If you ask college students what they know about the philosophy of nihilism, you will either get blank stares or a recitation of the famous quote by Fredrich Nietzsche, “God is dead.”
Of course, this quote has been adopted by the freshmen philosophy edge-lords and written on the stalls in bathrooms as many times as the phone number for “your mom.”
But what really is nihilism?
Some may think it’s the belief that existence has no meaning, which is not entirely wrong. However, there are idiosyncrasies that add depth and even lead to different branches of nihilism.
While cosmic nihilism, the belief that since life has no meaning we should throw morals out the window, is somewhat accepted, existential nihilism is far more popular.
For all you know, you may inadvertently be an existential nihilist.
Existential nihilism is the nihilism experience when we realize that there is no inherent meaning to our lives, and, at its core, human existence is just an exploration of the void. Further, it’s up to us to create meaning through our own decisions.
We can have values, such as family, religion and love, but it is up to us to create them.
One of the fathers of modern existentialism was Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard thought that despair was an essential part of the human experience, which he referred to as the, “Sickness unto death.” The term may be “extra,” but, to be fair, he was also a poet. This despair causes warring ideas in the mind of the subject.
This can be seen in everyone’s favorite alcoholic horse from the series Bojack Horseman on Netflix, Bojack Horseman.
“I don’t know how to be Diane. It doesn’t get better, and it doesn’t get easier. I can’t keep lying to myself saying that, ‘I’m gonna change.’ I’m poison,” Bojack laments.
We are in despair about being who we are. Maybe even worse is that no matter what we choose, we will regret it.
In his book Either/Or, Kierkegaard describes this phenomenon.
“If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; [whether] you marry or you do not marry you will regret both,” Kierkegaard writes.
Kierkegaard argues this is not the exception to the human condition, but the very nature of it.
This leads to the anxiety that comes with indecision and infinite possibilities. Really, anxiety how humans experience freedom.
Kierkegaard describes this as standing at the edge of an abyss.
“Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy… Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
Singularly, accepting the absurdity of reality is the only way to deal with the overwhelming anxiety of existence.
“It takes a long time to realize how truly miserable you are, and even longer to see that it doesn’t have to be that way. Only after you give up everything, can you begin to find a way to be happy,” Cuddly Whiskers, a character on Bojack Horseman, claimed.
While Kierkegaard believed in God, other existentialist philosophers like Jean-Paul Satre did not.
In the end, existential nihilism is not inherently a critique of God or meaning, but rather an argument that no belief should be held wholly and without skepticism.
