No one has anything to hold onto, therefore making them lost in society. In the beginning of the book, before travelling to Auschwitz, he had a tight relationship with god saying “I believed profoundly”. But towards the end, he lost all belief in God. This leads to the question, what happened? This also leads to the question, when/what is the point where one realizes that God is only a spirit?
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” wrote William Shakespeare (TN II.v.128-31). Greatness has been thrust upon Matt Morrison in Crow Lake, Paul in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” and Prince Hamlet in Hamlet; however, greatness in the eyes and minds of young characters is seen and thought as a burden, but for their moral good. There is more than one reason that sacrifices a child makes of loyalty to his\ her family can have long-term negative effects. The first reason to explore is Matt Morrison’s sacrifice of giving up his dream to go to university.
Karen Armstrong and Robert Thurman wrote their essays, “Homo religiosus” and “Wisdom”, respectively, describing two words, “being” and “void”. These words, although have opposite meanings, describe the same spiritual experience that come about through different means. By definition, “being” is a kind of fullness or completeness of existence and “void” is emptiness or a negation of existence. Armstrong believes that “being” is the equivalent of the Buddhist’s “Nirvana” while Thurman believes that “void” is the equivalent of the Buddhist’s “Nirvana”. Although these terms seem to be opposite in the literal sense of defining them, they lead to the same outcome: not being at the center of one’s own universe.
There is nothing is nothing and no one to feel the loss. He goes on to explain how death is only an assumed evil because of what is denied us which is life. Nagel says that life in itself is valuable; when one takes it away good and bad all that is left over is life no matter its experiences. The benefit of life doesn’t mean survival; there is no attraction in surviving a
According to Sire (2009) nihilism is the denial of any philosophy or worldview. It is the negation of everything. Reflecting on this discussion and the thought provoking question of how a nihilist would answer the seven basic worldview questions assisted in my selection of three questions. The nihilist would view these question as non-existence.
The talk was a discussion about a German philosopher named Nietzche who wanted people to revalue their values for near future; he made a controversial statement that ‘’God was dead’’ and that humanity murder god. Many saw it as a depressing and offensive statement. Nietzche saw God as a shadow that may not be real, but over power all of us; god is an unbelievable non figure that is a supreme authority. Nietzche is also a controversial figure because he declared himself as an Anti-Christ; he urges people to think other than binary thinking (gay-straight, wrong-bad, evil-good etc). His ideas resonate with different cultures, but however he heavily criticized many religions based on their thinking, beliefs and tradition.
One of Nietzsche's most famous, and infamous, beliefs was the death of God. With the decline of religion, especially Christianity, Nietzsche noticed a prominent change that led him to view the world and humankind as no longer innocent. Nietzsche was unable to see humankind as noble beings, but instead “one species among millions struggling to survive, descendants of some primordial zone” Ressentiment is the “dominant emotion of the herd” and is “a deep form of physically polluting resentment that generates slave morality”(Soccio, 2016, pg.464). Nietzsche claimed that even though most people claimed that they still believed in God, “our true faith is in scientific and technological progress” (Soccio, 2016, pg.463). With modern technology
In Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, he argues that in order to be an authentic self, one must think about death as subjective. First, an authentic self is to be able to reflect and know what is truly important in one's own personal life, to be subjective. Nevertheless, Heidegger believes in his argument by how people see death as an event in life, an event that people see the possibility of happening in the future. Heidegger argues this because people need to see that one's death is only one's own stage in life. Thinking of death will lead the person to realize one's own death is subjective.
This idea of the will to power contributes to the master and slave relationship of morality and the history of the origins of values and morality. With the concept of “will to power” in mind, anything that has attached meaning suggests that something – or rather some “will” – has dominated it and assigned a certain meaning or means of interpretation. Due to the dynamic nature of the world and our environment, Nietzsche argues that we are unable to understand anything, or where it originated, if we are to assume it has always held the same meaning throughout time and therefore has been only dominated by one “will.” The idea of an absolute truth is ridiculous for Nietzsche, as one “will” cannot eternally dominate. As time progresses, things and actions develop different meanings, suggesting that different “wills” have dominated it and its subsequent associations.
To Be or Not To Be Martin Heidegger had a profound impact on philosophy. His main issue was that of “being.” He wanted to make some sense of our capabilities to make sense of things as humans, or Dasein as he refers to us which literally means “being there.” Heidegger explains the two different modes in which Dasein live as authentic and inauthentic. One way we can live authentically is by being open to the “nothing,” as Heidegger says.
About Heidegger- personal, professional Martin Heidegger (1889- 1976), an important 20th Century German philosopher is considered one of the most original yet a controversial one. His best known book, "Being and Time", although notoriously difficult, is generally considered to be one of the most important philosophical works. Heidegger’s work has extensive contribution in the fields of philosophy, theology and humanities which were important in the development of Phenomenology, Existentialism, Deconstructionism, Post Modernism and Continental Philosophy. Heidegger is known to use difficult vocabulary, syntax, coin new words to explain complex concepts. Heidegger’s first significant academic work, considered the most influential was “Sein und Zeit”, Being and Time.
He does not believe in a God, stating that the church exists to “devalue nature and natural values” and claiming that these religious systems steal power, creating weakness in mankind (Nietzsche 34). He creates a primitive and selfish lifestyle as a model to compliment this new concept of inverted values. This lifestyle is based on the Hyperboreans, a mythical race that lives North of the Arctic Circle and exemplifies strength and vigor. Nietzsche believed in training people from a young age to maximize power to assert dominance and exude toughness because goodness was associated with everything that creates a feeling of power and, therefore, happiness. Straying away from this is the reason for man’s weakness, which he claims is equivalent to unhappiness and all that is considered bad.
Existentialism attempts to explain life as a human’s journey to find meaning, and Nihilism essentially states that there is no meaning (Crowell). In other words, whereas Existentialism essentially says, “I exist,” Nihilism says, “that means nothing”. Where this becomes relevant to the piece is in Hemmingway’s apparent agreement with Nihilism rather than Existentialism.
It is a necessary transitional phase, cleansing and clearing away outdated value systems so that something new can rise in their place. He writes about two different forms of nihilism, active nihilism and passive nihilism. Passive nihilism is more the traditional ‘belief that all is meaningless’, while active nihilism goes beyond judgement to deed, and destroys values where they seem apparent. Passive nihilism signifies the end of an era, while active nihilism ushers in something new. Nietzsche considers nihilism not as an end, but as a means ultimately to the revaluation of values.
“Non-being” is the other philosophic notion that denotes either absence of something, or all things non-existent in reality, or non-existent reality. For Hegel the notion of non-being exists only on the surface of being (-in-itself). One reason Heidegger feels obliged to confront the problem of being and non-being is that Dasein. Nonbeing, in Heidegger, is the gateway to being. Stephney (1977) quotes Heidegger that “anxiety renders manifest Non-being.”
