It doesn't matter how loathesome a writer can make a character, or how blatantly they point and shout "this is a bad person"; someone will reply "that's my hero".
I love the constant clash between "Waaaaah you're not being media literate!' and "Waaaaah it doesn't matter because the author is dead!" It will go on forever and ever and ever and ever
Just look at how many people just LOVE Killmonger, even when in his opening scene he's shown to have no respect for the cultures of those he claims to be helping.
We really are developing some Eastern European personality traits as our state ideology collapses. Historically the seeds are certainly there, a new and ferociously nationalistic people build a state on a pile of corpses, have some wars, experience of taste of empire, and melt into a slurry of dead dreams and artful nihilism. Then again maybe that's just what happens to most countries, and it's mostly a question of where a given nation is in its character arc.
I was pleasantly surprised by what a good narrator of another author’s text Woolie is. What I heard of the reading sounded just as good as stuff on Audible.
I've seen that mindset in 3 other examples that are worrisome (even though I usually don't like to call out people): - People watching American Psycho and thinking the main lead is the ideal way to deal with society. - Those who think "Sigma Males" are based or cool in any fashion. - The people who think Senator Armstrong is actually right in his philosophy. Not getting that even though he influenced Raiden by the end, his ideal is monstrous and will fall apart after some time.
I don't even remember what movie "Tomorrow Will Be Mine" was even from, after I learned the usual pieces of shit started singing it like an anthem at their rallies.
@@leithaziz2716 that's why the most effective lies start with truth Armstrong starts by lying and Raiden calls him out Then you get his actual thoughts and they mirror Raiden the difference being Raiden lived his life while armstrong is glorifying it, to Raiden what he did is not praise worthy but Armstrong argues that made him strong and in a way he's right struggle did make Raiden strong but it broke him as a person, he still has ptsd and actively fights his inner demons on a daily What Armstrong wants is only the good parts of Raidens struggle while clearly ignoring the bad that also spawned from it hense why his words appeal to people, they sound good on the surface but ultimately only lead to anarchy and no structure
To be frank, I'm still rather young so I'm not sure how much I can speak on this (and what is coming is pretty much a rant, so a warning ahead), but I *really* hate this current mentality in the internet that someone doing something unprofessional or insulting something/someone makes them cool or "based". For a common example: Guy X asks tries to ask guy Y what he thinks of this thing he likes --> guy Y replies "I don't like it, it sucks" --> the audience responds with "based". Meanwhile, I scratch my head going "Why are we celebrating this? Shouldn't it be a letdown that this person couldn't enjoy the topic in question?". The whole "let's agree to disagree" or "You are entitled to your opinion, but mine differs from yours" mentality is pretty much treated like it's embarrassing, and I don't get it.
Woolie's misattribution of the idea of the "pale bomb" to Nilssen rather than Rodionov have really tanked his takes on Pjõl. While Rodionov wanted to use the pale as a weapon, Nilssen states that he loves the world and while he's talking about communism, the pale actively retreats from him, with the only other time this seems to happen being momentarily when Ulv plays his swansong into the pale.
