| Nihilists were the original anarchists. They were also athiests. This is actually part of a wider philosophical movement called positivism which based itself on the belief that only scientific rationalism was valid thought. This was used by such thinkers as Karl Marx, and his revolutionary followers, Auguste Comte, who espoused captialist rationalism. It was later the basis of four seperate braches of social-political thought, Anarchism, Scientific Socialism (Communism), Corporate Socialism (Fascism) and National Socialism (nasism). In Democratic societies this was the basis of lasse-faire capitalism, which was dominate during the "guilded age". The reason for the popularity of these systems of thought may have been the triumph of industrial society over agrarian society, the victory of the urban bourgois over the landed aristocracy (which actually was a trend which began during the renasaince and continued through the age of enlightenment) and the realized futality of romanticism and nationalism of the early 19th century. There were odd variations of positivism. German national socialism blended two seemingly contradictory beliefs, Romanic nationalism and scientific reason. It practiced a very practical form of scientific reasonism in its exercise of selective eugenics. The USSR under Stalin ultimately rejected scientific rationalism in favor of the creation of a religion based on Stalin's "Cult of Personality".
Pure Nihilism, which is the basis of Anarchism rejected any form of state tyrany and thus became the anthisis of economic tyrany (Capitalism), Rule by meritocracy (Soviet Communism), Corporate socials (fascism) or National Socialism of Hitler. |