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I& #39;m a big Nietzsche fan. I regard him as, first and foremost, a brilliant psychologist of philosophy and morals. But one of his biggest, most seemingly culturally-consequential claims always struck me as just kooky-implausible, in the psychology dept. Until now. 1/
The thesis is (we could quibble but this is roughly it): relentless & #39;criticism& #39;, itself a by-product of Christianity, will lead to nihilism. Christianity& #39;s moral suspiciousness, at root passive-aggressive, will eventually poison all wells, including Christianity& #39;s own. 2/
This will culminate in cultural, civilizational crisis and collapse (out of which an Overman will/won& #39;t emerge and save us.) I always found the self-undermining dynamic to be plausible, but at most in a niche, boutique sense. 3/
& #39;Nihilism& #39; will become a perennial intellectual - and spiritual! - topic for avid students of philosophy and culture and religion. It will be a challenge to intellectuals, artists, so forth. I don& #39;t mean it will be just a salon/coffee house amusement, although it will be that. 4/
It will be a very serious issue, but not one whose sinuous subtlety is & #39;open& #39; to most people. But nothing that doesn& #39;t mean a thing to most people is going to lead to a civilizational crisis of meaning. It will be a matter of private conscience and contemplation. 5/
When I teach Nietzsche, I sometimes show this slide at this point. Brueghel, "The Fall of Icarus". Or: & #39;and the farmer continued to plough& #39;. I said nihilism was the guy falling in the sea, his Enlightenment wings melted. A problem for HIM, sure. Everyone else has a day job. 6/
And then I proceed for the rest of the semester, to try to turn students into the guy falling into the sea - at least thought-experimentally, exploring that ideational lifestyle choice - after which, I trust, my students mostly graduate and get jobs. 7/
Or if you want to put it in Hume terms: he& #39;s basically right about how skepticism lasts until the seminar is over. Then, in practice, it evaporates and people mostly live ordinary lives. 8/
And, of course, some people are NOT going to just get a job. They will do something amazing, exciting! Maybe revolutionary! But mostly I don& #39;t believe they will be argued into that by the likes of Nietzsche. 9/
No, the problems of nihilism and valuational skepticism Nietzsche explores, so brilliantly, are never going to move crowds, hence factor into crowd psychology. Crowds will always be simpler minds. 10/
Until now. Social media (not Nietzsche) has made us epistemologically sophisticated in a way we& #39;ve never been before. A Nietzsche-grade hermeneutics of suspicion has been achieved; a kind of & #39;lol nothing matters& #39; abyss-dancing style can be popularized, bite-sized. 11/
Something of the sort was achieved before under totalitarianism (see: Arendt.) But it was different in character. We are now seeing for the first time self-conscious, mass-cultural epistemological nihilism as a kind of carnivalesque, (faux) democratic style. 12/
And it& #39;s coming most of all from & #39;conservatives& #39;. Nihilcons. It& #39;s perfectly self-aware. It& #39;s post-truth because information is power. Social media, the world as representation. But under that there& #39;s Will. Well, if you can& #39;t beat em, join & #39;em! https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/republican-conspiracy-theory-counterprogramming">https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/r... 13/
And it isn& #39;t just & #39;elites& #39; leading some gullible base. How to put it? Everyone& #39;s psychological suspicions about what is REALLY driving the thinking on the other side has grown so suspicious. Even crude right-wing agitprop now reads like bad Nietzsche, critiquing Christianity. 14/
Populist hermeneutics of suspicion. I realize, typing this, someone is going to object: but paranoid mobs are nothing new! Yeah, but I think paranoid mobs, who come armed in part with bizarre, dueling half-sophisticated theories of the epistemology of social media? 15/
Sounds like you, Holbo! (You object.) Well, ok. I need to think about it more. I just feel like politics has gotten more self-consciously Nietzschean - in its psychology - in a way I would have heretofore doubted was possible. 16/
I wouldn& #39;t have thought it was possible for so many to be so semi-sophisticated about the psychology of discourse and critique, about the role of motivated reasoning in battles of ideas - without ceasing to be such damn idiots. 17/
So, how& #39;s by you? 18/
