A Nietzschean Trajectory: Examining Cultural "Energies" & Individual Physiologies

According to Oxford Languages, nihilism is "the rejection of all religious and moral principles, and the belief that life is meaningless." I have found that atheistic skepticism and positivism often ends in nihilism. Nietzsche understood this better than any other philosopher of his day. After being influenced by the nihilism of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche spent his entire career reacting against the No-saying of Schopenhauer with a more positive Yes-saying philosophy of life. Nietzsche acted as a "physician of the soul" diagnosing the sickness of modern culture due to nihilism and presenting the cure of a path to the Great Health. 

For Nietzsche, nihilism need not affect one's psychology and physiology negatively if they instead follow his existential "cure" of affirming life and the human species. For Nietzsche, scientific veracity was not as important as was "how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing" (Source). So whatever affirmed life and the species was good, even religion-making was good as long as the religious mythology did not negate life or deny life but affirmed organic life and becoming. Thus, in Human, All Too Human -- Section Five: Signs of Higher and Lower Culture - Aphorism # 251, Nietzsche writes, "if science produces ever less joy in itself and takes ever greater joy in casting suspicion on the comforts of metaphysics, religion, and art, then the greatest source of pleasure, to which mankind owes almost its whole humanity, is impoverished. Therefore a higher culture must give give man a double brain, two brain chambers, as it were, one to experience science, and one to experience nonscience. Lying next to one another, without confusion, separable, self-contained: our health demands this. In the one domain lies the source of strength, in the other the regulator. Illusions, biases, passions must give heat; with the help of scientific knowledge, ..." In short, Nietzsche diagnosed nihilism as an existential sickness and offered the cure of the great health through religion-making artistry, which our health demands. 

Nietzsche distinguished between active and passive nihilism, writing in his notes in The Will to Power:

 “Nihilism, a normal condition.

It may be a sign of strength; spiritual vigour may have increased to such an extent that the goals toward which man has marched hitherto (the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it (for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the conditions of existence, a submission to the authority of an order of things which conduces to the prosperity, the growth and power of a living creature ...); on the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength, to fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself.

It reaches its maximum of relative strength, as a powerful destructive force, in the form of active Nihilism.

Its opposite would be weary Nihilism, which no longer attacks: its most renowned form being Buddhism: as passive Nihilism, a sign of weakness: spiritual strength may be fatigued, exhausted, so that the goals and values which have prevailed hitherto are no longer suited to it and are no longer believed in—so that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every strong culture stands) [Pg 22]decomposes, and the different values contend with one another: Disintegration, then everything which is relieving, which heals, becalms, or stupefies, steps into the foreground under the cover of various disguises, either religious, moral, political or æsthetic, etc.”

 In other words, even if one arrives at nihilism after the death of the God-concept by science, the psychological disorientation of the Mad Man (below) in Nietzsche's parable is real and his remedy of religion-making becomes an option to overcome the disorienting sickness of nihilism:

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

 "Is not the greatness of this deed [killing the God-concept] too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."

How one responds to nihilism can either be life-affirming and psychologically healthy by integrating both the left and right brain so to speak (i.e. Logos and Mythos); in order to ignite the passions through the imagination; or one's response can be pessimistic and life negating, denying the passions and imagination, thus lacking art, creativity, and mystical heat: as with Buddhism or Schopenhauerianism, etc. 

Nietzsche emphasizes the body (or one's physiology) above all else and how what we think and believe affects our body or physiology. So for Nietzsche there were two trajectories: shrinking in vitality and valor toward a degenerated, weak, pessimistic pale atheist and mediocre person (i.e. a Last Man), or expanding through courage, valor and optimistic myth-making toward generative strength and vitality (i.e. a Higher Man). 

Click on the image below where I present a Nietzschean Trajectory:

Click image to enlarge 

So I would argue that from a Nietzschean perspective, regardless of its objective veracity, "Smith-Pratt Mormonism" acts as dramatic art form and cultural ethos that is more life-affirming, hero's journey affirming, existentially healthy, and generative toward high culture and The Great Health, than the alternative of atheistic relativism and passive nihilism that leads to physiological depressiveness and cultural degeneration. 


