#nilhilism

[aireemacpherson]

[ via ]

[virovac]

Well...that explains the ending being such a shift

The message of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is that we all deserve to die. All of us. Everyone. Every single last human. If you accept the other as equal, then you're a degenerate fool and you should die for it. If you fear and hate the other and act accordingly, then you're a xenophobic thug and you should die for it. You should die for being savage and primitive, and you should die for being civilized and self-righteous. You should die for living in a smug and hypocritical town like Arkham, you should die for living in a drunken crumbling shantytown or reservation like Innsmouth, and you should die for living in the imperial palaces of Y'ha-nthlei. The Deep Ones are our own reflection cast upon the surface of the water. It's an ugly reflection. It should die. The book of life and the book of death are one and the same; there's only one verdict for anyone. "Mene, mene, tekel uparshim," as Zadok quoted in his heavyhanded callback to "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" and the Biblical story that inspired it. Our days have all been counted. Our verdicts have all been handed down. We're all sentenced to death for the crime of being human. I wouldn't describe "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" as primarily racist, misogynist, classist, or xenophobic. Overshadowing everything else is its unbridled and nearly indiscriminate misanthropy. In fact, for all its flaws in execution, it might just be the most artfully and passionately misanthropic story I've ever read. Ideology has a way of making its taboos outlast its values. Formerly Christian atheists have anxieties about hell long after they've had their last dreams of heaven. The European antisemitic belief in the greedy and treacherous Jew has long outlasted the belief that Judas betrayed Jesus for money on which it was originally based. Former Jews avoid eating pork long after they've stopped celebrating the Matan Torah. Some of the anxieties being channeled into the story are reflective of the interwar zeitgeist of the west during the 1920's and 30's. The ideological mishmash of traditional Christianity, 18-19th century Enlightenment philosophy and Imperialism, the newer creeds of Socialism and Egalitarianism, and the reactionary knee jerk of Fascism. All of the "western" world embraced all of these things at once, with all the problems that that entails. And I don't think there was any one country in which all of them were as simultaneously visible as the United States of America. Everything was simultaneously right and wrong. Everything that people had believed in until recently had just betrayed them in the Great War. The sense that another, even worse disaster was inbound on its heels was validated by the end of the 1930's. A lot of these anxieties also make much more sense in the context of the author's own life. By the time he wrote "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," Lovecraft had been chewed up and spat out again by nearly all of the contradictory ideologies of early twentieth century America, and some others. His abusive mother taught him to hate himself. His white supremacist aunts taught him to hate anything that wasn't upper class, English speaking, and Germanic. His New York friends taught him to hate oppression, racism, and social inequality. Government propaganda taught him to hate communism. Poverty taught him to hate capitalism. They all taught him to love something as well, but as I said above, taboos tend to outlast values. My impression of Lovecraft, based on his writings and biography, is that by the end of his life he had been inundated with many contradictory belief systems, and not managed to completely repudiate any of them even after they failed him. All those contradictory taboos and judgments just chasing each other around and around and around without rest. If so, I can definitely see how a story like "Innsmouth" may have been a vent for these emotional woes.

Leila Hann

[lioninsunheart]

Thank you Tumblr for the beautiful landscapes-tempting foods, cute cats and dogs..and wonderful vibrant Spring flowers--however..WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING GLOBAL PANDEMIC..any thoughts? (Curator of hope and doom). <3 

“We can see nothing today that wants to grow greater, we suspect that things will continue to go down, down, to become thinner, more good-natured, more prudent, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent… Here precisely is what has become a fatality…together with the fear of man we have also lost our love of him, our reverence for him, our hopes for him, even the will to him. The sight of man now makes us weary—what is nihilism today if it is not that?—We are weary of man.”

— Nietzsche -

[goththomboy]

my favorite nihilist was a pisces

[inspirobotisms]

[janksmith]

Nihilism is a rounding error and should not be counted.

Nihilism claims in the vast universe there is no meaning. Pretty simple maths representation too (∞ : 0) infinity amount of space, zero meaning.

However absolute claims in maths are the easiest to disprove.

Can you find any meaning in your life? Regardless of how small or foolish it may seem? Neat, you just found the negative proof against Nilhilism. (>0 != 0) numbers larger than zero aren't zero.

You don't just get to round small numbers down to zero just cause the scale the other side of the equation is using is just past the concept of unimaginably huge numbers.

[heliosmou]

THE ODYSSEY OF INVISIBILITY  The Consequences of Inconsequential Papers of Lists of Things on your schedule for that day. 

Surely such an odyssey may make you seem different to those who’ve known you because you are and they are.  One cannot expect to see someone conform to our expectations.  We all Change.  And while a list of things we want to accomplish on that day may give us some sense of control, until … It’s either our time.  Or it’s not. 

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[philoclassof17]

Nihilism

Based on the latin word nihil, meaning nothing.

This is the belief that nothing can be known or communicated, and that everything that we say or do has no meaning or value. It is very much based on the word ‘nothing’, that there is nothing at all, and that we know nothing.