LEBOVIC, Nitzan. The
history of nihilism and the limits of political critique (Rethinking History,
2014)
This article by Nitzan Lebovic in the
forthcoming edition of Rethinking History discusses the history of the concept of
nihilism, later on taking Israel as a
case study of its uses. Here are two quotes, the first indicating a general
conclusion, the second a more specific one:
“The evolution of the concept of nihilism up
until today demonstrates that the concept of nihilism is situated in the
crowded crossroad between nothingness, the undermining of authority, the
negation of the I, the inherent ambivalence of meaning, the suspension of time,
the Death of God, and the end of metaphysics. The revival of nihilism in our
own time shows that after ‘the end of time,’ the end of a historical era, the
death – literal or metaphorical – of a sovereign, when only a shade of
legitimate power is left, a nihilist revolutionary project often represents a
desperate confrontation with the frozen time, by striving for an absolute new
beginning and assuming the inevitability of a substantial destructive act. When
change is stalled, nihilism builds on the stasis of the period and has no
problem accelerating its end, with violent means if needed.”
“If nihilism signified during the eighteenth to
nineteenth centuries, the ‘annihilation’ of sovereign power, nihilism in the
present is nothing more than a critical tactics of undermining legitimacy, used
by both the ruler and the ruled. Still, as such, it is a sharp mirror that
reflects where the ‘common–exceptional’ or ‘normal–abnormal’ distinctions end.
In Israel, the open space for legitimate democratic critique in the public
sphere has shrunk dramatically and the ‘abnormal’ is now fully eclipsing the
‘normal’: the continuous refusal of the Israeli government, since 2001, to
discuss attainable solutions to a century-long conflict, and the ongoing effort
to win larger territory under the guise of weakness and victimhood, signified
to this group not only a false argument, but a cynical tactic meant to silence
any opposition and critical discourse by labeling it ‘nihilist.’”
Further reading
The
Philosophy of Life and Death: Ludwig Klages and the Rise of a Nazi Biopolitics,
by Nitzan Lebovic
Catastrophes:
The History and Theory of an Operative Concept, edited by Nitzan Lebovic
and Andreas Killen
The
Politics of Nihilism: From the Nineteenth Century to Contemporary Israel,
edited by Nitzan Lebovic and Roy Ben-Shai
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