Disgusting.
I find it ironic that a Nihilist would truly care…for what are sexual organs apart from regions of the body with a high concentration of nerve endings…? What are said nerves other than conduits capable of transmitting signals to the mass of organic matter known as the brain…? What is the brain apart from a concentration of neurons capable of translating such signals in order to determine the appropriate related chemical releases…?
So for what purpose might a Nihilist be concerned that an immature human specimen might have been subjected to a premature excitation of said nerve endings, which in turn may have resulted in a series of unexpected mental experiences brought about by chemical release?
For while certainly the Humanist might be concerned as to the consequences of such a situation due to a concern for the welfare of the psyche of the child…and certainly the Religious might be concerned as the welfare of the spirit or soul of the child…and surely the Legalist might merely be dissatisfied that an entity, who in former times had little in the way of legal protection, might have had certain basic rights offended…and perhaps even the Economist might be taken to fret about the possible cost to society in terms of a potential future drain on the collective’s productivity brought about by the child’s considered detachment from a normative upbringing translating into a future dividend of costly antisocial behavior…but clearly the Nihilist has little logical concern for any of these…so how might such a lack devolve so readily into substantive disgust?
I think it’s disgusting because when people do things that I wouldn’t want done to me I get disgusted. It’s basic human empathy, which is a biological trait. I have been told that I lack empathy because I don’t like the Mormon religion and didn’t understand Warbler’s reasoning for leaving the forum. I don’t know what any of that shit has to do with empathy, but disgust at child rape is a healthy reaction to such a crime. It doesn’t mean that I accept any kind of intrinsic meaning in life, and my thoughts on the subject are also consistent with the nihilistic notion that morality is a human construct.
Why might disgust be considered a ‘healthy’ reaction to anything given nothing has within it an intrinsic value?
By what standards is it considered healthy? To what standards is it reacting against or towards?
I already addressed that. Empathy is the ability of a conscious organism to recognize the feelings of another, which is critical to the survival of the species because otherwise it would likely destroy itself either through violence or the inability to cooperate. My natural paternal instincts are probably kicking in too, which is an evolutionary construct. Even though I thankfully haven’t been irresponsible enough to create a child, I still feel compelled to protect kids or see them protected from dangerous things or people. These responses are healthy because it’s what human beings without severe mental disorders do, just like it’s healthy to feel hunger if you haven’t eaten in a long time and it’s healthy to feel pain when your hair gets pulled out. I never said that I chose to feel disgusted or anything like that. As I nihilist I don’t demand that all “moral” (and again, people disagree on what constitutes morality) behavior be rejected, I just acknowledge that morality is a human construct, which it is. That doesn’t mean that it’s “bad” or whatever. It just means that it lacks intrinsic value or meaning, which it also does. Everything is irrelevant or meaningless to something somewhere.
Also, just because something is valuable to me, that doesn’t mean it has intrinsic value.
I commend you for your well considered response…it was more than I had hoped to receive when first I had asked the questions and it truly speaks highly of you as a properly grounded individual…
When considering one’s proper nihilism, there certainly appears to be something of a variable distance between some of those qualities offered as normative or indigenous to nature and the more rational world view brought about purely by purposeful reflection…but might one truly accept the belief that one may so alter one’s nihilism so as to at times accept an arbitrary standard without intrinsic value?
For little appears to come to the nihilist by way of reflex without also having an attached explanation and understanding of its base causes–the lack of which must needs surely reduce the views of said nihilist to some form of composite belief in a greater perspective outside that of his own deep well, while, alternately, the understanding of which must plausibly reduce the former (that is to say, the reflex as stated) to something which may either be accepted willingly or deliberately avoided…
For in comprehending morality to be little aside from a human construct, what over-arching demand requires one to accept it entirely without alternative or alteration…? If no such demand, is it not then acceptable to rationalize and then dismiss by degree…or perhaps even by whole measure?
Yet if one is capable of choosing whether or not to dismiss such impulses, what might drive one to fully (or even partially) embrace some whilst rejecting others? For how can the same individual be crowned a humanitarian in one setting and a devil in another, well all the while maintaining a sporadic moral code that he knows to be arbitrary? For even if some such acceptance might be made based upon the claim that so doing might merely be in answer to a natural impulse or order, why obey either of such?
For is not nihilism, by its very definition, the acceptance of all morality (impulsive or created) as meaningless? If so, how might one willingly abstain from some ‘meaninglessness’ whilst enjoining a serious acceptance of any of the rest?
Is it to be considered possible that some emotions might yet be expected to be entirely more powerful than the pure mental rationalizations of the deep nihilist…?
Or, alternately, is it possible that a nihilist might choose to accept certain arbitrary impulses in order to better conform with the normative view so as to avoid unnecessary conflict…?
Yet, by so doing, is it truly possible or appropriate for him to share in the outrage when such arbitrary mores might be offended?