DANGEROUS CONCEPTS - NIHILISM THE PHILOSOPHY OF MEANINGLESSNESS

NIHILISM

Nihilism, the pragmatic operating philosophy of virtually every government, corporation and research university is a belief in disbelief, is a philosophy of meaninglessness, including the too self-defeating assumption that might makes right.

Like many disasters, Nihilism began with the finest of intentions. European scientists between 1880 and 1920 were seriously examining the earth and the universe for clues about matter and life. They peered outward toward the stars and galaxies with better telescopes and inward with microscopes, to learn many cosmic truths. Researchers like Planck, Mach, Koch, the Curies, Freud, Bohr, Darwin and Einstein used a new way of looking for knowledge. They called it the scientific method that stressed facts rather than faith. They were right of course. I don’t want to cross the Pacific Ocean in an aircraft designed according to the undisputed brilliance of Thomas Jefferson.

Secular nihilism developed out of Prussian brutality and became deeply embedded in fiercely secular German universities. It was a major tragedy as Herman Hesse had his character Heller say in his great existential novel STEPPENWULF, the brutal beast that walks upright (man). Hesse was a member of the lost generation that came of age in the bloody trenches of World War I - the generation that lost faith in European institutions for deceiving the people so badly. Heller lamented -- There come times when entire generations are trapped between eras --not knowing what to believe -- whom to trust in their search for life.

In other words, be careful what you choose to believe because the following nihilistic, scientist, pragmatic, opportunistic assumptions are crippling to human health.


SELF FOCUS - Rank the following in order of their destructive potential in your life.

1. Humans collectively form a resource to be shaped as needed by government and business, rather than being persons to be cherished because of their intrinsic worth.

2. Human spirituality is an ancient superstition rather than a normal aspect of existence that Frankl called the spiritual unconscious.

3. In seeking human progress, the successful completion of important projects justifies any and all methods used to reach society's goals.

4. The earth is a resource to be developed whenever and wherever desired rather than the home of life as we know it.

5. Each nation's rulers in government, commerce and science should be trusted to do what is right because they have better knowledge than the people they command and control.

6. Because life is the result of a great cosmic accident, individual lives and families are basically meaningless unless they serve the state or some profitable purpose.

7. Persons who do not fit into the pragmatic views of an industrial society are worthless and expendable as North American Indians were when they could not be enslaved.

8. When enough persons and organizations become opportunistic in their philosophy of operations, doing what they can get away with, taking everything they are strong enough to keep, a secular miracle occurs in which the entire society finds greater satisfaction.



BEYOND SECULAR NIHILISTIC PRAGMATISM

In the early days of World War II, when Japan's politicians were developing political ties with the Nazi's of Germany, Lithuanian police teams were enthusiastically rounding up Jewish families for shipment in cattle cars to the death camps that spread like terrible tumors across Europe. The Japanese Baltic counsul was Sempo Sugihara, an unpretentious little Foggy Bottom type civil servant who never dreamed of challenging the powerful movers and shakers who were leading his country toward disaster in a war they could not win. When this perfect office clerk, who even ate his lunch at his desk, discovered what the cruel anti-Semitic Balts were doing, he exploded in indignation and resolved to do better than his government who'd ordered him to assist the Nazis every way he could.

Sugihara established a secret escape route across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Express Railway to Shanghai and to Hong Kong. He forged passports and visas, lied to Lithuanian and German officials with his bland Asiatic smile, used money from his office accounts and sent thousands of Jewish families to safety despite the increasingly shrill protests from the Tokyo office. When he was finally dragged home in disgrace, wearing chains, he declined disemboweling himself in a ritual suicide for disobeying orders. It was not until years after his heroism that I discovered that Sempo Sugihara came out of the community of Nagasaki that deliberately stressed ethical values and responsible choices. Just to keep the record straight -- that was the community the U.S. Army Air Forces, in which Jard served, vaporized at ground zero with the second nuclear bomb.


SELF FOCUS - Rank the following in their order of importance to you.

1. Develop and widely use throughout your life and its activities a sound philosophy of service that creates first class citizenship for all who help you succeed, through an equitable sharing of the physical, psychological and philosophical rewards of commitment.

2. Strive for a sense of belonging in supportive communal groups by gathering women and men into small, intimate teams such as business growth centers, clubs or training classes, through which they find consistent satisfaction by accomplishing meaningful tasks or sharing satisfying activities with people who are important to themselves personally.

3. Draw all the people into the decision making processes of the group, for then the decisions become their own choices rather than something imposed by outsiders who don't really understand what is going on in the trenches where the real work is being accomplished.

4. Establish ways of dealing with stress and conflict before the organization becomes dysfunctional and suicidal because the vested interest groups prefer personal possessions, power and prestige far more than group purpose, performance, productivity and profits.

