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- SOCIETY MUST REJECT NIHILISM
Implications For DebateSimone DeBeauvoir’s work offers two areas of value for debaters. First, her observations on values and ethics can answer those who call for a rejection of values and ethics, and this answer can be constructed in a way that avoids the very appeal to transcendent values that is most often the object of nihilist or relativist attacks. In other words, DeBeauvoir remains a “radical” in the sense that she does not call for a conservative treatment of values, but she sees importance in them nonetheless. Second, her treatment of feminism is a “middle ground’ between radical feminism and anti-feminism. She argues that women must consciously choose their own liberation; this is both an ethical imperative and also an answer to those who would impose feminism on all people as a sweeping political change. DeBeauvoir argues that separatism (a radical form of feminism) is a setback to humanity as well as to women. This serves as a rejoinder to advocates of a “feminist reconceptualization of values,” those who believe that certain philosophical approaches are ‘male-centered” and others are feminist. And she notes that for women to became empowered, economic liberation (though not necessarily of the Marxist variety, she qualifies) is a prerequisite for any meaningful change in the lives of individual women. Again, this can be a response to those who believe that reconceptualizing values and philosophies could liberate women: The answer is that women must be liberated in “bread and butter” issues, economically and physically, rather than relying on the philosophers to suddenly become feminists and strive for “nurturing” values. What makes Simone DeBeauvoir fun and rewarding as a source for philosophical debate is her incredible voice as a writer. She is very easy to read and even easy to read aloud. Debaters should familiarize themselves with her work, since in a field of contemporaries (Sartre, Heidegger, etc.) who are cryptic and often difficult to understand, DeBeauvoir writes for understanding, with her audience in mind and largely assumed to be non-philosophers. This makes her invaluable as a debate source. BibliographyBeauvoir, Simone De. THE SECOND SEX. (New York: Vintage, 1989). . THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948). . ADIEUX: A FAREWELL TO SARTRE (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984). . ALL SAID AND DONE (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974). . AMERICA DAY BY DAY (London: G. Duckworth, 1952). . FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE (New York: Putnam, 1965). . BRIGI1TE BARDOT AND THE LOLITA SYNDROME (New York: Ama Press, 1972). . THE LONG MARCH (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1958). . THE PRIME OF LIFE (New York: Paragon House, 1992). . A VERY EASY DEATH (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985). . WHEN THINGS OF THE SPIRIT COME FIRST (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982). Evans, Mary. SIMONE DEBEAUVOIR: A FEMINIST MANDARIN (London: Tavistock, 1985). Ascher, Carol: SIMONE DEBEAUVOIR: A LIFE OF FREEDOM (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981). Bieber, Konrad. SIMONE DEBEAUVOIR (Boston, G.K. Hall, 1979). Keefe, Terry. SIMONE DEBEAUVOIR: STUDY OF HER WRITINGS (London: Harrap, 1983). Leighton, Jean. SIMONE DEBEAUVOIR ON WOMEN (London: Associated University Presses, 1975). SOCIETY MUST REJECT NIHILISM1. FAILURE TO FREELY CHOOSE ETHICS LEADS TO NIHILISM Simone DeBeauvoir, French philosopher. THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY, 1972, p. 52. Conscious of being unable to be anything, man then decides to be nothing. We shall call this attitude nihilistic. The nihilist is close to the spirit of seriousness, for instead of realizing his negativity as a living movement, he conceives his annihilation in a substantial way. He wants to be nothing, and this nothing that he dreams of is still another sort of being, the exact Hegelian antithesis of being, a stationary datum. Nihilism is disappointed seriousness which has turned back upon itself.
Simone DeBeauvoir, French philosopher. THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY, 1972, pp. 53-4. One can go much further in rejection by occupying himself not in scorning but in annihilating the rejected world and himself along with it. For example, the man who gives himself to a cause which he knows to be lost chooses to merge the world with one of its aspects which carries within it the germ of its ruin, involving himself in this condemned universe and condemning himself with it. Another man devotes his time and energy to an undertaking which was not doomed to failure at the start but which he himself is bent on ruining. Still another rejects each of his projects one after another, frittering them away in a series of caprices and thereby systematically annulling the ends which he is aiming at.
Simone DeBeauvoir, French philosopher. THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY, 1972, p. 55. The attitude of the nihilist can perpetuate itself as such only if it reveals itself as a positively at its very core. Rejecting his own existence, the nihilist must also reject the existences which confirm it. If he wills himself to be nothing, all mankind must also be annihilated; otherwise, by means of the presence of the world that the Other reveals he meets himself as a presence in the world.
Simone DeBeauvoir, French philosopher. THE ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY, 1972, pp. 55-6. But this thirst for destruction immediately takes the form of a desire for power. The taste of nothingness joins the original taste whereby every man is first defined; he realizes himself as a being by making himself that by which nothingness comes into the world. Thus, Nazism was both a will for power and a will for suicide at the same time. From a historical point of view, Nazism has many other features besides; in particular, beside the dark romanticism which led Rauschning to entitle his work The Revolution of Nihilism, we also find a gloomy seriousness. But it is interesting to note that its ideology did not make this alliance impossible, for the serious often rallies to partial nihilism, denying everything which is not its object in order to hide from itself the antinomies of action. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
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