Pragmatism

[BikerDude]

I think nihilism is just another way to appear dark and brooding as a means to attracting a certain kind of woman..more of a style than an ethos....black clothing, marmots, cricket bats, plus apparently nihilism makes inroads into the lucrative low-budget pornography industry..  In short, alleged belief in nozing is an attempt to get a lil somein-somein'

Oh were it only so.
Nihilism is a very thorny issue. And I'm convinced that it is central to the entire meaning. The whole dern human comedy.
Right now in the context of the Dude I'm sort of tripping on the 2 types of Nihilism. The Nietzsche and the Kierkegaard kind which to my mind is also J. P. Sartre, Albert Camus like.
Nietzsche's type of Nihilism is like the nihilists in the movie. "We believe in nothing because life actually has no meaning, purpose or value and notions of such are self delusion."
The Kierdegaard branch is more about the effect of some force to remove meaning from life.
In that regard it's like Sartre's "Nausea" or Camus "Absurdity".
The Nihilists are sort of like the former, more overt Nazi type of Nihilists while the Dude is troubling.
Sort of like the later but without all the tragedy and hopelessness.
But typically these characters are offered up as a cautionary tale. The idea that ducking the psychic bill eventually leads to a dead end where a loss of hope is inevitable. The Dude is all the usual slack but without the object moral lesson. I like the idea but wonder about the validity.
Hey whatever. But bottom line, "You gotta feed the monkey".

But as a humanist the Dude is worthy of Beatification.
See  believing in nothing is in fact a belief. And beliefs are often subverted.
Suppose we have 2 soldiers in a war. One is a "true believer" driven by patriotism and the typical set of beliefs. He  may end up in the familiar moral quagmire of burning the village to save it and the important part is that he is able to carry out this action because his system of belief has allowed him to do so. In fact it's probably been subverted to compel him to do so. The other soldier who simply believes that life is without meaning is able to burn the village because it just doesn't matter.
While the Dude resembles the later school of Nihilism he is inherently a humanist although his moral compass remains uncodified, sloppy and incomplete it is ever present. He would not burn the village because that would be very "undude". It's a hardened nearly impenetrable psychic shell.
Christians, Moaist, Toaists, Pedarasses, all of em can be subverted to village burning or rug peeing or whatever. But the Dude is a rock and a feather on the wind at the same time.
"Behold the power of cheese!"

[cckeiser]

So like how far down the Rabbit Hole are we willing to go?

Skeptical Idealism 2.0:
http://dudeism.com/smf/index.php?topic=847.0

[BikerDude]

I think we've hit bottom.
In the end, abiding is all there is, which is about achieving a oneness with the universe by going with the flow.
The rules of going with the flow are necessarily loose and un-codified, intuitive and  based on the character of the Dude. And it is precisely the lack of formality of the ethos that lends it strength and makes up a large part of it's character.

Membership depends on a judgement of whether the concept of the Happily abiding Dude, going with the flow and paying the rent on the 10th and being unemployed in fact constitutes the path to enlightenment. And if being like the Dude is a necessary consequence of the "rebel shrug" or whatever, lost my train of thought.

If it leads to a quiet beach community where I can sip a beverage of my choice, spark the occasional fatty and not get my carpet peed on I Abide.

Either that or it's just a movie and a website.
But it's fun.

[BikerDude]

So like how far down the Rabbit Hole are we willing to go?

Skeptical Idealism 2.0:
http://dudeism.com/smf/index.php?topic=847.0

Actually that's really cool.

[cckeiser]

So like how far down the Rabbit Hole are we willing to go?

Skeptical Idealism 2.0:
http://dudeism.com/smf/index.php?topic=847.0

Actually that's really cool.

Thanks Dude, glad you like it. Took a long time to realize it's the truth in my reality man...but not so sure how it works in yours.
That's why we are always having so much trouble arguing over what we each perceive and believe. It's different for everyone.
And in the end...it doesn't much matter.

[BikerDude]

So like how far down the Rabbit Hole are we willing to go?

Skeptical Idealism 2.0:
http://dudeism.com/smf/index.php?topic=847.0

Actually that's really cool.

Thanks Dude, glad you like it. Took a long time to realize it's the truth in my reality man...but not so sure how it works in yours.
That's why we are always having so much trouble arguing over what we each perceive and believe. It's different for everyone.
And in the end...it doesn't much matter.

That's why it's important to define the discussion.
This thread was meant to investigate the Dudeist creedo in the light of Pragmatism. That is as espoused by William James. I find it particularly relevant since the most obvious critique of Dudeism, Slackerism what have you is that it is easily dismissed by that measure.
The definition of belief, as "that upon which a man is prepared to act." (Sound familiar?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism

[Outer Element]

This thread was meant to investigate the Dudeist creedo in the light of Pragmatism. That is as espoused by William James. I find it particularly relevant since the most obvious critique of Dudeism, Slackerism what have you is that it is easily dismissed by that measure.

Sometimes (maybe a lot of the time), doing nothing makes for the best outcome. Letting the world flow on its own and work itself out.