Karl Heinrich Marx

“If sci­ence and knowl­edge are

sup­pos­edly pur­sued for its own sake, then how about the

knowl­edge that life has no dis­cern­able pur­pose, knowledge

that hap­pi­ness, won­der, and curios­ity are based in material

orga­ni­za­tions that were likely selected for their evolutionary

sur­vival value, and knowl­edge that there is no

fun­da­men­tally ratio­nal basis for choos­ing life over death.

Nihilism, noted Friedrich Niet­zsche, “rep­re­sents the

ulti­mate log­i­cal con­clu­sion of our great val­ues and

ideals”.1432 This is the bank­rupt, philo­soph­i­cal dis­as­ter area

the West dwells in. I see no “bot­tom”, no lim­its to stop the

freefall into value noth­ing­ness. Implicit in nihilism is the

col­lapse of the entire human cause. The ulti­mate logical

con­clu­sion of West­ern val­ues is the ratio­nal self-destruction

of the West.

Is this absurd? If this is absurd then it must also be absurd

that I rage at the entire cos­mos for hav­ing no ultimate

mean­ing.

But there is no rea­son to be pes­simistic. There is no

jus­ti­fi­ca­tion what­so­ever for a neg­a­tive atti­tude! There is no

jus­ti­fi­ca­tion what­so­ever for a pos­i­tive atti­tude! There is no

jus­ti­fi­ca­tion what­so­ever for a neu­tral attitude!

Who knows what will hap­pen with cer­tainty? I could be

strolling down the street, being beau­ti­ful, on my way to kill

myself, when sud­denly I am run over by a bus.

But wait a minute. Why am I doing this? Ah, yes, now I

remem­ber the punchline:

I’ll try any­thing once!

There is noth­ing to take seri­ously!” — M.H.