Gianni Vattimo, Verwindung, and ‘Reactive Nihilism’

Technology has led to culture being atomised and broken down, which leads to difficulties in imagining how each decade will be remembered in the future. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine nostalgic feelings ending. Nostalgia will evolve to be based around the individual (subjectivised) or the group (which may result in reactive nihilism). In the late 1980s Vattimo was prescient in his views about the effects of a society of generalised communication. He thought it would lead to the end of metaphysics and the de‐centring and ungrounding of culture. In one way, this could lead to a situation in the near future where there is subjectivised nostalgia. Along with this change being driven by technology, Vattimo would see embracing subjectivised nostalgia as a form of weakening traces of metaphysics. However, another form of nostalgia may arise in response to the multiplicity of worldviews unleashed by technology: reactive nihilism. This form uses both ‘reflective’ and ‘restorative’ nostalgia to create a strong, group‐wide reaction to diversity by affirming one viewpoint as ‘right’ and marginalising others as ‘wrong’. Vattimo disapproved of reactive nihilism, but there is little in his philosophy which acts as an effective counter to this approach

Epistemology · Nihilism · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Philosophy