It's so disappointing a lot of the times when people talk about nihilism because everyone gets so caught up on the first half of it within the question "Is there any non-subjective meaning or value in the universe" that they never even begin to question the second part of nihilism, which is "This allows me to decide for myself what truly has meaning and what doesn't. A life of completely subjective meaning." It's the most misunderstood and influential philosophical movement in western culture that is so casually described incorrectly or conflated with pessimism gibberish that it borders on disgusting at times. When referred to correctly, it often opens up a question of "Are humans inherently good or are they bad?" But its themes rely on the premise that there is no non-subjective concept of good or bad. That's entirely up to the lens of who is observing the actions and what perspective they have. But if people relied entirely upon their own moral codes instead of a greater one brought forth by society, wouldn't the world just burn? No, of course not. Society began in such a world out of a wish for people with similar views to operate with each other for protection and beneficial life conditions. It is when power dynamics crept into play that culture gradually got muddied to the point that these relationships grew into hierarchies that everyone accepts and it began to be "evil/bad" to go against them. And things that support this hierarchy became "good". To understand that better, one can look at who is "allowed" to commit acts of violence within a society. Namely, the police or a military force. The laws, to the best of their reasonable ability, disallow common people from committing acts of violence against each other outside of the most extreme circumstance (like self-defense, but you REALLY have to prove that) or situations where the factors are under control and danger is limited (like boxing). But even if it's a necessity sometimes to use violence to solve issues where there are no other way, like when dealing with someone who's criminally deviant and threatening others' lives, why are the police specifically allowed to do this specifically? They receive training, sure, but what IS that training really? But it's clearly not perfect since so many infractions on human rights and life are perpetrated by cops constantly. You could even make the argument that the training is useless if the individual does not already have the moral integrity to "do good". But if a civilian has that same moral integrity and the resources at hand to deal with a deviant in that situation, why are they not allowed the same freedom of aggression that the police are? Why is vigilantism perceived as bad even in a case where they're completely mimicking the police? There are some obvious answers to that, of course, but they never fully answer the question. Ideally, cops are trained to limit risk and ensure others' safety as a priority so more harm doesn't come from confrontation. And if the vigilante in question has morality that would endanger innocent bystanders or, even worse, criminalize innocent people in their own eyes by dehumanizing them and harming them unfairly. But that first assumes that police are entirely competent and the latter assumes that the person is incompetent, which we've often seen is not the case. That's only the skin of an issue on "Why are state officials and enforcement allowed power through violence that civilians are not allowed" which questions the hierarchy. Are police "good guys", or should we stop giving morality titles to positions like police and see people who sometimes do good things and sometimes do bad things? If you think the latter, you're leaning towards subjectiveness in morality rather than absolutes. But that doesn't mean you don't have any morality at all, it just means your questioning and deciding it for yourself. Which is Nihilism.
I believe what you're describing there in the first paragraph is Existentialism. Perhaps my understanding is incorrect, but I thought Nihilism referred *specifically* to the pessimistic assertion that there is no meaning to anything in the universe, with Existentialism being the positive evolution of that notion. People who never make it to believing in the latter are referred to as nihilists, believing that no matter what they do or think, nothing will ever achieve meaning. Or to put it simply: Nihilism sees no meaning where there is none; Existentialism _determines_ meaning where there is none, dependent on the whims of the individual.
That's becuse you dont need the irst half to get to the second half. You can believe that there is a meaning to life outside of yourself and that you can create your own meaning on top of that.
No the first commenter is correct that's Existentialism. Nihilism is pretty much just what the first half describes. But that's not to say the other line of thinking isn't deeply flawed as well, if you want to know why look up Egoism/Max Stirner. The flaws and end point of that perspective are self evident. Though this is all down stream from Hume's "Is-Ought problem". Though from a different angle even ignoring that, Existentialism is cut off by Nihilism because if nothing matters even the new meaning you come up with doesn't matter. Ultimately you're either living out "political power flows out of the barrel of a gun" or you're just engaging in philosophical masturbation because there becomes no point in accepting an outside perspective nor offering one. Leaving pragmatism as an unspoken default and people will just sway in the breeze of who or what is most powerful at the moment Edit: And to any extent someone DOES have morality under such a paradigm it's in all likelihood a remnant of older systems, or to put it another way every criminal thinks he shouldn't be punished, no society can exist under an actual existentialist paradigm
@@cyberninjazero5659 existentialism and nihilism arent really distinctly different schools of thought, there’s a decent amount of overlap. Or rather, they’re both lenses to see things through rather than completely different schools of thought one needs to tie themselves to. Especially with how loosely we define existentialism. Egoism is very similar in the since that you’re evaluating through your own morality, it’s typically a more hypocritical line of thinking since you’re attempting to judge others based on your own set of rules and premises, often without allowing yourself to be influenced by others
The story about the film at the end reminds me almost exactly of a film called “American History X” and how it was adopted by the very people it was trying to criticize
No, the film you're looking for is the German film "Er Ist Wieder Da" or "Look Who's Back" from 2015. It's a film exploring a fictional scenario where at the end of WW2, "führer" did NOT self-ventilate and instead was somehow magically transported to 2015 Germany and was discovered by a TV studio executive and basically given his own talk show. The moral of the movie is "the potential for Hitler is inside us all", but the way its shot it seems more like propaganda on the surface level except for one scene where the führer shoots a dog for biting him and this obviously tacked on scene at the very end showing the horrors of the German WW2 government. You can guess what the "less than appropriate" audience think of this film, despite its attempt at messaging the opposite.
