By Morf Morford, Tacoma Daily Index
As you may have noticed, we here at the Index go from a micro, local, up-close-and-personal view at issues and details, and we sometimes step back and take in a larger, more historic, global view of issues or themes that, impact us all – whether or not we are aware of it.
One of these underlying trends seems to be a near-foundational base assumption, or at least a guiding principle of almost everything we do.
We could, as some individuals, families, businesses and even a few nations do, aspire to integrity, respect and a sense of shared honor and destiny.
But recently, for whatever set of reasons, many of our corporate and political leaders have taken a very different approach.
There was a time that leaders of all levels worked together for the common good.
That foundational principle of virtually any functional, if not flourishing and prosperous, family, business and larger society for millennia seems naive, if not fantastical.
If you follow the news, especially for the past decade or so, you know one thing for certain; across industries and our nation’s highest offices, and even in a few relationships you may have encountered, we have a reigning philosophy that is best summarized as a toddler mentality; “I get my way or I’ll wreck it for everyone else” or “If I can’t have it, no one else will either”. This is a step up, (or down) from, “I’m going to take my ball and go home if I don’t get my way”.
Several political commentators have used the term “nihilism” to describe our current political/philosophical atmosphere.
Our Congressional dithering and in-fighting regarding our federal budget is only one example of a principle that, for better or worse, we find ourselves inhabiting.
Root words
The word “Nihilism” comes from the Latin nihil, or nothing, which means NOT anything, or that thing or essence which does not exist – an emptiness that defies measurement or description. It appears in the verb “annihilate”; to reduce to nothing – to destroy and eliminate completely.
In Russia, nihilism became identified with a loosely organized revolutionary movement (from about 1860-1917) that rejected and worked to discredit the authority of the state, church, and family.
Consider the level of respect and trust many of us hold in the authority (or integrity or efficiency) of the state, the level (and trendline) of church membership in the past generation or so and the state of the family by almost any standard from divorce to youth suicide and it would be easy to make the argument that nihilism has become the reigning and organizing principle.
There are several strands of nihilism from personal to political. Political nihilism is associated with the belief that the destruction of all existing political, social, and religious order is an essential beginning point for any future improvement.
There is nothing new about this philosophy. Among philosophers (and religious scholars), Friedrich Nietzsche is most often associated with nihilism. (And, of course, his well-known “God is dead” quote.)
The irony, though, is that it was Nietzsche who most vocally and insistently warned his readers about the inevitable, and unrelenting corrosive power of nihilism.
As Nietzsche wrote (over a century ago) this collapse of meaning, relevance, and purpose will be, if not already is, the most destructive force in history, constituting a total assault on reality (and especially shared values) and to many, the greatest crisis and threat to humanity.
And, as you may have noticed from almost any news source, several current members of the US Congress (and a few presidential candidates) hold, sometimes explicitly, such a belief system.
If you study history, you know one thing for certain – we have been here before.
Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West (1926) studied several cultures to see if nihilism were a defining, if not essential, feature of collapsed (and collapsing) civilizations. In each of the failed cultures he examined, Spengler noticed that centuries-old religious, artistic, and political traditions were weakened and finally toppled by the insidious workings of several distinct, but related nihilistic beliefs. In his study, Spengler concluded that Western civilization (Europe and North America) was already (in the 1920s) in the advanced stages of decay with at least three forms of nihilism working to undermine virtually every aspect of authority and philosophical stability.
Today’s headlines
For many news networks in our current media landscape, especially those which promote themselves as being “fair” or “balanced”, all perspectives are equally non-binding and non-authoritative.
And then the obvious happens – intellectual or moral arrogance (along with sheer volume and repetitiveness) will determine which perspective has value and dominance.
To put it mildly, this is not a healthy, or sustainable way to live, work, have a family or run a government.
This mood or mode or belief system breeds an atmosphere with an apocalyptic vibe that is a perfect nurturing medium for gloom and a bumper crop of visible anxiety, anger and implied if not actual violence, if not terror.
And, as we have seen in too many cases, perhaps even our own lives, crime that is as blatant as it is pointless, and as corrosive as it is anonymous.
Fear and anxiety are near tangible in many neighborhoods and familiar settings.
This is your mission, should you accept it.
All is not dark; at least permanently and universally. As Nietzsche himself put it, this might be humanity’s greatest challenge, but we must prevail;
I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength. It is possible… . (Complete Works Vol. 13)
