Nihilism versus Inherency

Nihilism was for us a window of clarity in a munged world. It’s the same way now: the media can report well on incidents, but the vast majority of people in society spend ungodly amounts of time, effort and money repeating a narrative to each other. Roughly, it’s that liberal democracy is the best society ever, technology will solve all our problems, and the type of individualistic selfishness required for consumerism is the best way to live. We are not encouraged to improve ourselves, only to make more money and to conform. This is for the convenience of others, by the way. Government didn’t invent this. It’s a cultural response to us having obliterated culture so that individuals could “have it your way” (Burger King!) and not be responsible to any kind of social standards, higher order, higher power, values, culture or measurement of meaning. Basically, it’s rampant individualism run amok. Nihilism rejects all of this by saying that there are no inherent values to life, and instead, everything is a choice, and by observing reality, we can tell what the results of our actions will be. We can’t hide behind morality, laws and social sentiments which allow us to do whatever we want and then justify it with nice-sounding goals like ending poverty, civil rights, stopping global warming, saving the whales, etc. Morality and those other human judgments remove us from reality. It’s easy to satisfy the justification, and avoid breaking the rules, but also do something vile, selfish and stupid. That’s why people love rules — they’re easy to circumvent! Lawmaking is a constant game of whack-a-mole. We tell people that it’s illegal to shoot each other in the head, and they shoot each other in the groin. Up pops another mole; they’re shooting each other in the gut. Make that illegal, too. Make it all illegal. Who will enforce it? No one is sure. Nihilists remove all of this and look at life entirely as choices and consequences. We know that if we pull the pin from a hand grenade and then hold it for five seconds, we die. We also know that if we pollute our planet, we die. However, we’ve made these rules that say it’s OK to hold a hand grenade for up to ten seconds, and it’s OK to pollute somewhat per person, with no limit on the number of people. Those rules are easily evaded and we still stumble onward toward our doom, pushed forward by the desires, judgments and emotions of billions of people. Nihilism refutes all of that. – Interview with Vijay Prozak