Existentialism or Postmodernism?

I have criticised nihilism and existentialism in the past, and I was never quite fair in doing so. That’s because I believe that there’s no such thing as fairness in philosophy. In fact the very notion of fairness undermines the process of philosophy. Philosophy is the science of radical thought. Without its radical content, without a saturated expression of sincerity towards observation and reason, then you have no philosophy.

The exercise of good faith is vitally important to civics, morality, law, human conversation and debate. But in the world of metaphysical ideas, it is vital for the spirit to conquer the ego. A truly philosophical piece of writing must therefore possess the nuances to be written with extremes. It must be furnished with aroma, venom, antagonism, praise, passion, revilement, madness and clarity.

It must retort and riposte towards a carefully crafted point d’honneur. Because it is ultimately the moral content of philosophy that serves any meaningful purpose. It is the currency of philosophy, and the architecture of our agency. The ontological propensities of life and humanity casts a long shadow, our ignorance, our doctrine, our commonalities, habits, rules, decrees and principles are in the end what nurture us, often with great ambivalence.

To step outside of such a shadow is to find both a wasteland and a paradise. A kind of blank canvass of the superconscious. This is the imaginative realm in which philosophy begins.

And yet the ultimate result of success is equally ambivalent. Because any new structure outside of such a boundary will inevitably cast a shadow of its own. We escape the dark and seek the light, and then we learn that the light will burn us, and so we create new shelter from such a light.

And this is the real metaphysical process of history and noospheric evolution.

The philosopher enters a cycle of martyrdom. As they are confronted with the alienating emptiness not just of all that is, but also all that can be. To reach into the realm of possibilities, when weighed against reality, is to observe an infinite ruin. As all that could be is instantly turned into ashes to make way for all that is.

And that is the nature of the wasteland. To examine what is epistemologically significant, to pioneer new modes of reason and understanding, is to, at the same time, examine the shadows of a humanity that never was. To view our capacities through the lens of idealism, is ultimately to know a new degree of death.

To witness not only the decay and absence of life that was lost, but to witness the void itself, to see the impossibilities of what might have been. To be cast into a state of anxiety wherein you mourn the future that never was.

And I think it is this crisis of idealism, to witness paradise through the model of a wasteland, that makes a lot of people retreat back into the dark by denying the possibility of any ontological purpose beyond the vulgarities that may be possessed without any kind of moral essence or spiritual transformation.

But the problem with this kind of denial is that it goes against the grain of the very vulgar observation itself. Because there is a kind of a priori contradiction to nihilism, because to compose a nihilistic philosophy, as one would with any kind of philosophy, is to find the motive to write such a thing in the first place.

And I would suggest that any motive towards higher language, abstract thought and metaphysical works must ultimately be motivated by some kind of moral characteristic. Because to write is ultimately to pursue some sense of immortality, and immortality exists by its very nature outside of what is vulgar.

Immortality begins the very second that we die, and that is the entire appeal of authorship. To write is to let your ideas, memories and expression exist independently of human fatality.

So there must be some element of virtue or vice that makes us combat our fatality through writing. Perhaps we yearn for belonging, or recognition, or even vanity. Perhaps we are fleeing from alienation, indignance or contempt. But there is no vulgar motive for philosophy.

And that is why I would propose that nihilism is not nihilistic in the slightest, in fact, it might be the least nihilistic of the philosophies. Because what it presents as apathy is in fact antipathy. It doesn’t merely rail against fatality like most philosophies do, it goes further than that and attempts to destroy the very environment that gives life to such an idea of fatality to begin with.

Nihilism tries to break the fourth wall within metaphysics but in doing so it hasn’t actually proceeded to reintroduce us into the vulgar world, but instead has exposed an even bigger universe, with even more questions about moral content and more questions about spiritual meaning.

Because every new structure must proceed to cast its own shadow.

Nihilism in its attempt to end the metaphysical actually split it in half. As we see how it created a series of vital epistemological questions that divided themselves into modernism and postmodernism.

Modernism seeks to answer these questions substantively, by borrowing a lot of ideas from Eastern spirituality. Particularly certain elements of Buddhism and also Hinduism. We see existentialism come out of this. And it does this not by copying Vedic or Buddhist texts, or even meaningfully examining them. But rather by following the same intuition as ancient civilisations had done thousands of years ago.

