A Declaration Against Nihilism

Jan 22

A Note to The Reader: The following post is a collection of poems, essays and reflections I wrote as a part of a final project for a philosophy class on the topic of Nihilism in the Fall of 2023

Thesis: A Declaration Against Nihilism By Kyle Magri

In order to stop the onslaught of Nihilism in my own life and the lives of others I will practice the art of religious and magical rituals and ceremonies both in private and in community.

10 Journal Articles: A Series of Poetic Verses Against Nihilism

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

1: Meaning is at the heart of man's search.

Man longs for meaning in the depths of his heart!

Yet he searches for a meaning already deep within him.

It lies hidden like a pearl within an oyster.

Only when man cracks the shell of his heart open shall he find it.

2: In his writings, Aristotle claims that all human beings seek good as the fruit of

their actions. “Every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every act and purpose, seems to aim at some good: and so it has been well said that the good is that at which everything aims...” he claims. This I believe is true for the majority of people. Even many of the great theologians from all different traditions would say that “all things seek their maker (The Good)” or “God (The Good) is the essence of all things.”

Yet, while most beings desire good as the outcome of their actions, there are undoubtedly those beings who seek not to do good but cause harm and evil intentionally. Aristotle continues “Now since there are many kinds of actions and many arts and sciences, it follows that there are many ends also; e.g. health is the end of medicine, ships of shipbuilding, victory of the art of war, and wealth of economy.” Perhaps from this we could make a distinction between a “higher good” and a “lesser good.” A man who murders his enemies may do the good of protecting himself or his family. But what of the families of the murdered? They are left outside of any benefits of this lesser good. But with a higher good, such as a wealthy person opening a homeless shelter, we see a high good being the final result.

Aristotle later writes that “...a man is not good at all unless he takes pleasure in noble deeds. No one would call a man just who did not take pleasure in doing justice, nor generous who took no pleasure in acts of generosity, and so on.” So clearly there are write actions and wrong actions that can or cannot produce good. While all human beings may think their actions are for the good, be it a selfish or unselfish good, the reality of weather their actions are actually good or not good is measured by “doing justice.”

3: Nietzsche presents to us an erotic and orgasmic view of the Dionysian mystery cults of ancient Greece. He writes “...to life beyond all death and change; true life as the continuation of life through procreation, through the mysteries of sex. For the Greeks a sexual symbol was therefore the most sacred symbol, the real profundity in the whole of ancient piety.” Ancient religion be it Hellenic, Vedic, or Shamanistic, had a profound love and respect for sex. Nietzsche is right in pointing out that it is not till the dawn of Christian apocalypticism, and I would argue other philosophies such as Buddhism and Islam as well, that we see a dramatic rejection of sexuality as something sacred.

To our ancient forbearers, sex was a great mystery, the act of which brought about an unexplainable euphoric ecstasy in the minds and bodies of lovers. Many ancient religious traditions placed much importance on aspects of human life and those of nature that brought about a euphoric and otherworldly experience. Be it sex or a psychedelic plant, anything that brought the person beyond the ordinary was often held up as sacred. Thus we can understand the ancient Greeks' love and respect of sex.

Nietzsche goes on to write “Every single element in the act of procreation, of pregnancy, and of birth aroused the highest and most solemn feelings. In the doctrine of the mysteries, pain is pronounced holy: the pangs of the woman giving birth consecrate all pain; and conversely all becoming and growing — all that guarantees a future — involves pain. That there may be the eternal joy of creating, that the will to life may eternally affirm itself, the agony of the woman giving birth must also be there eternally.” This aspect of religion, the veneration of the Great Mother, did not decrease by any means with the advent of Christianity. Women have always been adored for their ability to create and sustain new life. Nearly every culture has a goddess who embodies this divine mystery. Within Christianity, the veneration and cult of the Virgin Mary, still popular throughout the world today, became in many ways a new Dionysian mystery school within a religion otherwise opposed to sensuality.

The rosary became a quintessential devotion of this mystery cult of the Virgin within the Christian Church. A set of 50 beads divided into sets of ten including three cycles of meditative mysteries that devotees meditated on while they repeated the “Hail Mary” mantra. The mysteries that were meditated upon were moments taken from the life of Christ and Mary. Carl Jung wrote “what happens in the life of Christ happens always and everywhere. In the Christian archetype all lives of this kind are prefigured.” The rosary brought the mysteries and incarnate sensuality into the lives of Marian devotees in a set of three cycles of mysteries symbolizing the birth, death, and resurrection of a mother and her child and, on a larger scale, the birth, death, and resurrection of us all.

Carl Young, describes two of the primary energies moving in the world as the masculine and feminine. No matter what era we are in, the archetype of the Mother and Child never dies. It is found and found again in figures like Isis and Horus, Semele and Dionysus, Parvati and Ganesha, Mary and Jesus. These embodied mothers carry within them the great sensual mysteries that the ancient Greeks spoke of into every culture and religion, even those like Christianity which seem to doctrinally reject the flesh and all the embodied pleasure and pain that comes with it.

4: Blessed be Mary! Our Great Mother and Queen!

Through her, The Golden Sun of Salvation has

burst forth into the darkness of the world!

Through her, The Light has shown on a people dwelling in darkness!

All hail! Let there be joy!

Blessed be her womb which has contained the uncontainable!

Blessed be the waters which gushed forth from her womb,

baptizing the ground at the hour of her son’s birth!

Blessed be her breasts which have nourished the Great Sustainer with Divine Milk!

All hail! Let there be joy!

Hail Mary! Jewel of The Night! Hail Mary! Image of Wisdom!

Hail Mary! Mother of The Son! Hail Mary! Sign of God’s Maternal Aspect!

Hail Mary! Daughter of Light! Hail Mary! Queen of The Dawn!

All hail! Let there be joy!

5: In Mill’s writing On Individuality, As One of the Elements of Wellbeing he makes an interesting distinction between opinion and actions “An opinion that corn dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn- dealer, or when handed about among the same mob in the form of a placard.” Here, Mill seems to say that there are certain places where an opinion can be seen as directly linked with an action. In our own time we have seen a great example of this when Donald Trump stood in front of an angry mob outside the capital and incited a riot. What is interesting here is that he seems to be alright with the press sharing opinion pieces, be they true or not. Yet I feel as though the press could be just as guilty for inciting active violence as any politician standing in front of a mob.

Mill goes on to write“Acts of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavorable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into practice at his own cost.” Here Mill presents us with an interesting idea that one can have an opinion so long as one does not act maliciously towards the one he has an opinion about. For instance, one can think all gay people should be given capital punishment, just so long as the person doesn't go about administering that capital punishment to local homosexuals himself, he can have that opinion all he wants.

The problem that arises with this is that opinions have a tendency of leading to actions in one way or another. If I have an opinion that bananas are better than apples, I am more likely to buy bananas and banana flavored products at a store than I am to buy any products related to apples. I may on occasion indulge an apple but it is unlikely. In the same way, a homophobic person may not always be outrightly nasty towards an LGBTQIA+ person they see in public but they may be very hostel at other times towards one in their family, or one that comes to be served at their restaurant, etc. All these potential actions begin with an opinion. The actions of a human being have their roots in what a human being believes about the world. Opinions are by their very nature the foundation of actions.

6: The following 3 odes record a poetic fictitious conversation between Karl Marx and the biblical character of “Lady Wisdom”. Marx seeks dialogue with Lady Wisdom, seeking her approval and guidance as he begins his revolution.

Ode 1 Crossing the waters as on dry land, In that way escaping From the terrors of Egypt's land, The Israelites cried out exclaiming: To our Redeemer and God, let us now sing.