[MD] Thoughts on Nihilism

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
A believer such as Warren is not likely to recognize the nihilism behind his statement and his belief that without some external source of worth our world would be worthless. ... The complete lack of nihilism is not to deny the "objective" meaning of life but to stop thinking of the question as one even worth asking--to stop looking for the justification the world to come from somewhere else. The complete opposite of nihilism is not to be able to affirm the objective meaning of life, but to never need to go looking for meaning. Meaning abounds.... Meaning abounds for all those who love so long as they don't get fooled into thinking that love needs a philosophical foundation--that "why love?" is a question that needs an answer. Only the psychopath needs a reason to love.

dmb says:

I don't quite buy it. The difference between denying an objective source of meaning and taking a stance that meaning is not something we should look for. What's the difference? If you take the stance that the question of meaning is not even worth asking, then you'd be saying the question of meaning is meaningless. But then you add some Hallmarky comments about love, as if love were the same thing as meaning. I don't know, but that seems like some kind of bait and switch deal. 

Maybe that's why we differ on Rorty. When he says that truth is not the sort of thing we should have a theory about, I take that as a form of nihilism. It's epistemological nihilism. He thinks truth is not the sort of thing we should talk about, and isn't that because he thinks there is no such thing?

Seriously, please tell me how the stance that meaning isn't worth asking about is different from the stance that says there is no meaning. As I see it, those are just two ways to say exactly the same thing and they are equally nihilistic. 


I think nihilism pretty well characterizes both scientific materialism and postmodernism. It's part of the problem that Pirsig is trying to solve, I think. The way Rick Warren puts it, for example, that without God human beings are just an accident of random chance. It's pretty clear that he's pitting God's purpose against the view that the ultimate reality is nothing more than the physical universe. Heck, this kind of existential angst is so commonplace that you see this on bumper stickers; like the one that says, "I'm just tiny speck in a ruthless universe".  I mean, the picture handed to us by scientific materialism is if a universe devoid of meaning. That's exactly what religious reactionaries are reacting to, you know? That's the view that inspires so much anti-intellectualism. It makes people sick in the heart. 


Maybe it's best to think of this issue in terms of personal maturity and cultural development. There's something about externally given meaning that's paternalistic or at least parental. It seems to me that externally imposed meaning sort of gets you off the hook for your own life in a way that's not very compatible with being genuine or original or even entirely sincere. It would be like looking over your shoulder for approval for your whole life. It would be like painting by numbers for your whole life. That sort of thing is only natural for kids. They want rules and limits. But in our era there comes a time when every person has to grow up and create meaning, not in a selfish, solipsistic, myopic way of course. Meaning is something that comes from engagement with life in a context, from engagement with real things and real people, on the ground where the rubber meets the road.

If that's what you mean by love, then yea. Meaning comes from caring, from being in "it" up to your eyeballs. And what is "it", exactly? Well, that's exactly where you're on your own. That's what so great about not having an externally imposed meaning. It means you've got freedom, that there is more than one way to find meaning. 

 		 	   		  
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