Thread: The Nihilists Manifesto

Being red later today at a convention of sorts.


Hello good people, my name is Calum Foster-Bayliss and I am here to give a symbolic representation of the change in youth today from the rampant consumer obsessed altruism of the sixties to the cold surrealist nihilism of these, the dying decades.

Allow me to first give a few statements of clarification, a declaration of sorts. There is a mystique surrounding nihilism that portrays an image, a symbol, of a new age cultured depression assumed by the oppressor to whom the killing fields are dedicated, to whom the banana plantations and coke fields alike send their crop.

Depression is only assumed under bias, bias being a manifestation of humanities sick fascination with self, with ego. Yet still they remain oblivious, by choice, to how this self works, how it assumes it’s ego/identity. Crisis… Crisis.

Distinctions are only made in subjection, in identity and the bias identity brings, therefore the statement made about depression and nihilism couldn’t be farther from the truth. Why should you have purpose?

True nihilism is symbolic expressionism, that is understanding that life, on all levels, works in similarily symbolic ways and that we ourselves embody symbols as our art does. This form of thought communication and action was almost lost at the dawn of religion, at the climax of the human ego, of the “we”. The “we” being another phallic extension of ego, much like our skyscrapers, or gravestones.

Or purpose.

Now the application to the present moment. Nothing can be achieved through discussion or politics if morals are internalized. Agreement, that is the space between you and me, dies to our declarations of self and the privatized realities that come with that. As such this meeting is a corpse, congress is a corpse, the jury a corpse, the U.N. a corpse, your family… all corpses, made dead by their own propositions, by their reason for assembly. Ironic. Tragic. Thus is life. Nihilism is simply the realization of our corpselike nature.

Identity prevents us from open communication and will always do so. Identity is rooted in conception and idolization of thought, the thoughts held as the “realness” of the perceived creating a conception of that world, a self proposed rule by which that world does or should work. It would appear that we have lost the ability to learn and love without these tools for every passing moment we simply internalize more into our identity, our “us”. The known validates the knower and the knower feels a sense of competence, a sense of purpose. We have lost our ability to live without boundaries and morals, and as such see them as essential. But these are only conceptions. As such we choose our suffering, we choose because we’ve internalized these ideas and can now no longer separate ourselves from them.

Why? Purpose. Ethos. View. Direction. Progress. Ascension. All facets of the human ego.

Purpose is a skin deep sensation, and I hardly know a maggot afraid to feed. We must shed this skin we’ve grown into, we must bleed to scab and heal.

Truth is an aesthetic principle, no more absolute then ones taste in music, color, or art. You only know what will be by what was, you only know self by other, and therefore form yourself in contrast to what you conceive you are not, and alike yourself to what you think you are. This is entirely societally based. None of you own your thought, nor ever will. It was gifted to you, on loan, by culture.

How can you begin to agree when you are creatures of disagreement?

You have all become walking symbols, and as such I have pen-painted this manifesto, in accordance with my personal and cultural symbolism, to provide a symbol of self-destruction, renewal, and understanding.

Altruism is self-defeating, quickly falling prey to the same vices that created that which it wishes to cure. True nihilism is an anthem of aesthetics, art, symbolism, and knowledge of, not over, these things, as well as their action on and interaction with our deepest conceptions of self and shallowest daily trivialities.

No agreement will be reached in these hollow halls. No progress made.

We could have the world today, if we want it.

You are reading this aloud? This piece doesn't seem like natural speech. For example, you write "of a new age cultured depression assumed by the oppressor to whom the killing fields are dedicated, to whom the banana plantations and coke fields alike send their crop.". To me this seems like you are trying to hard to impress, or your just very pompous. Either way it doesn't work for me.

"Crisis… Crisis." It would be better if you said crisis once and allowed the word to sink in rather than saying it once, pausing then saying it again. It reminds me of a weight loss cd where the voice calmly whispers "you don't need cakes...you don't need cakes".

"Nothing can be achieved through discussion or politics if morals are internalized." Please explain. I thought that was the problem with this world today, that morals aren't internalised therefore we continue acting out in ways that hurt ourselves and other human beings.

"Agreement, that is the space between you and me, dies to our declarations of self and the privatized realities that come with that." Interesting, but go into detail. This piece seems to be sweet candy with no substance. I understand the general point of what your saying because i'm familiar with this talk, but most people won't. I think you need to be clearer on the points you are trying to make and, as you are delivering a speech, don't make it sound so mechanical. Relate it to our everyday lives.

Just one question, who do you take your influence from? This seems reminiscent of Eckhart Tolle(the guy who wrote a whole book on living in the present moment). Happy writing .

Being read later today? Probably too late to fix all this stuff.

You shot yourself in the foor right out of the gate:

consumer obsessed altruism of the sixties

Appears senseless and contradictory, not to mention the musings of someone born well after that time. The rest just seems like a poorly worded and lamely cryptic attempt at moral relativism, aka childish bullshit.

Sorry, that's my take. Good luck with this one.

Thanks but a fuller critique would be a little more helpful as opposed to "this is childish". And consumer obsessed altruism is not a contradiction, though tis ironic and a funny thought.

I wrote this to be read aloud. Shock value. The people I was reading it to weren't too intelligent so frankly their ability to grasps concepts of nonconcept or symbolic relativism was... rather slim. I wrote it was about 45 minutes of constant dribble, constant policy talk by people who are too fucking young to vote, and constant pointless alignment and felt the people, as I explained, should be given a different direction.

I did however think I explained why internalized morals prevent open communication in greater detail.
I don't know who I take influences from, though I'm sure somebody.

Well from a listener's standpoint, I don't feel the explanation was clear enough. I tried to give as full a critique as i'm able.

Normally I don't review pieces and am not good at it. But i'm sure you'd rather have me write a few notes on your work than somebody else come along and simply write 'I enjoyed it' or 'it was boring'. I just didn't feel the speech worked, but thats just my opinion.

Yours was helpful. I did not intend to imply that it was not and you are more then entitled to state your opinion about my piece, especially when you specify, as you did.