This essay is without a doubt the best distillation of what many of us are thinking, but conveyed more eloquently and better cited.
You end with a call for change and for decent men and women to come together to defend a rational and free society. The question is, how? The nihilist Left controls literally every institution in America now. Heck, we've even seen high ranking military officers posting screeds online praising Kirk's murder. The Left is deeply organized while those on the Right are like a herd of cats. There's no obvious core of strong leadership for an opposition to coalesce around. As you point out, the nihilists have been at this for 75 years at least. So what's the plan to turn this ship around?
I have the uncomfortable feeling that all the ills our Founders warned against and provided us with a Constitution to mitigate, are coming to fruition. We've reached a tipping point where at least half of the voters in this Country buy into nihilism.
We've had remarkable success because of the principles our Country was founded on and previous generations put into practice over the last 250 years. What's to become of us when so many of the Country's citizens abandon those principles?
You have carefully crafted an essay to identify A SINGLE societal problem and then chose to use your pen like a sledgehammer to drive the wedge that divides the “left” and “right” just a little deeper. I’m sure that anyone who read this all the way through now feels more justified in beliefs already held.
I'm not sure I agree the cause is "nihilism." These malefactors don't believe life or culture or politics is meaninglessness. They believe in power, societal control and the total elimination of opposition. Their philosophy is based on fear, paranoia and cultural conquest, and in their maniacal pursuits of power they find great meaning. Secondly, I'm not sure the priority of the moment is the triumph of "ideas." Charlie believed in that and was succeeding brilliantly at promulgating his ideas and was assassinated. The priority should be militant legal and political measures to prosecute the NGOs and funders and ideological monsters behind this movement, to publicly expose them and to rout them from our world. As you say, this is a war. We're beyond debates.
The left certainly has a history of supporting anti-colonial and revolutionary violence of various kinds. But this was explicit, and not something taking place in the shadows. Which are the NGOs and funders and ideological monsters of whom you speak? Is Kendi an ideological monster or simply someone with ideas that will not help the people for whom he claims to speak? Soros, really? Anyways, I'm genuinely curious to know which individuals and institutions you hold responsible for the supposed moral collapse of our civilization. I would put much more weight on loneliness and social media and what happens to young men when they have mental health problems and spend way too much time online living in alternative realities.
"loneliness and social media and what happens to young men when they have mental health problems and spend way too much time online living in alternative realities."
Indeed. Couple that with the pathetic state of our universities, whose funding should be closely scrutinized, and you have 'the perfect storm'.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote. The Raskolnikov analogy is especially powerful, as is most of what Dostoevsky wrote. However, I disagree that Nietzsche was a nihilist. If anything, his desire to create the “Ubermensch” was a desire to transcend nihilism after rationality had “killed God.” Nietzsche was a prophet, but not a proponent, of nihilism. Indeed, he and Dostoevsky were remarkably prescient about what would burst forth from the abyss. They just had very different ways of responding. I believe Dostoevsky was ultimately right, and that is why his thinking is the key to any ability to recover faith in the transcendent, which is the only antidote to the malady of modernity that is nihilism.
An impassioned and perspicacious analysis of two murders and the socio-political pathology that gave rise to them. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche diagnosed nihilism in their times and Nietzsche predicted that it would cast a long shadow well into the 21st century. He saw nihilism as an inevitable outcome of the dissolution of dogmatic metaphysics, which prioritized an invented world (an eternal supernatural realm, eternality of the soul, and so on) over the actual world (nature, earth, the cosmos.) In this sense he considered Christianity as being implicitly nihilistic. The Left has taken over the ethics of "unselfing" humanity from Christianity as it rejects the metaphysics of Christianity. (Nietzsche uses the word "Entselbstung") Thus, according to Nietzsche the Left is making the implicit nihilism at the core of all dogmatic metaphysics explicit. The results are described in harrowing detail in this essay.
Very well put, and spot on. I've written about the movie Billy Jack, which I saw when I was a kid. It was all there, and all the 'kids' in the Billy Jack film are the leaders of our institutions now.
One more point: the US is the shining vanguard of the West and the world. It is the only one really battling those dark forces. If the light does not win in the US, ...
Thank you for this profound analysis. America and the west has become a very scary place! I’m so glad I’m in Israel, where I think things are better on that front at least.
If I make another mention of a relevant poem to describe the culture’s state:
This essay is without a doubt the best distillation of what many of us are thinking, but conveyed more eloquently and better cited.
You end with a call for change and for decent men and women to come together to defend a rational and free society. The question is, how? The nihilist Left controls literally every institution in America now. Heck, we've even seen high ranking military officers posting screeds online praising Kirk's murder. The Left is deeply organized while those on the Right are like a herd of cats. There's no obvious core of strong leadership for an opposition to coalesce around. As you point out, the nihilists have been at this for 75 years at least. So what's the plan to turn this ship around?
