posted January 12, 2007 01:29 AM
I've noticed unchecked materialism in people with a lot of fire or air/fire and little water in their charts. Materialism isn't the same as nihilism. I assume that this is your judgement of this approach to life, that's it's ultimately nihilistic. But really nihilism is a more complicated spiritual issue than this. It's not really just the "end result" of a destructive or empty way of life. It's a kind of spiritual ambivalence that is very poisonous. And the people who suffer from the worst nihilism are actually people who are natively very spiritual.
Kurt Cobain wuld be an example: heavy water with no major fire or air, and a little earth (ASC, Pluto and Virgo). He was *very* nihilistic. He wasn't just self-destructive - he *lived* his self-destruction, or rather self-annihilation or even self-obliteration to the point that he (and sorry if this is graphic) choose death by shooting off his own face beyond recognition. He didn't just want to die - he wanted to destroy himself as a person, individual and entity. *That's* nihilism.
Materialism (emphasizing the material over the spiritual in general; not to be confused with consumerism - the consumption of material goods) is ultimately destructive, but I wouldn't say materialists are nihilists. There may be nihilistic overtonez there - a loathing or rejection of one's spiritual self, for example. But materialists aren't looking to destroy themselves, even if that's what they may end up doing.