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Finally, Destruction for Destruction’s Sake
American Thinker ^ | 22 Dec, 2023 | J. Robert Smith

Posted on 12/22/2023 6:33:07 AM PST by MtnClimber

There’s nothing new about the connection between leftism and nihilism.

Last week, at his website -- “The Blade of Perseus” -- Victor Davis Hanson wrote about the nihilism that’s destroying our society. Hanson surveys the American scene better than any observer. The recent acceleration of that destruction may surprise us but shouldn’t. The dam holding back these deadly forces has been under relentless assault for decades.

Hanson says that nihilism is the root of modern leftism. He is quite right. In fact, he’s frighteningly right. Yet, there’s nothing new about the connection between leftism and nihilism.

Nihilism is a school of thought – often expressed in political and social terms – holding that that traditional values are worthless and empty due to the meaninglessness of existence. The sole stance of nihilism is defiance, the sole goal the destruction of all that stands. Back in 1946, the great C.S. Lewis “warned that ‘post-Christian’ thought, a way of thinking that rejects absolute rights and wrongs, leads to nihilism.” In the mid-20th Century, existentialism was in full flower. It was mostly a movement among agnostics and atheists (Jean-Paul Satre and Albert Camus, notably) to urge invention of meaning to render a meaningless world livable. Fictions were needed to stave off the life-draining sense of purposelessness that atheists, in particular, are prone to.

Nihilism has always been at the heart of leftism. In 19th-century Russia, the nihilist movement grew in tandem with Marxism. Marx himself had nihilistic tendencies, and figures such as Nikolai Chernyshevski and Sergei Nechaev were a strong influence on Russian Marxists (Chernyshevski was likely Lenin’s greatest inspiration). That destructive thread has continued down to this day.

Marxism, throughout its history, has been a refuge for the resentful; for those who nurse grudges...

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: leftism; nihilism
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1 posted on 12/22/2023 6:33:07 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

The left never builds anything. They only seem to want to tear everything down.


2 posted on 12/22/2023 6:33:19 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

The young revolutionaries tearing down and burning on the streets are tools of destruction trained only for that purpose. They know nothing else.

After securing power, Stalin shot them.


3 posted on 12/22/2023 6:40:20 AM PST by lurk (u)
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To: MtnClimber

The people who say they want to Build Back Better are first focused on destroying what has already been built.


4 posted on 12/22/2023 6:40:56 AM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: MtnClimber

The destruction of children, their innocence, and of women as the bearers of children, has accelerated very rapidly and openly just in the past 3 years,


5 posted on 12/22/2023 6:42:37 AM PST by silverleaf (“Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out” —David Horowitz)
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To: MtnClimber

Stalin was on the ballot in 1928 for Red party secretary; surprisingly, the somewhat liberal and attractive St. Petersburg party chief, one Sergei Kirov, got 1/3 of the votes against him, all write-ins in an anonymous ballot. After some head-twisting by the Cheka, a revote was taken and Kirov still had three votes. Stalin couldn’t identify the three, trusted no one, so over time he had the entire group of so-called Old Bolsheviks killed outright or sent to the Gulag. Given the hell they brought on Russia, they got what they earned.


6 posted on 12/22/2023 6:44:37 AM PST by laconic
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To: laconic

He took care of Kirov in 1935.

He was always suspicious of anyone from Leningrad.


7 posted on 12/22/2023 6:45:53 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: MtnClimber
Nihilism is a school of thought – often expressed in political and social terms – holding that that traditional values are worthless and empty due to the meaninglessness of existence.

So the hypocrites replace traditional values with their own, which are at least equally meaningless, and then use the state to force them on everyone else. Some "anarchists."

Can we skip all this and go right on to the ninety year old Slavic general please?

8 posted on 12/22/2023 6:49:01 AM PST by Zionist Conspirator (בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ)
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To: ClearCase_guy

The people who say they want to Build Back Better are first focused on destroying what has already been built.
*****

From our perspective, they subscribe to the motto,” If it ain’t broke, fix it til it is”.


9 posted on 12/22/2023 6:49:09 AM PST by telescope115 (I NEED MY SPACE!!! 🔭)
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To: telescope115

Or, if it ain’t broke…break it


10 posted on 12/22/2023 6:50:14 AM PST by silverleaf (“Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out” —David Horowitz)
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To: MtnClimber
Much of what we see happening in America is just the symptoms.

