zeroism

English

Etymology

zero +‎ -ism

Noun

zeroism (uncountable)

1. (Buddhism) A belief that the physical world is illusion.
   • 1964, Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar, Summaries of papers; supplement, page 190:

     Zeroism is distinct from nihilism. It is a true central philosophy because it is neither Absolutism nor nihilism.

   • 1984, Prācī-jyoti: Digest of Indological Studies - Volumes 16-17, page 244:

     The conception of Emptiness in Taoist Mysticism of China was influenced by the conception of Vedic representation of Sanya (zero) and Buddhist conception of Sinyāta (zeroism) of India.

   • 1986, International peace research newsletter - Volumes 24-27, page 10:

     Gandhi set a high ideal, which actually does not attract much interest in The whole idea of "zeroism"--"to be the last in the peace research community.

2. A refusal to act or take a stance; extreme passivity.
   • 1838, Isaac Appleton Jewett, Passages in Foreign Travel - Volume 2, page 66:

     Until my recent experience, I had no just conception of the political zeroism of the French Chamber of Peers.

   • 1954, Restoring Our American Heritage:

     To advocate anything except zeroism, neutralism, fatalism, middle-of-the-roadism, golden-meanism, is to become biased, doctrinaire, dogmatic, unscientific.

   • 2005, Vaḥīduddīn K̲h̲ān̲, Simple Wisdom, page 309:

     The battlefield would be devoid of fighters . War is always bracketed with heroism . Yet war does not yield any positive results . Peace appears to be zeroism , but all the best achievements are inevitably arrived at by peaceful means .

   • 2009, Madelaine Hron, Translating Pain: Immigrant Suffering in Literature and Culture, →ISBN, page 128:

     ...their rhetoric fashions immigrants' identities out of victimhood, zeroism, and self-destruction.

3. Any of various artistic movements in which the artist refused to write works with any message or higher meaning.
   • 1917, The Yale Literary Magazine - Volume 83, page 429:

     It distantly resembled human beings, but for pure, unadulterated zeroism—well, as it was the Record picture, you might be moved to remark that the Photographer was representing the soul.

   • 1970, Adam David Miller, Dices or Black bones; Black voices of the seventies, page 37:

     going to write book on zero culture/ the amount of zeroness in the modern novel/or de developement of zeroism in poetry/or zero play/& how zeros went to puerto rico &

   • 1996, Albert Murray, The Blue Devils of Nada: A Contemporary American Approach to Aesthetic Statement:

     If so — and the evidence that Thurman Arnold offers in Symbols of Government and The Folklore of Capitalism is as sobering as it is convincing — then many will go right on accusing Hemingway of being head shaman of a cult of hard-boiled primitivism and zeroism .