Call it Nihilism, if You Will

Call it Nihilism, if you will, but it's not that I don't believe in anything . . . . . .

I'm getting on my soapbox tonight because philosphy and religion are having an increasingly large influence on my life, on a personal note.

In 1996, the band TOOL recorded an album called Aenima, the title having been said to be a combination of the Jungian term 'Anima' or 'Animus' and the word enema (and I pray sorrowfully you all know what THAT is). In the liner notes, a naive and yet somewhat respectable conclusion was drawn by the writer (whoever he or she may be) after a long tirade of medical and metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. The conlusion was succinct: "Beliefs are dangerous. Believe in nothing."

I read one critic's reaction: "Does this include subscribing to the beliefs of TOOL?" I see his point, but I would cut them (and writer) a break in not going that far in criticizing them. There's always a catch-22, isn't there?

And yet, even if I somewhat dismiss the idea put forth in the album jacket, I seem to be dismissing an awful lot of ideas these days, even going so far as to feel alienated by ideas approaching personal responsibility, from time to time. In the end, I see how ideas in their very fabric have the potential to be inherently fascist.

Wait! Hear me out here: I'm not saying that ideas are bad. They most certainly are NOT. What I am saying is that I've come to a point in my life (in my jadedness??) in which the long-held idea that it is people, and not ideas, that are fascist has led me to a point where I am increasinlgy skeptical of adopting, and sometimes even ENTERTAINING ideas as "truth."

Perhaps there is no truth. Perhaps this is why I feel buoyant in seeing an early Jane's Addiction interview in which Dave Navarro's advice to a young generation eagerly watching him on MTV (EmptyV?) was "There is no meaning in life." Perhaps this is what made the idea of deism so interesting (interesting, and yet not necessarily "appealing" per se). Deism is generally a belief in which God created the world, but no longer cares about it, including the idea of a God as the "grand watchmaker" who wound the world up and set it forth, unmolested, on it's due course.

I am increasingly exposed to the tenants of religion in my personal life, and to the tenants of philosophy in my personal life. Philosophy has, for a long time, been looked at almost like the "nicer" sister of religion. It seems more accepting, more complicated, more affable and acceptable, and more thoughtful than those old "imposing," "preachy" religions. Religion caused people to be burned at the stake. Religion resulted in the Crusades. Religion resulted in the tyranny that proceeded in earnest after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Religion resulted in the attacks during Yom Kippur in 1973. These too, are all naive. Religion was more often a scapegoat for these actions, but that doesn't dimiss it entrirely.

My real point is this: is philosophy REALLY fascist-free? Of course not. However, I must go further in asking how much less prone to tyrannical inclinations is it than religion? I've more recently than not seem some shades, some faint bastions, if you will, of intolerance as I've been exposed to philosophical thought in a way that is much deeper than any of the readings I'd done prior. The thought is unsettling, to say the least.

An example: a great many philosophers of note approach the Platonic idea that we are all incomplete, that we cannot yet recognize the Forms, particularly the Form of Beauty. We know Beauty only through superficial and sensual means, and that this keeps us where we are in our lives. That idea is notable, even somewhat admirable. But it also can be taken (or used) in another way. I'm tired of this notion that I am in a superficial stage, that I am less evolved because I think someone is attractive, and that that attractiveness is, in part, the basis for a relationship with them. I can like someone for whatever reason I damn well please, thank you very much. I can live a sensual life all I want, and it doesn't mean I can't advance in my understnading. It may even heighten it.

According to some, I may advance in my understanding of the existence of beauty, on how something is beautiful, and on knowing why something is beautiful, but I can never know Beauty Itself because I am a mere mortal tethered to the logic of homo-sapiens. I recognize this only in part because I also recognize it is limiting and as an idea that sets up ridiculous standards that, like Chrisitanity, alsmost seem to SHAME people for being who they are. YOU don't understand. YOU are less evolved. I say "You want to be superficial? Be superficial! And don't you let ANYONE tell you it is wrong or less evolved." In the end, I just want to experience and to be myself. I may be tethered to the logic of a man, but I won't willingly tether myself to anyone else's ideas, high-falutin' or not, either.

In the end, I am just a very alienated young man who, as many others, has been offered a red apple that turned out to be poisoned one too many times in his life, a young man who is increasingly reticent to entertain ideas with any sense of sincerety in his heart. My conclusion is increasingly that yes, it is not ideas, but the people who wield them that cause problems. If that is the case, then I will simply keep my beliefs on things of greater magnitude than politics (this includes abortion, of course) to myself. I may someday come to a hard-won victory that is genuine belief, or faith, but I will not share it willingly with others. And yes, before you call me on it, I know I did just that.