
What Nihilism Is Not - anarbadalov
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/what-nihilism-is-not/
======
stanfordkid
I used to be really into philosophy, until the revelation hit me that
philosophy is ultimately ontological: it names ways of thinking -- suppose
living life is like painting a painting. Philosophy, then, is a theory of
aesthetics. Sure it can be handy, but at the end of the day you need to create
a painting. How much time you spend reading about aesthetics deducts from your
time actually painting and experimenting.

I think the author doesn't look at the drawbacks of nihilism completely --
nihilism is a blank canvas as opposed to something like paint-by-numbers.
Ultimately the choice of nihilism is still personal. We are all given a blank
canvas to start. What kind of painting do you want to hang up?

Nihilism is basically saying that no theory of aesthetics is better than any
other. Is this really true? Would you paint random dots on the canvas? Surely
circles are more meaningful than scribbles?

------
zdragnar
It has been posted on here before, but since it is relevant and I enjoyed it
think it is worth mentioning:

[https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-
meaning/](https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/)

------
mirimir
Huh.

I did maybe a couple decades of applied nihilism, as presented by Landmark
Education. It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar and prone to pessimism
and depression.

So this makes sense to me:

> If, as I suggested earlier, nihilism and pessimism are opposites, then
> nihilism is actually much closer to optimism.

But not this:

> Such a lack of awareness is the point of nihilism, as nihilism is all about
> hiding from despair rather than dwelling on it.

As Landmark taught it, it's not so much hiding from despair as cultivating the
awareness that despair is an illusion. That is, despair isn't about what
happened. It's about our story about what happened. And our stories by default
just reflect our programming.

This does, however, but it's too ambiguous:

> But the nihilist has feelings. It’s just that what the nihilist has feelings
> for is itself nothing.

It's not that it's "nothing", exactly. It's that it's indeterminate. By
default, it's however we've been programmed. But it can be whatever we choose
freely.

~~~
thrwaway69
Personally, I see nihilism as part of strategic deployment like any other
philosophical position.

If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give
meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past,
nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more
meaningful (to yourself).

Nihilism opens door to countering positions such as above. By using it, one
can either accept life without meaning and move on or they can counter it with
different position that doesn't bind them from construction of their own
structure.

off topic

> It helped me a lot, given that I'm bipolar

I am curious how do you trust yourself dealing with that. In a similar
position, I find it a bit complicated to retain trust in myself (messy part is
I have trauma related to trusting others as well). The feeling of being able
to do anything devolving into sleeping like a rotten piece of meat within a
few months. When I noticed the pattern, I had to stop thinking anything
ambitious long term.

Currently, I have a few yes/no questions that highly depend on ny emotional
and psychological state. I ask myself when I am unsure whether it's a good
phase or bad phase. When am I myself? Is it when I can be high or low? Or
somewhere between combining both.

Obviously, I can ignore the emotions and look at things objectively but then,
I would start disagreeing with lot of people including doctors and become more
'robot' like. I start thinking about incentives, motive, biases, biological
coding and what not to rationalize 'something' but that 'something' ultimately
depends on my emotional underlying. The argument proposed are hard to deny
unless someone has an irrational absolute stance originating from a position
of faith or bias they are unaware of.(I am not saying things directly, I know)

Aa for drugs (they don't really work that much for me), do you not see
yourself as intoxicated though? If someone was under the effect of alcohol,
would you say that someone has control or actually thinking by their own?
Comparing medical drugs to alcohol might be a bit stretched but some of what I
took in the past was relatively similar in effects after a bit of research.
What if you had to take drugs forever to retain that person? Who is judging
what is ultimately good for you?

~~~
brazzy
>If nothing has inherent meaning then you are the one who has power to give
meaning to things. You can avoid giving meaning to mishaps, mistakes, past,
nasty comments and anxiety while cherishing and making other things more
meaningful (to yourself). That's one outlook on nihilism

As I understand it, that is, in fact, _existentialism_ , not nihilism.

~~~
mirimir
Agreed. But nihilism is the gateway.

