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What do Marxists think about nihilism? (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I can't seem to find it anywhere, but I swear I once read a fascinating critique of nihilism by Marx himself.

The outline was a brilliant bait and switch:

Nihilism is true: we're all just isolated individuals (and therefore whatever else nihilists claim, I can't remember the details, is true)
But individuals exist in social relations, like capitalist/worker, regardless of their thoughts or feelings about them
So nihilism is false

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Huumm, I mean Marx was also very anti-Stirner, but Stirner’s thoughts work very well with Marxism. Like any “conscious egoist” can realize that the only path to liberation for the individual is through communism. Communism is literally the free individual acting out its own self-interest, but realising his own self-interest is intertwined with all of humanity, and all of Earth.

Nihilism doesn’t have to be incompatible with Marxism or communism. Like I never thought that deeply about it, but I don’t think anything about it is inherently anti-communist. Nihilism is about how there is not grand plan, or purpose, to any individual or collective. That all ideals are empty. That’s basically it. Nothing about that is anti-communist.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The thing is, with Stirner, it seems to me if the communist union of egoists couldn't continue, at the temporary expense of one of their egos, then it would cease to be a union of egoists, and thus he'd reject any such organization of it...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That’s making his thought into something it definitely is not. It’s not a system. The idea of the union of egoists is that it is the only possible truly free association between people. Under communism, all associations would be union of egoists, and no one would ever think about them or even have that name for them. They would just exist, and do things with other people for different purposes at different times, always only when it’s beneficial to all involved, and stopping when it stops being beneficial for any party.

Or isn’t communism the total liberation of the individual? (among other things ofc, but to me it was always the main one tbh, in how I understand things - not a libertarian or anything)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Under communism, all associations would be union of egoists, and no one would ever think about them or even have that name for them. They would just exist, and do things with other people for different purposes at different times, always only when it’s beneficial to all involved, and stopping when it stops being beneficial for any party.

Ah okey...