Existential nihilism is the idea that life has no intrinsic meaning or value to it.
Existence, including all action, feeling, and suffering, is ultimately senseless,
completely without purpose.
Perhaps William Shakespeare
captured its essence best as Macbeth pours out his frustration about life;
Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
The idea and problem of existential nihilism has plagued philosophers for over a century now and is
still alive and well. In this video, I’ll explain what it is and its history from past to present.
“Nihilism” comes from the Latin nihil which means nothing, that which does not exist. There
are different types of nihilism, including metaphysical nihilism, ethical nihilism,
and existential nihilism, which I’ll focus on.
The earliest nihilists were the ancient Greeks, specifically the Cyernaics,
who were extreme skeptics. They believed none of us could truly
know anything because any knowledge we can obtain is just of one's immediate sensation.
The word nihilism was first used by German socialite Friedrich Jacobi,
and then because popular in Ivan Turgenev’s novel ‘Fathers and Sons’.
However, the philosopher Fredirch Neitcha was the first to seriously
explore the concept and who we associate the term with.
Nietzsche was a skeptic and believed there was no objective order or structure in the world
except what humans give it. Because of this, the things and concepts that used to give us
meaning for centuries, particularly the church and God, are meaningless without purpose.
Because of this, the things that used to give our life meaning, now have no purpose for the rational
thinking individual. People may fall into despair since it appears that we’re just
meaningless animals in a meaningless universe.
As he wrote in his work “The Will to Power”:
“...Nihilism appears at that point, not that the displeasure of existence has become greater
than before but because one has come to mistrust any ‘meaning’ in suffering, indeed in existence…
it now seems as if there is no meaning at all in existence, as if everything were in vain.”
This collapse of meaning, relevance,
and purpose he believed, will be the most destructive force in history.. He wrote:
What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming,
what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. . . . For
some time now our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe,
with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade:
Neitcha actually wrote about two types of nihilism, active and passive nihilism.
Passive nihilism recognizes there will never be any meaning in the world,
and passive nihilists should try to separate themselves from their wills and desires to
reduce suffering as much as possible. He called this a ‘will to nothingness’.
Ultimately, though, this ‘will to nothingness’ is still a will, and thus will end up being a
futile attempt that ends in deep despair or the individual embracing a mass movement,
like the church a cult, a political party, etc. once again to find some meaning.
On the other hand, one can be an active nihilist. If this was a possibility for us,
we should try to choose this option. Active nihilists are individuals who
actively destroy our old, fake false values like those in Christianity
and begin constructing our own subjective beliefs and interpretations of meaning.
Like a sculpture, we bash away false meaning and start to chisel out our very own.
By writing about active nihilism, Neitzche paved the way for the Existentialist movement
of the 20th century, which dealt with possible answers to existential nihilism.
At the heart of the existentialism movement was the French philosopher Sartre, who believed
meaning-making was really one’s essence and purpose to existence. Through his philosophy,
‘existence precedes essence’, he believed each of us can create our own subjective meaning in life,
which is ontologically real. Creating subjective meaning in our lives is our responsibility
and purpose, he wrote, and something that will live on after we’ve died.
However, many remained unconvinced, including fellow French existentialist Albert Camus,
the founder of Absurdism. According to Camus, a conflict occurs when we go to create meaning and
find the universe is really cold, chaotic, and utterly devoid of any meaning at all.
It’s this contradiction between our mind’s search for meaning and the reality of nature
that Absurdism’s founder Albert Camus calls ‘The Absurd.’
Creating meaning is perfectly fine for Absurdists. We just have to remember that any meaning
we make is transient and fleeting at best. Plus, in the end everything is nullified by
death and fully meaningless. After all, the world is an absurd place, and we’re
just a speck in a gigantic universe that will continue to exist long after humanity is gone.
Scientific research throughout the 20th and 21st centuries don’t initially seem to help
solve the problem of existential nihilism either. Physics, including Einsiteins’s
concept of general relativity, seems to point to a deterministic world with no free will and
the future that’s already happened. Studies in neurology and genetics seem to indicate
our decision-making process is but that of an illusion. More and more research
indicates our decisions are made before we’re conscious that we’re making them.
The more we use science, the more the world seems meaningless to humans. As Donald Crosby
put it in his essay on meaning, “Once set in motion, the process of questioning could come
to but one end, the erosion of conviction and certitude and collapse into despair.”
To summarize where we’re at, first humanity discovered no objective meaning and no God.
However, we discovered create our own subjective meanign which was real. But,
now it appears the subjective meaning could be also, well, meaningless too.
According to philosopher Alan Pratt, by the end of the 20th century, nihilism took up two
different camps. First, we have nihilistic hedonists, or as I call them the ‘Doomers’,
and there are the antifoundationalists, or as I call them, ‘cheerful nihlists’.
So on one account, the term nihilist is used to describe those individuals who’ve essentially
given up on life and are bitter about it. They’re self-centered, indifferent to things
outside of themselves, and have no hope the future will ever get better. Think of the
doomer meme and individual who sits around playing video games in their moms basement all day.
On the other hand are the antifoundationalists,
also referred to as postmodernists, who believe that there’s no real thing as truth and knowledge.
Almost like the ancient Cyernaics, they are grounded in relativism and think no one can
really know anything for sure. This includes fully knowing the concept of existential nihilism.
Because of this, one should embrace nihilism as if it where like eating
a piece of toast without the angst and fear 20th-century philosophers assigned
to it. Yes there’s no real meaning in the universe and never will be,
but that’s OK. We can still enjoy life and go about it as we please with freedom and liberty.
Is the right answer toward existential nihilism just to accept it and go about
your day? Have we been making too big a deal of nihilism from the very start?
Well, in her book ‘The Banalization of Nihilism’ Karen Carr details how this antifoundationalist
response to nihilism is alarm and harmful. When nothing matters, it creates an environment where
those with the most power can determine for others their beliefs, morals, and truths.
They can manipulate media, turn others against each other, and use their power to dictate truth.
Yes that’s right, the same fears and concepts Neitcha discussed
a century ago seem to be playing out today.
So is existential nihilism correct? Is all meaning meaningless? Well,
I wouldn’t call myself an existential nihilist and I’ll be exploring answers
to this ongoing crisis of meaning coming up which deserve their own video.
If I’ve depressed you after watching this just remember this. Neitzcha, although being highly
skeptical of everything, welcomed nihlisms coming and believed one day nihilism could be overcome.
He wrote “ I praise, I do not reproach,
[nihilism’s] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest
self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis,
is a question of his strength. It is possible. . . . (Complete Works Vol. 13)
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