AT The Orthosphere, Kristor writes:

On the one hand, you have the ephemeral symptoms of nihilism: tattoos, piercings, sex change operations, and soon no doubt random unmotivated pointless amputations of this or that. On the other, you have askesis, that cuts away everything that is not of the Truth.

The first rejects substance and meaning in favor of nothing. It deletes great hunks of being, at the same complicating what remains – and not in a good way. The nihilists are hunted, harried, gloomy, weakened, fey.

The second abjures partiality for fullness, of being, significance, beauty. It clarifies and simplifies, as the dross falls away, leaving only the dense pure gold. The students of askesis are at peace, or on their way to it. They are hearty, quiet, relaxed, and hard to spot.

The first ends in crabbed miserable death, the second in life everlasting.

Then there is everyone in between, all of whom must sooner or later decide between these two options.

— Comments —

Buck writes:

From President Obama’s recent public remarks about the Islamic terrorist who beheaded James Foley: “There has to be a clear rejection of this kind of nihilistic ideologies.”

Islamic terrorists, bent on establishing their Islamic State (their name!), are nihilists?

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