If we have to live through what Nietzsche called ���the f...

If we have to live through what Nietzsche called ���the fulfilment of nihilism��� that is, so to speak, the concretization of the ���death of God���, then we must pose the question of God ��� which is obviously not the same as resurrecting Him. Today, we live the ordeal of nihilism; today, nihilism presents itself as such, that is, in the form of the experience that I am nothing. For a long time it did not present itself as this nothing. It presented itself as ���anything goes���, ���I can do it all���, ���I can transgress���. When nihilism presents itself as such, can I recognize it? What is it that I am living? What is my experience? It is the experience of what Kierkegaard already described as despair (1980). When despair becomes the most common experience, the most widespread, it is no longer possible to ignore the specific questions raised by the death of God, the questions, dare I say, worthy of the death of God. We are in the course of living through what we could call, in religious language, the ���apocalypse��� of nihilism. It is here that we must become worthy of the ordeal of nihilism. By suggesting that he himself arrivesto soon with this statement, Nietzsche in some way says to us: ���I await the moment when you will truly encounter nihilism. Now I am speaking to you and you believe you understand me. But in fact you do not understand me at all. You believe you understand, but you do not understand because if you understood, you would be living through your apocalypse.���

Bernard Stiegler, interviewed