Beyond Nihilism
What postmodernism has exposed is that there is no such thing as truth. What is called or recognized as truth is just a discourse derived from the particular context. Everything has been contextualized; hence everything is interpreted depending on each specific context. The positive side of postmodernism is that so-called marginal cultures or values are no longer oppressed or "marginalized." Relativism and multiculturalism have emerged. What is oppressed or alienated as "something wrong" has been re-appreciated.
While people has started blaming the negative side of modernism such as materialism, rationalism, capitalism, destroying natural environment, or what is represented as Western rationalism and materialism, etc. in the post-modernism they have begun to appreciate that which is regarded as non-modernism or non-Western such as Oriental traditions, tribal cultures, tribal artifacts, and alternative values (that which used to be underground).
Thus, since everything that seems non-modern has been signified as post-modern, people have had inevitably the so-called pre/trans (post) fallacy. This means that even the values on pre-modernism has been considered as something post-modern. It is good to re-appreciate and re-visit the tribal values based on such post-modern attitude, but it might be problematic if we cannot differentiate between pre-modern things and post-modern ones. We should not forget the fact that modernity is that which could overcome the negative side of pre-modernity such as tribal cruelty, religious wars, slavery, dehumanized social practices, numerous superstitious beliefs.
Superstitious beliefs might contain the profound wisdom just as any great religions have it in one way or another. But again, the point is how to grasp such wisdom without being confused by the naive superstitions. Of course it is not that we change the religious wisdom into the conventional moral ethics. There are still the levels from esthetics to ethics and to religious spirituality, which means that what religious wisdom teaches us is much more than the sum of esthetics and ethics. In such religious, spiritual dimension, a certain paradoxical phrasing may be inevitably involved and such phrasing sounds superstitious in a sense, but the important and crucial thing is how to grasp the true paradoxical phrasing out of the superstitious anecdotes.
Thus, in my understanding, for example Jung has spent his time to study myths. However, it seems that a number of his followers had become just superstitious. It seems that there is such kind of pre/trans fallacy in the Jungian attempts. It is true that there is the profound wisdom in any myths and tribal traditions; however, it is NOT that we should worship the whole entity of them. That leads us merely to the pre-modern romanticism.
It is, however, also difficult for post-modern people to grasp such universal wisdom out of the diverse great religions and minor tribal traditions despite their multi-cultural, relativistic attitude. Why? It is because they believe the fact that there is no such thing as truth but truths. Since they are supposed to have overcome modernism, they no longer believe that there is a single universal truth. The attitude of modernism is to search for something universal and objective. Modernism is the age of objectivism that is related to rational logic, materialism and quantification. However, if they could really overcome (transcend and include) the mean side of modernism, then they could have retained a certain positive side of modern "universalism" that do not allow the post-modern people to become "extreme relativism" -- the stance that there is really nothing to be universally shared throughout the diversity – that leads us nihilism.
Extreme relativism is the attitude that one denies any kind of discourses, or it is the stance that one has given up to pursue a certain universal wisdom through discourse. In other words, it is that one totally has given up one's intellectual pursuit to reach the wisdom. That is why, it is commonly said that the death of philosophy, the death of meta-narrative, or the death of the author in the case of text analysis. Everything is interpretation; hence what one says truth is what is created on the particular context. We do not have any criteria to prove the truthfulness on what he or she is insisting as truth. Thus, at least what we can say is scarcely that there are merely many truths depending on the context. We cannot rely on anything in this everything-is-relative world.
This is called nihilism. It may also take place in the individual level saying "I cannot believe anything" or "I cannot trust anyone" or "I believe nothing." When we were naive enough, we used easily to believe anyone. We easily trust people around us. And that was of course considered as the good value. If you trust them, they also trust you. Mutual trustworthy is indispensable in our wholesome lives.
However, in an unfortunate occasion, some might be betrayed by people around all the time. Or, if you have encountered an extremely painful betrayal, it is somewhat understandable that you can no longer trust anyone. This teaches us that such untrustworthy, rude conditions produce doubtful people. If you do not trust anyone, then they do not trust you, either. And then, your nihilism gets stronger and stronger. Untrustworthy produces untrustworthy. Doubt produces doubt. Malice produces malice. In short, bad people produce bad people. The very source of nihilism is actually nihilism itself. Then, if you are in such nihilistic despair of bad-produces-bad vicious circle, then how can you save yourself? How can you go back to the wholesome condition that you can trust anyone not naively but authentically?
