NIHILISM AND PSEUDO-SPIRITUALITY: HUMANITY AT THE CROSSROADS
UDC 165.721
MOROZOV Andrii,
Doctor of Sciences (Philosophy), Associate Professor, Department of the Philosophy and Social Sciences of Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics
NIHILISM AND PSEUDO-SPIRITUALITY: HUMANITY AT THE CROSSROADS
Background. It was discovered that with the onset of the modern era, traditional values and orders that are oriented toward the divine vertices of being are rapidly eroding. Everything that exceeds the human and individual level and is aimed at the highest sacred spiritual world "not from this world" is replaced by the authority of the human mind. The scope of morality is becoming autonomous from tradition and divine authority, and as a result the rationality of the formal moral law loses the value component.
Analysis of recent researches and publications has shown that the important scientific and practical problem of the influence of nihilism remains unresolved both on theoretical searches in the academic university ethics, and on the cultural practices of modern youth.
The aim of the article is to identify the negative effects of nihilism and outline the possible ways of compensating them.
Materials and methods. Common scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, analogies and modeling, comparative and historical-philosophical, as well as the dialectical law of double denial are used.
The results of the study showed that philosophical nihilism is a logical necessity for the final stage of the development of Western philosophical thought (wider - the western history of culture). The problem of nihilism is posed by the outstanding thinkers F. Nietzsche and F. Dostoevsky, later reconsidered in the philosophical critical studies of M. Heidegger and Y. Evoly. Attempting to compensate for moral nihilism (as a consequence of a metaphysical rebellion) by orienting itself to a closed, autonomous from religion, the ethics of duty, on which the categorical imperative of I. Kant is based, contains a hidden totalitarian potential. Indeed, the Kantian imperative itself can be successfully applied in human-hatred regimes with an alternative value system of coordinates. Moreover, the formalism and rationalism of the Kantian ethics causes an even greater wave of nihilism. Acutely aware of the falsehood of the modern world, young people from the subculture environment are struggling to compensate for the lack of supreme meaning through appealing to archaic pre-modern pragmatic practices with the use of psychoactive substances.
Conclusion. For the first time a moral dilemma facing modern mankind has been formulated. On the one hand, there is an intention to reduce all internal wealth of spiritual and moral culture exclusively to the legal culture, where the criterion of morality is the formal universality of the law. On the other hand, in search of application of creative irrational energy, youth rushes to the other extreme: a rebellion against the soulless alienated capitalist society through escapism – the departure from objective reality in the narcotic (psychedelic) reality. However, all this can be called surrogates of spiritual experience, counter-initiation, the result of which is not the renewal of spiritual life, but senseless spiritual and social degradation and, in the end, spiritual and physical death.
Keywords: nihilism, moral chaos, categorical imperative, metaphysical nostalgia, psychedelic practices, pseudo-spirituality.
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MOROZOV Andrii,
Doctor of Sciences (Philosophy), Associate Professor, Department of the Philosophy and Social Sciences of Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics
NIHILISM AND PSEUDO-SPIRITUALITY: HUMANITY AT THE CROSSROADS
Background. It was discovered that with the onset of the modern era, traditional values and orders that are oriented toward the divine vertices of being are rapidly eroding. Everything that exceeds the human and individual level and is aimed at the highest sacred spiritual world "not from this world" is replaced by the authority of the human mind. The scope of morality is becoming autonomous from tradition and divine authority, and as a result the rationality of the formal moral law loses the value component.
Analysis of recent researches and publications has shown that the important scientific and practical problem of the influence of nihilism remains unresolved both on theoretical searches in the academic university ethics, and on the cultural practices of modern youth.
The aim of the article is to identify the negative effects of nihilism and outline the possible ways of compensating them.
Materials and methods. Common scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, analogies and modeling, comparative and historical-philosophical, as well as the dialectical law of double denial are used.
The results of the study showed that philosophical nihilism is a logical necessity for the final stage of the development of Western philosophical thought (wider - the western history of culture). The problem of nihilism is posed by the outstanding thinkers F. Nietzsche and F. Dostoevsky, later reconsidered in the philosophical critical studies of M. Heidegger and Y. Evoly. Attempting to compensate for moral nihilism (as a consequence of a metaphysical rebellion) by orienting itself to a closed, autonomous from religion, the ethics of duty, on which the categorical imperative of I. Kant is based, contains a hidden totalitarian potential. Indeed, the Kantian imperative itself can be successfully applied in human-hatred regimes with an alternative value system of coordinates. Moreover, the formalism and rationalism of the Kantian ethics causes an even greater wave of nihilism. Acutely aware of the falsehood of the modern world, young people from the subculture environment are struggling to compensate for the lack of supreme meaning through appealing to archaic pre-modern pragmatic practices with the use of psychoactive substances.
Conclusion. For the first time a moral dilemma facing modern mankind has been formulated. On the one hand, there is an intention to reduce all internal wealth of spiritual and moral culture exclusively to the legal culture, where the criterion of morality is the formal universality of the law. On the other hand, in search of application of creative irrational energy, youth rushes to the other extreme: a rebellion against the soulless alienated capitalist society through escapism – the departure from objective reality in the narcotic (psychedelic) reality. However, all this can be called surrogates of spiritual experience, counter-initiation, the result of which is not the renewal of spiritual life, but senseless spiritual and social degradation and, in the end, spiritual and physical death.
Keywords: nihilism, moral chaos, categorical imperative, metaphysical nostalgia, psychedelic practices, pseudo-spirituality.
FREE FULL TEXT (PDF)