Nihilism

Bulent Diken

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134055821
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

This book addresses the genealogy and consequences of nihilism, attempts at 'sociologizing' the concept of nihilism by relating nihilism to capitalism, post-politics and terrorism, and considers the possibilities of overcoming nihilism.

1
THE UNCANNY GUEST

In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgment on life: it is worthless. Even Socrates said as he died: ‘To live – that means to be a long time sick’.

(Nietzsche 1969:29)

Socrates judged life as an illness from which one can recover only by dying. What is significant in this claim, however, is not its truth value. Discussing whether life is an illness or not presupposes that one can judge life from an external point of view while one is alive. ‘One would have to be situated outside life … to be permitted to touch on the problem of the value of life at all: sufficient reason for understanding that this problem is for us an inaccessible problem’ (Nietzsche 1969:45). Therefore, Socrates’ judgment reveals another, more significant problem, the problem of negating life, or of nihilism. Socrates is the first exponent of a long tradition of thought that stands in a negative relation to life. He turned reason, will to truth, into a weapon, a new agon, with which he criticized the dominant decadent values of his time. However, by elevating reason to the level of a supreme value, he also undermined the very agonistic instincts of his contemporaries in Greece (ibid. 32). In postulating rationality as the supreme principle of the world, he destabilized the ground on which values are created, that is, life.

Thus, with Socrates, reason became an instrument of judging life from an external point of view. Later, especially with Plato, this reason posited a true, transcendent world, in relation to which the existing world is not more than a distorted, perverted copy. A world, in which humanity is ensnared by simulacra, unaware of the possibilities of flight to a higher realm, that of the Ideas. Dialectic reason is a desire for eternal values, an ideal of elevating oneself above particular perspectives, an ambition of unmasking the rational coherence of the world. This will to truth is, according to Nietzsche, essentially an escapist will, a desire to flee a world that does not obey the dictates of reason and thus hides a powerlessness: an inability to create new values that are in accordance with this world. As such, Socrates and Plato mark the beginning of an end, of the birth of nihilism as negation of life, a process popularized and turned into a mass movement by monotheistic religions.

THE FIRST MAN

Human history would be a much too stupid affair were it not for the intelligence introduced by the powerless.

(Nietzsche 1996:19)

In its origin, then, nihilism is a failure to accept the world as it is, resenting the fact that the world is devoid of a goal, unity or meaning. Further, an escapist attempt to be able to endure the meaninglessness, the chaos of the world, by trying to endow it with meaning, by imposing an illusionary totality upon it. ‘Some sort of unity, some form of “monism:” this faith suffices to give man a deep feeling of standing in the context of, and being dependent on, some whole that is infinitely superior to him and he sees himself as a mode of the deity’ (Nietzsche 1967:12). As such, the origin of nihilism is the invention of a transcendent God, a supra-sensory realm beyond earthly life, a realm that contains a goal for the earthly life as well as determining it ‘from above’ and ‘from without’ (see Heidegger 1977:64).

Characteristically, this form of nihilism – ‘negative’ or ‘religious’ nihilism – posits some values superior to life and negates life in the name of those ‘higher values’, values that are a condition of all other values: ‘If moral value is the highest value, then the value of anything else, for example art, lies in the contribution it makes to moral ends’ (Reginster 2006:35; see also Nietzsche 1967:382). However, since the existing world cannot accommodate these higher values, nihilistic religions need a transcendent authority, the divine intervention of a God, to be able to realize the higher values. In this, life here and now is devalued or negated and reduced to an ephemeral stage, a bridge to a more real existence. Thus the religious nihilist treats life ‘as a mistake … which one should rectify’ (Nietzsche 1996:96). Two concepts, ressentiment and ascetism, are crucial to understand such an evaluation of life.

Ressentiment emerges as a kind of passivity or impotence. In Nietzsche, the most essential socio-psychological differentiation is that between active and reactive (or passive) forces, and following this, the superiority of the active forces to the reactive ones, of the ‘noble’ to the ‘base’, of the ‘strong’ to the ‘weak’. Every person contains in himself a relation between active and reactive forces. Whereas in the ‘active type’ reactive forces are ‘being acted’ by active ones, that is, active forces prevail, in the ‘passive type’, or, in the man of ressentiment, reactive forces escape the action of the active forces, that is, reactive forces prevail. Consequently, as a principle, the man of ressentiment is one who does not act (Deleuze 1983:111). Crucially, however, this distinction should not be understood in quantitative but qualitative terms: the ‘weak’ is not necessarily the least strong but, as Deleuze puts it with an allusion to Spinoza, that which is ‘separated from what it can do’, or, that which cannot exert its will to power. In other words, the weak is not defined by not being triumphant. The weak can, in fact, triumph, which is of crucial significance for any discussion of nihilism. How does this process occur?