~~~
ahartmetz
AFAICT existentialism is nihilism plus a bunch of pretentious gibberish, so if
I was going that route, I'd rather stop at nihilism.

~~~
mirimir
You do have a point.

Basically it's making up stuff to believe in, rather than believing in
"nothingness" (which is not just "nothing").

As Landmark says, "We are meaning making machines." So it's very hard to stay
centered on nothingness. And that's what TFA alludes:

> as nihilism is all about hiding from despair

So with existentialism, you're just manipulating yourself. But that's arguably
better than being manipulated by others, your culture, authoritarian
structures, and so on.

Another perspective is that it's all games. But that we're prone to forgetting
that, and thinking that it means something else.

------
__s
Nihilist: the payoff matrix is zero, people have been brainwashed to perceive
a non-zero payoff matrix

Pessimist: the payoff matrix is negative

Cynic: players refuse to cooperate, so we're stuck playing with a net negative
result

Apathetic: this game is boring

~~~
defertoreptar
Nihilist: the expected value is 0. I'll play just for the hell of it.

Pessimist: the expected value less than or equal to 0. It's a meaningless game
of chance, and it doesn't matter what you do.

Existentialist: the expected value is 0, but if you score 10 points, we'll
call it a win.

Cynic: you think that the expected value is positive. You idiots only act like
you're not playing to win.

------
blamestross
The author doesn't actually seem to demonstrate an understanding of nihilism
or of pessimism. Most of classical philosophy is predicated on _something_ in
the universe having an intrinsic purpose or value. They require an "uncaused-
cause" of moral values.

Nihilism is simply the rejection of inherent value or purpose to the universe
or anything in it. It means the only values or purposes in the universe are
non-inherent and they are things we made up. It doesn't discourage you from
making up values, it just discourages you from claiming they are inherently
right for some reason.

For a nihilist, hearing somebody ask how things are "good" or "bad" in a
nihilist viewpoint is like an atheist being asked why they act morally without
a god to act as judge. It is mildly horrifying to see somebody else unable to
behave reasonably without made-up guidance.

~~~
d0100
> It is mildly horrifying to see somebody else unable to behave reasonably
> without made-up guidance.

Not behaving according to your made-up reasonableness?

If there is no absolute line, then the only thing that matters is being the
current top-dog

~~~
blamestross
I'm ok with them deciding on different morals that me. It's the inability to
decide morals for themselves I find unsettling.

------
evdev
I think if your concept of nihilism holds that Socrates believing that justice
is inherently good is nihilistic, it's not a very useful take on nihilism.

~~~
Barrin92
I think it's actually a great take. In my opinion there always has been
something downright creepy about justice. The way some people talk about
justice and the good society is eerily similar to Norman Bates in American
Psycho or corporate modernity which the movie mocks.

There is a thin line where justice crosses over into complacency, maintaining
order or just being a hollow PR slogan that instead of rallying people
actually pacifies them.

I think the author is right that there is something liberating about pessimism
and cynicism because they refuse to play, actually challening and mocking
whoever claims to know what is just or correct.

~~~
yepguy
You just took Socrates out of the conversation, though. I think the point is
that you can only call Socrates a nihilist by refusing to treat him seriously.
From the article:

> Thrasymachus’s cynicism is so compelling that Socrates spends the rest of
> the “Republic” trying to prove that justice is better than injustice by
> trying to refute the apparent success of unjust people by making
> metaphysical claims about the effects of injustice on the soul. Socrates is
> thus only able to counter cynicism in the visible world through faith in the
> existence of an invisible world, an invisible world that he argues is more
> real than the visible world. In other words, it is Thrasymachus’s cynicism
> that forces Socrates to reveal his nihilism.

The logic seems to be that such an invisible world is obviously false - so
obviously false that not even Socrates himself could believe it. But the
absurdity of calling Socrates a nihilist is easy to see as soon as you give
that invisible world a little credibility, even if only to say that Socrates
could have found the idea plausible.

~~~
skolskoly
Yeah I was a bit taken aback when reading that part and became increasingly
concerned that the author didn't know what he was talking about.

Imagine your friend asks you to count the windows on a building, so you count
the rows and columns and multiply them. When he asks you how you did it so
fast, you tell him, and he responds with something like: "Oh, I didn't realize
you were a Nihilist." He then explains that mathematics is immaterial, and
therefore non-existent. You believing in such a thing apparently makes YOU the
Nihilist?

No. Nihilism is not about holding supposedly "empty" beliefs. If anything,
it's the opposite; Nihilism would hold that these beliefs in the immaterial
are themselves empty. Your friend might be a Nihilist, but you certainly
aren't.

------
newfangle
I think this article is a waste of time. Rather than using actual sources the
author uses scenes from mtv highschool sitcoms to prove their point. Also the
author injects their personal bias into everything.

~~~
annamargot
I think there’s a difference between illustrating an idea and proving a point.

When illustrating an idea, It might be sensible to use relatable examples that
make the concept easier to grasp. I don’t see that an attempt to prove a point
or persuade in and of itself.

I do however believe that if you disagree with the greater piece, it could be
easy to pick on this kind of example to create the appearance of childishness
/ lack of seriousness. An easy win but not necessarily with merit.

------
skolskoly
I wasn't satisfied with the essay, so I thought I'd share my understanding of
Nihilism. This is coming from someone who has never read Nietzsche so take it
with a grain of salt, I'm curious to know where I might be off.

First, I think we've all most commonly seen the "colloquial" form of Nihilism,
which is a sort of despair over a lack of meaning in life. I'm pretty sure
most people are aware that this is oversimplified, but it is partially
grounded in actual Nihilism. The emphasis is put on despair, but the despair
isn't the philosophy, just a product of it.

To sum up Nihilism in a sentence: reality lacks inherent meaning, and any
meaning we attempt to fulfill is ultimately chosen, not given to us.
Importantly, most of the sense of purpose we see as being "real" comes from
our desire to continue existing, (hence Existentialism.) But, existence is a
choice. You simply choose to continue to exist, or you don't. (In which case
you die.) This is the main insight which makes Nihilism disturbing.
Philosophically, if our existence has no purpose, then it seems that
everything else we believe and value is built on a foundation of sand.

~~~
brazzy
>Philosophically, if our existence has no purpose, then it seems that
everything else we believe and value is built on a foundation of sand.

Only if you assume that only "inherent" or externally supplied meaning or
purpose is valid.

Why make that assumption, though?

~~~
skolskoly
Well, that is what Nihilism explores. Under Nihilism we can still have a sort
of right and wrong, but only with respect to goals. The goals you pick, are of
course arbitrary. However, reality sort of strong-arms us into continuing our
existence as a precondition to choosing any other goal (aside from death), and
in that sense all other goals become subordinate to that one. I guess there
are some other ways to interpret it, but regardless, the implications of this
vary from somewhat Utopian (Transhumanism) to very Dystopian (The Borg.)

I'm not a Nihilist but if I were I wouldn't be too happy about it.

------
pc2g4d
Nihilism is a complicated subject. Like feminism, it's a word that means a
wide range of things to different people. One person's take on nihilism
obviously is their operating definition more than a single decisive statement
on the subject.

~~~
ravenstine
Nihilism has been a fad in the last 5 years. (I blame Rick and Morty) A lot of
these "nihilists" that I've met use it as an excuse to be apathetic or even
low-level belligerent, or to not put a mental filter on their disjointed
thoughts. But it's not that they never gave a damn about anything; it's that
they're either bored or were let down in some way by the establishment.

I discovered nihilism before I even understood that it was a thing. I came to
a realization that, until I had some clear evidence to the contrary(even then
I'm not sure I could let go of my skepticism), there is effectively an
exception to every rule that we conceive of and that our view of existence is
almost completely tainted by the way in which we perceive it. Thus, I have to
accept that people in my reality are also perceiving reality in an entirely
unique way, in which case I can't truly begrudge them when they act out.
Essentially, I became a moral nihilist because there's no way I can reconcile
my view of the world with idea that morals are objective and not contingent on
circumstance. (which isn't to say that I'm a moral relativist)

I doubt that most people who call themselves nihilists are truly nihilists or
even have the kinds of views on nihilism that I do. It's an identity that most
people arrive at not through their own inward exploration but as a response to
the world acting upon them. I would argue that's true of most belief systems,
though it's probably more transparent with nihilism since it's the rejection
of something, so it's not as if there's a coherent doctrine that so-called
nihilists can use to bullshit others.

