# Can you fight Nihilism? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 16, 2020, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561 "2020-03-16T03:27:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/41 "2020-03-17T07:48:05Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I certainly hope that there are people in your life who do not share your feelings of worthlessness and who would miss you if you were no longer present in their lives. They would be wrong for in the truest sense I don’t matter and I’m not important. I can try to pretend otherwise but deep down I know it to be so. Such is the logical conclusion of nihilism, and something I can’t escape. Sure people might be hurt but that’s because they are caught in the dream like I used to. When they realize the insignificance of our lives they wouldn’t care. It’s like pulling back the curtain and seeing that there is nothing there and never was. We assign importance to human life and living but this is still running from nihilism. It’s avoiding the reality that such things have no value or importance. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/42 "2020-03-17T09:39:25Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Because when it comes to Nihilism one can’t really deny that it is right. We certainly can! Do consider why Nihilism is not widely accepted. > [@Machinaforce](#): > > Asserting that something is meaningful doesn’t make it so, it’s just pretending. Indeed. So asserting Nihilism is meaningful doesn’t make it so. That was just logic, but I agree with posters who point out the joy in life. Here’s just one example: I was a teacher for over 20 years - I’ve been retired for another 8. Yesterday I had ordered food in a restaurant when the head chef suddenly came out to my table. 😕 Chef “Excuse me, aren’t you Mr. glee?” Me “Yes I am.” (I knew this must be a former pupil, because they are the only people who call me that.) Chef “I’m Inigo Montoya.\* [del]You killed my father![/del] You used to teach me.” 🆒 Me (desperately trying to remember one of the hundreds of pupils I’ve taught) “It’s good to see you.” Now all I could remember is that Inigo had been naughty. :eek: So I continued “I remember you as being … mischievous!” Chef (grinning) " I was indeed. You gave me a long essay once! :smack: But look how well I’ve done since! 🙂 Me 'Well I’m pleased for you - and look forward to my meal." And it was indeed delicious. 😃 \*names have been changed… ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/43 "2020-03-17T09:45:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Sure people might be hurt but that’s because they are caught in the dream like I used to. When they realize the insignificance of our lives they wouldn’t care. It’s like pulling back the curtain and seeing that there is nothing there and never was. You are very, very, very full of yourself. There are millions upon millions of people throughout thousands of years who have been as aware of this fact as you who have still managed to find at least moments of joy and happiness in their entirely subjective values. You may think that you are this guy high up on an ivory tower of enlightened wisdom sneering down on the ignorant masses below but you actually have your head buried so deep in your own posterior that you have deluded yourself into thinking that everyone is in the dark. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/44 "2020-03-17T12:45:37Z")
In a sense Nihilism is a driving force for me. My life is such a short sliver of time, in such a tiny corner of the universe, that I’d better make the absolute most of it. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a believer in the notion that “Life being short is what gives it meaning!”. Just more from a practical point of view, it’s not helpful to spend what little meal time there is complaining about getting a small piece of pie. Eat up! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/45 "2020-03-17T15:09:54Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > They would be wrong for in the truest sense I don’t matter and I’m not important. I can try to pretend otherwise but deep down I know it to be so. Such is the logical conclusion of nihilism, and something I can’t escape. Sure people might be hurt but that’s because they are caught in the dream like I used to. When they realize the insignificance of our lives they wouldn’t care. You seem to, uh, _care_. > [@](#): > > It’s avoiding the reality that such things have no value or importance. You also seem to think your thoughts on this matter have some _value or importance_. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/46 "2020-03-17T18:30:16Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Actually it’s not objectively true. You are still resisting nihilism. Nihilism is elimination of meaning, period. It is in fact objectively true, and I’m resisting nihilism because as philosophical mindwanks go it’s fun and all but it’s observably incompatible with actual reality. > [@Machinaforce](#): > > As the link was saying: “ Brassier’s nihilism does not reduce human existence to some sort of subjectivism. On the contrary, it strips it of all its clutter. Nihilism allows us to observe a reality that “is indifferent to our existence and oblivious to the values’ andmeanings’ which we would drape over it in order to make it more hospitable” (Prefrace xi). It is this atavistic need to urgently hold on to the illusion of meaning that impedes intellectual progress, and it is only by accepting that extinction and its subsequent nothingness eternally pervade all reality that humans can frame their ponderings appropriately. It is the role of philosophy to clear the way for the advancement of science and to create a dialogue through which both can advance towards intellectual maturity.” Nihilism, as described here, can be simplified to the following process: 1. Recognize that you absolutely definitely host a subjective perspective from which various things in reality irresistibly have value. As in, you exist a la Descartes, and the you that you observe to exist doesn’t like the smell of poop. This all is irresistibly true - and objectively true. Objectively speaking, the subjective you doesn’t like the smell of poop. 2. Based on step 1, recognize that there is at least one subjective perspective that exists and makes valuations. (Of course since solipsism is stupid there are probably lots more, but you _know_ there’s at least one.) 3. Next, recognize that since your Descartian ‘you’ is a subjective experience, that it’s possible for there to be views that do not include your own view. Or put another way, step 3 is to explicitly reject solipsism. 4. Now, recognize that besides all the views that explicitly make valuations, it’s always logically possible to imagine a new, ‘objective’ view that, itself, doesn’t make valuations. 5. Then, and this is the important part, make the gigantic logical error of erasing steps 1 through 3 from your knowledge base, leaving only an awareness of that imagined ‘objective’ view. 6. Having done that, announce that objectively speaking, no valuations are really happening, and that this is somehow ‘better’, apropos of nothing. And that’s what’s going on here. Brassier’s nihilism doesn’t strip human existence of all its clutter - it strips it of all its human existence, by the approach of sticking its fingers in its ears and saying “la la la la, subjective human existence isn’t real and I’m not here saying this with my fingers in my ears”. > [@Machinaforce](#): > > Meaning is just an illusion we drape to cope with existence. Because the world would be a radically different place if people realized that what they though mattered or had value doesn’t. Value judgments are, in a sense, a lie. In fact the unstable nature of values renders them rather meaningless at the end of the day. You can’t build anything solid on something inherently unstable, unless people don’t question it. But that’s still a “human centered” view of the world, which according to the link and author is the problem with philosophy. There is nothing unstable about the fact you don’t like the smell of poop. And regardless of what the link and the author think about philosophy, when your philosophy is based on ignoring that whole “human centered” world that you undeniably are actually experiencing, then conclusions based on the toy philosophy most certainly cannot be extrapolated to the very human centered reality that the philosophy necessarily is ignoring. Which means that, necessarily, nihilism cannot be a refutation of observed reality and that observed reality always automatically disproves this sort of nihilism. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/47 "2020-03-17T19:06:39Z")
People who get depressed by nihilism don’t understand it. > **[Nihilism](https://xkcd.com/167/)** > > Why can't you have normal existential angst like all the other boys? Nihilism means no intrinsic external meaning. It _doesn’t_ mean: 1. There is no internal meaning 2. There is intrinsic negative meaning There is still personal meaning, which is as good or as bad as you want it to be. And there is still no intrinsic external meaning, which generally is neutral but the lack of intrinsic negativity is probably a good thing to keep in perspective. Getting past nihilism, I know you’ve dabbled in Buddhism which does talk about dukkha, a sort of intrinsic unsatisfactoryness of reality, which sounds a little like nihilism, but again, it attributes the cause to striving, which is again an internal thing which can be overcome. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/48 "2020-03-17T19:25:25Z")
IMHO, it is a more depressing thought that we all have an objective purpose that we are morally obligated to fulfill whether we want to or not. Imagine having a sense of duty and responsibility hanging over you head all the time. It is far more liberating to not have any set purpose or goal, because then you can define success however you want. Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/49 "2020-03-17T20:06:10Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > People talk up the importance of having a sense of purpose and meaning. And I do think those things are important. But what is much more important is having a sense of enjoyment. People who don’t find enjoyment in anything tend not to see the point of anything, including living. People who do enjoy things don’t tend to care about “the point”. That pretty much encapsulates it for me. I don’t really have any significant concerns about my purpose in life or what it might mean in the grander scheme of things. What I do know is that I really like crème brûlée . So Ray Brassier can suck it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/50 "2020-03-17T22:51:38Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > No don’t do this. Don’t get a kitten until you can deal with your obsessive thinking. Fortunately, our good friend **Machinaforce** thinks of [pet ownership as slavery](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=798911). ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/51 "2020-03-18T03:26:40Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > People who get depressed by nihilism don’t understand it. > > [xkcd: Nihilism](https://xkcd.com/167/) > > Nihilism means no intrinsic external meaning. > > It _doesn’t_ mean: > > 1. There is no internal meaning > 2. There is intrinsic negative meaning > > There is still personal meaning, which is as good or as bad as you want it to be. And there is still no intrinsic external meaning, which generally is neutral but the lack of intrinsic negativity is probably a good thing to keep in perspective. > > Getting past nihilism, I know you’ve dabbled in Buddhism which does talk about dukkha, a sort of intrinsic unsatisfactoryness of reality, which sounds a little like nihilism, but again, it attributes the cause to striving, which is again an internal thing which can be overcome. Actually there is no personal meaning that is still a dodge and not a logical endpoint to resolve nihilism. Personal meaning is an illusion we drape over nihilism to avoid dealing with it. The comic misses the point entirely. > [@](#): > > The point of writing such a book is to clarify a dilemma. On one hand, there are plenty of people prepared to embrace living without a point: living is warranted by the accumulation of interesting or pleasurable experiences. On the other hand, there are people who maintain that there are reasons for living, which are ethical, cognitive, political, or a combination of all three. My point was that in the former case the warrant is not rational, because it boils down to the valorization of sensation, and this requires the sacrifice reason; while in the latter case, the credibility of the reasons invoked is increasingly undermined by methods of explanation in the natural sciences, whose explanatory comprehensiveness renders appeals to meaning, purpose, and value redundant. > The point of the book was to point out the full extent of this aporia and to suggest that those who claim to have overcome it, whether by cheerfully embracing purposelessness or resolutely maintaining the irreducibility of value, cannot provide philosophically convincing grounds for doing. > Of course, the intelligibility of this aporia is supposed to point to the way in which thinking can make sense of the absence of sense, and in this regard the book not only endorses philosophical rationality but seeks to defend it. > The point of charting the full extent of the aporia is to try and generate the resources for overcoming it without relapsing into either of the two unsatisfactory alternatives mentioned above. This is what I have been trying to do since writing that book over fifteen years ago and I am now working on a second book which I hope points beyond the deadlock described in the first. > If I thought that everything was really pointless I wouldn’t have bothered writing a book about it: the pointlessness of pointing out pointlessness is self-evident. But I don’t think everything is pointless. My conviction is that purpose is generated by us; not through existential choice or commitment, but through collective ways of thinking and talking rooted in our social practices. Purpose can’t be individually selected, it can only be forged collectively. But doing so requires cognitive and political resources which are currently lacking and which must also be produced. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/52 "2020-03-18T03:30:13Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > You are very, very, very full of yourself. There are millions upon millions of people throughout thousands of years who have been as aware of this fact as you who have still managed to find at least moments of joy and happiness in their entirely subjective values. You may think that you are this guy high up on an ivory tower of enlightened wisdom sneering down on the ignorant masses below but you actually have your head buried so deep in your own posterior that you have deluded yourself into thinking that everyone is in the dark. Actually they never took it to it’s logical conclusion, they always backed out the the ways the author I am talking about says they do. No one knows how to deal with the truth of our existence. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/53 "2020-03-18T06:22:02Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Actually there is no personal meaning that is still a dodge and not a logical endpoint to resolve nihilism. Personal meaning is an illusion we drape over nihilism to avoid dealing with it. The comic misses the point entirely. Huh? The comic spends almost all of its three panels completely agreeing that life is meaningless, and never says anything contrary to that. What did you want? The last panel to just say “fin”? The point of the comic is not to deflect, it’s essentially to say “So what?”. So what if nihilism’s true? Why should I dwell over nihilism any more than I dwell over the melting point of lead? Thinking about how life is pointless is pointless. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/54 "2020-03-18T09:10:49Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > Actually they never took it to it’s logical conclusion, they always backed out the the ways the author I am talking about says they do. No one knows how to deal with the truth of our existence. I’m afraid I don’t follow; why do you object to the way folks deal with this sort of thing? Do you have _objective_ grounds for disliking how they react? Or some _subjective_ grounds? “To suggest otherwise would be wrong”, you say, as if you already have a notion of right and wrong, which you find meaningful and important; please explain. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/55 "2020-03-18T10:53:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m afraid I don’t follow; why do you object to the way folks deal with this sort of thing? Because he can’t stand that other people are just as educated as he is if not vastly more so yet don’t wallow in the same pit of despair and self-pity that he does. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/56 "2020-03-18T12:52:15Z")
“There’s nothing wrong with me! It’s the UNIVERSE that’s messed up!” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/57 "2020-03-18T13:00:24Z")
Just my usual PSA for these threads: If you think you are engaging in a philosophical discussion with **Machinaforce** , you are making a category mistake. He is not really talking about nihilism, he is engaged in obsessive thinking and depression. If you enjoy posting, who am I to say no? But you should be aware he won’t engage you in a productive manner. He isn’t capable of that, and has occasionally admitted this. That said, I’ve actually gotten something from a lot of your posts, especially **By-Tor** , but others as well. It’s got me thinking, what would a world with objective meaning look like? What does objective meaning really mean? It seems like an incoherent concept. Let’s say I enjoy a slice of pizza and a cold soda. Would I enjoy them more if they (somehow) contained “meaning.” Would my irksome current self isolation be less (or more) irksome if there was objective meaning? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/58 "2020-03-18T13:13:07Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > They would be wrong for in the truest sense I don’t matter and I’m not important. I can try to pretend otherwise but deep down I know it to be so. Such is the logical conclusion of nihilism, and something I can’t escape. Sure people might be hurt but that’s because they are caught in the dream like I used to. When they realize the insignificance of our lives they wouldn’t care. It’s like pulling back the curtain and seeing that there is nothing there and never was. We assign importance to human life and living but this is still running from nihilism. It’s avoiding the reality that such things have no value or importance. Why is nihilism a better philosophy than meaningfulness? If nothing matters. Existence is futile. To be or not to be, is an irrelevant dilemma. Then choosing to find meaning and enjoying the brief periods of joy between eternities of non-existence is not inherently wrong. In fact, it may be the only rational and sane decision a person can make. Even if we use your own heuristic for measuring value of existence, nihilism is no virtue. Take your meds and see your therapist. ---
**Author:** ![LynnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@LynnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LynnM)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/59 "2020-03-18T14:20:56Z")
I’ve endured the OP’s questions+comments, and appreciate everyone’s attempts to help him, but I think a different approach is needed. Start at 6:40–I’m the guy with the wrench– [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xlDXQdgx_QU/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AHUBoAC4AOKAgwIABABGGUgYShJMA8=&rs=AOn4CLDepiv3Zx8ihd2LKzdQrrcAhMaMDA "Airplane Classic Scenes") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlDXQdgx_QU) ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561/60 "2020-03-18T15:19:46Z")
There is no arguing with Nihilism because it is absolutely true that, absent an unshakable belief in an afterlife, there is no “point” to anything at all in the universe. Meaning is a thing created by humans, and as far as we know only humans have this concept. So on a universal scale even the concept of meaning is itself meaningless. Everything about our personal experiences is devoid of any meaning at all except for how they influence our own meaningless opinions. Calling them “tears in rain” doesn’t do justice to the vast unimportance to everything of our own experiences. BUT, isn’t all of that rather liberating? Everything you can imagine is on the table if you’re brave enough to truly believe nothing matters. Your actions don’t matter, the consequences to you and everyone else don’t matter. See to your comfort as you will, because yours is the only comfort that truly matters. Even seeing to the comfort of others is really only a form of self comfort. If joy isn’t your thing, don’t seek joy. If self-loathing is where you go, then wallow in it until it sickens you even to the point of seeking oblivion. The universe is your oyster–scarf it up! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-fight-nihilism/849561.md?page=4)