In Nietzsche, consciousness is reactive in the sense that it reacts to excitements without recording them; thanks to forgetting, for instance, we can react to new stimuli. In ressentiment, this process is blocked because the memory replaces new excitements; reaction takes the place of action (ibid. 112). In other words, the man of ressentiment does not, cannot, forget. If not taking one’s enemies, misfortunes or accidents too seriously is a sign of a surplus of power, remembering is a sign of weakness. What defines the man of ressentiment is this weakness, ‘his technique for remembering things’ (Nietzsche 1996:42). His consciousness is overrun by memory, and he reacts only to his memory, and what is remembered is of course ‘only that which hurts’ (Deleuze 1983:114). However, he cannot act but instead feels; reaction becomes something felt. And because of this incapacity for action, coupled with the incapacity to forget, he is ‘never through with anything’ (ibid. 113). A classical depiction of such a dyspeptic personality is found in Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground. Here is, for instance, how the Underground Man, who ‘will forget nothing’ (Dostoevsky 1992:7), describes his relation to another man whom he hates:

I was standing by the billiard-table and in my ignorance blocking up the way, and he wanted to pass; he took me by the shoulders and without a word – without a warning or explanation – moving me from where I was standing to another spot and passed by as though he had not noticed me. I could have forgiven blows, but I could not forgive his having moved me without noticing me.

Devil knows what I would have given for a real regular quarrel – a more decent, a more literary one, so to speak. I had been treated like a fly. This officer was over six foot, while I was a spindly little fellow. But the quarrel was in my hands. I had only to protest and I certainly would have been thrown out of the window. But I changed my mind and preferred to beat a resentful retreat. […] I have never been a coward at heart, though I have always been a coward in action.

(Dostoevsky 1992:34)

The Underground Man’s paradoxical weakness lies in his knowing that he is spiteful while he cannot act out of spite. His revenge is postponed. Ressentiment can only arise if powerful emotions such as anger, hate, spite, envy, etc. cannot find an outlet because of physical or mental weakness or fear and therefore must be suppressed (Scheler 1998:31). And when one is denied true action, imagining revenge becomes the only compensation. Revenge, that is, does not depend on a specific object but can remain imaginary or symbolic. Thus, the man of ressentiment constantly dreams of a future retaliation, that he ‘will “have it better” one day’ (Nietzsche 1996:32). Waiting, and waiting, the man of ressentiment becomes full of hatred and in this process his weakness finds its expression in the replacement of aggression with imputation of wrongs, delegation of responsibilities to others and perpetual accusation (Deleuze 1983:118). Such accusation of others is indispensable to ressentiment. This often amounts to an inability to admire others, incapacity to love, ‘a secret, spiteful, vulgar and perhaps unacknowledged instinct to belittle man’ (Nietzsche 1996:11). Thus, according to the Underground Man, ‘men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited’ (Dostoevsky 1992:11). What the man of ressentiment cannot reach up to is bad per definition.

Thus ressentiment needs a hostile, opposing world; the enemy of ressentiment can only be an ‘evil enemy’, because the man of ressentiment ‘profits’ from others’ actions (see Nietzsche 1996:24–5; Deleuze 1983:119). For this reason, one cannot assume, as Scheler (1998:33) does, that in a more egalitarian social structure, in which the ‘discrepancy’ between equality de jure and equality de facto, between individuals’ or groups’ formal status and factual power, is lessened, there would automatically be less ressentiment. The paradox here is that in such an ideal environment the man of ressentiment would be deprived of his ‘evil enemy’, the hostile world, which he can accuse for his impotence and failures. In a system strictly characterized by merit, for instance, it would be impossible for the Underground Man to perceive his failure as contingent, or undeserved (see Žižek 2008a: 76).

