The  Uninspiring Nihilism

The most significant thing in an author’s compositions is a natural power of exalting our soul. We should  try to discover ‘Enlightenment Universals’ in ourwritings. The mass killings of Auschwitz and Nagasaki clearly reveal that all ‘metanarratives’ (Lyotord) of science and Marxism have failed to create a better world. Only the ideas and laws of the inward world of a creative artist can save our planet. Matthew Arnold aptly says: “The greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life,-to the question-How to live? A poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life; a poetry of indifference to moral ideas is a poetry of indifference to life.” But it may be remembered that ethical sympathy of a poet should conform to poetic truth and poetic beauty.

The above quotation of Matthew Arnold makes it evidently clear that the present-day globalization processes by producing ‘a systematic skepticism’ will only harm the cause of serious and sublime literature. The ‘nostalgia for the impossible’ afflicting most of the authors today poses a serious danger to sublime substance and content of a creative work. It is difficult to agree with an uninspiring nihilism of Jean Baudrillard: “Everything has already happened…nothing new can occur.” Literature is full of moral ideas; ‘the idea is the fact’. Nancy Scheper-Hughes wisely says: “If we cannot begin to think about social institutions and practices in moral or ethical terms, then anthropology strikes me as quite weak and useless.”

It is significant that the best powers of the  authors should be visible in revealing ‘the high moment’. The poets should describe  the mysterious responses of heart and mind to the universe. They should aptly delineate a complex reaction to their whole experience.

Another technique to avoid nihilism is that creative artists should get interested in  mysticism, an immediate awareness and acute consciousness of the Divine Presence. This results in an intellectual intuition and ‘dialectic of the feelings’. This attitude is quite different from the postmodern destruction of meaning. “Whoever lives by meaning dies by meaning” (Ashley). Great poets pine for union with Reality, and express their communion with the highest.