@@Null_Experis No, American History X was co-opted by supremacists because their takeaway of the ending isn't that Edward Nortons character meets his end because of the bigotry he harbors fosters his own demise, but that the skin color of his killer proves everything he believes right and justifies him.
I was unfortunate enough to have my very first discord server containing individuals who love...certain parts of this movie. Especially the curbstomp one. I was young then. I learned. I left. It's sad cos there's a lotta friendly nerds there who don't like that kinda talk either but I've lost contact with them.
@@Null_Experisyeah that one is another good example of it. Great film but the message is misinterpreted because the film doesn’t yell the message to the audience directly. For some people subtly can be too subtle
i'm not as knowledgeable as i want to be but i always understood nihilism as accepting the meanigless of existence and everything on it. With no real "appropiate" response to it, but there lots of people deluded with life becoming childish cynical thinking that nihilism is just pointing out to people laughing saying they are dumb for caring for anything and that ends up being the image people get of nihilism
nihilism is being content with not being the center of the universe, that at the end of the day life goes on with or without you, you aren't special no one is, and that's fine, rather than everything sucks so why bother that stuff like Rick and Morty push
Nihilism is just the belief that reality does not have objective meaning. There's a bunch of different philosophical stuff that branches off from there, like existentialism and absurdism, but those are their own thing building off of nihilism, which is just the one belief. It's like atheism. It's just the disbelief/lack of belief in any deity, but people pin all sorts of stuff to it that have nothing to do with the one, base belief, so the definition gets muddy over time.
I feel like the obvious counter to nihilism is the recognition that what we do still matters, even if it doesn't seem like it in the great extent of the cosmos. Arguably the most powerful moment in the game for me was the conversion of the church into a dance hall. At the macro level, it's implied that communal, emotional experiences like that are the only thing capable of fending off the Pale, but even if it doesn't succeed, at least you're there, dancing with your friends, experiencing joy and hope in the face of the apocalypse. It's pure head-canon, of course, but in my mind, the ideal ending of the Disco Elysium series is that the Pale rolls in, enveloping the world as it's implied to have done countless times in the past. Except for Revachol, thanks to its half-mad savior, who created places like the church in his years of gonzo detective work, leaving it as a beacon for when the pale fades again and civilization begins anew.
Oh, and I forgot to mention another obvious example of this philosophy in Everything Everywhere All at Once, which has quickly become one of my favorite movies. Compare the philosophical arguments at the end of act 2 versus the end of the movie for how nihilism is presented and ultimately rejected.
@@EmperorSeth I think you're greatly misunderstanding Nihilism and that movie. With the example you brought up, Everything Everywhere All at Once starts out with a view of nihilism that a lot of people mistakenly take away from it that's more akin to cynicism. But by the end of the movie, the characters get to true nihilism, which is when you stop trying to tie everything in the world to some greater sense of meaning and morality and just decide for yourself what is or isn't precious. The movie doesn't bring forth a premise and then reject it, the movie brings forth a premise and continues the thought to its conclusion, which is why it's written well. It's a journey for understanding. Cinema Therapy has a pretty good video on it that I'd recommend.
@@nailwindYeah, I acknowledge I'm not a philosopher and may not have a specific grasp on theories like nihilism, absurdism, or existentialism. A position is explicitly rejected, though: that of Jobu, the film's villain, who was on a path of absolute self-destruction until coming in conflict with Evelyn post-enlightenment.
