We all know what it's like to face life: one day we will be born, one day we will die.
We know and understand everything that has happened in the meantime, but we know nothing about what happened before and what will happen next. So it's hard to say exactly what the meaning or importance of us being here is. If we can't say how we came or where we came from, how can we know why we are here?
To understand evolution, think about the following: Imagine a corridor so long that you can neither see the end in front of you nor behind you. Now imagine that you are there holding a flashlight with the battery dead. Suddenly, in the distance, you hear the sound of a tennis ball bouncing on the floor. It gets closer and closer, and closer, until you see it dripping towards you and passing you slowly disappearing into the darkness ahead. This is the knowledge we have about the past and the future, we hold the flashlight trying to understand if the ball comes from the future or the past, how far, at what speed, calculating the force needed for it to bounce there and follow, the variables. That's all we have, conjecture! Simply Conjecture.
In the same vein, if we don't know where we are going or what we will become, how can we know if any of our current actions have any meaning?
ANDthis uncertainty about ourpast It's oursfuture collectivewhat raises the question “Which and thesense andlife?” This torments thehumanity fromwhat we become aware ofour existence, we rationalize thefeeling, we expressour history, our roots, our cultural expressions and sadness.
As a species,Never we were capable ofresponder a this matter ofform objective; no however, many of us findcomfort in many different ideologiesfor, for the any less, suppress a anxiety what this lack of understandingus cause.
For some, in many different religions, a deity created the entire universe, placed us all in it, and everything we do on this Earth will be used to determine when and how we spend eternity afterward.
Others think about karma and opportunities to relive in a cycle of learning and punishment until reaching full wisdom, supreme spirituality. For some, the meaning of life is the love we share with friends, family and loved ones. However, more realistic self-entitled individuals believe that the existence of life itself is what makes living worth living. But for nihilists, life is meaningless. All actions, suffering, emotions, good and bad, are completely meaningless if we analyze them coldly, that is, it was we humans who valued good, evil, hatred, prejudice, moral and cultural relationships.
This is Nihilism,the term derived from the Latin "nihil", which means "nothing", in simplistic words, the belief in nothing. I say simplistic, because nihilism covers several areas, like theExistential nihilism: which questions the meaning of human existence and suggests that life in itself does not have an intrinsic purpose or meaning; Moral nihilism, which rejects the existence of absolute moral values. Argues that concepts such as "good" and "evil" are human constructions and have no objective basis; Epistemic nihilism, asking about the possibility of achieving absolute knowledge or universal truths. Holds that all beliefs are ultimately arbitrary or subjective; and finally Metaphysical Nihilism denying the existence of fundamental realities or substances and questioning the existence of anything beyond appearances. Nihilism is not necessarily an active affirmation that nothing has value, but it often involves a skeptical stance in relation to conventional or traditional beliefs, as the valuation of the world is done through human perception, a complex social construction.
This is why we will see the duality of the relationship between Nietzsche and Nihilism, as at first it is defended by the philosopher and at another it is part of a real concern.
At some point in our lives, many of us must have faced nihilistic thoughts. We are struck by a strong sense of purposelessness, as if our lives are meaningless and we have no intrinsic value. This often happens when we start to question our old beliefs, but also just before we get new ones to hold on to. It is at this stage that you overcome your parents' beliefs, learn new things, gain new experiences and form your own views on the world. And usually, all these thoughts start with a simple question – why?
A three-letter monosyllabic word that is capable of making anything and everything that looks like the rock of its foundation start to feel slippery. Like quicksand dragging you down into the misery that maybe, just maybe, your whole life wasn't what you thought it was. Pause and take a moment to think about your core values and ask the question: why? Why do you believe these things? Where did they come from? Who did they come from? Keep asking and eventually you will reach a point where there is no more answer, you will arrive at nothing.
All the world's religions, all our scientific discoveries, and yet the question “why” is one we still cannot answer.
And so, for the nihilist, it is at this point that they come to the conclusion that there is no why. There is no answer, there is simply nothing. As Alan Watts once wrote, “life is nothing more than a journey from the maternity ward to the crematorium.”
