On Historical Nihilism (历史虚无主义) and "Having a Philosophy" in General.
21 May 2016 [link youtube]
Although this video ran long enough, I'd say there are two significant (autobiographical) omissions. (1) Thucydides is not mentioned: I could have spoken about Thucydides specifically, and several other ancient Greeks who have shaped (or re-enforced) my thinking on these issues. (2) I also did not mention the experiences in childhood that initially formed this question in my mind. When I was very small (still in grade 1, I believe) I was quite astonished to learn that there is no intrinsic difference between a plant and a weed, but that this was merely a human idea that we ascribed to (i.e., imposed onto) plants. Many, many years later, I would read a philosopher remarking, likewise, "The difference between plant and weed is up to me", i.e., using the same example to illustrate the extent to which many cultural notions seem to have a biological reality, but, in fact, we can decide for ourselves whether or not a dandelion is truly worse than a rose. That was a very simple childhood insight (that I thought about for many hours, at that early age) that never left me. I applied it, again and again, to very simple puzzles, such as our notion that beauty is in the eye of the beholder (etc.) --and yet, of course, beauty is tremendously important to each individual beholder, and also to society as a whole.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
yo it up I sometimes make pretty long
videos reflecting on shallow issues shallow but sometimes you know pragmatic interesting or useful for people's lives in some other way this is going to be a pretty short video about a reasonably profound question one of the most requested videos topics for me to make a video boat has been for me to speak more about nihilism and what nihilism means to me I find it very easy to talk about nihilism with people face to face when I know them and they know me even if they're people who know me in a shallow way talking about philosophy in a context like this one is difficult because people have very different ideas of what philosophy is or why we're talking about it I think that most people have the mistaken assumption that the only reason for our philosophy to exist is for me to try to convert other people to that philosophy in the same sense that some religions not all want to convert everyone to believe in them and in a sense that religion only exists in order to convince other people of its of its value that is not why I have a philosophy and I think that is not a legitimate reason for why philosophy exists as a field of study or why anyone would individually study philosophy or have a philosophy personally certainly the concept of having a philosophy is worth reflecting on is worth thinking about at some length from my perspective a philosophy is a problem-solving method like Karl Popper I view philosophy as instrumental in this sense as a way of understanding things for me nihilism is a very positive doctrine and I use the term historical nihilism which I in effect have reinvented I haven't invented the term but I've reinvented it to refer to the form of nihilism I myself practice by contrast atheism is just a statement that God does not exist or gods plural don't exist it's negative particular belief nihilism is an approach to knowing the world that begins from the profound assumption that there is nothing to be believed in so stepping away from God you can talk about something like beauty or goodness virtue I do not look at the world as if beauty is something that exists out there for me to understand for me to discover as something that's imposed on me by society or just by what I see I think of the world more in terms of a blank canvas on to which I have to paint onto which I have to project onto which I have to assert my ideas and in this sense something like beauty I'm not merely saying that it's in the eye of the beholder I'm saying that in a radical sense it's something shifting and unreliable that I is the observer and really involved in creating as an artist what is good and what is evil a very crude religious view of the world would suggest that these are ideas that exist before we're born that exists in the same sense as a rock exists on the side of the road as something we discover we see we apprehend that we have to learn about that we have to follow that we may be right or wrong about you may see the rock by the side of the road or you may fail to see it you may trip over it but that good and evil beauty and ugliness are things that simply exist out there independent of ourselves and the form of nihilism epistemologically that I'm talking about is at the opposite extreme from that perspective and that does not mean that good and evil are of no importance on this channel I moralize a great deal I talk about good and evil and ethics and morality but I am very conscious of my role again a step beyond merely saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder I am aware of my role in creating and distorting and recreating these things and that to a very large extent in terms of the realm of values in terms of the realms of the realm of what most people think of as beliefs I'm really sitting in front of a blank canvas I'm really encountering things that I myself have created although many people i think mistakenly believe that these are not human created values perhaps because they were taught them by their grandparents perhaps because of a particular religious conviction or perhaps you know just out of laziness you can live your whole life without ever questioning what's beautiful and what's ugly what's good and what's evil what's delicious and what's revolting so that is this kind of simple epistemological and ethical side of it of nihilism as a challenge to values and how we think about values no values matter and it doesn't mean that everyone's values are equal not at all this is an analysis this is a way of thinking about reality and you know among other things this recognizes why one man consider something beautiful that another doesn't why one man consider something good that another man considers evil and it's an analysis that's compatible with the cacophony of the society we all live in it explains reality it comprehends reality it lets us live with reality it does not set down a standard for how reality ought to be it explicate seeeeee how reality actually is and again that's why this is philosophy not religion not dogmatism this is philosophy as a