~~~
jariel
Morals don't need to be objective to be valid.

~~~
ravenstine
I don't disagree with that.

~~~
jariel
What are the 'morals' of some entirely different alien race? Are they going to
be the same as ours? Probably not.

Maybe there are some very 'core' morals that might be consistent, but
pragmatically, they won't resemble at all.

The 'morals' of Athenian life in antiquity were such that every able-bodied
male had to have his own war fighting gear, and be called to fight in the
defence of the city if need be. This would be an _existential_ duty towards
the community, without which, they could not exist. But Athens today? Not
necessary.

------
incompatible
Nihilism goes hand-in-hand with atheism, doesn't it? If you don't believe that
the Universe is operating according to the scheme(s) of some kind of "divine
being(s)", it's hard to see where any "meaning" would come from. It's just
mindless and possibly deterministic motion. That is unless you can somehow
derive "meaning" as an emergent concept and see it as significant. Desires
originate in biology that has evolved through natural selection; morality and
expectations originate with peoples attempts to control how other people
behave as mediated by power structures in society.

~~~
anongraddebt
I've not infrequently found nihilism intellectually attractive. Usually,
something like political nihilism.

One problem that I think has long been overlooked is the foundation of human
rights. Only in the past roughly five years has there been much scholarly
contribution on the matter.

What could possibly ground human rights? And if they have no ground, then
aren't they simply the same as the preference for, say, peeing standing up vs
peeing sitting down?

~~~
incompatible
Human rights are just a concept that humans have come up after thousands of
years experience with systems of laws. The fact that some societies manage to
do without them shows that they aren't really essential.

Edit: Or to put it another way, ideas about legal systems can evolve over
time, by analogy to how biological systems can evolve. Ideally, we'd be
looking at what works and what doesn't and adopting best practices.

------
alexashka
I'm not sure what the author is trying to achieve by defining words that
already have perfectly acceptable definitions.

------
charleskinbote
> In order to preserve nihilism as a meaningful concept...

I found the irony here rather amusing.

~~~
MacsHeadroom
There's no irony in that quote. Nihilism is predicated on the existence of
meaningfulness. It merely holds that meaning is a subjective experience.

That's not to say that meaning is relative or that it isn't real.

This may be difficult to grasp at first. But consider this analogy which
grasps the objective nature of a more concrete subjective experience: When you
gaze up at the sky and see two birds it is objectively true that you are
having a subjective experience of two birds in the sky above you (whether
you're hallucinating or not) and not one bird or two elephants. There's
nothing relative about it and it's very much a real experience. Cogito ergo
sum, after all.

Likewise, under nihilism meaning itself is a subjective experience with
quantifiable objective properties. Specifically, meaning is a quantitative
(something objective) measure of experiences which are the most highly
connected (ie. significant) to other experiences from a subjective
perspective.

For example, if you experience prayer as meaningful to you, whether you're
delusional or not about it's meaningfulness to you or in general, then it is
objectively true that you are having said real non-relative experience of
meaning.

For more insight, see A Nihilists Guide to Meaning:
[https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-
meaning/](https://meltingasphalt.com/a-nihilists-guide-to-meaning/)

------
rhyzom
ok, i finally understand exactly what nihilism concretely refers to now. a
state of being similar to the one of the hollow human replicas in "the
invasion of the body snatchers"... so, that's what i've been referring to all
this time lately when i use the phrase "delirium and drift"... it's not
stupidity i've been referring to, but nihilism it seems. explains a lot.
dostoevsky's use of the term now suddenly becomes rather disturbing in its
19th century russian context. either way, thank you. that was maybe somehow
useful and somewhat insightful in helping me diagnose the surrounding world
going clinically/criminally insane..

------
lacker
An interesting article. I feel like, especially in the era of social media,
nihilism is underrated at the margin. Perhaps we should all believe in fewer
beliefs.

------
HelloSunday
Landmark was never banned in France or anywhere else.

------
amitport
"Nihilism: the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief
that life is meaningless;" Oxford.

Concise and seems pretty clear to me. While the article is well written, it
doesn't really adds much IMO.

