Category Archives: Nihilism

High-profile climate activists are already branding Cop26 a failure but other voices are warning their message of doom could be as bad as denying climate change altogether.

The first week of the climate summit has brought some major commitments but critics say they are just more hot air.

Here is a guide to what big personalities in the climate fight are saying so far.

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg told protesters gathered in Glasgow on Friday: Many are starting to ask themselves, what will it take for the people in power to wake up?

But lets be clear, they are already awake. They know exactly what they are doing they know exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to maintain business as usual.

Thunberg added: The leaders are not doing nothing, they are actively creating loopholes and shaping frameworks to benefit themselves and to continue profiting from this destructive system.

This is an active choice by the leaders to continue to let the exploitation of people in nature and the destruction of present and future living conditions to take place.

She described the summit as a beautiful PR event and a greenwash festival orchestrated by wealthy countries in the global north.

-John Kerry

Thunbergs words were in stark contrast to the optimism of John Kerry at a business dinner on Thursday evening, where he said that according to the International Energy Agency pledges made so far at the conference would limit warming to 1.8C.

Ahead of the Cop, analysis showed humanity was on course for 2.7C.

Mr Kerry also revealed the target of 100 billion dollars (74.1 billion) in climate finance pledged by wealthy nations to developing countries would be met by 2022, a year earlier than previously predicted.

The US climate envoy told delegates: I believe that we are going to be able to raise the ambition beyond anything we imagined already we have finance that is very significant.

Professor Michael E Mann

Pioneering climate scientist Professor Michael E Mann, one of the people behind the famous hockey stick graph of global warming, has criticised some activists for their outlook on social media.

In a tweet on Friday, he said: Beware of the slippery slope from cynicism to nihilism. It leads to the same place as denialism: inaction.

Which is precisely what polluters and those doing their bidding want.

In an earlier post he said: Cop26 has barely started. Activists declaring it dead on arrival makes fossil fuel executives jump for joy.

They want to undermine and discredit the very notion of multilateral climate action.

Vanessa Nakate

Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate struck a more optimistic note at the Fridays for Future protest.

Describing what the world could look like if humans tackle climate change, she said: The climate crisis is here now.

But the dry land can be glad again, the farms can blossom again, the animals can rejoice because there is water to drink, there is a loud singing in once parched lands.

The pain and suffering is gone, there is a celebration of the people because the disasters are gone.

She continued: We wont have to fight for limited resources, because there will be enough for everyone.

Professor Rebecca Willis, a specialist in environmental policy at the University of Lancaster, believes a little hope can be a powerful thing.

She told the PA news agency: It is really important not to terrify ourselves because the danger is that leads to absolute fatalism.

Prof Willis added: 1.5C is better than the 1.6C, which in turn is better than 1.7C, the more greenhouse gases we can keep out of the atmosphere, the better.

Go here to read the rest:

Cop26: What the optimists and the cynics are saying about progress so far - centralfifetimes.com

Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just cant get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Radiohead dig out a fan favorite.

Even if theyre been one of the most consistent rock bands to have emerged in the 1990s, youd be hard-pressed to find a Radiohead fan who didnt want even more Radiohead. Thom Yorke and company know they have hundreds and thousands of listeners wrapped around their finger, and rightfully so. Follow Me Around, a deep cut recorded during the bands OK Computer sessions and officially released this week, only further evidences the alt-rock legends hot streak in the late 90s and early aughts.

Though OK Computer is defined by its blending of grunge roots and futuristic electronic elements (which, mind you, still sound pretty futuristic), Follow Me Around which you can hear on KID A MNESIA, the bands new compilation of unearthed material from the turn of the century is fully-analog Radiohead. Devoid of any of the percussion or effects that made OK Computer so monumental, the track is driven by a steady acoustic riff that sounds like Yorke had been listening to a little too much Willie Nelson; somehow, though, it works.

Lyrically, Follow Me Around follows the basic Radiohead formula, alluding to Englands political landscape and brooding existentialism. Nowadays I get panicked /I cease to exist, Yorke croons in his trademark wail, recalling the overwhelming stress he felt once his band broke the one-hit wonder curse threatened by Creep and began touring arenas. He disses Margaret Thatcher, envisions his own death, and luxuriates in nihilism: yep, it doesnt get much more on point than that.

Abby Jones

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Song of the Week: Radiohead Return to Their Roots with the Unearthed Follow Me Around - Consequence

Reality is being rewritten before our eyes. Some Americans can see this, and understand it. The results include an inescapablefeelingof dread and doom. The frustration mounts because as a group those who see thetruth and are ready to speak itdo not yet have the full vocabulary required to make sense of it all.

Too many other Americans appear not to care about the blatant effort by the Republican fascists and others to rewrite reality. They are indifferent ortired, orjust so hyper-focused on their own lives that nihilism and surrender are preferable to confrontation and engagement. Others are either incapable orunwilling, or remainin a profound state of denial.

This is not a claim about some grand secret conspiracy. It'san observation about how people function in a society caught in an interregnum, that time of in-betweenness when the old is giving way to something new (and potentially somethinghorrible), when truth and reality are being dismembered by fascists and their fellow travelers. Itall feels like aconfusing slow blur.

For those of us who do care and who choose to see the truth, what do we do when the final form, the entire uglinessbehind America's crisis of democracy,is finally revealed?

On Jan. 6, Donald Trump and his cabal attempted a coup to overthrow American democracy. As part of that coup plot, Trump's followers launched a lethal terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. These events were publicly announced by Trump, his spokespeople, alliesand followers. America's political elites, including too many among the news media, chose to ignore these warnings or somehow convince themselves that it was all "hyperbole."

RELATED:Will the mainstream media ever face its failure to tell the truth about Jan. 6?

With a few notable exceptions, the mainstream news media and other public voices described the right-wing terrorist attack on the Capitol in relatively benign terms asthe acts of a "disorganized mob"or as something "spontaneous" and "shocking."

Donald Trump and his propagandists and co-conspirators, on the other hand, created their own alternate reality in whichJan. 6 was a festive gathering, a "regular day" when many"tourists" decided to visitthe Capitol.

Alternatively, the right-wing propaganda machine argued that, yes, there waspolitical violence, but it was actually committed by antifaor Black Lives Matter activists,as part of afalse flag operation to harm Trump and the Republican Party's supposedly pristine reputation.

It'sall a lie, of course. Butpublic opinion polls and other evidence reveal that a large majority of Republicans and Trump supporters as though there weresomemeaningful distinction between those groupsbelieve in the Big Lie and the many little lies that support it.

As more information about how close Donald Trump and his cabalreally came tonullifying the 2020 election has becomeknown,the language has shifted. Now the mainstream media says"insurrection" rather than "mob." That's certainly a more accurate description, but it still fails to capture the scale of the Trump cabal'sefforts to overthrow American democracy.

"Insurrection" suggests something momentary, as opposed to a sustained attack whoseresult would be a long-term and perhapspermanent change in American society and government. Trump and his forces wanted to spark a fascist revolution in America; Jan. 6 was not intended as a one-off outburst of white authoritarian fascist rage.

In her review of the new HBO documentary "Four Hours at the Capitol,"Sophie Gilbert of theAtlantic grapples with the question of what language to use in describing those events:

In the days and weeks after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, commentators and media outlets grappled with the question of what to call that event. Language is sticky; it clarifies and obfuscates the truth depending on who's wielding it. January 6 was described as or likened to a "riot," a "tourist visit," an "insurrection," a "peaceful protest," and a "coup attempt." And yet, watching Four Hours at the Capitol, Jamie Roberts's tight, unsettling new HBO documentary about that day, another word seemed more appropriate to me, one that most of the participants interviewed in the film might agree on. More than anything else, January 6 was war.

With his rigidly chronological framing and his interviews with people who were present at the Capitol that day, [director Jamie] Roberts captures the extent to which both sides were engaging in combat. This dynamic emerges over and over again throughout different accounts and video clips. One clash between Capitol Police officers and pro-Trump extremists is referred to by a participant as "the battle for the tunnel." Different interviewees describe fighting on "the front line," engaging in "hand-to-hand combat," and, in the case of one police officer, the strangeness of walking through his own colleagues' blood. In a scene that seems ripped right out of a Bruce Willis movie, a police commander shouts, "We are not losing the U.S. Capitol today, do you hear me?"

Gilbert continues by observing that Capitol Police are of course equipped to deal with violent threats, but are "not trained for warfare, which is what must have made January 6 and their task ofdefending the U.S. Capitolseem so absurd." It was the first time hostile forces had invaded the Capitol in large numbers since the War of 1812. What the film captures, Gilbert concludes, is simple: "Pro-Trump forces went to war against the American officers charged with defending democracy."

A series of recent books, most notably Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's "Peril,"have offered evidencethatTrump and his allies were following a detailed plan meant to replace our democratic system with an autocracy where Trump would remain president indefinitely. This plan cameclose to succeeding.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Rolling Stone reports thatdozens of meetingsoccurred between Trump's coup plotters and those others who organized the rallies on Jan. 6which served asa staging ground for the attack on the Capitol. At least one high-ranking Trump White House official and several Republican members of Congress allegedly took part in these meetings.

Donald Trump and his allies are continuing to encourageright-wing political violence as part of the "Big Lie" strategy to undermine Joe Biden's presidency and to further radicalize thesupporters of the Republican fascist movement.

Unfortunately, Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice have so far done nothingto hold Trump and other leaders of the coup plotaccountable for their apparent crimes. Biden and the Democraticleadership are also not exerting the pressure necessary to ensure that Trump and his co-conspiratorsare punished to the maximum extent of the law.

At the Nation, Elie Mystal lamentsthat the DOJ's failure "to investigate the planning of the putsch is all the more shameful given the publicly available evidence that the insurrectionists may have had help on the inside":

For instance: The people who sacked the Capitol made a beeline for the Senate parliamentarian's office. Pictures after the putsch showed that the office had been ransacked. The location of that office is not obvious; it's one of those places that is hard to find unless you've been there before. But the insurrectionists somehow got there and began looking for the hard copies of the electoral votes that Congress was meant to certify that day. Had they gotten their hands on those votes, even for a moment, they would have broken the chain of custody of the Electoral College count and at least delayed the certification of the election, as was their goal.

It strains credulity to think that a bunch of white supremacists and shamans knew precisely where to go and what to look for on their own. At the very least, a thorough criminal investigation of events would seek to uncover where these people got their information. It would look into claims that tours were given beforehand to eventual insurrectionists. Congress can piece together events, but the DOJ and the FBI are not supposed to wait until the political branches get it together before investigating and prosecuting people for crimes.

At some point in the near future, the American people and the world will likely learn the full details of the Trump regime's coup plot or at least, as full an accounting as we will ever get. But what if the American people simply don't care? What if the overall public responseis indifference and a feeling of futility, driven by the perceived"need to move on" or the feeling that "nothing matters anyway."

That will leave the door open for the next fascist coup attempt and serve as an act of surrender in advance which was very likely the plan from the beginning.

More from Salon's coverage of the Jan. 6 aftermath and America's democracy crisis:

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What if the truth about Jan. 6 is revealed and the American people just don't care? - Salon

Mesothelin-directed CAR T-cell therapies, NF2 inhibitors, and EZH2 inhibitors are just 3 of a growing list of novel approaches under study in mesothelioma, renewing optimism in a field which has historically been colored with nihilism, said Marjorie G. Zauderer, MD.

Even just from when I started 10 to 12 years ago until now, the progress we have made has been slow, with only 1 approval, but its really snowballing now in terms of [our understanding of] biology and the discoveries and the models that we have to study and ask the right questions. We should all be optimistic about the things that we can do. Outcomes still have a long way to go, but theyre so much better than they used to be, said Zauderer.

In an interview with OncLive ahead of the 16th Annual New York Lung Cancers Symposium, Zauderer, co-director of the MSK Mesothelioma Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), previewed her presentation on some of the new approaches in mesothelioma.

Zauderer: I was tasked with talking about some new approaches for mesothelioma, and its an interesting time for that disease. Last fall, we had our first FDA approval since 2003 or 2004, which was when pemetrexed was approved for use in mesothelioma. Last year, we had the approval of ipilimumab [Yervoy] and nivolumab [Opdivo], which is exciting. Although that regimen really makes a difference for a lot of people, there are still a lot of people where that isnt the right magic sauce. We are always trying to push that envelope.

Ill be talking about a couple of different research endeavors and clinical trials that are ongoing to help figure out who responds to immunotherapy, who should still get chemotherapy and who should get chemoimmunotherapywhich is a lot like how we treat lung cancer today. Then, of course, we are looking at different ways of triggering the immune system. Lots of different clinical trials are looking to exploit the expression of different proteins on the surface of mesothelioma. One area we at MSK have been really involved in is the development of T-cell CARs targeting mesothelin. [In my PER presentation,] Ill be talking about that a little bit and some of the T-cell studies going on elsewhere.

Then of course, we always think about targeted therapies, and thats certainly been incredibly successful in lung cancer, but we havent had the same degree of success in mesothelioma. In part, that is because the genes are different; theyre tumor suppressor genes instead of oncogenic activating genes. In my presentation, I will briefly cover different ways of exploiting NF2 alterations. There have also been studies looking at BAP1, PIK3CA mutations and sort of how we are starting to put together this very complicated interconnected network with rationally designed experiments based on good preclinical science that were trying to translate into the clinic.

Right now, there are a couple different mesothelin-directed T-cell programs. One that we have at MSK is the interpleural injection of our homegrown construct that was developed and created by Prasad S. Adusumilli, MD, FACS, of MSK, who is a physician-scientist that I work with. There is another construct from a company called TCR2 Therapeutics known as TC-210.

There are programs elsewhere across the country, and in the Northeast, where there are a couple of different constructs [being developed]. Each T cell is a little bit different in terms of the signature in terms of how the cells are manipulated, so that they target mesothelin. People are playing around with whether they are given intravenously or into the pleura or into the abdomen, as well as what chemotherapy to give before to prepare people for the treatment. How many times do you give it? How close together? There are a lot of different manipulations around that. Nobody really knows the right answer yet.

Another pathway that weve been thinking a lot about and how to target it is looking at NF2 alterations in mesothelioma because its a common mutation. There have been a lot of studies with PI3K and mTOR inhibitors, but to date, it hasnt really been as effective in mesothelioma as we would like.

There are some studies now looking at other functions of NF2 and inhibiting that with inhibitors of a molecule that puts together these cullin-RINGs. By blocking the formation of that cullin-RING, you stop this prooncogenic cascade. Combining that [agent] with some of the PI3K and mTOR inhibitors has been productive in animal models. Were starting to look at that [approach] in humans and translate that [to practice].

The other study is evaluating the EZH2 inhibitor tazemetostat [Tazverik], which was approved in the past couple of years for INI-deficient sarcomas. There was a phase 2 trial in mesothelioma that was a positive study. Its one of these constructs that didnt show a ton of shrinkage. There were a few patients who had real responses, but there was a tremendous amount of stable disease [SD]. The kinetics of the patients who had SD was that over a long period of time, they trended towards tumor shrinkage, which is different than a lot of the other ways that we think about these drugs as working. We often classically have thought about having a response up front, and then maintaining it. However, the idea that there might be an evolution to response over time is a really different way of thinking about the kinetics of response.

[We are looking at ways] to target P16 loss, which is common in mesothelioma and is usually associated with more aggressive disease. By interfering with the MTAP pathway where adenine is made, you can hopefully disrupt that signaling pathway. There is a construct thats in development, and there are some other ones that are coming to the clinic too.