Nihilism is confused with Cynicism and the belief in Evil. Nihilism doesn't seek to depress you because that in itself would be meaningless in the grand scope of things. Cynicism does however make you hate your own existence. That's the stark difference. Everyone starts Nihilistic but nobody truly stays Nihilistic. It's identifying where these beliefs even stem from. They all stem from Nihilism and EVOLVE into something else.
The ultimate nihilist, an "ubermenshc" of sorts, is a person who Nietzsche imagined would be psychologically superior to those who life their lives completely dominated by some non-subjective view of morality that dictates their actions and the way they live based on what others value rather than themselves. In other words, the ultimate nihilist is a person that reasons within themself the things they value and recognize as good or bad and live life completely in accordance with their own desires. That doesn't mean being a dick. It just means you're completely in control of how you live your life.
@@isthiscosure1701 >That doesn't mean being a dick. It just means you're completely in control of how you live your life. Well, you see, there are countless people around you that think that they have the right to control your life and opposing them is equated with being a dick. So there is no escape from them, except into a desert or a forest.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, it took me until like chapter 5 until I had any clue what was happening. 7:38 also absolutely fuck skylar but not for that bizarre reason I see mentioned
I don't love Skylar, and she's not exactly a fan favorite, but I never really got the hate. Sure, smoking while pregnant is bad and Ted sucks, but that whole drama is not really enough to think Walter is in the right.
@@clanofclams2720I'd argue the cheating was pretty bad too, not because its hurting Walter (because f*ck Walter), but because she's doing TO hurt him. That kinda thinking feels ruinous to her own mental state, imo. Walt Jr didn't deserve that either but he never really found out, thankfully...He got hurt in other ways instead.
Pat busting out that ancient Breaking Bad bugbear that clearly affected him personally on some level reminds me that none of the people who still hang on to that shit have ever seen Better Call Saul, or otherwise are the exact kind of media illiterate that they're trying to throw at others
@@clanofclams2720I brought it up because Better Call Saul is a directly comparable show by the same writers with its own characters facing similar problems
@@clanofclams2720what kinda reply is that, its perfectly valid to dislike a doomed world. I've tried selling 40k to people a lot (also a world where mankind is dying a slow death) but that universe's themes are far more badly handled. grimdarkness is not for everyone. But you can still love the social and political commentary the world of DE offers. OP could've elaborated more but chose not to, I suppose.
It is a very dark world, but you can also be a spot of hope in that world. Harry is an absolute mess of a human being, but you can take steps towards fixing him, you can help various people around the city, you can solve the case and show that he is worthy of his rank and title. You can make Kim proud.
It doesn't matter how loathesome a writer can make a character, or how blatantly they point and shout "this is a bad person"; someone will reply "that's my hero".
I love the constant clash between "Waaaaah you're not being media literate!' and "Waaaaah it doesn't matter because the author is dead!" It will go on forever and ever and ever and ever
"Even the wicked need a savior"
This is the real reason satire is a decaying genre: people are too stupid to get it
Just look at how many people just LOVE Killmonger, even when in his opening scene he's shown to have no respect for the cultures of those he claims to be helping.
@@FrozenOver0...because he thinks a mask looks cool...?
You can see the gears churning in Pat's head of "how can I steer this conversation to FFXIV and tempt Woolie without being too obvious."
probably the only thing that I can't stand about Pat tbh
@@kip_cThat means you are an exceptionally tolerant person.
Genuinely I hope he does, but like. Intelligently. I'm just now playing through endwalker and it has Some Things To Say About Nihilism.
@@Rhaethyn Nah, MMORPGs don't feel fun to play. There's no feedback other than sparkles and numbers.
@@kip_c THAT'S where you draw the line?
Being American there is a none zero chance my last words will be, " Do it!.. Set Me FREE!"
i don't get it.
We really are developing some Eastern European personality traits as our state ideology collapses. Historically the seeds are certainly there, a new and ferociously nationalistic people build a state on a pile of corpses, have some wars, experience of taste of empire, and melt into a slurry of dead dreams and artful nihilism. Then again maybe that's just what happens to most countries, and it's mostly a question of where a given nation is in its character arc.
that's the other side of, "you fool, i was the last thing holding IT back"
I was pleasantly surprised by what a good narrator of another author’s text Woolie is. What I heard of the reading sounded just as good as stuff on Audible.
