The "God is Dead" Problem - Nietzsche to Marx to Rand

Posted by Eudaimonia 9 years, 11 months ago to Philosophy
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I've seen posts from time to time which express a desire for more philosophical content in the Gulch and not just news clips on the antics of the Ruling Class.

I just had a realization I would like to share.
Rand also might have stated this explicitly, but it's been a while since I've read her essays, so...

I believe what we are seeing from the Left today is their solution to Nietzsche observation that "God is Dead."

Many people quote this and do so out of context. Nietzsche didn't just say that "God is dead", but that *we* killed him. Despite those who might quote him out of context, he did not necessarily look at this as a "good thing", but instead as the crux of an impending deep societal problem. He was, in a poetic fashion, trying to point out: since a major portion of society has moved beyond looking to religion as relevant to their daily lives, they have also unknowingly removed the cornerstone of their society's accepted morals and values. What then?

He was right to question this: as each society modernizes they face this similar crisis.

I believe what we are seeing in the US and the world today (and also in the recent past) is the Left attempting to fill Nietzsche's predicted absence of moral cornerstone with the "ethics" of Marx.
It is why they rail against religion.
It is also why they demonize, marginalize, and purge non-Marxists with religious terms and tactics; e.g. guilt, sin, shame, and evil.
It is also why so much of Neo-Marxism relies on faith, e.g. "Forward!"

It is also why the Left tries to smear Objectivism as a cult.
The Left realizes on some level, that Objectivism also seeks to provide a moral cornerstone, one which is the opposite of Marxism.

So, if these are the stakes, we must make sure that we don't make the Left's mistake and appeal to urges of religion.
Reason must not become faith.

Your comments are welcome.


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  • Posted by overmanwarrior 9 years, 11 months ago
    Interesting, I think the left is trying to actually kill religion so that they can start a new one, one dedicated to progressive values. One example would be this whole worship of the earth stuff, they are simply trying to make earth worship into a goddess complex. But before they do that, they must remove classic religion because it teaches that man has dominion over all the earth.
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  • Posted by straightlinelogic 9 years, 11 months ago
    That's a good article and a good post, Eudaimonia.

    It is ironic that the Left calls Objectivism, a philosophy that purports to be based on reason and so opens itself up to all reasonable critiques, a cult. It is the Left that is a cult, not because it abandons religion but because of its religious, evidence-denying faith in the most deadly institution in history--government. The left has all the hallmarks of cultism--tribalism, emotionalism, ritualistic behavior, brutal supression of opposing points of view, and denunciation and violence directed towards non-believers.
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    • Posted by JerseyBoy 9 years, 11 months ago
      As you said, Objectivism _purports_ to be based on reason; that doesn't prove it actually _is_.

      What a philosophy purports and what its adherents actually do are two different things.

      No one has mentioned that there are many on the right who call Objectivism a cult centered on the persona and opinions of Ayn Rand rather than reason.
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      • Posted by straightlinelogic 9 years, 11 months ago
        If I understand Obectivism, it is centered on reason. That some people who claim to be Objectivists are slavishly and cultishly centered on Rand, rather than reason, does not invalidate Objectivism, it invalidates their claims to be adherents of a philosopy based on reason. All hypothesis and sets of hypotheses, scientific or philosophic, purport to be based on reason. They can be invalidated by reason, but not validated, only tentatively accepted as comporting with reason in light of the current state of reason and reality, subject always to the reason and reality tests of the future.
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      • Posted by Lucky 9 years, 11 months ago
        JerseyBoy: Your statements are correct but only in the confines of what you have quoted so I do not find them useful. What would be useful, and you appear to have the interest and aptitude, are

        1. Follow up on the suggestion from Eudaimonia discussing, or present a negative case, that Objectivism in based on on reason.

        2. An elaboration of your stance, perhaps with examples of- What bad stuff Ayn Rand did to you, or if you want to not be in it as an individual- the bad personal behavior of Ayn Rand that invalidates Objectivism.
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      • Posted by 9 years, 11 months ago
        Whether Objectivism is in fact based on reason, or whether some who claim to be Objectivists are in fact irrational cultists is best handled in a separate post.
        Please start one.
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  • Posted by Rozar 9 years, 11 months ago
    That was beautiful. My perspective of statists has taken to viewing them as replacing God with the state, or some other concept like the future or humanity. I view it as a way for them to relinquish both responsibility and control of their lives, they want to believe that they are insignificant so they don't have to cope with their personal failings.

    Just some quick thoughts on the matter, thank you for sharing yours :)
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  • Posted by FreeEach 9 years, 11 months ago
    Hey Eudaimonia, thanks for Aristartling me! with your important and -- as Murray (Rothbard) would cackle -- trenchant, topic!

    For the "God is dead" recognition and acknowledgment is the grenade pin dear Fred (Nietzsche) pulled to tumble the Exploding Void into the 20th century where its shrapnel has since been busy penetrating all brains (revaluating all values).

    Dostoevsky's scat on this tune that came before furious Fred's dirge is even, to my (riddled?) mind, more to the (ouch!) sharp point: "When God is dead then everything is permitted."

    And a famous phrase attributed, apparently, dubiously, to Chesterton: "He who does not believe in God will believe in anything." adds spice to the boiling pot.

    I will add my own quote to prove as randy as Rand (she always preferred to quote herself!): “If you have nothing to live for you will find everything to die from.”

    These four quotes set up my fourth concluding quote from a favorite sociologist, Philip Rieff, that says what I hope will be the evolutionary result of the individual Consciousness of the 21st Century freeing itself of the Selfish Genes’ dictatorship: “The emergent culture must formulate its own controls…. Self-knowledge again made social is the principle of control upon which the emergent culture may yet be able to make itself stable. Affluence achieved, the creation of a knowing rather than a believing person, able to enjoy life without erecting high symbolic hedges around it, distinguishes the emergent culture from its predecessor.”

    This is my intentional work and the best of my life’s purpose, to “FreeEach” what I term the philosophy of “Personal Responsible Freedom” and show why Gods and Governments can be, and for some have been, outgrown…made obsolete, superfluously redundant! Laugh and leave them to dissipate and disappear.

    God and Governments have long been dead. Do not host their ghosts any longer!
    Don’t let these Zombies feed on your brain with their genes and memes. Grow up and govern yourself. Understand why anarcho-libertarianism is the evolutionary maturity Humanity is currently coming to worldwide through the auspices of the Internet.

    Rand never grew up. Although she relinquished God, she still believed in Government. Read the finest book written to demonstrate her adolescence: The Market for Liberty by Morris and Linda Tannehill (https://mises.org/books/marketforliberty...) and listen to Roy Child’s gentle chiding and deserved hiding of Rand in his “An Open Letter to Ayn Rand” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se0VmSaJD... and http://www.dailypaul.com/54196/objectivi... ). Then come and view me at: www.ResourceForYourSource.com and perhaps you will be interested in joining with me to create a “Galt’s Gulch” of the Mind, in which case, email me at: themesofjack@gmail.com and I will respond.

    CHeers, FreeEach/Jack, in CHarming and CHaotic CHina where Responsible Freedom is CHurning a CHange.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 9 years, 11 months ago
    You make a series of excellent points, Eudaimonia. The left sees a moral vacuum created by the loss of God from the lives of some many people. They are itching to fill that vacuum with something far more vacuous. Objectivism is indeed a rival to the Left. Objectivism could be a sturdy structure to keep an entire society from collapsing under the vacuum, if it were only widely applied.
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