1.2.7.1 Nihilism

Version 1.0 September 2016                                        (Previous Version)

Nihilism is like an extreme form of scepticism that denies all existence.  Nihilists really believe that nothing important exists.  Some nihilists believe that:

·       life has no objective meaning or purpose;

·       morality is not inherent in reality: any values are abstractly contrived;

·       knowledge is possibly untrue, not possible, or unable to be known;

·       reality does not actually exist, or at least concrete objects don’t exist;

·       the reality we see appears to have complex objects but these aren’t really real because they are made us of smaller parts that we can't see.

(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism accessed 27/07/2016)

Political nihilists aren’t really nihilists.

Political nihilists, such as a few Russians around 1900, believed that so much is unknown, unproven or unreal that they reject current social and political structures, such as government, family, and law, and some consequently promoted violence to overthrow the existing authorities, such as the monarchy (the Czar) and the (then repressive orthodox) church.  But these so-called, and self-styled, nihilists did believe the current structures were bad, and believed violent actions would promote their replacement.  They actually did believe in reality, knowledge, morality and meaning, and many were prepared to risk their lives to oppose the injustices they saw.

Nihilism in recent times

Some writers say that in post-modern times people don’t believe in anything important so this period is nihilistic.  Nietzsche, who apparently focussed only on Europe, asserted that the decline of Christianity and the loss of values that he saw meant that nihilism is characteristic of the modern age – stupidly ignoring the rest of the world that was never Christian and is still religious.

Some people wrongly think that if there is no objective morality or meaning to life then everything is permitted, ie slavery, torture, murder, rape, robbery and dishonesty are all acceptable.

Some people think that the rise of Nazism and totalitarian Communism was enabled by the so-called nihilism of the age, by the decline of Christianity and supposed loss of values. 

·       But of the most affected countries, Germany and Italy remained Protestant or Catholic, Russia remained Orthodox, and China remained a combination of Confucian and Buddhist.  

·       Also, Nazism and totalitarian Communism were supposedly founded on valuing their people.

·       Nazism is the short name for National Socialism, which was for a time supportive of those deemed to be part of the nation.  Germany’s Nazis restored prosperity after WW I reparations. 

·       A major fault of Nazism was its antagonism to and oppression of ‘outsiders’, such as Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled: their genocidal values were evil, not absent.

·       Communism was based on saving the workers from oppression by the capitalists (or in Russia’s case the Czar, and in China’s case the Emperor and the foreigners in that country). 

·       The totalitarian nature of the regimes caused human catastrophes and ongoing oppression as the elites, the party members, valued their own interests and state ideology over real people.

One of many responses required to prevent such disasters is to identify and promote reasonable global beliefs and values, not to bemoan the decline of Christianity in the West.

A Reasonable Response to Nihilism

We cannot accept the extreme form of nihilism that denies all existence or the existence of concrete objects.  The pain we would experience if we ignore reality or deny its existence is too great.  (See poem Hagger Nigh Tell? by Afferbeck Lauder.)  It is simpler to accept some form of public reality as an artificial construct to help us avoid suffering and seek fulfilment and communicate with others.

On the other hand we can accept the nihilist view that our supposed knowledge is possibly untrue, and that the true nature of reality may never be known. 

We acknowledge that the concept of Truth is inconsistent with the options of cause or chaos.  We accept the limits of rational thought, our personal ignorance and the ignorance of humanity as a whole.  Yet we still choose to seek the Truth.  This is one of our core values.

At the same time, recognising these limits, we choose to value diversity as a core value (from Chapter 1.1: Epistemology).

A nihilist might accept that there is an external reality but say that nothing in it is important.  They might suggest that there is no real point or meaning to life, that the whole universe is absurd.  They might look at the immense suffering in the world and either deny any sense of compassion or explain away the pain and compassion as mere mechanical evolutionary affects with no meaning.

This seems to be heartless and despairing, but the nihilist may say it nevertheless is true.  However, we can adopt an alternative empathetic, positive approach if we choose to, without “proving� the nihilist to be “wrong�.

To explain our view with regard to nihilism’s position on values and meaning we need to anticipate the conclusions we reach in the other sections of this work.  We acknowledge that meaning or purpose, morality or values are not objective things in reality.  They are neither objects in some eternal Platonic heaven, nor strange substances permeating the ether of the universe

We assert that values reflect our choices and choices reflect our values, and that the essence of morality is choice, a set of events, and our propensity to choose in certain ways.  We make value choices given the options available to us according to our beliefs about the nature of the world.

 We find meaning and purpose by discovering, choosing and accepting the role we play in the universal narrative.  We accept that these are human constructs, not inherent in the universe as objective things.

We phrase our current summary of this point as follows: