When looking for an article to dissect from each issue, I just look for a story or argument that can be reduced to its fundamental assumptions and then questioned. This can be a daunting task since the economist works at the level of commerce, geopolitics, science, and culture. The fact that I have only published one of these is testament to that fact. This week, it will be much simpler because all I would like to do is address the common misconceptions regarding nihilism, of the existential variety, that have crept into this weeks The Economist. In an article titled ‘The next shutdown, Nihilists in Washington’, their deployment of the label ‘nihilist’, is entirely confused. The great misunderstanding of nihilism amongst the general population is to confuse the concepts of mattering and meaning, of meaning and ultimate meaning. And it is not like those that would describe themselves as nihilists form any kind of association to address these misunderstandings. Associating ‘nihilism’ with the far-right Republicans of the U.S. Congress, who would sacrifice a functioning government over their unsupported worldview, is to so drastically misunderstand the concept you might as well be arguing that the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East.
It is antithetical to nihilism to adhere so stubbornly to your beliefs when you accept that there is no ultimate justification for them. No nihilist[1] would shut down the government. The acceptance of the claim that human existence, on the individual and societal level, has no inherent meaning or purpose entails that one should not be so radically adherent to any world view or sense of purpose in this life because it is ultimately unjustifiable. One can justify all sorts of actions, but only in reference to some set of assumptions that have no objective basis either, ever. Digging down to the foundation of any philosophy or argument always ends with you falling through the floor into the abyss. That is not to say that, while one is existing, taking this fact on board suddenly means that all reason to be a decent and considerate person has dissolved. Or that any person that thinks life is pointless and futile is logically forbidden from enjoying it while they are here. That is the exact opposite of the coherent truth. The understanding that life has no inherent purpose should behoove one rationally to always avoid causing suffering when you can, to be skeptical of the narratives that are presented to us, and to advocate against the destruction of our ecosystems because having foregone any ultimate purpose, for themselves or especially for humanity as a whole, there is nothing left but to try indulge in activities you enjoy and avoid suffering when possible. Pursuing the shutdown of one’s government in order to appease some fringe base or maintain notoriety makes both of these things more difficult.
Since I am not going to kill myself, the fact that I do like being here and the fact that literally all is vanity, I would champion a world where reasonable, bare minimum conditions for happiness are achieved for as many people as possible. This isn’t some communist manifesto, I believe in free markets. It is simply because it is in my best interests.[2] The magnitude of irony in calling these religious nut jobs nihilists when it is in fact the very people so committed to their sense of purpose, destiny, and their deluded sense of what they think is best for human society that they would have the audacity to sacrifice common sense decisions over their unfounded beliefs. It is illogical for a nihilist to be obsessed with power that they would deploy countless dishonest tactics in an attempt to obtain or hold onto it. The lust for power is laughable to one who understands the absurdity of human existence. To me, the ‘will to power’ is the result of some deeply seated cognitive architectures devoted to the increased perpetuation of genes, and that is a silly thing to be subservient to given our current understanding.
The fundamental misunderstanding by this publication of record is glaring given the characters they present as the exemplars of nihilism in the US government. They seem to imply that Matt Gaetz, the Floridian congressman who definitely probably paid to sleep with underage prostitutes and when he is not engaged in those activities is frequently seen sucking Trump’s dick to appear close to power, is a nihilist. Motivations of petty interpersonal ape drama, tired old power struggles, and personal vendettas are something to be shed, not indulged when you accept that human existence is ultimately pointless. Contrary to popular belief, it is actually the people that take this life way too fucking seriously, the ones that think it does have some divine purpose that they are able to discern, or that a made up nation state is destined to dominate the world, these are the ones that are oppressing and dictating. The ones that exploit and coerce. The ones that are willing to sacrifice their lives for a life after death. The ones willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of the many for their infantile, baseless greed. To me, what follows from the first half of the conditional ‘if human existence, be it a person’s or the entire human race, has no inherent meaning or purpose’ is to conclude ‘then I am not going to be a dick.’ Where ‘not being a dick’ includes the acknowledgement that not a single person asked to be here or participate in this totally pointless exercise, and therefore any set of goals I undertake is ultimately unjustifiable, and therefore it would be illogical for me to use violence and lies to achieve my pointless goals. Mr. Gaetz is not someone that accepts the inherent futility to existence, he believes, or at least exploits, some form of the Christian conservative worldview.[3]You can’t get further from nihilism than any of the Abrahamic faiths.