Q: Is it "NEE-hilism" or "NIGH-hilism"?
.
.
.
.
.
A: Doesn't matter.
Okay, that was legitimately good haha.
The actual direct example to pat's breaking bad mention was American History X, it became a "favorite" for less than the appropriate audience.
I've seen that mindset in 3 other examples that are worrisome (even though I usually don't like to call out people):
- People watching American Psycho and thinking the main lead is the ideal way to deal with society.
- Those who think "Sigma Males" are based or cool in any fashion.
- The people who think Senator Armstrong is actually right in his philosophy. Not getting that even though he influenced Raiden by the end, his ideal is monstrous and will fall apart after some time.
I don't even remember what movie "Tomorrow Will Be Mine" was even from, after I learned the usual pieces of shit started singing it like an anthem at their rallies.
@@leithaziz2716 that's why the most effective lies start with truth
Armstrong starts by lying and Raiden calls him out
Then you get his actual thoughts and they mirror Raiden the difference being Raiden lived his life while armstrong is glorifying it, to Raiden what he did is not praise worthy but Armstrong argues that made him strong and in a way he's right struggle did make Raiden strong but it broke him as a person, he still has ptsd and actively fights his inner demons on a daily
What Armstrong wants is only the good parts of Raidens struggle while clearly ignoring the bad that also spawned from it hense why his words appeal to people, they sound good on the surface but ultimately only lead to anarchy and no structure
@@sdbzfan1 the biggest part about this is that revengeance is the ending of like a 10+ game series so most people have no fucking idea about anything
To be frank, I'm still rather young so I'm not sure how much I can speak on this (and what is coming is pretty much a rant, so a warning ahead), but I *really* hate this current mentality in the internet that someone doing something unprofessional or insulting something/someone makes them cool or "based". For a common example:
Guy X asks tries to ask guy Y what he thinks of this thing he likes --> guy Y replies "I don't like it, it sucks" --> the audience responds with "based".
Meanwhile, I scratch my head going "Why are we celebrating this? Shouldn't it be a letdown that this person couldn't enjoy the topic in question?". The whole "let's agree to disagree" or "You are entitled to your opinion, but mine differs from yours" mentality is pretty much treated like it's embarrassing, and I don't get it.
Woolie's misattribution of the idea of the "pale bomb" to Nilssen rather than Rodionov have really tanked his takes on Pjõl. While Rodionov wanted to use the pale as a weapon, Nilssen states that he loves the world and while he's talking about communism, the pale actively retreats from him, with the only other time this seems to happen being momentarily when Ulv plays his swansong into the pale.
It's so disappointing a lot of the times when people talk about nihilism because everyone gets so caught up on the first half of it within the question "Is there any non-subjective meaning or value in the universe" that they never even begin to question the second part of nihilism, which is "This allows me to decide for myself what truly has meaning and what doesn't. A life of completely subjective meaning." It's the most misunderstood and influential philosophical movement in western culture that is so casually described incorrectly or conflated with pessimism gibberish that it borders on disgusting at times.
When referred to correctly, it often opens up a question of "Are humans inherently good or are they bad?" But its themes rely on the premise that there is no non-subjective concept of good or bad. That's entirely up to the lens of who is observing the actions and what perspective they have. But if people relied entirely upon their own moral codes instead of a greater one brought forth by society, wouldn't the world just burn? No, of course not. Society began in such a world out of a wish for people with similar views to operate with each other for protection and beneficial life conditions. It is when power dynamics crept into play that culture gradually got muddied to the point that these relationships grew into hierarchies that everyone accepts and it began to be "evil/bad" to go against them. And things that support this hierarchy became "good".