problem-solving method in the tradition of karl popper now the term historical nihilism the term I've chosen ivory appropriated reinvented that is the term used by the government of China today the communist government of China in 2016 to describe the opposite of their official doctrine or belief as something it's it's illegal it's bandits it's the view they do not want people to believe in and that is very telling because the government of China wants people to believe in history to have a faith in history a kind of religion of history and history matters to me enormously the same way I've just said ethics good and evil matter enormously but again I regard history as that kind of blank canvas where and again it's not a passive view of the world as an artist as an intellectual as a researcher it is up to me to do the research to do the understanding to manifest or create those meanings out of history to find the morals if you like in history to to not just learn the lessons of history it's like passive that already exists but in a sense you have to you have to write the lessons of history for yourself and then learn them it's just a much more active model of how these things work but in the same sense that I think there is nothing to be believed in in a God in beauty and good or evil there is nothing to be believed in in history so it's looking at history with a profound awareness that individuals make arbitrary decisions that have terrible consequences for people all over the world that history doesn't follow a divine plan there's no fate it's not the will of God but that also it doesn't follow the kind of semi-divine plan that the Communist Party of China bleezin because communism in China is an atheist set of beliefs but they nevertheless think that history has a kind of magical quality to it that history is navigable that it follows a plan that's a sequence of stages rational originally by Hagel he's supposed to be the mind of God unfolding but so-called material dialectics they have this very peculiar philosophy of history that it almost like a religion and they want the people trying to believe in history so that for example they believe when millions of people were killed in political violence that that was necessary and that that was a stage in the development of history and that the next stage is better and better and so you can't simply lament as a tragedy or regret that one person who have to be in political power made terrible decisions with terrible consequences so historical nihilism in choosing that term I'm putting focus on those sort of political and social aspects especially relevant to China and history of Asia obviously relevant to the history of Europe also so the point is here to another way to say this talk about the blank canvas of the artist history doesn't make sense history doesn't have meaning we can make sense out of it as intellectuals we can find meaning in it we can ascribe meaning to it you know again projecting meaning not discovering it as something existing like a rock by the side of the road there are other historical moments when nihilism became an important idea in history of Russia nihilism was a contrast to communism it was a different way for people to care about the poor that didn't involve killing the rich which is important and worth remembering there is a famous novel by Turgenev a novel called fathers and sons it's a very enjoyable novel and nihilism as a major theme in it and for many people in the world that woke them up to the idea of nihilism the nihilists in Russia had a phrase that one of their catchphrases politically was go to the poor be the poor so this was advice for rich people won't be I said don't march in the streets don't think of yourselves and the crazy way the communists do you want to help the poor go to the poor the poor and for me as a young man that spoke to me in contrast to many of the crazy ideas around me and to some extent it's had practice in my life when I went to a country like Laos I was not living like a low farmer I was not really living like a local poor person but still there has been an important especially going going to the poor being the poor whoever the people where I was studying other people's trying to help of going and living with them and among them and understanding things from their perspective so that has been a part of my life and that that it's part of the flavor of nihilism my life but I do not identify as a Russian nihilist I do not have connections with any of the specific Russian etiology I recognize that's part of the history of the word and aesthetically it's part of what people associate with nihilism and there was one other philosopher called Max Turner Max Turner was very poorly translated into English if you can't read German and you haven't done a lot of historical research is basically incomprehensible in english today you have to know so much about the melia to read him but sterner also was a really interesting moment in the history of philosophy and he directly influenced Karl Marx and he directly influenced many many people directly everyone's Nietzsche and others now sterner I actually do not agree with profoundly again like rushing out he's not doesn't really have anything to do with my my version of nihilism but again his philosophy in the debate surrounding his philosophy or another moment in history when nihilism seemed to become important and people thought about the meaning of the word okay so I think that's enough to say in this video really the deeper questions people ask is what is the meaning of of philosophy and what is the point of having a philosophy in your life with some people I have known again in clean people I knew and it kind of shell away there have been times when I talk to them about like peace and war and they were really surprised at pragmatic and useful what I was saying was how different it was from all the political things they've heard left winger right right wing and they've asked me well what is my political philosophy and then I start talking about nihilism and it actually does have a really positive message in application a piece of North politics and they actually give really inspired what have you so I mean I think that's that's an incongruous thing nihilism I would not call it empowering I think for many people if you grown up in a world of fixed values of received beliefs and assumptions it feels liberating but it also puts more responsibility on you it's really saying you are not the observer you are the artist in relation to the world of values and so much of what we debate in this world does consist of values good evil beautiful ugly and you know ethical issues underlying peace and war and hard decisions we make of course nihilism is not like classical skepticism in that sense because it's not questioning whether or not the number six is really different from the number seven it's not about that kind of technical challenge that many academics spend a lot of their time debating all right um I think that's enough for now uh for those of you who were interested because i did get many emails asking me to talk about the meaning of the word nihilism for me um I get to press the stop button at under 15 minutes I hope you take something away from it
