Nietzsche's View Of Nihilism

Weber argues that religious beliefs contributed to major social change- specifically the emergence of modern capitalism in Northern Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Modern capitalism differs from capitalism as it is based on systematic, efficient and a rational pursuit of profit and profit for its own sake rather than consumption. Weber calls this the spirit of capitalism.

The skies are an eternal grey, the sun is hardly seen, and people hurriedly rush to a meaningless job only to stumble back to a home in squalor. The grey of the skies is a perfect match for the people’s spirits. Hope, like the sun, becomes shrouded in a smoky cloud as the jobs provided to these people offer little in wages and even less in purpose. This is the life facing the proletariat, wage-labor social class or working poor. In contrast, the employers of the poor caste live rather lavish lives of wealth and stature. The bourgeois, upper middle-class consisting of business owners, shop owners, landlords, otherwise known as the wealthy employers. It is this contrast of social struggle that produced Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Abraham Kuyper’s The Problem of Poverty. Both Marx and Kuyper’s writings focus on the social struggle between the privileged, wealthy, and unprivileged, poor; however, Marx presents the struggle and his solution from an economic viewpoint while Kuyper presents the struggle and his solution from a religious viewpoint. Marx begins his presentation with a defining of both socio-economic groups then presents the political movement of Communism as a solution to the contrast. Kuyper, on the other hand, focuses his presentation on the idolization of monetary wealth over the sovereignty of God beginning at the conclusion of the French Revolution. Kuyper’s writing not only presents a religious solution to class struggle, but is also a response of

As seen throughout the semester, the debates surrounding capitalism and its role in society are extensive and transcends generations. By virtue of the nature of debates, two broad positions on capitalism evolved in North American Protestantism – one position defends capitalism while the other protests capitalism. The defense of capitalism developed in the 19th century. Being one of the many authors to do so, Charles Sellers attributes the development of capitalism to the Market and Industrial Revolution (Sellers, 21). Consequently, the Second Great Awakening increased religious awareness and significance in the daily lives of Americans (Sellers, 202). Sellers argues it was only through religion that Americans could cope with the stresses of

Capitalism is an unnatural perversion of society in Marx and Engel’s The Communist Manifesto. It is constantly consumptive, unable to exist without further expansion. It warps society through its exploitation of labor and the class that provides it. The Communist Manifesto goes beyond just a sociopolitical critique of capitalism, and adds otherworldly, almost Gothic elements. Repeated supernatural, fantastical language reinforces the idea that capitalism is an illegitimate twist of the natural state of human affairs.

Lofton begins her discussion on religion and economics, claiming that new religious movements connected their descriptions of sexual life to “new modes of economic occupation that offer rejoinder to industrial and consumer capitalism.” (8) By connecting

Today's social vocabulary frequently uses the word “nihilism” interchangeably with the word “pessimistic,” such as abstinence and celibacy. Admittedly, famous celebrities and philosophers, with these characteristics, do share resemblances in their personality traits. Historically, in the mid to late nineteenth century, the term Nihilism had a completely different meaning. While under the rule of Czar Nicholas II, the working class complained about how he treated the majority of the nation and demanded immediate reform. After refusing to acknowledge the pleas of the citizens, the last Russian Czar and his family were assassinated systematically by those he was set to govern. Afterwhich the people decided to form a new government, which resulted in the creation of Socialism. Despite its’ original ideology nihilistic mindsets do not occur naturally, rather they are a result of traumatic experiences.

Karl Marx, in the Capital, developed his critique of capitalism by analyzing its characteristics and its development throughout history. The critique contains Marx’s most developed economic analysis and philosophical insight. Although it was written in 1850s, its values still serve an important purpose in the globalized world and maintains extremely relevant in the twenty-first century.

Generally, Marx’s position on religion is drawn up in an entirely negative manner. In his writings, he expresses his belief that religion is a set of doctrines intended to stabilize, while at the same time bring into servitude the working class people. In addition to that, he argues that the society’s inclination towards religious excitement serves to represent a reaction to disaffection. Also, Marx contends that, since religion causes human beings to feel delusive happiness it makes an erroneous mental representation in as well as of itself. Indeed to him, it is an instrument utilized to sustain cultural systems together with ideologies that in most cases encourages oppression in the society (Parsons 38-46).

Over the 20th century, numerous conflicts and wars were fought over which economic system is better--capitalism or communism . To summarize, capitalism encourages a ‘free market,’ where competition between businesses drives the market. In communist societies, the government is in control of private property and means of production. These viewpoints held on the economy's days since Cory do not necessarily match up with Catholic Social Doctrine, which disagrees with the moral relativism of Unregulated capitalism. It also disagrees with the religious-suppression characterizing communist Governments, as well as the communist stance on property as something that should be collective. This suggests Catholic Social Teaching is unique in the context

Following the Industrial Revolution in 19th century Europe, change was in full swing and religion began to have different meanings for different people. The upper-class citizens used Religion, namely Christianity, and the power that it possessed in an attempt to keep their high status in society, while the lower class turned to faith so that their lives could possibly improve. Instead of religion being the cornerstone of faith and worship amongst all people, it was being used for power and money by the upper class. Even worse, religious leaders were using the upper class people as well, gaining money and authority from their endorsement. A man by the name of Karl Marx saw

However, Nietzsche once said, "people fight with the devil must be careful yourself in the struggle to become the devil, when you stare at the abyss, the abyss also in stare at you.” In the negation of human nature, Liu have slowly started to swing, finally gradually towards the nihilism. Hence, the face of the inner universe, Liu is hovering between two levels. He couldn't put humanity and "universal ethics", and even in the darkness of the physics also ceased to exist in the universe, human only inevitably end - and far more than human, whole the universe history is the process of death, dark forest ultimately is not a rat, but larger foe. All the sea dried up, all the fish will die.

The nihilism analysis has been prevalent position over the past few years. Its anticipated purpose is to demand questions about the norms made in a philosophical debate. These contain the notion that one must actually suggest and preserve an idea in order to contextualize one’s idea.

The definition our book, found in the glossary, provides for this word is, “a viewpoint that denies objective moral truths and traditional religious and moral principles” (Fiero). Since there was limited information in our book or tours, I decided to do further research online. On a website, http://www.nihil.org/, I found they talk specifically about nihilism, stating that nihilism is a concept that is usually used to define either that we are under a rule of law and morality or that we are free with a sense of nothingness, no rules, governing body, God or otherwise. On the contrary, they believe that nihilism fits somewhere in between the 2 perspectives stating, “Nihilism argues for a middle path: we lack inherent order, but are defined by

Both Karl Marx and Max Weber assert that capitalism is the dominion of abstractions and the irrational accumulation of abstract wealth for the sake of wealth. For Marx, the state of capitalism is entrenched in the social classes to which people have bben assigned. Capitalism, according to Marx, is a result of the bourgeoisie 's ascent to economic and political power. This fuels the manifestation of a system that exploits the labour power of the lower socioeconomic classes for the gain of the higher socioeconomic classes. Weber understands the state of capitalism to be the end product of the work ethic of the Protestant branches of Christianity and the secularization of Protestant puritanism, which helped fuel rationalism. Capitalism, according to Weber, is to be understood as the relations and methods of production and commodities, now rationalized. Ultimately, Marx ascribes the ascent of capitalism to the exploitation of people and power, while stressing that such a system can be overcome by a communist revolution, whereas Weber states that such a system is the result of cultural choices and is not as convinced that capitalism can be overcome.

According to Marx, religion can be seen as the opiate of the people (Engels, Marx 1955, p.41). Here, Marx is suggesting that just like opium, religion is trying to relieve people of the pain and suffering in their lives. Marx also puts forward the idea that religion is used by its oppressors in order to make people feel better about their lives. Thus, it can be seen that Marx chooses to adopt a negative view of religion. Max Weber can be seen as the only sociologist to place so much scope and emphasis on the subject of religion (Nisbet, p.250). Biographical and textual evidence suggests that biblical religion played a part in shaping and influencing Weber's life and the context of his sociology. Weber's main concern was to attempt to demonstrate that religious ideologies were not mechanically connected to the economic structure of society, however it does shape individuals behavior and actions in everyday life (Swingewood 1984, p.152). Weber also came to several conclusions regarding the remarkable relationship between capitalism and Protestant. According to Weber, the more capitalism had a free hand to alter social distribution, the larger the relationship between capitalism and protestant (1930, p.4). Overall, it can be seen that the three main sociology theorists differ greatly when it comes to ideas regarding to religion.