Only in so far as he can depict an external factor, others as evil, the man of ressentiment can be good; thus his fundamental formula: ‘You are evil, therefore I am good’, a formula based on an inversion of the master’s discourse: ‘I am good, therefore you are evil’. The strong one, on the other hand, does not need a hostile world and thus does not need to depict the other as evil a priori (Deleuze 1983:119). Significantly, however, precisely because of this inversion, ressentiment cannot be reduced to a desire for revenge; what is crucial is the means of revenge: that reactive forces escape the action of active forces gives revenge a means: ‘a means of reversing the normal relation of active and reactive forces which is why ressentiment itself is always a revolt. Ressentiment is the triumph of the weak as the weak, the revolt of the slaves and their victory as slaves’ (ibid. 116–17).

There are several illusions at work in this process. First, the man of ressentiment builds upon a fiction, the fiction of a force that can be separated from what it can do. The illusion at work here is that a force can refrain from causing effects, from exerting itself (e.g. a bird of prey that does not prey on lambs). Following this, second, the man of ressentiment projects the force (that is separated from its effect) into a subject that is presumably free, not to manifest its force, the consequence of which is to sterilize force, that is, to make it appear as the act of a subject. The emotions of revenge and hatred exploit this illusion of the subject and ‘maintain no belief with greater intensity than that the strong may freely choose to be weak and the bird of prey to be lamb – and so they win the right to blame the bird of prey for simply being a bird of prey’ (Nietzsche 1996:30). In other words, reactive forces prevail not by forming a greater force than the active forces but by separating them from what they can do. And finally, in a moment of moralizing, the man of ressentiment reverses the values and derives a morality in which the weak is depicted as superior: the lamb is good because it is eaten. Because the forces are projected onto subjects, the subjects take the blame. Thus the weak can also seem as if he has a force which he does not use, because he is ‘good’ (see Deleuze 1983:122–4). Thanks to this self-deception of powerlessness, the weakness of the weak can appear as ‘a free achievement, something willed, chosen, a deed, a merit’ (Nietzsche 1996:30). And herein lies the creativity of ressentiment, a creativity that consists in translating impotence into ‘goodness’, fear into ‘humility’, submission into ‘obedience’ (ibid. 14).

In short, then, reactive forces can seem superior through falsification (force separated from what it can), depreciation (accusation) and negation (reversal of values) (Deleuze 1983:125). But if the man of ressentiment is passive, how can action result from ressentiment? In other words, how can the man of ressentiment attain a will? In this context the figure of the priest, one of the main protagonists in the history of nihilism, is crucial. According to Nietzsche, the ‘noble’ class is not monolithic. That is, it contains competing subgroups, the most important of which are the ‘warriors’ and the ‘priests’. The ‘priests’ are those defeated by the powerful ‘warriors’ and thus develop a sense of impotence (see Nietzsche 1996:16–22). However, this impotence is repressed and is turned into ressentiment. Concomitantly, their hatred, lust for power and feelings of revenge become ‘more dangerous’ (ibid. 18). The recognition of his weakness to realize his values does not result in the priest’s reconciliation with his situation but, on the contrary, feeds his will to power (see Reginster 2006:253–4). And in the crowd of the men of ressentiment he finds what he needs: the reactive forces.

He insures the triumph of reactive forces, he needs this triumph, but he pursues an aim that is not identical to theirs. His will is will to power, his will to power is nihilism. We rediscover the fundamental proposition that nihilism, the power of denial, needs reactive forces, but also its opposite: it is nihilism, the power of denial, that leads reactive forces to triumph.

(Deleuze 1983:126)

Since the man of ressentiment is not able to act, he finds in the priest, in his will to power, a means by which he can raise himself from the impotent state of ressentiment. The priest, in turn, finds in the ressentiment of the masses the means by which he can negate the existing, sensual world in the name of a true, other world. In this sense, the priest is the figure who gives the raw material of ressentiment a form and sediments the desire for revenge further by reversing values (ibid.). He preaches that ‘the miserable alone are the good; the poor, the powerless, the low alone are the good. The suffering, the deprived, the sick, the ugly are the only pious ones, the only blessed, for them alone is there salvation’ (Nietzsche 1996:19). Hence the other, heavenly world as a utopia, a happier world, in which the powerful cannot exert their force on the weak, a world in which suffering ceases to exist, a world tailored to the abilities of the weak. Above all, a world which promises immortality. And hence the birth of Adam, or the ‘first man’, with his immortal soul.

