It wasn’t a popular point of view, even at the time. The ancients, as well as their Dark Ages and medieval successors, figured adherence to the edicts of various gods should be more of a priority than annoying people in the agora with gotcha-style rhetoric.
Eventually, of course, that religious outlook gave way to more humanistic philosophies. Kant argued that the meaning of life was to follow the categorical imperative; rationalists emphasized human freedom as the greatest good. Time moved on.
And then, sometime in the 18th century, something cataclysmic happened.
“I am everything, and outside of me there is nothing in my understanding,” mused the German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in his 1787 David Hume Dialogue. “I am, as everything is, in the final analysis only an empty illusion of something; the form of a form; just one ghost among the many.”
Reason had given way to nihilism. Would civilization ever recover?
The birth of nothingness
From its very inception, nihilism was the accidental, unwanted offshoot of philosophy. “You don’t want to end up with nihilism unless you’re Nietzsche,” says Seiriol Morgan, a senior lecturer in the University of Bristol’s Department of Philosophy.
It’s not surprising. Even for those philosophers who first explored the concept, nihilism was little more than evidence of failure on a grand scale: “In the Enlightenment […] reason was supposed to have stepped in,” Morgan tells IFLScience. “It was supposed to justify morality, explain the world, and so on.”
Instead, some felt, it had left a hollow at the heart of society. Follow reason too far, thinkers like Jacobi argued, and you’d end up reasoning your way into nonsense – like David Hume, who took skepticism so far that he ended up questioning the concept of knowledge itself, or Baruch Spinoza, under whom the universe is transformed into an all-encompassing transcendental deity.
“So, Jacobi says, look what we get when we when we use reason,” Morgan explains. “We get nihilism. We end up nowhere, with nothing.”
There are many types of nihilism – you can be a moral nihilist; an existential nihilist; an epistemological nihilist; all of the above. What connects them all is a denial that, at base, these seemingly fundamental concepts have any solid foundation to them: there is no truth out there; no universal moral code on which to base your life. “It’s kind of existentially unsettling,” Morgan says. “Really terrible and bleak.”
It’s a reputation that has proven difficult to shake. Today, nihilism is seen as gloomy; its adherents, as pessimistic and depressive. But recently – like, very recently – nihilism has been undergoing a quiet rehabilitation. Could the idea that nothing really matters and we are but dust in the wind be… uplifting, actually?
The light side of the gloom
“I don’t envy [somebody] the task of getting something positive” out of nihilism, says Joe Cunningham, an Assistant Professor in the University of Nottingham’s Department of Philosophy. That said, he tells IFLScience, “I like it. It [could] be freeing.”
If nothing intrinsically matters, he explains, we’re forced to figure out what matters to us, and why, on our own terms. It’s something that Nietzsche was convinced of: “he uses the word ‘free spirit’,” Cunningham explains. “His view [is] that the ideal human life is one in which one is perfectly capable of creating values for oneself, and you’re able to take life seriously in clear-headed acknowledgement of that fact.”
It’s a much deeper position than you might expect from the philosophy of “meh, nothing really matters”. “It’s an extremely difficult thing, as Nietzsche acknowledged, to lead a life like that,” Cunningham says.
You have to acknowledge that your most basic values are merely things that you’ve freely decided to impose on yourself and nothing more than that.
Joe Cunningham
Consider the overly stressed high school student, for example, struggling to create the perfect college application for admission to a prestigious pre-med program so they can become a doctor and finally, finally impress their disapproving mom and dad. Now, that kid could use a dose of nihilism – as heavy as parental expectations can feel, and as good and virtuous as saving lives might appear, Nietzsche would say that neither has any objective weight. Give up those self-imposed pressures, and perhaps your life will be a little lighter for it.
More than that, whatever you eventually do end up doing might be in some way more authentic – more meaningful, if we can use that term in a nihilistic world. “If there’s nothing objective requiring me to value things like truth or friendship or the need for shelter and warmth, then I could just as easily give them up in favor of a radically different set of values,” Cunningham points out. “And yet somehow I’ve still got to take my current set of values seriously.”
“You have to acknowledge that your most basic values are merely things that you’ve freely decided to impose on yourself and nothing more than that,” he tells IFLScience. “But that shouldn’t be a problem for you, is the idea.”
Nothing’s good
Embracing nihilism is no simple task. In fact, in its most strict sense, it may not even be possible: “I think […] it’s probably impossible to be a nihilist in that really strong sense, where nothing is of any value whatsoever,” Cunningham says. “I think that’s psychologically impossible […] You can’t internally, at least, [live with] that kind of nihilism.”
Evidently – as with so many philosophical concepts – a little goes a long way. A nihilistic life doesn’t have to be one lived under the crushing knowledge of one’s own futility; rather, it’s possible to take solace in the fact that, ultimately, your life will likely matter very little.
“In the scope of all human history, […] my issues and concerns are pointless,” wrote Wendy Syfret, author of The Sunny Nihilist: How a Meaningless Life Can Make You Truly Happy, in 2021. “My successes and failures will all eventually be forgotten. As will the achievements and stumbles of everyone around me. That perspective makes me, and my problems, feel very small.”
It’s a persuasive argument. After all, the planet is burning; we’re minutes away from revolution and dictatorship; there are microplastics in your blood right now; and your water is likely at least a little bit poison. Equally, the universe is potentially infinite; we literally get rainbows and puppies for free, and cows have best friends. Given all that, does it really matter if Stacey from HR doesn’t like you?
And if the answer is no, then what does matter?
“For each person, the answer is different,” Syfret wrote. “Personally, like many people, accepting the futility of my small life led me to deepen my commitment to environmentalism. Understanding that the only constant (at least until it’s absorbed by the Sun in a few billion years) is the Earth itself, its protection becomes more important than any singular interests of mine.”
The bearable lightness of being
Nihilism may have a bad reputation – but maybe it’s just misunderstood.
“It doesn’t leave you without reasons at all,” Cunningham says, “but it requires you to think of your most basic values and reasons as self-imposed, created by you. Not required of you by some divine authority that exists independently of you [or] by some real set of moral truths that exist out there.”
For many of us, the idea that life has no real “meaning” – no purpose or design or external guiding principles at all – might be scary. But take a step back, and it’s kind of freeing, right? There’s no reason to feel embarrassed about that cringey hobby you enjoy; no real power behind the sneer of a bully. If you’re unsatisfied with your life – with the world at large, even – you can change it. Go ahead. What’s stopping you? The rules?
If you realize the significance [of nihilism], then you can suddenly start self-creating, in kind of marvelous ways that you didn’t think you were able to do before.
Seiriol Morgan
“I encourage you to try this exercise: If you accept that you don’t matter, that your name, ego, reputation, family, friends, and loves will soon be gone, how does the way you understand your own time, money, and energy change?” wrote Syfret. “Maybe the process reframes your attention to things you hope will last for a little longer than yourself. Or perhaps it draws you back to that present moment: the small joys you can access today, the people you love, their right to feel safe, respected, and well.”
For Nietzsche, the person who could do such a thing was an “Übermensch” – a “superman”. For many others, even today, they’re a threat. But nihilism is, most of all, what you make of it – good or bad.
“If you realize the significance [of nihilism], then you can suddenly start self-creating,” Morgan tells IFLScience, “in kind of marvelous ways that you didn’t think you were able to do before.”
“And it’s meant to be hard, right?” he adds. “But if you really put your back into it, then you can create yourself like a wonderful work of art, with the freedom and individuality that the nihilist condition opens up.”
Source Link: Positive Nihilism: Is Meaninglessness The Key To Happiness?
