Ever since the human being wandered the Earth, there has been a resonant question upon them; why do we wander? This ontological pursuit has begun and evolved into many shapes presented by many authors and thinkers, some of which may appear as controversial and notorious. Nihilism, and eventually existentialism, can be easily affiliated with such controversies, predominantly due to their brave escape of the, often religious, dogmatic loop which somewhat tabooed this radical way of reasoning. While some of the authors, such as Jean Paul, advise getting devoured by ignorance and giving oneself away to a dogmatic approach to life in order to preserve one’s sanity, others argue for the contrary, including Klingemann. Nonetheless, in both cases, the certainty of life’s meaning remains obscured and not available which later translates into the nihilistic movement. Klingemann’s and Jean Paul’s contribution to nihilism paved a stable foundation for the later existential movement of philosophy by stripping down all of the essences of one’s existence to its very core that eventually interprets as the meaning itself since it indicates the existence itself as the meaning.

Jean Paul’s realization of life’s incomprehensibility draws an uncomfortable image that longs for a remedy, letting the author propose dogmatism and ignorance as the simplest one to subscribe to. Friedrich Schiller wrote a poem about The Veiled Image at Sais, which represents the idea that the ultimate knowledge a mortal cannot simply handle without turning insane (Schiller, 1795). This symbolic way of stressing the undersides of human progress strongly relates to the movement of romanticism since it argues for the positives of regressive tendencies (i.e. back to nature). Somewhat similar approaches may be seen in the works of many other authors that would not classify themselves strictly as romantics. For instance, Sigmund Freud, in his work Civilization and its Discontents, argues that the always accelerating progress in natural sciences and technology may bring more discomforts than pleasures (Freud, 2018, p. 18ff). In other words, each new invention brings more potential damages that may happen to it and thus the amount of negatives overweighs outweighs the positives. Moreover, even philosophers like Jean Jacques Rousseau built their works around very similar roots – Rousseau is generally known for his, in comparison to the other thinkers concerned about the Social Contract Theory, contrapositive perception of the ‘state of nature’, saying that entering a civilized world and society restricts people’s freedoms and hence must be negative (Rousseau, 2018).

The reason behind mentioning all the at-the-first-glance irrelevant authors is more evident than it might seem; both The Dead Christ and The Campagner Thal underline the dangers of one’s lust for knowledge and thus progress, just like Schiller’s poem. Another crucial point drawn by Jean Paul is that the ultimate trust in the natural sciences empowers the atheistic idea and so dismantles the hopeful ideals of Christianity. Exactly these ideals and often dogmatic values are the factors that people are not subject to despair since they can “blame it on the higher powers” instead of facing their problems, 2 usually being their very own creators. In The Dead Christ, Jean Paul depicts a story where Jesus Christ himself comes down to Earth and claimsthat there is no God and we all are just orphans of the universe, heading towards nothingness (Jean Paul, 1796-97, p. 263ff). This allegory triesto support the argument that people need to be assured about their existence even in the afterlife; otherwise they would feel no importance or meaning being in this world. This very claim extends itself to Jean Paul’s second writing called The Campagner Thal, where he introduces its readers to a few different characters arguing among each other about the existence of Elysium, dogmas, science, and spirituality as such. This Platonic-like piece of writing makes a handful of great points insofar as both sides of the problem are concerned, mainly thanks to the diversity of opinions between Karlson and the main protagonist. Exactly Karlson represents the rational force here, always listening to science and thus argues in favor of nothingness before the afterlife. The main quest then becomes to convince Karlson of the contrary in order to make the readers turn towards this way of thinking. Some of the counterarguments recall the values studied by many thinkers even centuries ago and so create rather strong claims; Karlson’s main point is that the afterlife is unreal because it is not apprehensible and material, to which Jean Paul responds with the also unable to be defined man’s “holy trinity” – virtue, truth, and beauty which’s existence Karlson simply cannot deny as well as measure in any materialistic or scientific way (Jean Paul, 1797, p. 43).