5. Empower persons to mature by sharing responsibilities and rewards. Avoid open-ended assignments that burn out men and women in a few years, by rewarding self-development and creativity, and by sharing the emotional results of being a true member in a good team.

6. Master the principle of human motivation -- it's a fact that people seek the relationships and continue the activities that reward them personally, while rejecting attitudes, activities and relationships that cause pain or fail to benefit themselves consistently.

7. Keep communications open by refusing to let a few fearful or greedy persons in some chain of command block the flow of vital information up or down for their own reasons, since collectively, the members of a group have total knowledge of what must be done to consistently succeed.

8. Set the stage for people at all levels of organizational responsibility and reward to find consistent satisfaction by connecting personal fulfillment to organizational greatness.

9. If you haven't the knowledge and wisdom to achieve through serving society in some area, have the decency to get out of the way and stop harming a group of good people who deserve better of life.

EXISTENTIAL FRUSTRATION

Disaster in the form of existential or life-style caused frustration overwhelmed an old rural parish some years ago as a traditional way of life collapsed and a community fell apart due to twentieth/twenty-first century social and technological stresses. The farming community had been hard hit by drought, a serious decline in land values and a slump in commodity prices. Some church members were losing their sense of identity while others were living on the edge of financial disaster. Many kids were leaving and few in college were interested in returning home to farm. A brisk drug trade developed when some people tried to cope with their stresses chemically and two or three committed suicide when the stresses grew too great. Major changes had been frustrating the rural community for some time, even before the bland old pastor died and his assistant retired. The community’s spiritual, economic and social anchors were dragging and many people were frightened. When two new new priests arrived, they tried to adjust to reality by shifting with the times but unfortunately, that antagonized those fearful members who yearned to return to the past.

The young priests and nuns not only taught traditional religion, meaning to some of the people only what occurred within the walls of the sanctuary during worship, but also the virtue of demonstrating faith and love in the outside society. They wanted the people to understand the dozen debilitating American wars since World War II in spiritual terms, to ask their politicians why they were committing financial suicide in the name of faith and patriotism. The priests and nuns wanted their people committed to civil, legal and financial rights for minority people and to be generous when feeding, clothing and educating the poor migrant children who'd come north to labor in their fields. The leaders were trying to keep the church alive and attractive to the next generation by asking the people to openly discuss values that had always been irrelevant to faith as practiced in the long static community. As the farm economy faltered still more and farmers and merchants fell into trouble, some of the more frustrated and aggressive members of the parish started a campaign to get rid of the trouble-makers who challenged them. Thus, they assumed, they could return to the good old days. They didn’t understand that old traditions and ideologies succeed only in the times and situations which they evolved. One elderly member told me:

I don't even recognize my church anymore and I hate it! These priests are changing everything I know and love. Did not the holy fathers in Rome assure us for fifty years that fighting Commies was God's will and that we would be blessed for our loyalty to America and the church? Why is God punishing us now?

The fearful leaders didn't understand the law of unintended consequences. One paranoid group felt there had to be an evil plot of some kind causing their pain and some men formed a local militia to drive off the villains. Quarrels and fist fights broke out at the altar during communion and in the chancel after services. The priests were harassed at all hours of the day and night with obscene phone calls. Several cars were sabotaged and a church bus was burned and the nun principal of the parish school was forced off the road by a group of cursing militia-men in pickup trucks waving shotguns.

Both priests eventually resigned and Bishop Roy Blocker refused to send out replacements.

He said, no one trying to serve God should have to undergo the harsh judgments and treatments their priests and nuns did. The parish was no longer a community in Christ.

The church had always been a sanctuary for the several hundred farm and village families who worshipped together but it couldn't keep the world at bay in changing times. The anxious and alienated members of the parish crippled the congregation rather than adapt, when the only way they could survive was through accepting change and dealing with new circumstances. After he reopened the church, Bishop Blocker explained;

For centuries we brought our people up in a static and unchanging church atmosphere. We prided ourselves that as God’s church nothing ever changed. We were eternal. We still believe in the unchanging revelation that God made in Christ. But while God hasn’t changed, everything else has. Unfortunately, there will always be some persons who neurotically need more certitude than we can legitimately offer, a certitude that Jesus himself didn’t have in Jerusalem’s garden of olives when he questioned God’s mission for his life.

Thist is true spiritual bankruptcy suffered by many that is caused by the existence we choose or have forced on us by society. Lest you think that too strong an example of alienation, during the week this anecdote was first written, Jeff Rolvag, our handsome and charming next door neighbor hanged himself from a basement rafter not thirty feet from Jard’s desk. He had hidden his existential alienation very well but he certainly isn’t alone in his frustration and the aggression or apathy that follows.

SELF FOCUS -- Have you seen situations in families, schools, companies or communities when life style created frustration causes conflicts?