Its an exciting time for research because we are starting to extrapolate from other cancers, how they approach their diseases and break mesothelioma down into different subtypes based on biology. One of the biggest barriers is when we look at the SEER [Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results] database of how and where patients are treated; so many patients dont get much treatment, if any, for their disease.

Being seen by a center that has experience doesnt mean that youre always going to get treatmentsometimes thats the right decision for a particular patient. Seeing someone who doesnt see 1 or 2 cases a decade, but who [treats patients with this disease] day in and out, brings a lot of expertise to [an individual patients] case. There are good data that surgical outcomes are better in high-volume centers. One of the barriers is getting the patients to the best regional center to manage their disease.

More:

Research With Cellular Therapy Ramps Up in Mesothelioma - OncLive

18601917 Russian movement advocating negation and liberation

The Russian nihilist movement[note 1] was a philosophical, cultural, and revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which was the precursor to broader forms of the philosophy of nihilism.[1] In Russian, the word nigilizm (Russian: ; meaning 'nihilism', from Latin nihil'nothing at all')[2] came to represent the movement's negation of pre-existing ideals. Even as it was yet unnamed, the movement arose from a generation of young radicals disillusioned with the social reformers of the past, and from a growing divide between the intelligentsia of the genteel and non-genteel social classes.

Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, as stated in the Encyclopdia Britannica, "defined nihilism as the symbol of struggle against all forms of tyranny, hypocrisy, and artificiality and for individual freedom."[3] Though philosophically both nihilistic and skeptical, Russian nihilism did not target all ethics, knowledge, and human life as meaningless,[4] but instead focused on what it saw as meaningless in the dominant hegemony of religion, morality, philosophy, aesthetics, and social institutions. It did however, incorporate theories of hard determinism, atheism, materialism, positivism, and rational egoism[5] in an aim to assimilate and distinctively recontextualize core elements of European Enlightenment thought into Russia while rejecting the Westernizers of the previous generation.[6] Nihilists fell into conflict with religious authorities from the Orthodox Church, as well as with prevailing rigid family structures and the Tsarist autocracy.

Although predominantly associated with revolutionary activism, most nihilists were not politicalinstead seeing politics as an outdated mode of society. They held that until a negation of current conditions had taken place the positive role of politics could not properly be formulated. Among some nihilists however, communal principles began to develop, though their formulations in this regard remained vague.[7] With the widespread revolutionary arson of 1862, a number of assassinations and attempted assassinations of the 1860s and 70s, and the eventual assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, Russian nihilism was fiercely mischaracterized throughout Europe as political terrorism and violent criminality.[8][9] As Kropotkin states, terrorism was particular to given historical conditions of the revolutionary struggle and not to nihilist philosophy itself,[9] which in turn however, scholar Gillespie adds, was central to revolutionary thought in Russia throughout the lead-up to the Russian Revolution.[10] Religious scholar Altizer states that Russian nihilism in fact had its deepest expression in a Bolshevist nihilism of the 20th century.[11]

"He's a nihilist," repeated Arkady.

"A nihilist," said Nikolai Petrovitch. "That's from the Latin, nihil, nothing, as far as I can judge; the word must mean a man who... who accepts nothing?"

"Say, who respects nothing," put in Pavel Petrovitch, and he set to work on the butter again.

"Who regards everything from the critical point of view," observed Arkady.

"Isn't that just the same thing?" inquired Pavel Petrovitch.

"No, it's not the same thing. A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in."[12]

Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, Chapter 5

The term nihilism has been widely misused in the West when discussing the Russian movement, especially in relation to revolutionary activity. Criticizing this misterming by Western commentators, Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky stated that revolutionaries themselves simply identified as socialist revolutionaries, or informally as radicals. However, from outside Russia, the term nihilist was misapplied to the entirety of the country's revolutionary milieu.[13] The Encyclopdia Britannica attributes the probable first use of the term in Russian publication to Nikolai Nadezhdin who, like Vasilij Bervi and Vissarion Belinsky after him, used it synonymously with skepticism. Nadezhdin himself had applied the term to Aleksandr Pushkin. From there, nihilism was interpreted as a revolutionary social menace by the well-known conservative journalist Mikhail Katkov, for its negation of moral principles.[14] The term came into favour when accusations of materialism proved no longer sufficiently derogatory.[15]

The intellectual origins of the nihilist movement can be traced back to 1855 and perhaps earlier,[16] where it was principally a philosophy of moral and epistemological skepticism.[17] However, it was not until 1862 that the term was first popularized, when Ivan Turgenev in his celebrated novel Fathers and Sons used nihilism to describe the disillusionment of the younger generation, the estidesjatniki, towards both the traditionalists and the progressive reformists that came before them, the sorokovniki.[18][note 2] This at a time when the terms faced by serfs under the emancipation reform of 1861 were seen as bitterly failing.[19] The nihilist characters of Turgenev's novel take up the name of their own volition, stating that negation is the most necessary thing in the present age and as such they deny everything.[20] Likewise, the movement very soon adopted the name, despite the novel's initial harsh reception among both the conservatives and younger generation,[21] and wherever the term was not embraced it was at least accepted.[22]

The term realist was used by Dmitry Pisarev to describe the nihilist position and was also the name of a literary movement, literary realism, which had flourished in Russia in the wake of Pushkin.[23] Although Pisarev was among those who celebrated the embrace of nihilism, the term realism may have done away with the connotations of subjectivism and nothingness that burdened nihilism while retaining the rejection of metaphysics, sophistry, sentimentalism, and aestheticism.[24] In a notably later political climate, Alexander Herzen instead presented nihilism as a product of the sorokovniki that the sestidesjatniki had adopted.[25] Contemporary scholarship has challenged the equating of Russian nihilism with mere skepticism, instead identifying it with the fundamentally Promethean character of the nihilist movement.[26] In fact, the nihilists sought to liberate the Promethean might of the Russian people which they saw embodied in a class of prototypal individuals, or new types in their own words.[27] These individuals were seen by Nikolay Chernyshevsky as rational egoists, by Pisarev and Nikolai Shelgunov as the thinking proletariat, by Pyotr Lavrov as critically thinking personalities, by Nikolay Mikhaylovsky as the intelligentsia, and by others as cultural pioneers.[28] Nihilism has also been attributed to a perennial temperament of the Russian people, existing long before the movement's nascency.[29]

Overlapping with forms of Narodism,[30] the movement has also been defined in political terms. Soviet scholarship, for example, often interchanges the designation revolutionary democrats.[31] However, the role of politics was seen as not suited to the current environment by most nihilists.[32] Rather, they disregarded politics,[33] and those who notably held political views or socialist sympathies remained vague.[34] Russian nihilism has also been defined in subcultural terms,[35] in philosophical terms, and incorrectly as a form of political terrorism.[36]

Russian nihilism, as stated in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "is perhaps best regarded as the intellectual pool of the period 185566 out of which later radical movements emerged".[37] During this foundational period, the countercultural aspects of the movement scandalized the country and even minor indiscretions left nihilists imprisoned for lengthy periods or in exile to Siberia, where grittier revolutionary attitudes fermented.[38]

At its core, Russian nihilism inhabited an ever-evolving discourse between the sorokovniki and the estidesjatniki.[39][note 2] While nihilism was not exclusive from them, the sorokovniki were on principle a generation given to idealism.[40] "Their attraction to the airy heights of idealism was partly a result of the stultifying political atmosphere of the autocracy, but was also an unintended consequence of Tsar Nicholas I's attempt to Prussianize Russian society", writes historian Michael Allen Gillespie. "Their flight from the harsh reality of everyday life into the ideal was prepared on an intellectual level by the theosophy of Freemasonry, which exercised great intellectual force in Russian at the time, especially among those whose intellectual education had been shaped by Bhemian mysticism of the radical orthodox sects, the so-called Old Believers."[41] Despite this, the sorokovniki provided the fertile soil for the estidesjatniki's ideological advancements, even in their confrontations.[42]

Russian materialism, as its own tradition, dawned in the period 18551866 under the influence of post-Hegelian German materialism and the delayed influence of the French Enlightenment, and came to be synonymous with Russian nihilism.[43] The origins of this followed from Ludwig Feuerbach as a direct reaction to the German idealism which had found such popularity under the sorokovnikinamely the works of Friedrich Schelling, Georg Hegel and Johann Fichte.[44] However, it was in fact those among the sorokovniki who were characterized as nihilists at first,[45] and it was Left Hegelianism that the Schellingians began to define as nihilism.[46] One such materialist who worked to bring a radical slant to Hegelian thought was Mikhail Bakunin, himself an anarchist and gentry sorokovnik.[47] In his 1842 "Reaction in Germany", Bakunin espoused the radical dictum:

Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too![48]

This celebration of destructive passion was almost in anticipation of the nihilist estidesjatniki to come.[49] Of those early materialists, Bakunin was of considerable influence to Russian nihilism, even contributing to its cause, though he denies a place among the nihilists himself and must be considered separate from radicals of the estidesjatniki.[50] As a Left Hegelian, and especially in his younger years, his political dedication stemmed from a more romantic, idealistic approach to the dialectical process of the Weltgeist.[51] As well as this, Bakunin was a Westernizera group which on the whole was seen as obsolete to the nihilists.[52] Despite this, Bakunin is often seen as among the first nihilists, a position he callously also assigns to the German philosopher Max Stirner.[53]

Among the sorokovnik Westernizers was another significant impact on the history of Russian nihilism, Alexander Herzen.[54] As early as the 1840s, Herzen involved in radical circles in Moscow where he circulated the ideas of socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, in rejection of both utopian and Jacobin forms of socialism.[55] Other preliminary figures of this generation include Ivan Turgenev and Vissarion Belinsky.[56]

It was not until the death of Nicholas I in 1855, and the end of the Crimean War the following year, that this Feuerbachian materialist trend developed into a broad philosophical movement.[57] Alexander II's ascent to the throne brought liberal reforms to university entry regulations and loosened control over publication, much to the movement's good fortune.[58] Where those early thinkers such as Bakunin and Herzen had found use of Fitche and Hegel, the estidesjatniki that followed were set on their rejection of idealism.[59] German materialists Ludwig Bchner, Jacob Moleschott, and Carl Vogt became favourites. The ideas of John Stuart Mill, though his bourgeois liberalism was detested, lent notable influence to the movement. Later, Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck also gained importance.[60]

Often considered the first of the estidesjatniki, Nikolay Chernyshevsky became an admirer of Feuerbach, Herzen, and Belinsky towards the end of the 1840s. It was at this time that he drew towards socialist materialism and was in close contact with members of the Petrashevsky Circle. By the late 1850s however, Chernyshevsky had become politically radicalized and began to reject Herzen's social discourse, devoting himself instead to the revolutionary socialist cause.[61] Alongside Chernyshevsky came Ivan Sechenov, who would later be credited as the father of Russian physiology and scientific psychology by Ivan Pavlov.[62] Chernyshenvsky and Sechenov shared the argument that the natural sciences were wholly adequate to study human and animal life according to a deterministic model, and Sechenov lent particular influence to Chernyshevsky in this regard. This more subtle argument was favoured since state censorship made no allowance for outwardly challenging its religious doctrines.[63]

Yet another estidesjatnik, Nikolay Dobrolyubov, further elborated the ideas of Russian materialism and is at times seen as a leading nihilist.[64] Dobrolyubov had in fact occasionally used the term nihilism prior to its popularization at the hands of Turgenev, which he had picked up from sociologist and fellow estidesjatnik Vasilij Bervi-Flerovskij, who in turn had used it synonymously with skepticism.[65] Together with Chernyshevsky, of whom he was a disciple and comrade, Dobrolyubov wrote for the literary journal SovremennikChernyshevsky being its principle editor. With their contributions, the journal became the primary organ of revolutionary thought in its time.[66] The two of them, later followed by Maxim Antonovich and Dmitry Pisarev, had taken up the Russian tradition of social criticism crossed literary criticism which Belinsky had begun. The discoursing of Russian literature allowed them the vehicle to have their ideas published that censorship would not have otherwise granted.[67] Pisarev himself wrote at first for Rassvet and then for Russkoye Slovothe latter of which came to rival Sovremennik in its influence over the radical movement.[68]

The raznoincy, which began as an 18th-century legal designation for those of miscellaneous lower-class, by the 19th century had become a distinct yet ambiguously defined social class and gave rise to the raznoinnaja stratum among the intelligentsia.[69] The raznoincy, meaning 'of indeterminate rank', were neither peasants, foreigners, tributary natives, nor urban taxpayers such as merchants, guildsmen, and townsfolk, but instead included lower-class families of clergymen, civil servants, retired military servicemen, and minor officials.[70] While many of the most prominent nihilist estidesjatniki were raised free from the extremes of poverty and repression, instead born to genteel families or clergymen, a connection between radicals of the generation and the raznoincy has often been emphasized in comparison to the hegemony of the gentry intelligentsia among the previous generation.[71]

As early as the 1840s, the raznoincy gained significant influence over the development of Russian society and culture,[72] the intelligentsia of this class (or raznoinnaja intelligentsia) also being referred to as the revolutionary intelligentsia.[73] Vissarion Belinsky and members of the Petrashevsky Circle were among these, being prominent figures of the movement to abolish serfdom.[74] Nikolay Chernyshevsky, who was born to a priest, spent his years as a student during the 1840s.[75] He began writing for the literary journal Otechestvennye Zapiski in 1853, and then for Sovremennik.[76]

Bazarovism, as popularized by Dmitry Pisarev, was the marked embrace of the style and cynicism of the nihilist character Yevgeny Bazarov from Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, in which the term nihilism was first popularized. Pisarev graduated university in 1861, the same year as serfdom was abolished and the first major student demonstration was held in St. Petersburg.[77] Turgenev himself notes that as early as 1862, the year of the novel's publishing, violent protestors had begun calling themselves nihilists.[78] The surge of student activism became the backdrop for Alexander II's education reforms, under the supervision of education minister Aleksandr Vasilevich Golovnin. These reforms however, while conceding an expansion of the raznoinnaja intelligentsia, refused to grant more rights to students and university admittance remained exclusively male.[79] Historian Kristian Petrov writes:

Young nihilist men dressed in ill-fitting dark coats, aspiring to look like unpolished workers, let their hair grow bushy and often wore blue-tinted glasses. Correspondingly, the young women cut their hair shorter, wore large plain dresses and could be seen with a shawl or a big hat, together with the characteristic glasses. Such a nihilist could, however, above all be identified by a reversal of official etiquette; the men demonstratively refusing to act chivalrously in the presence of women, and the women behaving contrary to expectations. Both sexes hence sought to incarnate Bazarovs roughness, his "cynicism of manner and expression".[80]

Literary works and journals quickly became enrapt with polemical debate over nihilism.[81] Nikolay Chernyshevsky for his part saw Turgenev's novel as a personal attack on Nikolay Dobrolyubov, and Maxim Antonovich excoriated it in his review.[82] Pisarev famously published his own review at the time of the novel's release, where he championed Bazarov as the role model for the new generation and celebrated the embrace of nihilism. To him, Bazarovism was the societal struggle that must be toiled through rather than resistedhe attributed it to the exclusive and distinct spiritual strength of the young and their courage to face social disorder. The popularity of Pisarev's review rivaled that of even the novel itself.[83]

The atmosphere of the 1860s had led to a period of great social and economic upheaval across the country and the driving force of revolutionary activism was taken up by university students in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Mass arson broke out in St. Petersburg in the spring and summer of 1862 and, coinciding with insurrections in Poland, in 1863. Fyodor Dostoevsky saw Nikolay Chernyshevsky as responsible for inciting the revolutionaries to action and supposedly pleaded with him to bring a stop to it. Historian James Buel writes that while St. Petersburg faced threat of destruction, arson became rampant all throughout Russia.[84]

Turgenev's own opinion of Bazarov is highly ambiguous, stating: "Did I want to abuse Bazarov or extol him? I do not know myself, since I don't know whether I love him or hate him!"[85] Nevertheless, Bazarov represented the victory of the raznoinnaja intelligentsia over the gentry intelligentsia to which Turgenev belonged.[86] Comparing to Ivan Goncharov's The Precipice, which he describes as a caricature of nihilism, Peter Kropotkin states in his memoirs that Bazarov was a more admiral portrayal yet was still found dissatisfying to nihilists for his harsh attitude, his coldness towards his old parents, and his neglect of duties as a citizen.[87]

With the death of Dobrolyubov in 1861 and the arrest of Chernyshevsky in 1862, the movement fell to Pisarev and others.[88] Maxim Antonovich became head of Sovremennik's literary criticism department and entered into bitter disputes with other publications, namely with Pisarev at Russkoye Slovo. Tensions between the two journals boiled over into what Fyodor Dostoevsky deemed the schism between the nihilists, further pointing to Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin as giving the Sovremennik a now regressive character.[89]

Chernyshevsky published his landmark 1863 novel What Is to Be Done? while being held at Peter and Paul Fortress as a political prisoner.[90] Ironically, despite being the most openly revolutionary work of its time and a direct product of the suppression Chenryshevsky had faced, the book passed censorship by an extraordinary failure of bureaucracy and was published without issue.[91] Chernyshevsky continued to write essays and literature while incarcerated. In 1864, he was sentenced and given a mock execution before being exiled to Siberia, where he served seven years in forced labour camps followed by further imprisonment.[92] Chernyshevsky gained a legendary reputation as a martyr of the radical movement and,[93] unlike Mikhail Bakunin, not once did he plead for mercy or pardon during his treatment at the hands of the state.[94]

After struggling in the face of censorship, from which much of its core content is left unclear and obscured, Russian materialism among theoreticians would later be suppressed by the state after an attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1866,[95] and would not see a significant intellectual revival until the late nineteenth century.[96] The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy states:

The only strictly philosophical legacy of the materialists came in the form of their influence on Russian Marxism. Georgii Plekhanov and Vladimir Lenin, the two thinkers most responsible for the development of Marxism in Russia, credited Chernyshevskii with having, respectively, 'massive' and 'overwhelming' influence on them. During the communist period of Russian history, the principal 'nihilist' theoreticians were officially lionized under the designation 'Russian revolutionary democrats' and were called the most important materialist thinkers in the history of philosophy before Marx.[97]

Revolutionary organizations during the 1860s took only the form of conspiratorial groups.[98] From the revolutionary turmoil of the years 18591861, which had included peasant uprisings in Bezdna and Kandievka, the secret society Zemlya i volya emerged under the strong influence of Nikolay Chernyshevsky's writings.[99] Among its key members were Nikolai Serno-Solovyevich, his brother Aleksandr Serno-Solovyevich, Aleksandr Sleptsov, Nikolai Obruchev and Vasily Kurochkin. The full extent of the organization spanned St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, and several cities in Ukraine.[100]

The group supported the intellectual development of social and political thought that expressed the critical interests of the Russian peasantry, and also worked to publish and disseminate prohibited revolutionary writings and ideas to commoners, intellectuals, and soldiers. Alexander Herzen, Nikolay Ogarev, and Mikhail Bakunin all kept contact with its leadership. Zemlya i volya accrued supporters within the Russian military and allied itself with revolutionary activity in Poland.[100] In league with the organization was the Ishutin Circle, founded in Moscow in 1863, under the leadership of Nikolai Ishutin.[101] Historian Shneer Mendelevich Levin writes:

During 1863, the revolutionary situation in Russia virtually exhausted itself. The general peasant uprising, toward which Zemlya i volya was oriented, did not take place, and the Polish uprising was suppressed. Under these conditions, the revolutionary work of Zemlya i volya began to die down. Many members of the society were arrested or were forced to emigrate, and by the spring of 1864, Zemlya i volya had dissolved itself.[100]

After the disappearance of Zemlya i volya, the Ishutin Circle began to unite various underground groups in Moscow.[102] The group arranged the escape of Polish revolutionary Jarosaw Dbrowski from prison in 1864. The same year, the group founded a bookbinding workshop, then in 1865, a sewing workshop, a tuition-free school, and a cotton wadding cooperative. They failed, however, in their attempts to arrange Chernyshevsky's escape from penal servitude. Ties were forged with Russian political migrs, Polish revolutionaries, and fellow organizations in Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod, Kaluga Province, and elsewhere. The Circle then formed a steering committee, known as the Organization, and a sub-group within it known as Hell.[103] Dmitry Karakozov, who was the cousin of Nikolai Ishutin, joined the Circle in 1866 and on April 4th of that year carried out an attempted assassination of Alexander II, firing a shot at the Tsar at the gates of the Summer Garden in Saint Petersburg. The attempt failed and Karakozov was sentenced to death.[104] Nikolai Ishutin was also arrested and sentenced to be executed before ultimately being exiled to a life of forced labour in Siberia.[105] In total, thirty-two members of the Circle were sentenced.[106]

Following the attempted assassination of the Tsar in 1866, the political environment in Russia began returning to that of Nicholas I's rule.[107] The two leading radical journals Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo were banned, liberal reforms were minimized in fear of reaction from the public, and the educational system was reformed to stifle the existing revolutionary spirit.[108][failed verification]

In the meantime, extensive castigation of nihilism had found its place in Russian publication, official government documents, and a burgeoning trend of antinihilistic literature. Notable earlier works of this literary current include Aleksey Pisemsky'sTroubled Seas (1863), Nikolai Leskov'sNo Way Out (1864), and Viktor Klyushnikov'sThe Mirage (1864).[109] Also in 1864, Fyodor Dostoevsky published his novel Notes from Underground, countering and satirizing Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?. In it, Dostoevsky offers a philosophical critique of Chernyshevsky's rational egoism yet from the perspective of a satirical protagonist, whom Dostoevsky posits as a more realistic portrayal of egoisma dislikable glorifier of self-will rather than a magnanimous rationalizer of self-interest.[110] "[Chenyshevsky's] virtuous fictional creations were not the genuine, flesh-and-blood egoists whose growing presence in Russia Dostoevsky feared", writes contemporary scholar James P. Scanlan. "Yet the doctrine these pseudo-egoists advancedrational egoismwas a genuine danger, because by glorifying the self it could turn the minds of impressionable young people away from sound values and push them in the direction of a true, immoral, destructive egoism."[111]

Dostoevsky published his following work, Crime and Punishment, in 1866, particularly in response to Pisarev's writings.[112]

Next followed the revolutionary period of the 1870s and early 1880s, when Sergei Nechayev's pamphlet Catechism of a Revolutionary heightened aggression within the movement and pressed for violent conflict against the tsarist regime, leading to dozens of actions against the Russian state.[113][verification needed] Karl Marx quickly became interested in the revolutionary activity in Russia, even offering his support towards Nikolay Chernyshevsky's freedom from penal servitude, whom he considered the most original contemporary thinker and economist, though this was declined under fear that outside pressure may worsen the situation.[114]

The shift from the formative period to the revolutionary period can be traced to the emergence of Sergey Nechayev and his impact on the movement. While the majority of nihilists have been equated to the lower middle class and desired an escalation of the discourse on social transformation, Nechayev was the son of a serf. He argued that just as the European monarchies used the ideas of Niccol Machiavelli and the Catholic Jesuits practiced absolute immorality to achieve their ends there was no action that could not be used for the sake of the people's revolution.[115] A scholar[who?] noted: "His apparent immorality derived from the cold realization that both Church and State are ruthlessly immoral in their pursuit of total control. The struggle against such powers must therefore be carried out by any means necessary".[116][who said this?] Nechayev's social cachet was greatly increased by his association with Bakunin in 1869 and the use of resources from the Bakhmetiev Fund for Russian revolutionary propaganda.

The image of Nechayev is as much from his Catechism of a Revolutionary (1869) as any actions that he actually took. His Catechism established the clear break between the formation of nihilism as a political philosophy and its transformation into a practice of revolutionary action. It documents the revolutionary as a much-evolved figure from the nihilist of the past decade. Whereas the nihilist may have practiced asceticism, they argued for an uninhibited hedonism. Nechayev assessed that by definition the revolutionary must live devoted to a singular aim, undistracted by emotions or attachments.[117] Friendship was contingent on revolutionary fervor, relationships with strangers were quantified in terms of what resources they offered the revolution, and everyone had a role during the revolutionary moment that could be reduced to how quickly they would be lined up against the wall or when they would accept that they had to do the shooting. The uncompromising tone and content of the Catechism was influential far beyond the mere character Nechayev personified in the minds of the revolutionaries.[118] It extended nihilist principles into a revolutionary program and gave the revolutionary project a form of constitution and weight that the "men of the sixties" did not.

Zemlya i volya was re-established in 1876,[119] originally under the name Severnaia revoliutsionno-narodnicheskaia gruppa (Northern Revolutionary-Populist Group), by Mark Natanson and Alexander Dmitriyevich Mikhaylov.[120] As a political party, the organization became the first to separate itself from past conspiratorial groups with its open advocacy of revolution.[121] The party was predominated by Bakuninists,[122] though became the first truly Narodnik organization to emerge.[123]

Bakunin, an admirer of Nechayev's zeal and success, provided contacts and resources to send Nechayev back to Russia to found a new secret cell based organization, called the People's Retribution (Russian: Narodnaya Rasprava), based on the principles of the Catechism.[124] The organization had just a few dozen members when student Ivan Ivanovich Ivanovone of Nechayev's first and most active followersbegan to protest the leader's methods. This threat to his authority spurred Nechayev into action. He secretly gathered the group members closest to him, declared that the mysterious imaginary central committee possessed the evidence of Ivanov's betrayal, albeit not producible for security reasons, and obtained his death sentence.[125] Author Ronald Hingley wrote: "On the evening of 21November 1869 the victim [Ivanov] was accordingly lured to the premises of the Moscow School of Agriculture, a hotbed of revolutionary sentiment, where Nechayev killed him by shooting and strangulation, assisted without great enthusiasm by three dupes. [...] Nechayev's accomplices were arrested and tried",[126] while he managed to flee. Upon his return from Russia to Switzerland, Nechayev was rejected by Bakunin for taking militant actions and was later extradited back to Russia where he spent the remainder of his life at the Peter and Paul Fortress.[127] Due to his charisma and force of will, Nechayev continued to influence events, maintaining a relationship to Narodnaya Volya and weaving even his jailers into his plots and escape plans. In December 1881 69 members of the prison guard were arrested and Nechayev's prison regime was rendered exceedingly harsher. He was found dead of scurvy in his cell on 21 November 1882.[128]

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A medium commenter recently asked me what the difference was between nihilism and existentialism. So, in this short article, I will explain the difference between the two and give you some background on both.

Just to be clear, Ill be focusing on existential nihilism associated with the philosophy of Fredrick Neitzche, and the existentialism associated with the 20th-century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who popularized the term.

First, its essential to understand the term nihilism refers to a number of different views in philosophy, but for this article when I refer to nihilism I mean existential nihilism.

Existential nihilism is the belief that life has no intrinsic meaning or value. It suggests that each human and even the entire human species is insignificant, without purpose, and unlikely to change in existences totality.

The word nihilism was first used by Friedrich Jacobi, a German philosopher and socialite. However, it is most associated with Friedrich Nietzsche and frequently appears through many of his philosophical works.

Basically, Nietzsche wrote about how the decline of Christianity had ushered in a state of nihilism in Europe that needed to be solved and overcome.

We used to get our meaning and purpose from the church and God, but now that God is dead, at least according to Nietzsche, people may fall into despair since it appears that were just meaningless animals in a meaningless universe.

As he wrote in his work The Will to Power:

Nihilism appears at that point, not that the displeasure of existence has become greater than before but because one has come to mistrust any meaning in suffering, indeed in existence it now seems as if there is no meaning at all in existence, as if everything were in vain.

In his works, such as in Human, All Too Human, he talked about how difficult nihilism can be, and living in a world without the comfort of religious dogmas can be depression.

Perhaps, youve had times in your life where you felt directionless, powerless, and that nothing matters.

However, he believed that nihilism can be overcome and wished to quicken the departure of it.

He wrote about two types of nihilism, active and passive nihilism.

Passive nihilism recognizes there will never be any meaning in the world, and passive nihilists should try to separate themselves from their wills and desires to reduce suffering as much as possible. He called this a will to nothingness.

Ultimately, though, this will to nothingness is still a will, and thus will end up being a futile attempt that ends in deep despair or the individual embracing a mass movement once again to find some meaning.

On the other hand, one can be an active nihilist. If this was a possibility for us, we should try to choose this option.

Active nihilists are individuals who actively destroy our old, fake false values like those in Christianist, and begin constructing our own subjective beliefs and interpretations of meaning.

Like a sculpture, we bash away false meaning and start to chisel out our very own.

By writing about active nihilism, Neitzche is really one of the first existential philosophers, although commonly associated with nihilism.

So, what does existentialism mean then?

Existentialists believe the world intrinsically has no objective meaning, but through a combination of free will, awareness, and personality responsibility, we can create our own subjective meaning.

According to Nietzsche, we should interpret existence in a manner that is life-promoting or creates our own authentic meaning in life. Specifically, we should work on becoming a greater version of ourselves, a Higher Man, as he called it.

This Higher Man is in touch with his deep feelings, instincts, and drives we all have, especially suffering, and his lifes mission is to make peace with the chaos.

His work would pave the way for the French existential movement, in particular, laying some of the foundations for the work of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who is the one to have popularized the term existentialism.

The basis of Sartres existentialism is the phrase existence precedes essence, meaning no general account of what it means to be human can be given, and that meaning can only be decided and constructed through existence itself.

For example, the phone you may be reading this article on already has a meaning or essence. It was built for communication and entertainment. Human beings, however, create our own meaning and essence through the choices we make while we live our lives.

At the end of the day, no one else is responsible for this meaning but us. In fact, Sartre wrote that were condemned to be free because of the overwhelming, near-infinite choices we can make to give our lives meaning.

If we choose to live without pursuing freedom and our own meaning, then were what he called living in bad faith. Bad faith is the phenomenon of accepting that we are a certain way, and subsequently refusing to pursue alternate options.

He explains this concept through the example of a waiter whos so immersed in his job that he believes a waiter is what he truly is and all hes ever meant to be. He lives in bad faith because he rejects his freedom and his responsibility to explore the possibilities life presents him. He believes the choice to do something or not to do it is ultimately not his, even though according to Sartre it is. Thus, he does not allow himself to be a truly free human being.

Through embracing freedom and creating authentic meaning, we better our lives and humanity in general.

The meaning and essence that we create is ontological and we will live on, in a way, after our death just as Sartre is living on through his ideas and philosophical works through this article.

Now, theres a lot more the philosophy of existentialism and nihilism, but I think this gives you an understanding of the difference between the two.

While existential nihilism deals with the idea that theres no intrinsic meaning anywhere in the universe, existentialism deals with ways to address this. The end goal of existentialism, that is Sartres existentialism, being the creation of ones essence and subjective meaning.

Do you consider yourself a nihilist or existentialist? Let me know what you think below.

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Existentialism vs Nihilism Explanations and Key ...

Winning the War Against Therapeutic Nihilism and the Rush to Replace Trusted Treatments with Untested Novel Therapies

Dr. Peter McCullough gave an extensive rundown on everything Covid-19 vaccines, from safety and efficacy to the fraudulent approval of the Pfizer vaccine.

Dr. McCullough is a cardiologist and was vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a professor at Texas A&M University. McCullough is editor-in-chief of the journals Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine and Cardiorenal Medicine. He was and is an advocate for early COVID-19 treatment that included hydroxychloroquine.

This speech by Dr. Peter McCullough was highly recommended by a highly successful and trusted friend in the medical community. Dr. McCullough says, The disability of this vaccine will go down in history as an unbelievable atrocity.

TRENDING: EXCLUSIVE: West Point Cadets Who Chose to Leave West Point Rather Than Take COVID Vaccine Were Coerced, Abused and Discriminated Against

The information he shares here is a wake-up call to Americans. Over 15,000 are now dead from the COVID vaccine, 25,000 are permanently disabled. Why does the CDC and FDA continue to promote these dangerous vaccines?

This is an important presentation from a very respected and knowledgable expert in his field.

Here are the slides from Peters talk from earlier this month.

Slides from Peter McCulloug by Association of American Phy

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Nu metal is a somewhat fluid and controversial term. Its usually used as a one-size-fits-all and lazy means of bunching together a host of bands who dominated popular culture during the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, who all had a set of loose facets in common.

Many of the bands who were labelled as nu-metal by the press and audiences toned down elements of extreme metal and fused them with groove metal, industrial, hip-hop, electronic and grunge to create a genre that was adored by the younger consumers and absolutely loathed by their parents. Nu-metal was the last cultural movement of Generation X.

When you think about the classic nu-metal bands, you consider the likes of Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park,Slipknotand sometimes even Deftones. However, all of the aforementioned bar Limp Bizkit would claim that they did not fit in with the other terrible nu-metal bands such as Bizkit, Papa Roach and Staind. I would agree with them, too. Korn, Linkin Park, Slipknot and Deftones, certainly had nu-metal elements, but their artistry was far denser. Ever wondered why their records have had longevity and the other garbage such as Coal Chamber have not?

However, there was one thing that the majority of these bands had in common; internal horror. I could spend all day talking about the subtle musical differences between a lot of the bands, but the one thing that did clearly tie them together was the darkness that permeated their lyrics.

The words were often filled with rage and nihilism, with some focusing on pain, angst, bullying, complex emotional problems, abandonment, betrayal, alienation and even sexual abuse. In short, it wasnt a very optimistic movement. In this sense, nu-metal was the spiritual successor to grunge. The interesting thing about this is that although lyrically and in spirit, nu-metal succeded grunge, musically, it did not. It was the first rock genre to cast off the use of blues scales and create something that sounded altogether darker through the adoption of Dorian, Aeolian or Phrygian modes and a whole load of chromaticism.

Quite often used as a way of the vocalist or band escaping or confronting their inner demons, reading some or listening to nu-metal lyrics make for an uncomfortable and dark experience. The lyrics from Korns Daddy, the album closer to their 1994 self-titled debut, are some of the darkest ever penned, regardless of genre.Kornvocalist Jonathan Davis revealed that the song is about the life-changing experience of being molested as a child and the trauma it caused as well as not being believed by his parents. The verse lines are genuinely horrifying: Little child / Looking so pretty / Come out and play / Ill be your daddy / Innocent child / Looking so sweet / Ill rape your mind / And now your flesh I reap.

We could also take a deep dive into the sinister autobiographical implications of nu-metal lyrics, but that would be reductive. Davis tragically graphic lyrics on Daddy are the best example of the point; nu-metal had an inherent crossover with horror. Both the very real and fictional. This sometimes bled into a bands aesthetic. Aside from all the immediate visual hallmarks that we associate with nu-metal, baggy jeans, Adidas trainers, facial hair and tattoos, some bands chose to reflect the horror of their music with a gruesome aesthetic.

The obvious one is Slipknot, whose decision to adopt the masks augmented the ethos of their sound and is the most iconic of the era. It was so effective that they managed to outgrow the nu-metal moniker and create something that was totally individual. In many ways, Slipknot are visual artists as well as musical ones. Of the reasoning behind the adoption of the masks, in 1999, their percussionist Shawn Crahan explained: Being from Des Moines, the shithole of the US, everybody treats us like nobody so we decided to be nobody and put on a mask.

Aside from Slipknot, Mushroomhead, Motograter, Coal Chamber, and Mudvayne also adopted striking aesthetics. Masks, jumpsuits, costumes, and bodily paint were the visual weapon of choice. It worked to inspire awe and horrify at the same time. The semi-nihilistic consumer culture of the age lapped it up, and it sold millions.

Another way that nu-metal was tied to horror, was the massive crossover between film and music. It became the soundtrack music of choice from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Nu-metal bands were everywhere,Spawn, Blade II,End of Days,Dracula 2000,Scream 3, are just a handful of the most memorable crossovers.Even the late Chester Bennington of Linkin Park starred in a Saw film.

Famously, Slipknots classic track My Plague from their sophomore album, Iowa, was used as the main song for the first instalment of the zombie horror,Resident Evil. This partnership was so wickedly effective that the band returned for the follow-up,Resident Evil: Apocalypse. On the other hand, the video for Slipknots iconic single Spit It Out was a direct homage to Stanley Kubricks adaptation of Stephen KingsThe Shining. Each member of the band played one of the main characters with the late drummer Joey Jordison playing Danny Torrance and frontman Corey Taylor playing the unhinged Jack Torrance.

Nu-metal is one of the darkest genres of music ever to exist. One would argue that due to the darkly autobiographical nature of the lyrics, that it trumps black metal as the darkest form of music out there. The real-life horror that many of the bands discussed in their lyrics went far beyond the affected macabre of black and extreme metal.

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The real and fictional horror that characterised 'nu-metal' - Far Out Magazine

By Erica QuinonesEditor-in-chief

Netflixs Fear Street trilogy resurrected more than just zombie killers, reviving classic horror tropes in a modern tale of love and death.

Fear Street, directed and co-written by Leigh Janiak, is based on R.L. Steins teen horror series of the same name. The films were released weekly on Netflix from July 2 to July 16.

The films follow the story of Shadyside, an allegedly cursed town doomed to experience mass violence by Sarah Fier (Elizabeth Scopel), who was hanged for witchcraft in 1666 after the first of many mass murders.

While the desolation of Shadyside has caused many residents to fall into despair, the films teenage protagonists pursue an end to their bloody curse in three eras: 1994, 1978, and 1666.

Their attempts take them through shopping malls, summer camps, and colonial towns, each film revealing more of the mystery until the gory finale.

There, the protagonist, Deena Johnson (Kiana Madeira), is possessed by Sarah and shown her story, which is reenacted by the previous films casts. Thus, it is revealed that Sarahs only crime was being a lesbian, and the real witch was Solomon Goode, who passed his craft down to Sheriff Nick Goode in 1994 (both played by Ashley Zuckerman).

As far as killers go, the trilogys stalkers fall closer to Michael Myers than Freddy Krueger, being humorless and toeing the paranormal line even before zombification.

While each killer is aesthetically distinct, their personalities as slashers are overshadowed by homage.

As Alison Willmore said in The Vulture, Part Ones Skull-Face killer is clearly reminiscent of Scream, Part Two evokes Jason Vorhees in both setting and axe, and Part Threes setting is reminiscent of The Witch.

However, while the slashers are overshadowed by their inspirations, one aspect that distinguishes Fear Street from other slashers is how fun it can be.

Whenever the films return to 1994, they bring grungy, neon aesthetics and invigorating 90s music. The kills oscillate from campy to artistic, adding what Willmore called a little lyricism to the deaths and an emotional strength in the second films climax.

As Natalie Winkelman wrote for New York Times, the trilogy eschews the doom-and-gloom sobriety of recent horror successes like Bird Box and A Quiet Place, or the nihilism of The Purge franchise.

Especially in the first film, between its energy, aesthetic, and quick-witted protagonists, viewers can almost forget it is a horror film. That is, until the slasher part of this flick literally shreds their victory.

But the protagonists never stop fighting. Deena and her brother, Josh (Benjamin Flores, Jr.), make plan after plan to save Deenas girlfriend, Sam Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), from the bloody influence of Goode.

The second film watches as Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd) fights off and decapitates her ex-boyfriend and eventual murderer, Tommy Slater (McCabe Slye), to save her sister Ziggy (Gillian Jacobs).

Fear Street is about fighting to make a difference, especially when those who are meant to protect you are the ones who threaten your existence. And that theme resonates with the trilogys heart: Deena and Sams love story.

The films are slasher flicks by blood, but what drives the plot and emotional through-lines is Deenas struggle to first protect Sam from an untimely demise and then from herself when she is possessed.

In an interview with SYFY WIRE, Janiak said that her co-writer, Phil Graziadei, who is a gay man, reminded the writers that the love [Sam and Deena] are sharing is universalbut also its a queer love storyTheyre dealing with things that are specific to feeling like their love is other or maybe not good enough, and so that was really important to preserve.

And that queerness is preserved. Sam and Deena may exist in a more progressive society than Sarah only Sams mother is openly homophobic but they are still cognizant of the hate that could end their lives like it did Sarahs.

Sarah is hanged because she rejects mens advances. She and her lover, Hannah Miller (also played by Welch), are accused of witchcraft by a man whom Hannah spurns. Sarah is captured and framed by Solomon after rejecting his marriage proposal. They are not only persecuted because of their same-sex attraction, but because they refuse to comply with compulsory heterosexuality.

As Victoria Rose Caister wrote from GameRant, it is a horror story with which Sam and Deena relate, which resonates with many LGBTQIA+ people.

That queer generational trauma is central to the trilogys conclusion. Sarah possessing Deena and the decision for Madeira to play both heroines in Part Three shows that Sarah reaches out to people who understand her story, as Welch and Madeira said in SYFY WIRE. Sarah reveals to Deena that despite the horror and violence the queer community has faced, todays queer kids are not alone in their fight.

But where so many of these horrific love stories end in tragedy or nihilism, the optimism of Fear Street gives an already underrepresented love story a uniquely optimistic ending.

Sarah possesses Deena once more to kill Goode, and Deena and Sam meet at her grave to pay their respects and share a final kiss.

As Deena stands over Sarahs grave, musing that, Were still here because of her, the film concludes on the idea that bigotry may be generational, but it is not unstoppable. Love wins in the most literal and brutal sense.

Photo courtesy of Flickr

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Breitbart Politics, by John Binder Original Article Posted by Imright 9/7/2021 8:15:37 PM Post Reply

President Joe Bidens administration is asking Congress to authorize about $6.4 billion in American taxpayer money to bring 95,000 Afghans to the United States for permanent resettlement.In a call with reporters on Tuesday, administration officials said the White House would request Congress to authorize about $6.4 billion in funding to resettle tens of thousands of Afghans across the U.S.Pro-mass migration groups had asked Biden to authorize $8 billion in funds for Afghans.Roughly $1.7 billion of the funding will go toward funding and resources to the Afghans to help them set up a new home in the U.S., NBC News reports.

This Sept. 11, a diminished president will preside over a diminished nation. [Snip] Joe Biden was supposed to be the man of the hour: a calming presence exuding decency, moderation and trust. As a candidate, he sold himself as a transitional president, a fatherly figure in the mold of George H.W. Bush who would restore dignity and prudence to the Oval Office after the mendacity and chaos that came before. Its why I voted for him, as did so many others who once tipped red. Instead, Biden has become the emblem of the hour: headstrong but shaky, ambitious but inept.

Perhaps, at long last, the deadly reign of Anthony Fauci will come to an end. Thats because The Intercept, a hard-left publication, has revealed 900 pages of government documents definitively proving that Fauci used his position to fund gain-of-function research into bat viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)and then lied to Congress about it.Since February 2020, the wizened Fauci has been the face of the governments response to the pandemic. In the ensuing 20 months, Fauci was frequently wrong, incredibly arrogant, and deeply dishonest. Because he was the anti-Trump, though, we were stuck with him.

Four out of five Guantanamo detainees whom former President Barack Obama released in exchange for former U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in 2014 now hold senior positions in the interim government created by the Taliban in Afghanistan.According to the Afghan television network TOLOnews, the Taliban-formed government gave leadership positions to Khairullah Khairkhwa, Norullah Noori, Abdul Haq Wasiq, and Mohammad Fazl; all of whom were released in a 2014 deal between the Obama administration and the Taliban to free Bergdahl, whom the Taliban had held as a prisoner since 2009.

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is in danger of being excommunicated from the Catholic Church for her continuous support of the murder of unborn children.Over the weekend, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who just so happens to be the archbishop of Pelosis home diocese in San Francisco, California, wrote an essay in the Washington Post, announcing that excommunication is a potential action to take against self-proclaimed Catholic Democrat leaders who support abortion.In his piece, Cordileone urged Catholic politicians to oppose abortion, saying that [y]ou cannot be a good Catholic and support expanding a government-approved right to kill innocent human beings.

WASHINGTON In the hours before Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, 20, was killed by a terrorists bomb in Afghanistan, he posed for a photograph taken by a bunkmate. In the image, the Marines brow was furrowed. He flashed a peace sign. (Snip) But Mark Schmitz was confused by what happened next: Biden turned the conversation to his oldest son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015. Referring to him has become a reliable constant of Bidens presidency. In speeches, Oval Office discussions and personal asides, Biden tends to find a common thread back to his son, no matter the

President Joe Biden celebrated Labor Day by delivering deli sandwiches to union workers in his home state of Delaware.According to the Associated Press, the president visited an event orchestrated by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 313 in New Castle, Delaware, where he served sandwiches from Capriottis, a Delaware restaurant chain founded in 1976.He shook hands and chatted with the group of mostly men, who were clad in jeans and union T-shirts, reported the AP. Biden spent several minutes chatting with the union members in groups before telling them, Cmon, lets go get something to eat.'

Vice President Kamala Harris stepdaughter Ella Emhoff definitely got everyones attention when she stepped out in little more than a bra and jeans while in New York City. (Photos) The 22-year-old model wowed in a white bra, pair of black jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt outside Christian Siriano Fashion Show in New York. The photos were shared by Splash News and posted on the outlet Tuesday. (Photos) She completed the jaw dropping look with loose hair, a yellow purse and white high-heeled half boots.

Physicians spreading medical misinformation, particularly about COVID, are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards due to their high degree of public trust and their powerful platform in society. One could say this applies more so to the president of the United States, the CDC director, and to major newspapers and media organizations (snip) A popular catchphrase this past summer is that COVID is, a pandemic among the unvaccinated. (snip) By simply perusing the news, one can draw a far different conclusion, that we are instead seeing a pandemic of the vaccinated.

Theres an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal today about the declining enrollment of men in 2 and 4-year colleges. This gender enrollment disparity is a trend that has been happening for a while now, but at this point the divergence between men and women is becoming pretty dramatic.At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men

The State Department on Tuesday expressed concerns over the makeup of the new interim Afghan government announced by the Taliban, including the lack of female leaders and the past actions of some of those appointed to top posts.A State Department spokesperson said in a statement shared with The Hill that although the Taliban has presented this as a caretaker cabinet, the U.S. will judge the Taliban by its actions, not words.We have made clear our expectation that the Afghan people deserve an inclusive government, the spokesperson added.

Less than one week after the United States completed its full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Sen. Lindsey Graham said the US will have to re-enter the war-torn country in an interview with BBC that aired worldwide on Monday. Whether you like Trump or not, whether you believe its Trumps fault or Bidens fault, heres where were at as the world: The Taliban are not reformed, theyre not new, said Graham (R-SC). They have a view of the world out of sync with modern times. Theyre going to impose a lifestyle on the Afghan people that I think is going to make us all sick to our stomach.

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