Generally, Jean Paul perceives religion and beliefs as a remedy to despair which stems from scientific progress, and indirectly suggests accepting dogmas in order to save ourselves. Following the famous idiom, ignorance is bliss, this way of thinking stands for a somewhat personalized notion of taking a ‘leap of faith’, as proposed later, though not in the twentieth century, by one of the fathers of existentialism, Kierkegaard. However, Jean Paul’s notion of this dogmatic approach cannot fully be seen as purely ignorant since he supports his views with more or less rational arguments such as is the motivation to do good in order to reach the Elysium. The principle remains quite similar since it recommends forsaking any radical contemplation while fully subscribing to dogmas of, for example, religions. Eventually, the overly scientific way of life may impact one’s easiness of life and thus their happiness. To draw an example from nowadays world, the phenomenon of antidepressants and essentially the whole way of treating one’s mental health may appear as soulless since instead of seeing the patient as a human being that is tormented by negative thoughts, the psychiatrists often relate to them as to a bunch of unevenly redistributed chemicals that need to be equalized with artificial drugs. A very similar notion is proposed by Michel Foucault in his The Birth of the Clinic, wherein he compares contemporary medical practices with those from the past in order to highlight the loss of quality in the case of some of them (Foucault, 2010, p. 54ff). This example then reveals the potential dangers of full-on dedication to science and abandonment of abstract beliefs since these dogmas are usually what makes us sensible human beings with a much higher appeal to emotions.

On the contrary, The Nightwatches of Bonaventura pulls from the exact opposite side of the rope while deep-diving into the absurdity and meaninglessness of life. Nevertheless, it is exactly this work that perfectly sketches the outlines of nihilism’s problems which are later answered and perhaps even solved by existentialism. Klingemann here depicts a story where a night watchman does not ring the daily bell at the tower, telling people that the judgment day has come. Unfortunately, the citizens do not respond to this act humorously but start to panic while realizing their pretentiousness within society. “How people discovered kings in beggar’s clothes and weaklings in knights’ armor” (Klingemann, 1804, p. 42-43). Klingemann’s use of such analogies tries to underline the volatility of one’s role within a society meanwhile they dedicate themselves to it as it is the true meaning of life. However, in this way of proving how unstable these societal roles are, Klingemann does not seem to want to reveal the real meaning but rather to maniacally laugh at the lack of it. Exactly the absurdist and even dark humor plays an essential role while the points are being made since that is the principle of nihilism (i.e. to accept the meaninglessness). Later, Klingemann, being usually affiliated with theater, relates to these roles of society as to masks all of us have to wear and recognize each other by. An interesting notice connected to the mask theory immediately occurs since Klingemann’s writing shares not only common aspects with nihilism but also seem to contain hints of individualist anarchism, especially while compared to The Ego and its Own by the notorious Max Stirner, who basically states that everything based around society is artificial, socially constructed, and fragile – the so-called ‘spooks’ or ‘ghosts in mind’ (Stirner, 2019).

To move on, Klingemann’s hopeless laughter appears in many other instances as well; the symbolic description of the poet’s suicide for his tragedy called Man did not get published (Klingemann, 1804, p. 60). Klingemann’s notion of existence and world as such simply revolves around the denial of everything and finally accepting it. After all, he says: “Everything is Nothing and vomits itself up and gulps itself greedily down, and even this self-devouring is an insidious sham, as if there were something, whereas if the choking were once to cease, precisely the Nothing would quite plainly make its appearance and all would be terror-struck before it; by this cessation fools understand “eternity”; but it is the real Nothing and absolute death, since life, on the contrary, arises only through a continual dying.” (Klingemann, 1804, p. 64-65). These very lines embody and define nihilism as a phenomenon as well as deny all of the previous writings of Jean Paul.