To understand that better, one can look at who is "allowed" to commit acts of violence within a society. Namely, the police or a military force. The laws, to the best of their reasonable ability, disallow common people from committing acts of violence against each other outside of the most extreme circumstance (like self-defense, but you REALLY have to prove that) or situations where the factors are under control and danger is limited (like boxing). But even if it's a necessity sometimes to use violence to solve issues where there are no other way, like when dealing with someone who's criminally deviant and threatening others' lives, why are the police specifically allowed to do this specifically? They receive training, sure, but what IS that training really? But it's clearly not perfect since so many infractions on human rights and life are perpetrated by cops constantly. You could even make the argument that the training is useless if the individual does not already have the moral integrity to "do good". But if a civilian has that same moral integrity and the resources at hand to deal with a deviant in that situation, why are they not allowed the same freedom of aggression that the police are? Why is vigilantism perceived as bad even in a case where they're completely mimicking the police?
There are some obvious answers to that, of course, but they never fully answer the question. Ideally, cops are trained to limit risk and ensure others' safety as a priority so more harm doesn't come from confrontation. And if the vigilante in question has morality that would endanger innocent bystanders or, even worse, criminalize innocent people in their own eyes by dehumanizing them and harming them unfairly. But that first assumes that police are entirely competent and the latter assumes that the person is incompetent, which we've often seen is not the case.
That's only the skin of an issue on "Why are state officials and enforcement allowed power through violence that civilians are not allowed" which questions the hierarchy. Are police "good guys", or should we stop giving morality titles to positions like police and see people who sometimes do good things and sometimes do bad things? If you think the latter, you're leaning towards subjectiveness in morality rather than absolutes. But that doesn't mean you don't have any morality at all, it just means your questioning and deciding it for yourself. Which is Nihilism.
I believe what you're describing there in the first paragraph is Existentialism. Perhaps my understanding is incorrect, but I thought Nihilism referred *specifically* to the pessimistic assertion that there is no meaning to anything in the universe, with Existentialism being the positive evolution of that notion. People who never make it to believing in the latter are referred to as nihilists, believing that no matter what they do or think, nothing will ever achieve meaning. Or to put it simply: Nihilism sees no meaning where there is none; Existentialism _determines_ meaning where there is none, dependent on the whims of the individual.
That's becuse you dont need the irst half to get to the second half. You can believe that there is a meaning to life outside of yourself and that you can create your own meaning on top of that.
No the first commenter is correct that's Existentialism. Nihilism is pretty much just what the first half describes. But that's not to say the other line of thinking isn't deeply flawed as well, if you want to know why look up Egoism/Max Stirner. The flaws and end point of that perspective are self evident. Though this is all down stream from Hume's "Is-Ought problem". Though from a different angle even ignoring that, Existentialism is cut off by Nihilism because if nothing matters even the new meaning you come up with doesn't matter. Ultimately you're either living out "political power flows out of the barrel of a gun" or you're just engaging in philosophical masturbation because there becomes no point in accepting an outside perspective nor offering one. Leaving pragmatism as an unspoken default and people will just sway in the breeze of who or what is most powerful at the moment
Edit: And to any extent someone DOES have morality under such a paradigm it's in all likelihood a remnant of older systems, or to put it another way every criminal thinks he shouldn't be punished, no society can exist under an actual existentialist paradigm
@@cyberninjazero5659 existentialism and nihilism arent really distinctly different schools of thought, there’s a decent amount of overlap. Or rather, they’re both lenses to see things through rather than completely different schools of thought one needs to tie themselves to. Especially with how loosely we define existentialism. Egoism is very similar in the since that you’re evaluating through your own morality, it’s typically a more hypocritical line of thinking since you’re attempting to judge others based on your own set of rules and premises, often without allowing yourself to be influenced by others
None of what you said matter.
The story about the film at the end reminds me almost exactly of a film called “American History X” and how it was adopted by the very people it was trying to criticize
No, the film you're looking for is the German film "Er Ist Wieder Da" or "Look Who's Back" from 2015. It's a film exploring a fictional scenario where at the end of WW2, "führer" did NOT self-ventilate and instead was somehow magically transported to 2015 Germany and was discovered by a TV studio executive and basically given his own talk show. The moral of the movie is "the potential for Hitler is inside us all", but the way its shot it seems more like propaganda on the surface level except for one scene where the führer shoots a dog for biting him and this obviously tacked on scene at the very end showing the horrors of the German WW2 government.
