9 ms·

> You want a really nihilistic show? Watch Seinfeld. Eh? Do you mean nihilist in the (meta) sense that the show "is about nothing" and has no inherent meaning?

by dsacco 9y ago

> You want a really nihilistic show? Watch Seinfeld. Eh? Do you mean nihilist in the (meta) sense that the show "is about nothing" and has no inherent meaning? Because none of the characters on Seinfeld strike me as nihilist either. That's not to say I disagree with your point about Rick and Morty having nihilist characters; I don't think Rick is a nihilist, but I also don't think nihilism translates well to film and television. It's difficult to maintain compelling character development that can bring in a large viewership if a character is truly nihilist, in my opinion. For my purposes I don't believe it's enough to have a character profess adherence to existential nihilism - I don't agree a character is nihilist unless they also act like it, and that is fundamentally difficult to do convincingly. I very often see writers use stoicism, ruthless utilitarianism, (dysfunctional) cynicism and even atheism as proxies to demonstrate a character is nihilistic, but none of those really hits it on the mark. I consider it like free will: you can make extremely compelling arguments that free will (in the sense of the capacity for non-deterministic decision making) simply doesn't exist (or is at best implausible), but there's not really a convincing framework for altering your behavior even if you claim to believe that. This is unlike atheism or agnosticism, which do have clear behavioral proxies when you abstract them away from considerations of intrinsic meaning - simply don't participate in religious communities, gatherings or activities for its own sake.

rockostrich 9y ago
I think they mean the show and not the characters. Even in that case, the show really isn't about nothing anymore than other sitcoms like Friends and Cheers are about nothing. The show still has plot lines. My love of Seinfeld is mostly how well the plot lines within each episode are weaved together and how the show invented so many phrases that we now use (or at least I use and most people understand). The show is so quotable and relatable even almost 20 years later. Friends also does a pretty good job of this, but my problem with Friends is that you're supposed to like the characters (except Ross maybe) and they're all pretty terrible people. Seinfeld doesn't try and hide how terrible its characters are.
- tptacek 9y ago
  The characters in both Friends and Cheers cared about other characters. Neither had the "no hugging, no learning" rule. The Friends characters were self-absorbed, but they weren't nihilists.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Also the Seinfeld characters are funny people. They say funny things. The Friends characters are mostly put into funny situations (though Phoebe has a good line from time to time).
m12k 9y ago
> It's difficult to maintain compelling character development that can bring in a large viewership if a character is truly nihilist, in my opinion. I found Rust from the first season of True Detective to be a refreshing exception to that rule
- dsacco 9y ago
  Yeah, actually I agree. Rust is one of the very few characters I can think of off the top of my head that successfully bridges the gap between romantic cynicism and true nihilism.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    How is Rust a nihilist?
    - m12k 9y ago
      In the strict sense, as in "rejects all metaphysics AND all morals", I'm not sure I've ever seen a truly nihilistic character in any medium (the Joker might be one of the closest, though he might also be seen as being driven by highly warped morals instead). So on the subject of Rust: He does reject all metaphysics, but when it comes to morals, while he does not reject them completely, his relativism and pessimism, his struggle to find any sense in them, to justify why he acts like good or bad existed even if he doesn't truly believe that they do, that all leaves him closer to nihilism than we almost ever see in characters even if it is not 'truly' nihilism in the strict sense.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        It's been a couple years since I watched, but isn't Rust an extremely moral character, possibly even more so than Martin Hart? He has a moral code and is driven, to the point of his own self-destruction, by a purpose outside of himself. Nihilism doesn't mean "no believing in metaphysics". Meanwhile: in what possible way is George Costanza not a nihilist?
hnlmorg 9y ago
> That's not to say I disagree with your point about Rick and Morty having nihilist characters; I don't think Rick is a nihilist, but I also don't think nihilism translates well to film and television. It's difficult to maintain compelling character development that can bring in a large viewership if a character is truly nihilist, in my opinion. How about Marvin from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? (granted it's a book, but it has been adapted for TV and cinema and Marvin is, in my opinion at least, the best character in those particular adaptations).
- carlob 9y ago
  > How about Marvin from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? (granted it's a book, but it has been adapted for TV and cinema and Marvin is, in my opinion at least, the best character in those particular adaptations). Nitpick. HHGTG was first a radio show, then a novel, then a TV series. Some think the TV series is actually closer to the radio show than the books…
  - hnlmorg 9y ago
    Yeah you're right. I'd forgotten about the radio show.
tptacek 9y ago
No, they mean the characters. Virtually every character on Seinfeld is a nihilist. Nobody on Seinfeld --- with the possible exception of Jerry's parents --- cares about anybody or anything. Susan dies from licking poisonous envelopes and they all go out for coffee before George tries to hit on Marissa Tomei. Jerry's girlfriend gets Jerry to care about things for half an episode, turns into an anti-Jerry; the episode resolves itself with Jerry being shocked back into normal Jerry by George temporarily revealing his own emotions. Or, just compare Kevin, "The Bizarro Jerry", to Jerry himself. It's a profoundly nihilistic show, in a way that Rick and Morty doesn't even really touch. Rick can travel between dimensions and meet infinite alternate Ricks and infinite alternate Mortys. The show informs us that he knows any one Morty or any one Beth doesn't actually matter. And Rick still occasionally cares about them. The subtext of Rick and Morty is almost anti-nihilist. The nihilism in Seinfeld is presented realistically and non-fantastically and is so unsettling that people have a hard time even recognizing it for what it is.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Kramer chides the group for poor behavior or passivity from time to time. He helps people with their problems. I'd dispute that he's nihilist.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    That's true, but that's part of the joke: only the weirdest, most uncomfortable of the 4 characters is allowed any humanity.
  - ravenstine 9y ago
    You'd be right to dispute he's a nihilist. Out of all the characters, he's probably the least aware of the nature of his own existence, yet he's also the most well-adjusted to a life motivated by money and poontang. The character could still be seen in a nihilistic light because, despite his own moralism, he frequently contradicts himself and often ends up in a better place for it. If one were to read too far into what the writers were intending with Kramer, they might assume that he is meant to be a commentary on morality since his morals don't consistently serve him or the other characters, and Jerry can easily spot contradictions in Kramer's reasoning.
tynpeddler 9y ago
I think Rick is a recovering nihilist. Since he can travel between infinite dimensions, he sees all life, even his own, as cheap. Nihilism isn't enough for him emotionally, but every time tries to crawl out of that hole, his mind yanks him back because deep down, he knows, with a capital K, that there isn't a higher order to the universe. The tension between the arrogant asshole, and the broken philosopher is one of the things that make Rick an interesting character. That, and the fact that Rick is hilarious.

