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The Morality of Pity
Pity is nihilistic insofar as it allows us to evade reality, by allowing us to feel that we are better than we are and better than those in need.
The morality of pity drives us to feel pity and to feel good for feeling pity. Having such feelings is worse than feeling nothing. If we feel good when we feel pity, then we are motivated only to help the individuals we feel pity for rather than to help end the systemic injustices that create such pitiful situations in the first place.
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MORE IDEAS ON THIS
What Is Nihilism?
Nihil means “nothing.” -ism means “ideology.” But this seems to be self-refuting. To say that this means that someone “believes in nothing” is not really helpful, as believing in something suggests there is something to be believed in, but if that something is nothi...
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Nihilism Is Closer To Idealism Than Cynicism
The idealists constructs an alternate reality, a reality of ideas. As the idealist focuses more and more on how reality ought to be, the idealist becomes less and less concerned with how reality is.
The utopian views of the idealist may be more compelling than the dystopi...
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Nihilism Vs Apathy
To be apathetic is to be without feeling, to be without desire. To be apathetic is to be seen as not caring about anything. The apathetic individual feels nothing. But it is not nihilism.
Apathy can be an attitude (“I don’t care about that”) or a character trait (“I don’t care abo...
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Nihilism Vs Cynicism
Today, a cynic is someone who looks down on society and sees it as fake, because the cynic sees the people who make up society as fake. He believes that morality is a mere pretense and people act on their own self-interest even when they seem to be helping other people.
Cynicism, like pess...
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Nihilism versus Pessimism
If optimism is hopefulness, then pessimism is hopelessness. Pessimism is dark and depressing. But it is not nihilism.
To be with a pessimist is to know that you are with a pessimist. But you can be with a nihilist and have no idea. Indeed you could yourself be a nihilist and have no idea. S...
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Other curated ideas on this topic:
Social Comparisons
A social comparison happens when we are measuring ourselves by the success or the failures of others. We all use social comparisons to motivate ourselves.
- Upward comparisons make us dissatisfied, as we line up ourselves with someone better than us.
Fork over the truth
Behavior modification teaches us that we repeat behaviors that make us feel good. What’s your payoff for not changing?
Until the goal becomes larger than the payoff, you’re always going to choose feeling good over feeling uncomfortable.
What is emotional acceptance?
Often we have an uncomforable feeling, such as sadness, fear or shame, our first reaction is to reject that feeling.
We may tell ourselves that feeling is a bad feeling that we do not want to have. Then we may do something to try to get rid of the feeling, such as trying to push it awa...
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