Nietzsche was at the same time a creator of suspicions, he prepared fertile ground for nihilism, and in contrast, a great critic of nihilism, because man should understand what was perfidious and infected in the thinking of his time, what made The man who is a slave to dogmatic speeches and thought patterns, however, did not want us to fall into absolute nihilism, into a feeling of apathy and resentment. Nietzsche predicted the decline of modern societies by arguing that nihilism could emerge as a consequence of the decline of traditional beliefs, particularly religious ones, without anything significant replacing them. We see Nietzsche's concern with the possibility of Western society losing its moral, cultural and political foundations without finding a new solid foundation.
And so it happened, we are adrift. We dropped the anchor from the safe haven of the promised land, there we had food, a warm quilt, a bed, a hot drink, security and everything seemed to make sense... but for some reason contemporary society instead of hoisting the anchor, it simply cut its anchor. currents and is now adrift in a relativism disconnected from reality, we are sunk in a society so liquid with values that people feel much more sorry for a genocidal psychopathic clown than for the hero of the film, in which human life has a value volatile and unstable linked to the hype of the moment. We are sunk in an idea of diversity of perspectives, of a poor argument that there are no absolute or universal truths.
This does not mean that relativism and nihilism are the same thing, but relativism has an effect on nihilism, as the latter arises when traditional values or fundamental beliefs are rejected without something substantial replacing them. And so we are adrift, believing whateverinfluencer that says what I like to hear, and denying and repudiating everything that has a rigid structure of thought, as if the only way out is the culture of victimhood.
Never titles or videos with themes such as “Be Cold”, “Be Alone”, “Don’t trust anyone”, “Don’t be nice”, “Manipulate whoever you want”, “Learn to ignore”, “Don’t care about anything”, “become unshakable” - was so successful in the imagination of modern society, we are all looking for something to believe in, something tangible to replace religion, previous culture, the State, convictions. We are the false nihilists, flirting with relativism and emotional childishness - sensitive to frustration and wanting to control the world to our will.
Nihilism is a threat to cultural vitality and people's ability to find meaning in their lives. It seems contradictory, don't you think? Strongly questioning religion, talking about truth, reason and conscience, deconstructing all Western thought and then saying not to fall into ostracism, the idea that noThere is nothing or no certainty that can serve as a basis for knowledge.
Although Nietzsche diagnosed nihilism as a problem, he did not offer a definitive solution. Instead, he proposed the idea of "transvaluation of values", encouraging the creation of new values and a radical reevaluation of conventional beliefs, that is, taking the area at the bottom of the river of knowledge, throwing it in a sieve and leaving only the precious, solid metals that support moral values, a kind of man aware of himself and the ideologies that surround him, but with integrity in his way of living with serenity.
People often confuse nihilism with pessimism, but they are very different. Pessimists believe in the worst possible outcome. They have a top-down view of the world and tend to focus on the negative aspects of life because they believe that, ultimately, there will always be more bad than good. This is where they differ. Pessimists believe that there is some good in the world, but they simply don't believe that humans are capable of it, at least not all of it. Nihilists, on the other hand, believe in nothing. They do not believe that there is evil in the world, nor do they believe that there is good in the world. In the minds of nihilists, the world only exists, and humans create morality, thus creating good and evil.
Let’s look at the glass cup metaphor, for example. Optimists say we should see the glass as half full, while pessimists say we should see the glass as half empty. Nihilists? They say throw away the entire glass because what does it matter if it is full or empty? Full, empty, good, bad, it's all irrelevant, we're all going to die anyway.
Nihilism is also often compared to several other philosophies, such as cynicism and apathy. But again, they are very different from each other and correctly sorting your ideas into these baskets can be more difficult than you think. Cynics believe that people are always driven by self-interest. They do not believe that anyone can have intrinsically good reasons. They have no faith in humanity and believe that we are all completely selfish and only fight for our own interests. However, the idea that “people are not good” means that, in the cynic's mind, goodness exists somewhere, but not in humans.