tptacek 9y ago
I guess, bringing this back to Rustin, that I'm just saying that there's no such thing as a deeply moral nihilist. To have moral convictions is to reject nihilism. Nihilists aren't "super atheists".
- dsacco 9y ago
  I'd challenge that very strongly. I think morality is very compatible with nihilism, both in the existential and moral nihilistic varieties. In existential nihilism, the only real requirement is that the nihilist rejects any notion of intrinsic meaning to life and existence (at least if I'm not mistaken, I'm rusty on these things). Moral nihilism is a natural extension of that which just requires a rejection of intrinsic morality. I would broadly say that it's really difficult to actually be a nihilist, just as I said elsewhere in this thread that it's hard to realistically disbelieve in free will, even if you intellectually process the arguments and agree with them. There's certainly a hard threshold to pass, but I disagree that it has anything to do with morality or principles. As far as I'm aware, constructing personal moral rules from first principles as a pragmatic matter is allowed so long as the nihilist 1) acknowledges that those principles are arbitrarily chosen and 2) not representative of, or descending from, any objective laws that can be gleaned from the world via deduction or induction. Basically, I'm saying utilitarianism is a valid moral framework, and utilitarianism is compatible with nihilism. The nihilist will face significant challenges in actually living day to day life in congruence with nihilism (i.e. not really believing in anything), but the nihilist can still as a separate matter construct a moral framework that at least seems rational and internally consistent for the purposes of self-preservation. Frankly this seems like sort of a rabbit hole. I can accept a stronger view of nihilism that disallows adherence to any moral framework, but how does that allow a nihilist to behave at all consistently or continue to function? If we take away the word "moral" and instead abstract away the terminology to, "a set of personally principles, consistently applied", what does a nihilist look like who simply doesn't have that? If we go back to Rust, he does have moral principles, but his behavior and words are congruent with the core of existential nihilism: he rejects the notion of meaning in life and existence and admits that he attempted suicide in despair but simply couldn't out of cowardice. From that perspective it seems like nihilism plus a set of consistent principles could coexist as the continual dissonance between conscious hyper-intellectualism (existential despair) and unconscious biological drives (self-preservation).

dsacco 9y ago

I agree with you that Rick and Morty isn't a nihilist show, and neither are any of the characters nihilists. Rick is deeply cynical and maybe a philosophical pessimist, and he's definitely a moral relativist, but I wouldn't call him nihilist, no. Your first paragraph is a really good set of examples, so I can see now how the characters can be perceived as nihilists. But my personal conception of how nihilism would operate in real life is that it would be intrinsically erratic and dysfunctional, with the nihilist continually struggling against an inherent lack of motivation and a biological drive for self-preservation. In that sense I consider nihilism to the functional equivalent of absurdism and pessimism. Absurdism has essentially the same core tenets as nihilism, but its literature reacts to a lack of intrinsic meaning with flippancy and a declaration that people should ignore that and continually strive for meaning anyway (which is inherent dissonant, but basically don't think about it and live on). From there, nihilism appears to be, in my opinion, what happens when someone encounters the dissonance of 1) no intrinsic motivation anymore, brought about by intellectually grappling with existential despair, and 2) instead of leaving that state, whether through traditional existentialism/religion (Kierkegaard) or through tucking it away and forgetting about it, lives on with it and doesn't commit suicide out of biological necessity. In contrast I think the examples you posed about Seinfeld's characters are more like deep self-absorption or narcissism, and maybe outright sociopathy. In a certain sense it seems like a much more implicit form of the unsettling indifference portrayed in a Brett Easton Ellis novel.

tptacek 9y ago
I think maybe the problem here is that we're labeling characters but really should be talking about the worldview of the show, revealed through the characters. To that point, I'd observe that the show's most unhinged character is also the one with the most humanity and alertness to the world around him. What is the show trying to say about life by suggesting that you'd have to be like Kramer to escape the gravity well of self-absorption around Elaine, George, and, most of all Jerry, the character you're most meant to identify with?