Mad Max Nihilism

In the movie Mad Max Fury Road: Fury Road nihilism is portrayed throughout the film. One point being is that the setting takes place after nuclear warfare and it is a violent movie with road battles between Max and the women in the war rig verses a couple of civilizations trying to catch and kill them. The primary civilization that is chasing after the main characters believe that that sacrificing themselves by risking their lives while in battle will reward them in the after-life. In Mad Max: Fury Road, one of the focused main characters, Nux, soon realized that their leader, Immortan Joe, was corrupt and controlled everything but before he changed his views he tried killing himself in a kamikaze type way in to the war rig yelling, "I live, I die, I live again." Spray painting themselves in the mouth and getting ready to commit suicide shows nihilism in the movie by explaining life is meaningless until they sacrifice themselves for their leader. Throughout movie the story tends to lose some of the nihilistic views though. The first half of the movie seems more nihilistic than the second half because there isn't a lot of dialogue in the beginning. Max and Imperator seem mysterious and the audience does not know why or where they are escaping to. It just seems like a bunch of people killing and blowing each other up until we learn that their purpose is to find hope and do better for themselves and others by saving the people from the civilization.

Dystopia

I think that the two essays do reinforce the ideas we have been talking and reading about in class. Both essays refer to topics along the lines of nihilism, dystopian America, the need for asceticism, and the inevitability of destruction and corruption but in different ways. In the essay Enclose, Encyclopedic, Endured: The Mall of America, a main idea that was mentioned many times was about how over the top and overdone everything in the mall was. The mall had such a large turnout of people daily and was enjoyed by them so much because it allows all the people to get away and escape from a far from perfect world and go into a seemingly perfect one. Journalist David Guterson mentions this topic when he notes that “There are, one notices, no clocks or windows, nothing to distract the shopper’s psyche from the alternate reality the mall conjures” (162). Guterson is saying that the lack of windows or clocks really lets you escape from the real world and all its problems and just get lost in the joy of the mall.The essay Is America Falling Apart is also very much about nihilism and pessimistic thoughts. These ideas are shared when Anthony Burgess states that “Perhaps only a country full of bombed cities feels capable of the kind of social revolution” (327). Burgess is saying that Americans know things are messed up and not right but are unwilling to do anything about it despite having this knowledge.

Two essays

These two essays reinforce the ideas we have studied recently by showing how Americans live their life. The Mall of America is an example of hiding from the real world. People come here to relieve stress and forget about how terrible their lives are. We humans feel this false sense of safety when we are in places like this. It’s almost as if we are in a completely new world that is open to new things and new lives. The sad part is, in the end, the people will have to come back to reality and realize that their lives are inferior to that of the ones in that mall. “Creators of this illusion had much to contend with…” (Guterson 112) This place is perceived to be something that it is not. It is like a safe haven to the people that shop there. Sure, they go to actually buy new things, but some may just go to feel relieved of the world that is waiting on the outside for them. In Burgesses essay, he explains how people have the ability to fix something, but they won’t actually follow through with actions. This is the problem with people being too afraid of what is to come. The people need to understand that if the apocalypse is going to happen, there is no stopping it unless the whole world were to change, which will not happen. Overall, no matter what people say or feel about bad situations in the world, most of the time they will not do anything productive to solve the problem at hand. Even our morals will not be able to save us from destruction, it is just something that will happen no matter what we do in out lives. So, we might as well live our lives to the best of our ability.

...And Nihilism Spreads

“Nothing exist and nothing matters. And the world that we live in, that we define in terms of humanity, doesn’t care about us.” This quotation from the podcast breaks down the dictionary definition of what nihilism means, in a simpler manner. Nihilism is the rejection of morality and the views of life as meaningless. This idealism seems very depressing, but it is a big part of our society. When you look around at the “modern” art we now know, try looking deeper. “Why did the artist create this?” Many of the expressive artists of today have nihilistic views, and this inspires their art. It is an ongoing movement that has branched out into music and all fine arts. With this, it can now be seen in more and more buildings and how more people are organizing their wardrobe. With nihilism creating a movement, this makes many people wonder, “Is there any traditional values left?” In asking this, they are meaning full traditional values and not the ones swayed by the views of later generations. Not even religion is untouched by nihilism. Different churches have turned away the old ways and changed to the newer ideas. One great example would be The Church of Scientology. This is not a “normal” religion, but it is a religion nonetheless.  Like every great movement, nihilism can be seen in many parts of our lives. Society cannot stay untouched by the ideas of the majority. 

Nihilism

In the podcast “In the Dust of This Planet” they mention that “nihilism is the basic credo of cool”. The definition of nihilism is “extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has a real existence”. I think that since our society is so obsessed with post-apocalyptic and the dystopian society, I think that nihilism is also a huge part of pop culture. Nihilism has been a thing since the 1800’s and still is very popular. For example, shows and movies like “the Walking Dead”, “the Giver”, and “the Hunger Game”. I think that it influences our society to think that its “cool” to believe that nothing in this world has a real existence since movies highlights the negatives in society. I think that being pessimistic/ negative is pretty much the same thing as being nihilistic. When someone doesn’t think that the world has a real existence then there’s no point in being positive since the world isn’t existent. Nihilism is everywhere whether it’s in music, tv, social media. In the podcast it talks about how Eugene Thacker’s book was shown in a popular music video by Jay-Z, or can be seen in shows like “True Detective”, and they don’t even know that it’s nihilism.

IN THE DUST OF THIS PLANET

“What philosophy is often referred to is nihilism or pessimism. There might be a purpose to things or to your life or existence, might be an order to things. No inherent meaning, doesn’t matter. In the podcast, the quote written, is how the speaker told his view of nihilism. A true definition to the term nihilism is, a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless. In a simpler term, a nihilist doesn’t have a meaning to life or things. This is relevant to contemporary society in a way of how we view life. Most of us have a clear view, but in modern days, everyone’s views become different and the traditional views are lost. For example, the traditional marriage isn’t the only type of marriage anymore, and our view of a “traditional” marriage is fuzzy, or “unfound”. So, just one example of a nihilism to contemporary society, is our view on a marriage, and it is very relevant, especially in this viewpoint. Today, in a contemporary society, there is no longer a “normal” or “traditional” view on certain things, making the belief of nihilism very, extremely relevant. Maybe, 50 years ago, the point of nihilism was nothing, but as we all begin to change our thoughts and beliefs of things, it becomes relevant, because certain things aren’t just black and white, there begins to have gray areas because there is no “traditional” anymore, especially as our lives changes with many different viewpoints in everything from entertainment, to politics.

Nihilism

“What in philosophy is often referred to as nihilism or pessimism. That there might not be a purpose to things or to your life or to our existence or to the cosmos. And this all might be purely arbitrary, an accident.” Nihilism is skepticism about if anything in the world has a real existence. Nihilism is very relevant in the present time, with how many movies and books and other forms of media are displaying dystopian societies. It’s like the different media outlets are saying that we’re here but really there’s no point because everything is just going to fall apart. People have also become numb to the idea of everything falling apart and so they just become pessimists. Society has become used to the idea that nothing has purpose and dystopian aspects of society are already present and with the continuation of all the dystopian societies being pushes through different media outlets, people will soon become completely oblivious to life and what is going on around them. News channels also have become very pessimistic, mostly just broadcasting the terrible things that are going on around the world and spending little to no time discussing things that are good that has happened. People nowadays seem to focus on the negative aspects of life and everything that is going wrong, people have a much more pessimistic view of the world and of the people who live on this planet. This is all because of what the media is producing for us.