Nihilism anyone? Or is there hope for this society?

[Swede]

Can we build a better world from here,or is there too much greed and corruption? I still believe we have time. But not much.

[dolo amber]

1. OOOH!! OOOH!!

I vote for nihilism!! Tear it all down and start over again. ;)


:bounce: :bounce:

:party:

[Swede]

2. Please curb your enthusiasm.

[dolo amber]

4. Sorry.

I just gave up any shred of hope a looooooong time ago. Things may change a bit for the better (see: Clinton) but the pendulum always swings the other way (see: Bush). :(

[NoPasaran]

15. The urge to destroy

Is a creative urge.

Wait, that CAN'T be right. Bush cannot be Leonardo.

[alexwcovington]

3. There's hope

Always.

[JailBush]

5. Frankly,

I think we're doomed. HOWEVER, it would be incredibly stupid to give up on the entire planet just because I think we have snowball's chance in Hell. In fact, I think we COULD turn things around if we could just wake up the sheeple.

Even if the sheeple never wake up, and we do step into the abyss, I'll still keep fighting just for the sake of fighting. I prefer to die with my boots on.

[Swede]

6. The only hope for the hopeless

Is to have no hope. Not sure where I read that.

[JVS]

7. As a friend of mine said while contemplating a miserable dead-end career..

There's always alcoholism to help keep your mind off of things.

[xchrom]

8. not much hope for this country

while i am a dedicated leftist on the one hand -- when i think about americas reaction to the election theft 00, buying the bushco lies for war, not crying for blood after enron -- i become something other than optomistic on the other.
my personal opinion is that half the problem lies with the corporate facists -- but the other half lies with our fellow citizens
they are more brutal and ignorant than i have believed up til now.

[Nay]

14. "more brutal and ignorant than I have believed" yep.

That's me, too. It is disheartening to watch.

[roughsatori]

9. In Dostoevsky's novels he skewered the Nihilist movement in Russia

I have always had a penchant for nihilism, so it appears a bit more like a good thing to me then it probably does to most.

I am disgusted by the humorously named "free market" and our society's valuation of greed as a transcendent value. I would love to see it crumble.

The problem for me is I do not believe in hurting sentient beings, and intellectual nihilism seems rather a dead end.

I suppose I could opt for a library card and heroin; or maybe I should become a Priest.

[Iris]

10. well, I recently read an editorial in The Emory Wheel that

countered another editorial entitled "The War on Nice Things."

Good thing: Someone felt compelled to respond.

Bad thing: At least 1 college student thinks excessive materialism is something to be defended.

[JVS]

11. Can you give a link please? Sounds interesting.

[Karenina]

12. I made a remark

to my 5th grade teacher when we were studying pollution and its effects stating that I was certain there those able to come up with workable solutions but that there were too many dumb people who would prevent them from being implemented. She got quite angry with me. My use of the word implemented was an issue as most of my classmates didn't know what it meant. She was ALWAYS angry with me. Especially so when I told the class that our "duck and cover" drills were ridiculous because if a nuclear bomb hit we'd all be vaporized. They DID know what vaporized meant.

[Toby109]

13. Another vote for Nihilism

Let's reset the planet. Everybody starts at zero. So let's all synchronize our watches...and...Mark! See? Was that so painful?

[toddzilla]

16. nihilism..

MUST.... BUY... SUV.....

[Dirk39]

17. I think, it's getting better

and worse at the same time. But we're too slow. Anyway, it's too beautifull and sexy to fight. It's not just brutal and cynical and ugly - this idiotic barbaric capitalism, this stupid ideology with all this shit, it offers us, isn't even entertaining anymore.
I like Swedes' post. Could be Adorno or Benjamin.

"To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist. Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious."
Walter Benjamin, 1940

Hello from Germany,
Dirk