You can guess what the "less than appropriate" audience think of this film, despite its attempt at messaging the opposite.
@@Null_Experis No, American History X was co-opted by supremacists because their takeaway of the ending isn't that Edward Nortons character meets his end because of the bigotry he harbors fosters his own demise, but that the skin color of his killer proves everything he believes right and justifies him.
@@cdubsb3831 Edward Norton doesn't die, his little brother does, AFTER Edward Norton teaches him to stop being a bigot like he did.
I was unfortunate enough to have my very first discord server containing individuals who love...certain parts of this movie. Especially the curbstomp one.
I was young then. I learned. I left. It's sad cos there's a lotta friendly nerds there who don't like that kinda talk either but I've lost contact with them.
@@Null_Experisyeah that one is another good example of it. Great film but the message is misinterpreted because the film doesn’t yell the message to the audience directly. For some people subtly can be too subtle
i'm not as knowledgeable as i want to be but i always understood nihilism as accepting the meanigless of existence and everything on it. With no real "appropiate" response to it, but there lots of people deluded with life becoming childish cynical thinking that nihilism is just pointing out to people laughing saying they are dumb for caring for anything and that ends up being the image people get of nihilism
nihilism is being content with not being the center of the universe, that at the end of the day life goes on with or without you, you aren't special no one is, and that's fine, rather than everything sucks so why bother that stuff like Rick and Morty push
As the saying goes, nihilism is only half of a philosophy.
bingo.
Yeah, pessimistic views are often mistakenly called "nihilistic" by people that don't fully understand its premise.
Nihilism is just the belief that reality does not have objective meaning. There's a bunch of different philosophical stuff that branches off from there, like existentialism and absurdism, but those are their own thing building off of nihilism, which is just the one belief.
It's like atheism. It's just the disbelief/lack of belief in any deity, but people pin all sorts of stuff to it that have nothing to do with the one, base belief, so the definition gets muddy over time.
We believe in noshing lebowski
I feel like the obvious counter to nihilism is the recognition that what we do still matters, even if it doesn't seem like it in the great extent of the cosmos. Arguably the most powerful moment in the game for me was the conversion of the church into a dance hall. At the macro level, it's implied that communal, emotional experiences like that are the only thing capable of fending off the Pale, but even if it doesn't succeed, at least you're there, dancing with your friends, experiencing joy and hope in the face of the apocalypse.
It's pure head-canon, of course, but in my mind, the ideal ending of the Disco Elysium series is that the Pale rolls in, enveloping the world as it's implied to have done countless times in the past. Except for Revachol, thanks to its half-mad savior, who created places like the church in his years of gonzo detective work, leaving it as a beacon for when the pale fades again and civilization begins anew.
Oh, and I forgot to mention another obvious example of this philosophy in Everything Everywhere All at Once, which has quickly become one of my favorite movies. Compare the philosophical arguments at the end of act 2 versus the end of the movie for how nihilism is presented and ultimately rejected.
@@EmperorSeth I think you're greatly misunderstanding Nihilism and that movie. With the example you brought up, Everything Everywhere All at Once starts out with a view of nihilism that a lot of people mistakenly take away from it that's more akin to cynicism. But by the end of the movie, the characters get to true nihilism, which is when you stop trying to tie everything in the world to some greater sense of meaning and morality and just decide for yourself what is or isn't precious. The movie doesn't bring forth a premise and then reject it, the movie brings forth a premise and continues the thought to its conclusion, which is why it's written well. It's a journey for understanding.
Cinema Therapy has a pretty good video on it that I'd recommend.
positive nihilism is great and becomes very akin to absurdism - just doing whatever you want in the face of oblivion
@@nailwindYeah, I acknowledge I'm not a philosopher and may not have a specific grasp on theories like nihilism, absurdism, or existentialism. A position is explicitly rejected, though: that of Jobu, the film's villain, who was on a path of absolute self-destruction until coming in conflict with Evelyn post-enlightenment.