Here's the disease. And it isn't new.

Nikita Khruschev:

  • You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.

  • We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within.

  • The United States will eventually fly the Communist red flag…The American people will hoist it themselves.

  • The press is our chief ideological weapon.

11 posted on 12/22/2023 6:51:53 AM PST by RoosterRedux (A person who seeks the truth with a strong bias will never find it. He will only confirm his bias.)
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To: MtnClimber
They only seem to want to tear everything down.

They only seem to want to tear everything down.

12 posted on 12/22/2023 6:53:33 AM PST by Ahithophel (Communication is an art form susceptible to sudden technical failure)
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To: MtnClimber

.


13 posted on 12/22/2023 7:01:02 AM PST by sauropod (The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly.)
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To: dfwgator

Yes, that was one of Stalin’s elegant solutions - send the NKVD to kill Kirov, then blame his party opponents for the deed so he could wipe out the rest of them.


14 posted on 12/22/2023 7:05:29 AM PST by laconic
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To: MtnClimber

US policy and government is frozen in woke bureaucratic limbo. We have a puppet President, with rule by hidden factions in DC

its why debt is growing ever-faster. The only thing that can be done is print more money


15 posted on 12/22/2023 7:18:18 AM PST by PGR88
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To: MtnClimber

The underlying problem is atheism. That is, people with an underlying religious faith strive towards order and morality of some kind. Without religion, by default, people are instead drawn to disorder, chaos, and immorality in its many forms.

This becomes bizarre because since our culture is permeated with religious thought and order, so atheists use its terms and ideas in opposition. That is, for every grace that the religious embrace, the atheists embrace its opposite sin.

A great example of this generally derives from Catholicism, and outlines the Seven Great Virtues that good people should embrace, and the “Seven Deadly Sins” that they should avoid.

So for their part, atheists the Seven Deadly Sins as their sacraments. And they feel free to embrace each of them to varying degrees.

And for all those things outside of virtue and sin, their cue is if religious people embrace it, they reject it, and vice versa.

Their goals in doing this are simply power over others and wealth. Essentially a return to feudalism, with them as the new nobles. They cannot enjoy a good dinner unless they can look down on others who are starving.


16 posted on 12/22/2023 7:43:46 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("All he had was a handgun. Why did you think that was a threat?" --Rittenhouse Prosecutor)
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To: RoosterRedux
We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within.

You got most of it right in your post. The elephant in the room is Nikita Khruschev and the USSR. They both died a very long time ago -- many decades!

No. It's not the long-dead Khruschev or the USSR. It's our own. Most all civilizations fail from a strong dose of internal rot.

The disease is those among us who have corrupted our system beyond recognition.

Place the blame where it belongs -- not some dead person or country who left many decades ago. Until we place the blame where it belongs, we will continue down the same dirty path to failure.

17 posted on 12/22/2023 7:51:10 AM PST by icclearly (Q)
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To: icclearly
Duh.

The blame doesn't go to Khruschev or the USSR. Never did. It goes to the Communist Party USA. It isn't dead by a long shot.

18 posted on 12/22/2023 8:09:49 AM PST by RoosterRedux (A person who seeks the truth with a strong bias will never find it. He will only confirm his bias.)
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To: MtnClimber

Don’t underestimate the desire to be a part of the in-crowd even when the in-crowd wants to destroy everything that is good and decent.


19 posted on 12/22/2023 8:12:00 AM PST by libertylover (Our biggest problem, by far, is that almost all of big media is AGENDA-DRIVEN, not-truth driven.)
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To: RoosterRedux
The blame doesn't go to Khruschev or the USSR. Never did. It goes to the Communist Party USA. It isn't dead by a long shot.

Good. I'm glad you recognize it wasn't some boogie man/country half a world away. We agree.

But now, you focus on another boogie without any supporting evidence.

Don't you see? It's so much more than some vague "commies."

Let's try another way -- 'cause we've about worn that one out. Let's focus on the rot in our society without focusing our energy on some long worn out unproven idea.

Thanks.

20 posted on 12/22/2023 9:52:06 AM PST by icclearly (Q)
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