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'Last Man' perspective

104-6, 107 Conversations

But for me — though I never liked Friedrich Nietzsche — if there is a definition that really fits, it is Nietzsche's old opposition between active and passive nihilism. Active nihilism, in the sense of wanting nothing itself, is this active self-destruction which would be precisely the passion of the real — the idea that, in order to live fully and authentically, you must engage in self-destruction. On the other hand, there is passive nihilism, what Nietzsche called 'The last man' — just living a stupid, self-satisfied life without great passions.

The problem with a post-political universe is that we have these two sides which are engaged in kind of mortal dialectics. My idea is that, to break out of this vicious cycle, subjectivity must be reinvented.