vigilance, even the most
ardent anarchist stands vulnerable to the very rulership they claim to
fight.
“Defeated in the mud or victorious in the sun, I sing life and I love
it! “ — Renzo Novatore