EPISODE · Dec 15, 2021 · 1H 17M
The Soviet Ordeal Ep. 2 Nihilism and the Revolution
from Savage Continent · host Stephen Eck
Marx was fond of the phrase “Everything that exists deserves to perish.” Creating the shining future of communism meant destruction of the corrupt system of bourgeois capitalism. Like Marx, Friedrich Nietzche thought the western world’s moral system was hopelessly flawed, only he believed it was tainted by the “slave morality” of Christianity. Unlike Marx though, he thought a new race of supermen would be needed to cure the World of the plague of nihilism that would descend upon humanity when the decrepit Christian value systems were finally declared dead. But there was another view. A Russian writer named Fyodor Dostoyevsky warned what might happen if either of these utopian dreams were attempted. He predicted police states, reigns of terror and 100 million corpses... and he did it all in a devilishly dark comedy. Not bad for a guy writing in 1872. What happens when you tear down a system? Will it result in a beautiful dream or a dystopian nightmare?
What this episode covers
Marx was fond of the phrase “Everything that exists deserves to perish.” Creating the shining future of communism meant destruction of the corrupt system of bourgeois capitalism. Like Marx, Friedrich Nietzche thought the western world’s moral system was hopelessly flawed, only he believed it was tainted by the “slave morality” of Christianity. Unlike Marx though, he thought a new race of supermen would be needed to cure the World of the plague of nihilism that would descend upon humanit...
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The Soviet Ordeal Ep. 2 Nihilism and the Revolution
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