I have the uncomfortable feeling that all the ills our Founders warned against and provided us with a Constitution to mitigate, are coming to fruition. We've reached a tipping point where at least half of the voters in this Country buy into nihilism.
We've had remarkable success because of the principles our Country was founded on and previous generations put into practice over the last 250 years. What's to become of us when so many of the Country's citizens abandon those principles?
You have written a powerful and important message (a warning really).
Will enough people stop and think about its meaning?
I hope so.
You have carefully crafted an essay to identify A SINGLE societal problem and then chose to use your pen like a sledgehammer to drive the wedge that divides the “left” and “right” just a little deeper. I’m sure that anyone who read this all the way through now feels more justified in beliefs already held.
I'm not sure I agree the cause is "nihilism." These malefactors don't believe life or culture or politics is meaninglessness. They believe in power, societal control and the total elimination of opposition. Their philosophy is based on fear, paranoia and cultural conquest, and in their maniacal pursuits of power they find great meaning. Secondly, I'm not sure the priority of the moment is the triumph of "ideas." Charlie believed in that and was succeeding brilliantly at promulgating his ideas and was assassinated. The priority should be militant legal and political measures to prosecute the NGOs and funders and ideological monsters behind this movement, to publicly expose them and to rout them from our world. As you say, this is a war. We're beyond debates.
The left certainly has a history of supporting anti-colonial and revolutionary violence of various kinds. But this was explicit, and not something taking place in the shadows. Which are the NGOs and funders and ideological monsters of whom you speak? Is Kendi an ideological monster or simply someone with ideas that will not help the people for whom he claims to speak? Soros, really? Anyways, I'm genuinely curious to know which individuals and institutions you hold responsible for the supposed moral collapse of our civilization. I would put much more weight on loneliness and social media and what happens to young men when they have mental health problems and spend way too much time online living in alternative realities.
"loneliness and social media and what happens to young men when they have mental health problems and spend way too much time online living in alternative realities."
Indeed. Couple that with the pathetic state of our universities, whose funding should be closely scrutinized, and you have 'the perfect storm'.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote. The Raskolnikov analogy is especially powerful, as is most of what Dostoevsky wrote. However, I disagree that Nietzsche was a nihilist. If anything, his desire to create the “Ubermensch” was a desire to transcend nihilism after rationality had “killed God.” Nietzsche was a prophet, but not a proponent, of nihilism. Indeed, he and Dostoevsky were remarkably prescient about what would burst forth from the abyss. They just had very different ways of responding. I believe Dostoevsky was ultimately right, and that is why his thinking is the key to any ability to recover faith in the transcendent, which is the only antidote to the malady of modernity that is nihilism.
Powerful, moving and simply amazing article.
Excellent analysis.
To the fighters for civilization, I'll say: if you're not already personally armed, learn how to do so. Defend the value that is your life.
👍 Thank you for writing this essay.
An impassioned and perspicacious analysis of two murders and the socio-political pathology that gave rise to them. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche diagnosed nihilism in their times and Nietzsche predicted that it would cast a long shadow well into the 21st century. He saw nihilism as an inevitable outcome of the dissolution of dogmatic metaphysics, which prioritized an invented world (an eternal supernatural realm, eternality of the soul, and so on) over the actual world (nature, earth, the cosmos.) In this sense he considered Christianity as being implicitly nihilistic. The Left has taken over the ethics of "unselfing" humanity from Christianity as it rejects the metaphysics of Christianity. (Nietzsche uses the word "Entselbstung") Thus, according to Nietzsche the Left is making the implicit nihilism at the core of all dogmatic metaphysics explicit. The results are described in harrowing detail in this essay.
Very well put, and spot on. I've written about the movie Billy Jack, which I saw when I was a kid. It was all there, and all the 'kids' in the Billy Jack film are the leaders of our institutions now.
Brad,
Once again, a very descriptive and well-written essay, that should be shouted from the rooftops!
Wish you hadn't used "Just do it!", an empty ad slogan, to describe seriously girding one's loins and standing tall in what may be serious battle.
But otherwise, an excellent essay - cheers!
Point taken.
Thanks.
One more point: the US is the shining vanguard of the West and the world. It is the only one really battling those dark forces. If the light does not win in the US, ...
Thank you for this profound analysis. America and the west has become a very scary place! I’m so glad I’m in Israel, where I think things are better on that front at least.
If I make another mention of a relevant poem to describe the culture’s state:
The Waste Land by T.S Eliot.
Spelling error:
"They’re saying the quiet part out load, and the ideological cat is out of the institutional bag."
Of course, should be “out loud.” Darn those spell-check (but not grammar-check) programs… they must have attended the public school system.
Corrected.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you Professor Thompson