videos reflecting on shallow issues shallow but sometimes you know pragmatic interesting or useful for people's lives in some other way this is going to be a pretty short video about a reasonably profound question one of the most requested videos topics for me to make a video boat has been for me to speak more about nihilism and what nihilism means to me I find it very easy to talk about nihilism with people face to face when I know them and they know me even if they're people who know me in a shallow way talking about philosophy in a context like this one is difficult because people have very different ideas of what philosophy is or why we're talking about it I think that most people have the mistaken assumption that the only reason for our philosophy to exist is for me to try to convert other people to that philosophy in the same sense that some religions not all want to convert everyone to believe in them and in a sense that religion only exists in order to convince other people of its of its value that is not why I have a philosophy and I think that is not a legitimate reason for why philosophy exists as a field of study or why anyone would individually study philosophy or have a philosophy personally certainly the concept of having a philosophy is worth reflecting on is worth thinking about at some length from my perspective a philosophy is a problem-solving method like Karl Popper I view philosophy as instrumental in this sense as a way of understanding things for me nihilism is a very positive doctrine and I use the term historical nihilism which I in effect have reinvented I haven't invented the term but I've reinvented it to refer to the form of nihilism I myself practice by contrast atheism is just a statement that God does not exist or gods plural don't exist it's negative particular belief nihilism is an approach to knowing the world that begins from the profound assumption that there is nothing to be believed in so stepping away from God you can talk about something like beauty or goodness virtue I do not look at the world as if beauty is something that exists out there for me to understand for me to discover as something that's imposed on me by society or just by what I see I think of the world more in terms of a blank canvas on to which I have to paint onto which I have to project onto which I have to assert my ideas and in this sense something like beauty I'm not merely saying that it's in the eye of the beholder I'm saying that in a radical sense it's something shifting and unreliable that I is the observer and really involved in creating as an artist what is good and what is evil a very crude religious view of the world would suggest that these are ideas that exist before we're born that exists in the same sense as a rock exists on the side of the road as something we discover we see we apprehend that we have to learn about that we have to follow that we may be right or wrong about you may see the rock by the side of the road or you may fail to see it you may trip over it but that good and evil beauty and ugliness are things that simply exist out there independent of ourselves and the form of nihilism epistemologically that I'm talking about is at the opposite extreme from that perspective and that does not mean that good and evil are of no importance on this channel I moralize a great deal I talk about good and evil and ethics and morality but I am very conscious of my role again a step beyond merely saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder I am aware of my role in creating and distorting and recreating these things and that to a very large extent in terms of the realm of values in terms of the realms of the realm of what most people think of as beliefs I'm really sitting in front of a blank canvas I'm really encountering things that I myself have created although many people i think mistakenly believe that these are not human created values perhaps because they were taught them by their grandparents perhaps because of a particular religious conviction or perhaps you know just out of laziness you can live your whole life without ever questioning what's beautiful and what's ugly what's good and what's evil what's delicious and what's revolting so that is this kind of simple epistemological and ethical side of it of nihilism as a challenge to values and how we think about values no values matter and it doesn't mean that everyone's values are equal not at all this is an analysis this is a way of thinking about reality and you know among other things this recognizes why one man consider something beautiful that another doesn't why one man consider something good that another man considers evil and it's an analysis that's compatible with the cacophony of the society we all live in it explains reality it comprehends reality it lets us live with reality it does not set down a standard for how reality ought to be it explicate seeeeee how reality actually is and again that's why this is philosophy not religion not dogmatism this is philosophy as a problem-solving method in the tradition of karl popper now the term historical nihilism the term I've chosen ivory appropriated reinvented that is the term used by the government of China today the communist government of China in 2016 to describe the opposite of their official doctrine or belief as something it's it's illegal it's bandits it's the view they do not want people to believe in and that is very telling because the government of China wants people to believe in history to have a faith in history a kind of religion of history and history matters to me enormously the same way I've just said ethics good and evil matter enormously but again I regard history as that kind of blank canvas where and again it's not a passive view of the world