To be a nihilist is to give up. After defining what nihilism is, we can more easily understand its problems – the ultimate rejection of social conformism may eventually transform into a pseudodogmatic way of thinking itself, whether one should subscribe to a certain dogma or to nod towards the meaninglessness of life as such, rather than actually trying to allocate the real meaning which has been pursued for millennia. On the contrary, existentialism’s origins in nihilism are more than selfevident since the movement basically took off from where nihilists were too exhausted to continue 4 with their pursuit. According to Klingemann, “Humanity is organized exactly in the manner of an onion; layer by layer, one is inserted into the other down to the smallest one, in which man himself then fits quite finely.” (Klingemann, 1804, p. 67). This statement argues that humans are simply a mere nothing pretending to be something by wearing those already mentioned masks and as soon as they are stripped down of them, there is not more than just a skull (death, hence nothingness). On the other hand, though, existentialists, and namely Sartre, propose another way of looking at this problem; through the perspective of the ‘existence precedes essence’ theory. Essence in this case being defined as the same as the masks/roles within society while existence is the very core of human beings; the tabula rasa on which humans build up by their actions and commitments to their societal roles. However, in contrast to nihilism, existentialism suggests considering human beings first and foremost as free persons rather than as mere masks. Ergo, the meaning of life is life itself (existence) and whoever denies it from themselves, is likely to encounter despair. As claimed by Sartre in Being and Nothingness, to fully dedicate to essences is to put them a priori to existence and therefore to live in ‘bad faith’ (Sartre, 1964, p. 102ff). In other words, when a person believes that they are a musician, for example, this is a metaphorical annihilation of their true core and meaning, hence the feeling of meaninglessness of life when someone gives too much weight upon their mask they wear if even daily. It is crucial to acknowledge the freedom people are granted while choosing what mask to wear and to not forget they are wearing one at the moment.

Moreover, existentialism proposes many different alternatives on how to approach the never-ending debate on the eternity of life and the possibility of an afterlife. One of which appears as the simplest yet most sufficient and that is to be present to yourself. Many existential thinkers stressed this point to its maximum, such as Heidegger or Kierkegaard, who claimed that the unhappiest one is the one who is not present to himself (Kierkegaard, 2004, p. 214). In addition, another theory proposed to counterargue even Jean Paul’s points about the necessity of eternal life is the one about being simply ‘sick unto death’. That is to be unable to die which eventually could result in a tragic event where one does not feel any motivation to fully live since there is a lack of realization of finitude. To put it differently, people live their lives efficiently only due to the unconscious awareness of their finitude, hence the lust for accomplishments and development. In this sense, even some of the existential theories strongly support those which are in the fashion of nothingness as proposed by Klingemann, nevertheless not as pessimistic.

To conclude, the polarized differences between Jean Paul’s and Klingemann’s writings do not together necessarily represent two distinct phenomena but rather share a common playground while each of them belongs to a different team. Exactly this revelation of the so-called playground allowed other movements to build upon the premises, including existentialism. It truly is fascinating how many of the claims and theories fuse themselves in order to create something more meaningful, tirelessly 5 trying to achieve some of the common goals. It is quite self-evident how existentialism would not likely exist without nihilism and therefore there it is just wrong to doubt the relevancy of any of them since they are likely to influence other authors even nowadays, just as nihilists influenced the existentialists.

References:

Foucault, M. (2010). The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception. London, England: Routledge.

Freud, S. (2018). Civilization and its Discontents. New Delhi, India: General Press.

Jean Paul (1796-97): Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces; Or, The Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage of Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkæs, trans. by Alexander Ewing, London: George Bell and Sons 1897.

Jean Paul (1797), The Campaner Thal and Other Writings, Boston: Ticknor and Fields 1864.

Kierkegaard, S., Eremita, V., & Hannay, A. (2004). Either/or: A Fragment of Life. London: Penguin Books.

Klingemann (1804), The Nightwatches of Bonaventura, trans. by Gerald Gillespie, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press 2014.

Sartre, J. (1964). Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. New York: Citadel Press.

Rousseau, J., & H., C. G. (2018). The Social Contract. Adansonia Publishing. Schiller (1795): The Vailed Image at Sais, in The Poems and Ballads of

Schiller, trans. by Sir. Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell and Co. 1880, pp. 88-91.

Stirner, M., & Byington, S. T. (2019). The ego and its own. Dumfries & Galloway: Anodos Books.