And this generally comes down to once again trying to connect heaven and earth, by finding the spiritual essence in the vulgarities of life. To look for something that is playful, innocent, profound and poetic in a world of industry, calculations, war, prejudice and brutal class divisions.

Existentialism proclaims that the bitterness and disillusionment of idealism does not actually end idealism, but rather offers us an opportunity to realise it, and gives life meaning through growth and struggle.

And this is why modernism created its renaissance of art, poetry, invention, science and philosophy. And why, as fatalism gets its turn to move the pieces on the board, it cast such a long shadow. Why modernism produced a status quo that gave us the cold war, and neoliberalism, and imperialism. How the atomic age is in many ways the ultimate example of such an ambivalence.

Because the atom is probably the best example for just how immediate and essential the moral content of philosophy is. How it has a direct utility, how it is not merely the folly of intellectuals. The atom can give us abundance and ease a lot of woes relating to poverty, environmental destruction, and war. The atom can create a global peace, through its ability to produce energy and industrial abundance.

But it can also do the opposite.

Nuclear Power or Nuclear Bombs is not a scientific problem, nor is it a vulgar problem, it is entirely a moral and a spiritual problem. The justification for nuclear bombs is always a matter of vice and weakness. It’s paranoia, distrust, prejudice, nationalism, imperialist ambition, and so fourth.

There’s no benevolence in the nature of weapons of mass destruction. At most there is perhaps a kind of sympathetic cowardice, or even a kind of pompous sanctimony. But it can never be an invention of virtue.

Similarly, Nuclear Power is entirely an invention of virtue. Because it is really what separates the proverbial men from the boys. Nuclear Power can be entirely sound, safe, useful and beneficial. But only if the people who administrate such a thing have a great sense of dedication and careful understanding of what they’re doing.

Chernobyl didn’t happen because of some kind of technical failure, but rather because of how Khrushchev's liberalisation of the Soviet Union reintroduced the western career politician, who cared more about their own personal prestige than their democratic mandate.

The Chernobyl disaster would never have happened under Stalin’s watch, because the administrators would’ve been fired or jailed during the purges, and then replaced with people who understood the gravity of their position within the government.

And then you have the other side, namely, postmodernism. Postmodernity is entirely a bourgeois idea. It’s produced by and for the upper classes. Well paid academics who enjoy the privileges and immunities afforded to them by careers or prestige and power. They are a bit like modern day nobility. They don’t have to worry about unemployment, and they get paid to do work that most people do for personal enjoyment during their free time.

So obviously, the last thing they want is a bunch of responsibility or democratic oversight. They have it pretty good, and to them, the Khrushchevs of the world are their moral allies.

So that’s why postmodernism does the opposite of modernism. They try to disconnect the heavens and the earth. They claim to be beyond metaphysics and morality, and yet I can’t think of anything more idealistic than to try and disconnect the heavens and the earth. Which is entirely the point of postmodernism.

Because postmodernism in its abstractions of abstractions of abstractions, in its endless diatribe against structures within structures within structures actually provide one material utility. Namely, an infinite demand for theses, papers, books and other academic commodities. It seeks to halt philosophy through a series of sophistic rituals that will hopefully eliminate the dialectical content of reason all together.

But the problem is that while the humanities department is running this little scam, the STEM department is working on the technologies of the future. Biochemistry, machine learning, automation… each one presenting a similar moral challenge as the atom once did.

And unless we take a page out of Stalin’s book and put these people at the unemployment line, and replace them with some qualified and principled individuals who understand the importance of moral philosophy, then we’re going to see the trappings of a new dark age.

As secularism has arrived, universities are replacing churches. But not in the way that the enlightenment ideals would have us hope. Rather, we are seeing the formation of a new kind of clergy, and yet the very same kind of doctrine. A doctrine of war, class division, industry and most importantly of all: Popular inertia.

Time moved very slowly throughout most of history. We measure it in ages, epochs, eras and centuries. Developments and ideas were scarce compared to us who live when time is measured in decades. Do not let this new clergy do the same as that of the old. Namely, to slow down the driving forces of human civilisation. Because that is the true idealistic failure. It is one thing to confront fatalism, but it’s another to try and escape it.

This new nobility and this new clergy is no different from their progenitors; All iterations nobility will inevitably be exposed in equal measure, both in their redundancy, and in their malignancy.

Question is under what circumstances, and to what extent their procrastinations have left us in ruin.