43: Nihilism

Listen to this episode from The Nietzsche Podcast on Spotify. Much had been made of Nietzsche’s predictions of the coming nihilism. As a result of the death of the Christian God, Europe is bound for a crisis of values, in which nothing can any longer give us a goal beyond ourselves and our own happiness, and people search for this meaning or justification in all sorts of other spheres of human life: morality, reason, history, and utility. Ultimately, however, since we have so thoroughly devalued the physical world of experience, we find no such meaningful answer to the problem of life. That we have devalued life in order to justify life was a masterstroke of Christianity, so long as we had a transcendent authority to look to: a higher sphere to justify the material sphere. But now, we are left only with the burdens, the curse on existence, the “in vain”. As the will cannot aim at nothing, the ultimate consequence is the pursuit of happiness for the greatest number. Rather than this passive, incomplete nihilism, Nietzsche dreams of an active nihilism, and a strength of will to cut through the meaninglessness into a true revaluation. Come explore the meaning, causes and consequences of nihilism with me! Episode art: Gustave Dore - Satan’s Fall to Earth