A Case Study: 

I noticed the passive-nihilism of Bill Reel in his discussion with Jacob Hansen in May 2023. There were three discussions but the one most significant to me was the one published May, 19, 2023. 

I don't agree with all of Jacob Hansen's more orthodox positions, but I find his attempt at reconstructing his faith to be commendable; and it clearly works for him individually to feel better existentially. Bill Reel on the other hand seems negatively impacted physiologically by his nihilism. Listening to the entire 3 Part Discussion, I was most troubled by Bill Reel's denial of free will despite an Atlantic article by Stephen Cave saying it's better to believe in free will for ethical and practical reasons. As Bill Reel's nihilism and determinstic philosophy, led to his failing to say criminals can make the choice not to do harm. 

Then his nihilism led to him making anti-natalist statements wishing he did not have as many children as he did. This is nothing against Bill Reel personally, because I went through a similar state of existential nihilism myself for several years, before reconstructing my current Christian life-stance; and so I mean this only as a subjective "existential diagnosis" on my part. But in my view, one can see the clear nihilistic relativism and philosophical-pessimism as his frame of mind and the resultant depressive physiology in Bill Reel. In contrast, I see a more existentially healthy psyche and the practical result of a more healthy physiology in Jacob Hansen. 

In my view, Bill Reel mirrors the character Rust Cohle in the HBO Series True Detective, Season (1), who has a similar nihilistic worldview he calls being a philosophical pessimist (meaning he is a nihilist); and throughout the series we can see the resultant physiological depressiveness in Russ Cohle. 

The actor Mathew McConaughey has commented on how stepping into that character and adopting the worldview of the character of Russ Chole, and saying the nihilistic dialogue of a philosophical pessimist did in fact make him feel physiologically depressive. It was watching the series that I first became aware of how my own philosophical pessimism affected my own former depressive physiology that I now perceive in Bill Reel (as of 2023).

Compare the images below:

The actor Matthew McConaughey embodying the philosophical pessimism of the character Russ Chole:

The real Matthew McConaughey who derives existential meaning and energy from Christianity:

 So from a Nietzschean perspective, I want nothing to do with "exmormon atheistic nihilism," as it is a degenerative and depressive life philosophy. To be clear, note that there are other philosophical positions among former Mormons (as not all exmormons are atheists and/or nihilists); but unfortunately, the loudest voices and most consistent position among most exmormons, I have encountered since 2015, has been the more nihilistic variety.

For example, going on exmormon forums/message boards and lurking I have begun to see an "existential sickness" arise from this increase in nihilism as a cultural energy possessing many exmormons online: as they remain in a depressive state, full of chronic anger, stuck in a deconstruction phase, and are full of revengeful hatred and resentment: leading to a lack of ethics, leading to a mob mentality, cyber bullying, name calling, insults and mean-spiritedness. Many of them have remained in this state for decades, unable or unwilling to reconstruct a new spiritual ethos to overcome their nihilism. 

Popular exmormon podcasts have devolved into postmodern politically far-Left leaning propaganda, replacing the LDS religion with a new secular cult; while they are stuck in chronic deconstruction and resentment, doing almost nothing but criticizing and complaining. Another manifestation of nihilism. 

 So when I compare and contrast those who have reconstructed a new faith-stance with those stuck in nihilism and a chronic  "anti" frame, I see a core difference in cultural energy and personal physiology. So that even if nihilism were true, the Nietzschean response to nihilism of engaging in creating new values and creating empowering mythologies -- as Nietzsche attempted to do with his dionysian pantheism as a  "humanity-affirming religion" and Yes-saying philosophy of life -- seems far healthier psychologically, and wiser existentially. 

So I take from Nietzsche a valuable lesson in the reality of our embodied psyche and our primal need to create meaning and mythos to be most healthy psychologically and physiologically; so that on a practical level, why would I adopt a view leading to the path of a Sick Soul or Last Man rather than something more akin to the Healthy Minded or Higher Man of culture? Why not attempt to form the option of the path of the Emergent Mormon, as I do on this blog?

As Victor Frankl argued, creating meaning in life is the most important thing for developing psychological health. So why choose a passive nihilistic worldview that makes one existentially sick and depressive? Why remain stuck in deconstruction rather than move on to reconstructing a new life philosophy and/or mythos, a new identity and worldview, that is physiologically empowering?