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Can you explain who is teaching nihilism to whom and where? In school, while I did not have a clear backpack and quite obviously had internet monitoring on some

Can you explain who is teaching nihilism to whom and where? In school, while I did not have a clear backpack and quite obviously had internet monitoring on someone else’s network, I was never, not once, taught nihilism. In fact, in my education through grade 12, most everything was filtered through a compassionate lens. It’s not like I was taught that the Holocaust will happen again because humans are inherently bad and such everything is meaningless; instead it was that if we seek the goodness in the world we can prevent something like that happening again. Furthermore, if we were taught anything about nihilism, it would be that the Nazis used it to justify mass murder, which we were taught is the worst thing ever, because it is. Just my experience

whiddershins 7y ago
I think the overall thread might be getting derailed but the Sam Harris <-> Jordan Peterson live discussions are some of the best I’ve seen on this topic, and over the course of many hours they just maybe get somewhere. And they both reject nihilism. It’s just how to get people there. I’ve come to think it might be impossible to fend off nihilism without religion. At least for me, I don’t find any non religious argument a useful protection against nihilism. And I’ve really put in a lot of time on this, for whatever that’s worth.
- wbronitsky 7y ago
  What does you comment have to do with teaching Nihilism in schools? Why does it matter that people are also discussing this elsewhere? I don’t understand how this is a response to my post, rather than that thing where people put their hand up to ask a question and then just state their position instead.
- JKCalhoun 7y ago
  > At least for me, I don’t find any non religious argument a useful protection against nihilism. You probably also define religion pretty broadly I suspect. I could tell you that there is joy in life, beauty in the planet, happiness in relationships with our fellow humans and this is reason to live — spread love. Is that philosophy, religion (optimism?)? The best "teachers" in my life have taught me, if nothing else, the joy of learning itself. There's no nihilism in that.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    I find that art is an effective counter to nihilism, and I do enjoy the irony of liking Dadaist and Surrealist art. When nothing you do matters, everything you choose to do anyway is art. So try not to make ugly art.
    - vharuck 7y ago
      > When nothing you do matters, everything you choose to do anyway is art. So try not to make ugly art. Is that a quote from someone else? I love it and want to properly attribute it when sharing.
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        No. That's me. Been working on it for a while to make it more quoteworthy. It's my "Well, actually, not all nihilists..." quote.
logfromblammo 7y ago
I was taught nihilism in grade 12, as part of my epistemology class, by the same teacher that made high school kids read Nietzsche. At the time, no-one adopted it, because we all still thought grades and test scores were somehow important. The moral philosophy of the high school student is "get grades that are good enough to graduate and/or get accepted into your 'safety school'". If objecting to or evading surveillance, or using a non-clear backpack, risks suspension or expulsion, it is therefore a moral imperative to use a clear backpack and submit to panopticon surveillance. It is only later, after graduation, that the experience of being treated like criminal suspects at all times is applied to their developing worldview. And their conclusion will be "the elder generations are all paranoid assholes". They won't be wrong. I get the sense that the backlash will probably take the form of "You want to strip away my privacy and pry into my personal life? Fine. I will push so much of my personal information onto you that you will recoil in absolute cringe at my oversharing. Here are pictures of me doing all the things you find abhorrent, like having nontraditional gender and sexuality, or voting for a democratic socialist."
forgottenpass 7y ago
>in my education through grade 12, most everything was filtered through a compassionate lens. The phony compassion delivered by public schooling taught me to be nihilistic. I think that's what the parent poster was getting at. It wasn't a strict adherence to some system I once got a lecture about (because I didn't get one either), but as a natural response to the platitudes they taught. I could shake off that "wrong" way of thinking because I was under the impression it was abnormal and needed to blend in with the crowd. So in retrospect from writing this post... I guess what they really taught me was doublethink.

whiddershins 7y ago

I think the overall thread might be getting derailed but the Sam Harris <-> Jordan Peterson live discussions are some of the best I’ve seen on this topic, and over the course of many hours they just maybe get somewhere. And they both reject nihilism. It’s just how to get people there. I’ve come to think it might be impossible to fend off nihilism without religion. At least for me, I don’t find any non religious argument a useful protection against nihilism. And I’ve really put in a lot of time on this, for whatever that’s worth.

wbronitsky 7y ago
What does you comment have to do with teaching Nihilism in schools? Why does it matter that people are also discussing this elsewhere? I don’t understand how this is a response to my post, rather than that thing where people put their hand up to ask a question and then just state their position instead.
JKCalhoun 7y ago
> At least for me, I don’t find any non religious argument a useful protection against nihilism. You probably also define religion pretty broadly I suspect. I could tell you that there is joy in life, beauty in the planet, happiness in relationships with our fellow humans and this is reason to live — spread love. Is that philosophy, religion (optimism?)? The best "teachers" in my life have taught me, if nothing else, the joy of learning itself. There's no nihilism in that.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  I find that art is an effective counter to nihilism, and I do enjoy the irony of liking Dadaist and Surrealist art. When nothing you do matters, everything you choose to do anyway is art. So try not to make ugly art.
  - vharuck 7y ago
    > When nothing you do matters, everything you choose to do anyway is art. So try not to make ugly art. Is that a quote from someone else? I love it and want to properly attribute it when sharing.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      No. That's me. Been working on it for a while to make it more quoteworthy. It's my "Well, actually, not all nihilists..." quote.

logfromblammo 7y ago

I was taught nihilism in grade 12, as part of my epistemology class, by the same teacher that made high school kids read Nietzsche. At the time, no-one adopted it, because we all still thought grades and test scores were somehow important. The moral philosophy of the high school student is "get grades that are good enough to graduate and/or get accepted into your 'safety school'". If objecting to or evading surveillance, or using a non-clear backpack, risks suspension or expulsion, it is therefore a moral imperative to use a clear backpack and submit to panopticon surveillance. It is only later, after graduation, that the experience of being treated like criminal suspects at all times is applied to their developing worldview. And their conclusion will be "the elder generations are all paranoid assholes". They won't be wrong. I get the sense that the backlash will probably take the form of "You want to strip away my privacy and pry into my personal life? Fine. I will push so much of my personal information onto you that you will recoil in absolute cringe at my oversharing. Here are pictures of me doing all the things you find abhorrent, like having nontraditional gender and sexuality, or voting for a democratic socialist."

forgottenpass 7y ago

>in my education through grade 12, most everything was filtered through a compassionate lens. The phony compassion delivered by public schooling taught me to be nihilistic. I think that's what the parent poster was getting at. It wasn't a strict adherence to some system I once got a lecture about (because I didn't get one either), but as a natural response to the platitudes they taught. I could shake off that "wrong" way of thinking because I was under the impression it was abnormal and needed to blend in with the crowd. So in retrospect from writing this post... I guess what they really taught me was doublethink.