When your everyday person is asked to explain what a nihilist thinks, I would wager the most common response would be ‘nothing matters’. Frustratingly so as mattering is a relational concept. What is really meant is that nothing ultimately matters. Things can matter to you, to the future, to a country, or to the elephants.[4] The existential nihilist claim is not about mattering. The statement ‘existence (or life[5]) has no inherent meaning or purpose’ is just a fact. It is a fact in relation to other facts about our unique sense of rationality/logic and facts about the world as it is presented to us, but it is, simply, a fact. There is no ultimate, objective basis by which one can provide justification for any way of being in the world.[6] That does not mean we can’t make rational choices about what actions might lead to desired outcomes. If one is not going to exit this space ship prematurely, the circumstances one finds themselves in behooves them to act in all sorts of ways that are beyond their control in order to avoid suffering. It is irrelevant whether one thinks that nothing ultimately matters, because it doesn’t, or whether you think that human existence is some sort of pass/fail test by a benevolent Creator when it comes to needing food, water, and shelter.
Many in Western culture lament the death of god and ultimate meaning. Since his death, there has been a consistent call to overcome the problem of nihilism. There is little talk of whether this problem is actually the solution. A “purpose driven life” may be a soothing balm for individual sheeple, but I would argue it is very destructive when that purpose is projected onto the herd. At the dawn of super intelligence, the exponential growth in biotechnology, the collapse of all our ecosystems, and WWIII, it is the nihilist who asks for a good justification for these pursuits. It is the very people and institutions that insist that nations must grow, humanity must progress, or I must be important that make it more difficult to enjoy our one chance at existence.
[1] It is necessary to note that I do actually at this point reject the term ‘nihilist’ as a coherent label of any person who accepts the premise that ‘existence has no inherent meaning or purpose’ is not doing anything extra than accepting a statement like ‘the earth revolves around the sun’ and we do not have a label to call someone who accepts heliocentrism. But I will use it in an effort to reclaim it as something to be proud of, in opposition to all the kool-aid drinkers out there.
[2] Our society has a real problem understanding the difference between self-interest and selfishness.
[3] And neither is the fucking Joker which everyone also seems to confuse with a nihilist. His commitment to chaos is just as full of ultimate meaning and purpose as a Mormon’s pursuit of their own planet in the afterlife.
[4] I was writing what follows in the main body but realized it’s just a tangent: Yes, nothing ultimately matters, but why does this trouble so many people? I would argue it is the disconnect between the world as presented to us growing up and the world as it is rather than the fact that everything is ultimately pointless. Many of the pernicious ideas that have caused humanity so much anguish are ones that are the over application of a good cognitive strategy selected for by evolution. Evolution favored apes that assumed that unnatural objects were designed by another ape. As human thought evolved, we applied this assumption, that would have been protective against rival tribes, to existence itself. Smoke means fire, pointing means look over there, these words relate to concepts, then we took this practice and applied it to existence itself.
[5] Specifically, a human life. Though, ‘life’ is also a vague as shit concept and hard to pin down so better to go with subjective experience.
[6] Take even the Christian claim that our purpose in life is to worship God and join him in eternity afterward. That would seem like an ultimate objective to life but then it seems really easy to ask “Ok, but what would really be the point of all that?” Why not skip the infinitesimally small human life and just skip to the eternity? Any proper theologian will have a billion words to say on this subject, but they will never coherently answer this question.
The Westerlund Project 