In the pre-modernity we could trust only people who belong to our group (tribe, religious group, nation-state. exclusive community and institute, etc) that is called ethnocentric love. In the modernity we have started looking for something universal by which we can overcome such ethnocentric love that is the very source of any kinds of warfare. The objective (rational logic and quantitative) agreement was one of such solutions. But in this condition we can not still achieve the so-called world-centric love in which we can trust anyone authentically.
The objective agreement was just one of the remedies that control and tame our doubt and suspicion. There is still no trust. For, in this condition we can just say that I trust you as long as both of us follow this contract. Pre-modernity is the membership agreement. That is to say, I trust you because you are the member of my group (family, tribe, ethnic group, religion, nation-state, etc). Modernity is the contractual agreement; I trust you because of this contract. Probably the modern agreement has now been implemented in the international diplomatic relationship. I can trust you but also I can attack you if you violate the treaty, etc.
In the postmodernism, however, such power of contract has become dysfunctional. For, nobody believes what is said -- The meta-narrative is dead in this paradigm. If in the macro level such as international relationship, such post-modern nihilism has happened, what is the consequence? As we see it nowadays, it seems that we have gone back to the pre-modern worldview. Nobody believes what is written. Nobody follows the diplomatic procedure -- the typical example is terrorism. The terrorism is the result that post-modern nihilism has married the pre-modern tribalism and cruelty. They are not rational at all (lack of modernism); they are very nihilistic (post-modern) to the extent that they do not care even if innocent civilians are killed and they can kill anyone (pre-modern cruelty); and they are fanatic enough to believe their own tribal narrow worldview (pre-modern tribalism, ethnocentrism).
Nihilism is such a dangerous mentality to produce the cruel terrorism. However, it is also a kind of necessary step to lead us to the world-centric stance. For example, if we no longer trust anyone, what should we do? What post-modern nihilists have chosen was firstly to believe nothing and nobody -- the death of truth and God. Secondly they just go back to the pre-modern fanaticism -- the new age occultism. The commonality in both attitudes is that they are still struggling to find something to believe in this world. Even in the first attitude, they believe nothing, which means that they believe in their view that there is noting for them to believe. For them, such nihilism is their own truth on which they can scarcely be alive. If so, what should we do and what we can do?
What we can do is that we have to contemplate on our very attitude that we tend always to believe or look for something or someone out there. Indeed, what we should believe is NOT out there -- not in the dualistic stance. The truth is that once we stop searching for what we should believe and trust in this very world (this is different from nihilism), then we can find the authentic truth that has been always and already with us. Only from this realization we can cease the worldly conflicts and start the so-called world-centric love.
While people has started blaming the negative side of modernism such as materialism, rationalism, capitalism, destroying natural environment, or what is represented as Western rationalism and materialism, etc. in the post-modernism they have begun to appreciate that which is regarded as non-modernism or non-Western such as Oriental traditions, tribal cultures, tribal artifacts, and alternative values (that which used to be underground).
Thus, since everything that seems non-modern has been signified as post-modern, people have had inevitably the so-called pre/trans (post) fallacy. This means that even the values on pre-modernism has been considered as something post-modern. It is good to re-appreciate and re-visit the tribal values based on such post-modern attitude, but it might be problematic if we cannot differentiate between pre-modern things and post-modern ones. We should not forget the fact that modernity is that which could overcome the negative side of pre-modernity such as tribal cruelty, religious wars, slavery, dehumanized social practices, numerous superstitious beliefs.
Superstitious beliefs might contain the profound wisdom just as any great religions have it in one way or another. But again, the point is how to grasp such wisdom without being confused by the naive superstitions. Of course it is not that we change the religious wisdom into the conventional moral ethics. There are still the levels from esthetics to ethics and to religious spirituality, which means that what religious wisdom teaches us is much more than the sum of esthetics and ethics. In such religious, spiritual dimension, a certain paradoxical phrasing may be inevitably involved and such phrasing sounds superstitious in a sense, but the important and crucial thing is how to grasp the true paradoxical phrasing out of the superstitious anecdotes.
Thus, in my understanding, for example Jung has spent his time to study myths. However, it seems that a number of his followers had become just superstitious. It seems that there is such kind of pre/trans fallacy in the Jungian attempts. It is true that there is the profound wisdom in any myths and tribal traditions; however, it is NOT that we should worship the whole entity of them. That leads us merely to the pre-modern romanticism.
