Nihilism vs Morality (best, about, history, mass)

[Frenchman]

Nihilism is barbarism. Morality is Civilization.
Civilization is a nation builder, barbarism destroys Civilization.
The greatest enemy of Civilization is the barbarian, the greatest threat, an invasion of barbarians, from the inside and the outside.

[coosjoaquin]

Well I'm a nihilist and I don't think I'm much of a barbarian outside lunch hours. In Nihilism morality is subjective making it the product of history and culture(ie civilization) and depends on the context. IMHO imposing an absolute morality on people leads to stagnation which is arguably a form of destruction and thus a threat to civilization.

[Tricky D]

I agree that civilisations are often more orderly than barbarism, but I would never agree that civilisations could not be as savage as the barbarians.
I mean look at the Nazis, they are, if nothing else, very methodical, but this doesn't mean that they aren't cruel.
They are cruel in a methodical and scientific way, unlike barbarians who often are more chaotic and savage.

[Arjay51]

Kind of depends on your point of view. The "barbarians" would consider themselves "civilized" and "civilization" to be chaotic. Just the point of view depending on which side of the fence you are on.

[TRANSPONDER]

One value of TV is being able to watch documentaries where Mr Civilized interacts with barbarians (1). Barbarians of the 'primitive tribes' kind very often turn out to be able to teach us a thing or two, also about morality, though I don't find myself going overboard for the 'back to simplicity' message.

Contempt for 'lesser' races is not what I subscribe to and I do not use western civilization as a yardstick because probably everyone has some good points and everyone has some bad.

At base, the 'beware of barbarians' message comes across to me as good old xenophobia and that ridiculous 'our people are the best' arrogance. I have no truck with it.

(1) let's distonguish the three terms meant by 'barbarian'

(a) foreigners. The greeks thought all foreigners barbarians because of their 'bar-bar-bar' speech and therefore inferior.

(b) peoples without a developed technology or with a less developed technology.

(c) mass foreigners moving in, gradually or en masse, armed.