Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Nihilism

[hardblue]

Both Dostoevsky and Nietzsche were deeply religious by temperament; both were terrified of where nihilism could lead. If God is alive, everything is meaningful; if God is dead, everything is permitted, and nothing is comprehensible. “I made up my mind long ago not to understand,” says Ivan Karamazov in one of the earliest statements about ‘

Comments

[pigshitpoet]

and therein lies the conundrum of our salvation..

[hardblue]

I don't see a conundrum about salvation. I don't think anyone is getting out of here alive! :p

[pigshitpoet]

my god loving friend says we all get out alive.. life after death etc. do you think nietzsche and dostoyevsky were fatalists?

[hardblue]

Not at all. Nietzsche, I take it, believed in radical freedom - at least for the ubermensch/overman who can overcome a Fatherless world and make a new world. I think Dostoevsky retained his faith albeit appreciating that nihilism was a growing cancer in the modern world.

[pigshitpoet]

you know what's weird? this is very similar to what my gf said tonight.. she was judging that everything i was saying (in my opinion) was a judgment about something or someone, those are the times we can never win for trying.. and lord knows don't defend or explain because it just becomes more criticism..

it's a funny old world
; ?

[hardblue]

Perhaps you should just go with flattery with the girlfriend. That always works, for everyone! It always shows your good judgment, and people will appreciate you for your judgment. ;)

And don't worry about feeling dislocated and fragmentary. When it comes to LJ, at this date, just sticking around at all is a victory. Maybe it's also the aging. It gets harder to give a fuck about anything.

[pigshitpoet]

LOL and hmmm...

and thanks for the gentle encouragement. i feel you are a kindred spirit of sorts. would love to have more literary conversations with you. feel free to message me.

thanks,
; )

[davesmusictank]

Perhaps the problem withe nihilism is that it excludes the idea of a free will without a godhead and that the solution , albeit an existentialist one, is that we are the masters of our own fate, and that we always have a choice whether it be good or bad,

[hardblue]

I would have been best, I suppose, if there were a God and this God just left us happily in the blissful Garden of Eden, just tending the shrubbery and making love. After that, everything is a bummer!