as an artist as an intellectual as a researcher it is up to me to do the research to do the understanding to manifest or create those meanings out of history to find the morals if you like in history to to not just learn the lessons of history it's like passive that already exists but in a sense you have to you have to write the lessons of history for yourself and then learn them it's just a much more active model of how these things work but in the same sense that I think there is nothing to be believed in in a God in beauty and good or evil there is nothing to be believed in in history so it's looking at history with a profound awareness that individuals make arbitrary decisions that have terrible consequences for people all over the world that history doesn't follow a divine plan there's no fate it's not the will of God but that also it doesn't follow the kind of semi-divine plan that the Communist Party of China bleezin because communism in China is an atheist set of beliefs but they nevertheless think that history has a kind of magical quality to it that history is navigable that it follows a plan that's a sequence of stages rational originally by Hagel he's supposed to be the mind of God unfolding but so-called material dialectics they have this very peculiar philosophy of history that it almost like a religion and they want the people trying to believe in history so that for example they believe when millions of people were killed in political violence that that was necessary and that that was a stage in the development of history and that the next stage is better and better and so you can't simply lament as a tragedy or regret that one person who have to be in political power made terrible decisions with terrible consequences so historical nihilism in choosing that term I'm putting focus on those sort of political and social aspects especially relevant to China and history of Asia obviously relevant to the history of Europe also so the point is here to another way to say this talk about the blank canvas of the artist history doesn't make sense history doesn't have meaning we can make sense out of it as intellectuals we can find meaning in it we can ascribe meaning to it you know again projecting meaning not discovering it as something existing like a rock by the side of the road there are other historical moments when nihilism became an important idea in history of Russia nihilism was a contrast to communism it was a different way for people to care about the poor that didn't involve killing the rich which is important and worth remembering there is a famous novel by Turgenev a novel called fathers and sons it's a very enjoyable novel and nihilism as a major theme in it and for many people in the world that woke them up to the idea of nihilism the nihilists in Russia had a phrase that one of their catchphrases politically was go to the poor be the poor so this was advice for rich people won't be I said don't march in the streets don't think of yourselves and the crazy way the communists do you want to help the poor go to the poor the poor and for me as a young man that spoke to me in contrast to many of the crazy ideas around me and to some extent it's had practice in my life when I went to a country like Laos I was not living like a low farmer I was not really living like a local poor person but still there has been an important especially going going to the poor being the poor whoever the people where I was studying other people's trying to help of going and living with them and among them and understanding things from their perspective so that has been a part of my life and that that it's part of the flavor of nihilism my life but I do not identify as a Russian nihilist I do not have connections with any of the specific Russian etiology I recognize that's part of the history of the word and aesthetically it's part of what people associate with nihilism and there was one other philosopher called Max Turner Max Turner was very poorly translated into English if you can't read German and you haven't done a lot of historical research is basically incomprehensible in english today you have to know so much about the melia to read him but sterner also was a really interesting moment in the history of philosophy and he directly influenced Karl Marx and he directly influenced many many people directly everyone's Nietzsche and others now sterner I actually do not agree with profoundly again like rushing out he's not doesn't really have anything to do with my my version of nihilism but again his philosophy in the debate surrounding his philosophy or another moment in history when nihilism seemed to become important and people thought about the meaning of the word okay so I think that's enough to say in this video really the deeper questions people ask is what is the meaning of of philosophy and what is the point of having a philosophy in your life with some people I have known again in clean people I knew and it kind of shell away there have been times when I talk to them about like peace and war and they were really surprised at pragmatic and useful what I was saying was how different it was from all the political things they've heard left winger right right wing and they've asked me well what is my political philosophy and then I start talking about nihilism and it actually does have a really positive message in application a piece of North politics and they actually give really inspired what have you so I mean I think that's that's an incongruous thing nihilism I would not call it empowering I think for many people if you grown up in a world of fixed values of received beliefs and assumptions it feels liberating but it also puts more responsibility on you it's really saying you are not the observer you are the artist in relation to the world of values and so much of what we debate in this world does consist of values good evil beautiful ugly and you know ethical issues underlying peace and war and hard decisions we make of course nihilism is not like classical skepticism in that sense because it's not questioning whether or not the number six is really different from the number seven it's not about that kind of technical challenge that many academics spend a lot of their time debating all right um I think that's enough for now uh for those of you who were interested because i did get many emails asking me to talk about the meaning of the word nihilism for me um I get to press the stop button at under 15 minutes I hope you take something away from it