Nihilism, modern day nihilism and its new meaning

Links

• http://epps.com/pointofview/

• http://www.ws5.com/nihilism/

• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11074a.htm

JSTOR Findings

• http://www.jstor.org/stable/3312168?seq=3&Search=yes&searchText=Jane&searchText=Eyre&searchText=Nihilism&searchText=and&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DJane%2BEyre%2Band%2BNihilism%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff&prevSearch=&resultsServiceName=null

• http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.2307/3711346.pdf?acceptTC=true

Interesting Readings

• The difference between Woolfolk and me is that I make a very sharp distinction between an analysis of Western culture and a sociological critique of one element of that analysis: the implicit or explicit use of the concept of nihilism. By dismissing this one element in the analyses of Comte, Durkheim, or Toc- queville, on logical and sociological grounds, I am not dismissing their complete analyses, being perfectly aware that I am a dwarf, standing on the shoulders of these giants. Ungar says that my analysis of nihilism is somewhat "elliptical." I guess he is too polite to say that it is circular. I don't think it is, but let me try to explain the struc- ture of my argument. I am trying to do two things: 1. To show that the critique of nihilism is much older than Nietzsche and that it has a respectable tradition in France. Camus was wrong in saying that Nietzsche was the first. It is interesting to see that there is a continuity, so that Maistre's analysis from the early nineteenth century is echoed in 1985 by Kundera (cited by Ungar). This is the history of ideas component of my argument. 2. To show why the concept of nihilism was used. This is the sociology of knowledge component. Now, to do this properly, the French tradition is much more appropriate than the better known German one, for two reasons: the social upheavals that accom- panied the process of modernization were manifest and more frequent in France, with every generation having its own nation-wide revolution; and the intellectuals participated more actively in every social or political issue. That makes for a setting that is more appropriate for a sociological analysis than the German situation. In Germany, upheavals were suppressed, and the intellectuals hardly participated in the political debate; so it becomes a bit difficult to relate ideas to social positions. Ideas tend to be politically neutral. This is the reason why the German use of the concept has a metaphysical rather than social or political scope and could be more systematic, aspire to universality, and therefore dominate intellectual life in this century. German thinkers latinized and coined what Joseph de Maistre during the French Revolution called "rienisme": nihilismus.

• How does ter Borg establish that nihilism is a label rather than a condition? He does so by examining the use of the idea in the French sociological tradition. He con- tends that the critique of nihilism is used against groups with little in common. What is common is not the property of the object, but a relation of fear between subject and object, or "losers" (the French revolution hurt their class interest) and "winners" (the revolution advanced their interes