It is, however, also difficult for post-modern people to grasp such universal wisdom out of the diverse great religions and minor tribal traditions despite their multi-cultural, relativistic attitude. Why? It is because they believe the fact that there is no such thing as truth but truths. Since they are supposed to have overcome modernism, they no longer believe that there is a single universal truth. The attitude of modernism is to search for something universal and objective. Modernism is the age of objectivism that is related to rational logic, materialism and quantification. However, if they could really overcome (transcend and include) the mean side of modernism, then they could have retained a certain positive side of modern "universalism" that do not allow the post-modern people to become "extreme relativism" -- the stance that there is really nothing to be universally shared throughout the diversity – that leads us nihilism.
Extreme relativism is the attitude that one denies any kind of discourses, or it is the stance that one has given up to pursue a certain universal wisdom through discourse. In other words, it is that one totally has given up one's intellectual pursuit to reach the wisdom. That is why, it is commonly said that the death of philosophy, the death of meta-narrative, or the death of the author in the case of text analysis. Everything is interpretation; hence what one says truth is what is created on the particular context. We do not have any criteria to prove the truthfulness on what he or she is insisting as truth. Thus, at least what we can say is scarcely that there are merely many truths depending on the context. We cannot rely on anything in this everything-is-relative world.
This is called nihilism. It may also take place in the individual level saying "I cannot believe anything" or "I cannot trust anyone" or "I believe nothing." When we were naive enough, we used easily to believe anyone. We easily trust people around us. And that was of course considered as the good value. If you trust them, they also trust you. Mutual trustworthy is indispensable in our wholesome lives.
However, in an unfortunate occasion, some might be betrayed by people around all the time. Or, if you have encountered an extremely painful betrayal, it is somewhat understandable that you can no longer trust anyone. This teaches us that such untrustworthy, rude conditions produce doubtful people. If you do not trust anyone, then they do not trust you, either. And then, your nihilism gets stronger and stronger. Untrustworthy produces untrustworthy. Doubt produces doubt. Malice produces malice. In short, bad people produce bad people. The very source of nihilism is actually nihilism itself. Then, if you are in such nihilistic despair of bad-produces-bad vicious circle, then how can you save yourself? How can you go back to the wholesome condition that you can trust anyone not naively but authentically?
In the pre-modernity we could trust only people who belong to our group (tribe, religious group, nation-state. exclusive community and institute, etc) that is called ethnocentric love. In the modernity we have started looking for something universal by which we can overcome such ethnocentric love that is the very source of any kinds of warfare. The objective (rational logic and quantitative) agreement was one of such solutions. But in this condition we can not still achieve the so-called world-centric love in which we can trust anyone authentically.
The objective agreement was just one of the remedies that control and tame our doubt and suspicion. There is still no trust. For, in this condition we can just say that I trust you as long as both of us follow this contract. Pre-modernity is the membership agreement. That is to say, I trust you because you are the member of my group (family, tribe, ethnic group, religion, nation-state, etc). Modernity is the contractual agreement; I trust you because of this contract. Probably the modern agreement has now been implemented in the international diplomatic relationship. I can trust you but also I can attack you if you violate the treaty, etc.
In the postmodernism, however, such power of contract has become dysfunctional. For, nobody believes what is said -- The meta-narrative is dead in this paradigm. If in the macro level such as international relationship, such post-modern nihilism has happened, what is the consequence? As we see it nowadays, it seems that we have gone back to the pre-modern worldview. Nobody believes what is written. Nobody follows the diplomatic procedure -- the typical example is terrorism. The terrorism is the result that post-modern nihilism has married the pre-modern tribalism and cruelty. They are not rational at all (lack of modernism); they are very nihilistic (post-modern) to the extent that they do not care even if innocent civilians are killed and they can kill anyone (pre-modern cruelty); and they are fanatic enough to believe their own tribal narrow worldview (pre-modern tribalism, ethnocentrism).
Nihilism is such a dangerous mentality to produce the cruel terrorism. However, it is also a kind of necessary step to lead us to the world-centric stance. For example, if we no longer trust anyone, what should we do? What post-modern nihilists have chosen was firstly to believe nothing and nobody -- the death of truth and God. Secondly they just go back to the pre-modern fanaticism -- the new age occultism. The commonality in both attitudes is that they are still struggling to find something to believe in this world. Even in the first attitude, they believe nothing, which means that they believe in their view that there is noting for them to believe. For them, such nihilism is their own truth on which they can scarcely be alive. If so, what should we do and what we can do?
What we can do is that we have to contemplate on our very attitude that we tend always to believe or look for something or someone out there. Indeed, what we should believe is NOT out there -- not in the dualistic stance. The truth is that once we stop searching for what we should believe and trust in this very world (this is different from nihilism), then we can find the authentic truth that has been always and already with us. Only from this realization we can cease the worldly conflicts and start the so-called world-centric love.
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