Nihilism
Definition
Nihilism can be defined as the belief that life doesn't have purpose or meaning, as well as having this as one's general experience. It is part of healthy human life to ask oneself about the (ultimate) purpose of making decisions. This starts on the most proximal level, say between eating relatively more vs. less healthy foods, and extends all the way to whether or not to risk one's status or life where assertive action could save lives (e.g. pulling someone from a train track with an approaching train).
For each decision, the question can be asked, "why is this option better than the other?" And with each proximal answer, the next question comes along. In the case of food, one could argue that certain foods lead to more health in the long term. But why is that "better"? Isn't it better to eat the most tasty food and just accept the consequences? And no matter where one starts, eventually one arrives at the question of "what is the value of my existence?"
Nihilism provides a non-answer: it doesn't matter to ask the question, and everything is "meaningless". [Citation Needed]
Applications
"[People who commit heinous crimes, such as the school shootings] think: 'I'd rather be dead and infamous than alive and anonymous'."[1]
Interpretations
Why bother to solve one problem when there are 20 more coming down the pike? Why not just give up and die? Is suffering so great that everything is meaningless?
Post-modernists believe that any value structures only exclude, oppress and so on. And there is some obvious but trivial truth in that. But they never see that value structures provide direction. No values means no direction, if going to A is no better than going to B. What is the effect of rejecting value systems as the Post-Modernists do? One ends up drowning in nihilist chaos, demoralized.
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