Here is NIHILISM.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Friedrich Nietzsche

People do not want to be told, because they do not want to believe, that their way of life could be a fabrication. This is not revealing about people and certainly not unwarranted as it would throw many into disarray and render anything ‘achieved’ in one’s life almost worthless.

Vattimo, inspired by Nietzsche, said that “living in the story-world of our creation, we do not see nature anymore. Instead, we mostly see our world, a world that has been increasingly organised through a whole series of technological entities.” In other words, we have been deeply distracted, in some ways forcefully and at other times eagerly, by modern technological advancements. Seemingly we have come to accept these distractions as a new kind of reality, as though it is a natural progression from the past. But truth, like nature, is relentless and in more ways than one has a way of exerting itself, often through the cracks of the modern world. Almost suppressed to the point of non-existence, truth’s relentless nature causes confusion and unrest. Such a phenomenon was not unnoticed by many thinkers and two such examples are Durkheim’s anomie and Nietzsche’s nihilism.

The modern world has, let’s say within the last century, increasingly created distractions for us to neglect what matters in pursuit of those things that achieve monetary (or momentary) results. Unfortunately this drive has not been limited to consumerism or the legitimising of warfare but has also been extended to our everyday lives (and we can surmise this particular phenomenon as “neo-egotism”). Even Sartre, whose philosophy is bold and instructive, could not resist the temptation of justifying this new kind of self-absorption by stating; “I cannot count upon men whom I do not know, I cannot base my confidence upon human goodness or upon man’s interest in the good of society, seeing that man is free and that there is no human nature which I can take as foundational.” It is easy to sympathise with his view as he has observed and is respectful of our freedom as individuals but he has overlooked the responsibility of being conscious beings; by recognising that others exist we in turn exert our own existence. In this way we cannot objectively determine the significance of the individual from the greater community, nor the greater community from the individual as their interdependence is what enables us to exist as a species and hence as individuals.

Consider the following: Nietzsche proposed that one must be sceptical about those things we most value, those things we feel most certain about particularly because their origins are generally not reflective of our own free thinking. Yet does this not indicate you can never be certain about anything? Yes and no. Yes because the moment you think you are certain implies complacency, biasness, sentimentality of sorts (for example, a long held view within a family or group). And no because the more one scrutinises those things one feels certain about the more enlightened and open one becomes to new developments, factoring in those things that may not have been considered before. With this in mind I think we will be able to avoid developing any sort of fanaticism.

On the other hand, the constant scrutinising of our beliefs would mean we would have very little fixed beliefs and perhaps exist in a limbo-like mental state. Is this any more dangerous than the fanaticism that eventuates when people become attached to certain beliefs, political or religious? Does it cause any less certainty than that which already exists today?

This is where an awareness of nihilism becomes necessary.

Defined in a basic way, nihilism is the belief that the world is devoid of meaning and that those things we perceive as having meaning or those things we give meaning to are nothing more than extensions of our desires, biases or ulterior motives. Whether one agrees with this or not the fact remains that society today suffers from a lack of purpose and this deficiency is everywhere felt. Take for instance the fact that society today has become almost “boundaryless” whereby one way or another we feel we are able to attain (or at least work towards obtaining) what we desire in addition to those basic things we need to survive. Unfortunately this presents a problem that many cannot overcome; desire begins to supersede need and becomes unappeasable. Durkheim named this phenomenon anomie and in relation to “unlimited desires” stated that “if nothing comes from outside to restrict it, it can only be a source of torment for itself.” Furthermore, he also claimed that “it is impossible to conceive how such an indeterminate state can be reconciled with the conditions of mental life any more than with the demands of physical life.” This is an important notion that supports Durkheim’s future claim that no matter how much we enjoy pursuing our desires, by nature we wish to feel and in fact achieve an end result. As Durkheim concludes, “one does not advance if one is not walking towards a goal or, which is the same thing, when the goal towards which one is proceeding is infinitely far away.”

There is no need, and it is certainly not encouraged, to dogmatically uphold Durkheim’s philosophy of anomie or even Nietzsche’s nihilism. But it is interesting to note that such a philosophy is becoming more relevant as we move into the future. Having said this, it appears that the concept carries negative connotations within society today, which would indicate that it is rejected and feared. The mainstream definitions of nihilism, which is certainly not philosophical are; 1. Total rejection of established laws and institutions; 2. Anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity; 3. Total and absolute destructiveness. The last of the three definitions I have included is the most contentious as it completely overlooks the fact that the very essence of nihilism is the recognition that foundational ideas and meanings and their enforcement are in themselves destructive as their indeterminate, unstable and inflexible natures make them so. Yet our inability to recognise this in our definition of nihilism is proof that we are unnaturally bound to the ideas and meanings that have been deeply rooted in our lives. By relating nihilism to revolutionary activity we are perpetuating the very thing – ignorance – that will lead to the destruction of society as we know it.

F. Onal