Does the ultimate nihilist just... what? Stand there and stop breathing?
Nihilism is confused with Cynicism and the belief in Evil. Nihilism doesn't seek to depress you because that in itself would be meaningless in the grand scope of things. Cynicism does however make you hate your own existence. That's the stark difference. Everyone starts Nihilistic but nobody truly stays Nihilistic. It's identifying where these beliefs even stem from. They all stem from Nihilism and EVOLVE into something else.
It's just "I just wanna grill"ism
The ultimate nihilist, an "ubermenshc" of sorts, is a person who Nietzsche imagined would be psychologically superior to those who life their lives completely dominated by some non-subjective view of morality that dictates their actions and the way they live based on what others value rather than themselves. In other words, the ultimate nihilist is a person that reasons within themself the things they value and recognize as good or bad and live life completely in accordance with their own desires.
That doesn't mean being a dick. It just means you're completely in control of how you live your life.
@@isthiscosure1701 >That doesn't mean being a dick. It just means you're completely in control of how you live your life.
Well, you see, there are countless people around you that think that they have the right to control your life and opposing them is equated with being a dick. So there is no escape from them, except into a desert or a forest.
“Say what you will about National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos!”
That quote always pisses me off.
Like, what's the point of having an ethos?
Nice discussion!
I said it before and I’ll say it again, it took me until like chapter 5 until I had any clue what was happening.
7:38 also absolutely fuck skylar but not for that bizarre reason I see mentioned
if you're talking about the cheating
She was literally trying to get him to leave, he was abusive and she was trying to get him out of her life
I don't love Skylar, and she's not exactly a fan favorite, but I never really got the hate. Sure, smoking while pregnant is bad and Ted sucks, but that whole drama is not really enough to think Walter is in the right.
Skyler was basically trying to be the most awful she could be to make Walter Leave. She was trapped in an awful relationship
Why? The only thing she did that was bad was smoke while pregnant.
@@clanofclams2720I'd argue the cheating was pretty bad too, not because its hurting Walter (because f*ck Walter), but because she's doing TO hurt him. That kinda thinking feels ruinous to her own mental state, imo.
Walt Jr didn't deserve that either but he never really found out, thankfully...He got hurt in other ways instead.
Nihilism will lead to the end of the world...
Okay and?
/s
Pat busting out that ancient Breaking Bad bugbear that clearly affected him personally on some level reminds me that none of the people who still hang on to that shit have ever seen Better Call Saul, or otherwise are the exact kind of media illiterate that they're trying to throw at others
what does this even mean. Better Call Saul doesn't valorize Walter White
@@clanofclams2720 Good thing I wasn't talking about Walter, then
@@Lazypackmule so you brought it up for no reason then
@@clanofclams2720I brought it up because Better Call Saul is a directly comparable show by the same writers with its own characters facing similar problems
@@Lazypackmule except Breaking Bad was a more far reaching cultural phenomenon that everybody knows with a comparison that everybody understands.
Honestly, this is one of the biggest reasons why I don't like Disco Elysium.
It's a world that is, by all accounts, doomed.
so?
Just like our world, what’s your point?
@@clanofclams2720what kinda reply is that, its perfectly valid to dislike a doomed world. I've tried selling 40k to people a lot (also a world where mankind is dying a slow death) but that universe's themes are far more badly handled.
grimdarkness is not for everyone. But you can still love the social and political commentary the world of DE offers.
OP could've elaborated more but chose not to, I suppose.
It is a very dark world, but you can also be a spot of hope in that world. Harry is an absolute mess of a human being, but you can take steps towards fixing him, you can help various people around the city, you can solve the case and show that he is worthy of his rank and title. You can make Kim proud.
@@Sercotani the whole point of DE is living on and pursuing and finding meaning despite the world at large though.
Like.
I couldn't really care about this book.
Hehehe
literally THE WORST POSSIBLE faction
even the racist faction is better than these abhumans