~~~
Aperocky
> life is meaningless

This is actually objectively true, our life are not different to the laws of
physics then a rock on the surface of Mars.

Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however.

~~~
jariel
"> life is meaningless This is actually objectively true"

Definitely not 'objectively true'.

It's only 'objectively true' from a narrow materialist perspective, and there
are other ways to look at it.

"our life are not different to the laws of physics then a rock on the surface
of Mars.

Our life is meaningful to ourselves, however."

This is really quite some contradiction.

First - the materialist assumption (which I would say is a fallacy, or rather
it's only partly true) which postulates that the universe is merely
energy/matter bouncing around according to laws ...

... and second - then the acceptance that 'it's meaningful to ourselves'.

Consider what 'ourselves' (i.e. life, consciousness) are - something that's by
definition not possible to describe with 'physics' because we've ruled it out
(energy and matter acting according to rules cannot be 'aware' or
'conscious').

Contemplate for half a second that the expression of life is the meaningful,
real thing, and that materiality is just the measure of the matter it's
expressed in, and that science is just a tool for that. Or at least that's
another, pretty reasonable way to consider it. And there are definitely other
ways.

~~~
frutiger
> Consider what 'ourselves' (i.e. life, consciousness) are - something that's
> by definition not possible to describe with 'physics' because we've ruled it
> out (energy and matter acting according to rules cannot be 'aware' or
> 'conscious').

I’m not sure I follow.

~~~
claudiawerner
I think GP is referring to the idea that there is no yet identified physical
mechanism that identifies the arising of consciousness in terms of properties
of matter or energy, to which (if I understand GP correctly) physics restricts
itself to. Leibniz put the objection to the mechanical materialist conception
of consciousness/perception in 1714:

>One is obliged to admit that perception and what depends upon it is
inexplicable on mechanical principles, that is, by figures and motions. In
imagining that there is a machine whose construction would enable it to think,
to sense, and to have perception, one could conceive it enlarged while
retaining the same proportions, so that one could enter into it, just like
into a windmill. Supposing this, one should, when visiting within it, find
only parts pushing one another, and never anything by which to explain a
perception. Thus it is in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in
the machine, that one must look for perception.

~~~
frutiger
> there is no yet identified physical mechanism that identifies the arising of
> consciousness in terms of properties of matter or energy

As far as I know, there's no proper definition of consciousness, and any time
we have narrowed what consciousness may be (over the past few centuries) we
have redefined consciousness so that it remains indefinable.

It seems strange to me to divide the universe into "meat inside bags of skin"
and "things outside bags of skin" and presume one side of that split somehow
possesses unique properties not subject to physical laws of matter and energy.

------
himaraya
Rather tautological article.

------
airesearcher
Nihilism is a logical fallacy and to believe in it is utterly delusional. To
assert “nothing” is to contradict the assertion. To assert “nothingness“ or
that “everything is nothing” or that “nothing exists” is actually just a form
of materialism in which the concept of a void is reified as just another kind
of thing. If someone was truly a nihilist they would have to refute nihilism,
for nihilism could not possibly exist, nor could nothing or any nothingness be
established. Nihilism is logically impossible.

~~~
boomboomsubban
This is addressed in the first paragraph of the article, and the concept of
"nihilism" has more to it than a literal translation of the Latin base word.