This is, needless to say, a painful process. Ascetism is basically the process in which pain is produced and, at the same time, interiorized as feelings of guilt, fear and punishment (Nietzsche 1996:116–9; Deleuze 1983:129). Thus, with ascetism, suffering is lived as a state of (self) punishment. Indeed, before the intervention of the priest, in primitive societies, for instance, pain had merely an external meaning; it meant giving pleasure to someone who inflicts pain and enjoys others’ pain as a spectacle. As such, there is a fundamental link between cruelty and enjoyment. To clarify this link, the notion of punishment can be useful. In Nietzsche, punishment is basically a compensation, similar to the repayment of a debt. In this respect, punishing the offender, that is, inflicting pain on him, functions as a compensation for the damage done to the offended, the assumption being that damage has an equivalent, that it can be paid off, through this suffering. In this sense the relationship between damage and pain mirrors the contractual link between the creditor and the debtor (Nietzsche 1996:45). Yet the compensation is not, cannot be, a direct one. Instead, ‘a sort of pleasure is conceded to the creditor as a form of repayment and recompense – the pleasure of being able to vent his power without a second thought on someone who is powerless, the pleasure of violation’ (ibid. 46). This ‘pleasure of violation’ makes cruelty a gratifying, carnivalesque activity, which is why it has been an indispensable part of festivals. ‘No festivity without cruelty: such is the lesson of the earliest, longest period in the history of mankind – and even in punishment there is so much that is festive!’ (ibid. 48).

If cruelty consists of inflicting pain on the other, ascetism is the voluntary infliction of pain on oneself. It is ‘cruelty turned inwards against itself’ (Nietzsche 1996:118). What the priest achieved is, in other words, to give an internal meaning to cruelty, a process through which pain ceases to be evaluated from an active standpoint but becomes a matter of passion, of a ‘desire to anaesthetize pain through feeling’ (ibid. 105). As such, as an inward suffering, pain is a reaction: the priest’s intervention consists in changing the direction of ressentiment in the sense that the man of ressentiment no longer says ‘it is your fault’ but ‘it is my fault’ (Deleuze 1983:132). Importantly in this respect, by channeling ressentiment into bad conscience (ascetism), the priest can keep the mass away from becoming a destructive mob, or, defend the men of ressentiment:

against the baseness, spite, malice…. He engages his cunning in a tough and secret struggle against the anarchy of the herd, the continual threat of disintegration, the herd in which that most dangerous explosive substance, ressentiment, is piled ever higher. To discharge this explosive in such a way as to avoid blowing up either the herd or the shepherd is his greatest master-stroke, and also his greatest usefulness.

(Nietzsche 1996:105)

Then, whereas cruelty requires an external ‘enemy’, the ascetic finds it inside, the ‘enemy within’. Hence the role of sin in nihilistic religions: ‘you are alone to blame for yourself’ (Deleuze 1983:131). Ascetism makes it possible to experience suffering as self-punishment. Crucially, however contrary to the common belief, this suffering does not bring with it the renunciation of enjoyment as such; rather, it involves a specific mode of articulation of enjoyment, a ‘surplus enjoyment’ (see Zupančič 2003:47). In other words, enjoyment and the renunciation of it are not opposing but complementary flows; the ascetic ideal can posit enjoyment of pain as an intense experience and turn it into a law (ibid. 51). Paradoxically, therefore, in his struggle for mastery over life, the ascetic ‘derives enjoyment from this suffering’ (Nietzsche 1996:97).

I got to the point of feeling a sort of secret, abnormal, despicable enjoyment in returning home to my corner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutely conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a shameful accursed sweetness, and at last – into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. (Dostoevsky 1992:4)

The self-violation, voluntary dividing of the soul against itself, is as pleasurable as it is horrible. It results in an increase in the feeling of power, this time in the form of self-mastery, self-denial and self-sacrifice instead of power over the other (Nietzsche 1996:67–8). In other words, there is a fundamental search for the feeling of power in ascetism, too. Just as cruelty extracts pleasure from the suffering of the other, asceticism obtains pleasure from harming oneself. And because the ascetic derives pleasure from denouncing pleasure, his desire is paradoxically invested in this world (Nietzsche 1996:99). Here we encounter the immoral core of religious nihilism. If life is will to power, there can be no inherently moral phenomenon but only a moral evaluation of certain phenomena as moral from a certain perspective; morality is necessarily a perspective that coincides with the moralist’s conditions of life and his judgments as to these conditions (see Nie...