This is an archive of the old Stones Cry Out site. For the current site, click here.
« The Future of Dissent | Main | A Solipsistic Trifle »
August 30, 2006
American Neo-Nihilism
Mark Triplett, a commenter on Doug's Post "The Future of Dissent," notes the following:
Doug, it's only one small step to state that no one at anytime may say anything negative about homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality regardless of government funding or not.This new law in California goes way beyond the slippery slope and falls off the cliff.
The sad thing is that most will accept this as the new reality and move on not realizing that the next thing you can't talk about in schools will be...... you fill in the blank.
Soon it will be like 1984, the novel, where good is bad and bad is good.
Mr. Triplett is correct. Most Americans, if forced to sit down and listen to the implications of the new California law, would disagree with it. However, as Mark states, that would end the matter. Survivor would be airing in a few minutes, or the Powerball drawing, and the issue would quickly be forgotten. Does that mean that, since the issue failed to engage attention beyond the moment, the issue was not that important? I don't think that is the case, because I cannot imagine any important issue these days that would really inspire passion, or even interest, in the majority of Americans beyond their next meal and television program.
At least Nineteenth Century Russian nihilists, as sketched by Turgenev and Tolstoy, had a philosophy. Twenty-first century Americans are nihilists by default, not by thought, avocation nor philosophy.
Posted by Mark at August 30, 2006 10:59 PM
Trackback Pings
Comments
It’s kind of a sad way to live if you think about it. Everyone must be a part of something larger than themselves.
When your basic existence is nothing more than what's next on TV or where do we eat out tonight, it’s no wonder that folks take such changes in our society without a peep!
People in the past became nihilists because a bad life experience or through study on the human condition. Now, not only are Americans nihilists by default, I think that they are trained to be this way almost from birth.
Imagine attempting a larger than life endeavor like the landing on the moon in 2006. It could never possibly happen. Not only from the "where does it benefit me?" crowd, but from government bureaucrats wanting to guarantee the outcome before the attempt is made. In our risk-adverse, nobody loses way of living, we sit and watch and wonder why we can’t do some of the things that others are really doing.
Risk taking is a part of life! There is more to life in just living. Without being a part of something larger than what we alone can do, nihilism becomes true. And then there truly is no meaning or objective to life.
Wow, if I keep thinking this way, I'll get depressed! I'm going back to my church, where I work at a job that is far beyond myself and get something done today!
Posted by: Mark Triplett at August 31, 2006 11:22 AM