Apathetic people don't care. They may believe that life has meaning, but they simply don't care. Nihilism, on the other hand, is the idea that there is no grand project or purpose. Nothing to believe in and therefore no meaning.
This brings to mind the paradox of nihilism. If you don't believe in anything, then that nothing becomes something you believe in. But since you now believe in something, then there is no nihilism because nihilism is the belief that there is nothing.
Nihilism is quite different from other philosophical ideas because it was first a literary invention before it even became philosophical. As a result, it is not as clearly defined as many of the other philosophies out there. Many different people explained this in different ways, but eventually these different definitions were categorized, forming many different types of nihilism as we mentioned at the beginning of the video.
This is where we must be careful. The nihilist, intending to adopt a disbelieving stance on different areas of life and the structures that make up society, as well as culture, values and truth, can fall into the trap of egocentrism, relativism, and may succumb to misanthropy, in addition to coming to nurture an apathy towards life.
In the absence of a tangible truth, he can fall into a distorted view of reality or acceptance, becoming just a body occupying a space on earth, without having the vivacity that life demands. Or worse, he can make a paradox of his nihilistic belief, by believing in the absence of meaning and at the same time being a devotee of nihilistic dogmatics.
A very common meme in Brazil that demonstrates nihilistic behavior in a clearer way is the question “if you had the chance to save your pet or a stranger, who would you save?” The response demonstrates a total break, a disruption with the ideas of Christianity, for example, as an overwhelming number of people said they would save their pet without blinking. When one person asked in the comment “why do you think a human life is worth more than an animal’s?” People went into simple argumentative circles, but the question “why” could basically be answered in several ways, even if it goes against the entire moral, ethical, cultural and religious basis of the person who answered, it justifies their answer according to the assumption that it nourishes for the animal a humanized feeling, a transfer of emotions and expectations, while the loneliness caused by society increasingly in moral ruins, more isolated among the crowd, more liquid of values, creates a separation, a rupture of the bond that connects the community and people.
This is the nihilist's point, as a value that decades ago it was unthinkable for a person to sacrifice a human in the name of the well-being of their pet, today in contemporary society it has become unthinkable to sacrifice a pet in favor of the human life of someone else. our circle of friends. If we cannot answer why we bind ourselves to these rules objectively, then why do we choose to do so? Well, it could be because of the existential horror and emotional anguish that comes with coming to terms with the fact that life is meaningless. This is the nihilistic feeling, there is no meaning, people choose one way or another, according to the influence of the time and context.
Think about it for a minute: if life really is meaningless and everything we do is worthless, then all the feats of science, the wonders of technology, things like space exploration and the human rights movements... all of this could be just a waste, a lapse in time of no consequence in the grand scheme of things. Knowing that all the things we experience, the ups and downs we go through, that in the end, it's all in vain. Thus, we are not obliged to understand the chaos of reality, just to laugh at it.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a strange philosopher because he argued for and against nihilism at the same time. Arguing, he explained that there is no objective structure or order in our world except that which we create for ourselves. He once said, “every belief, every consideration of something true is necessarily false because there simply is no true world.” He believed that nihilism would expose all of humanity's “beliefs” and “truths” as nothing more than a symptom of a flawed Western mythology. As he said, “God is dead.” He was not talking about the true divinity of religions; he was speaking metaphorically about the power that religious orders held at the time, and how people were beginning to chart their own paths, to find their own meaning in life, denying what was the status quo at the time.
But then, at the same time, Friedrich argued against nihilism, saying that in the coming centuries, the advent of nihilism would lead civilization toward a catastrophe, a disaster waiting to implode. A river that has come to an end. And if we look at the most destructive civilizations in human history, we can clearly see that this is true. Long-standing cultural traditions, beliefs, religious institutions, and even financial systems are destroyed and nothingness begins to emerge. Think about it, if nothing matters and we are just a random combination of transient atoms, then how can we really say that despicable things like slavery, apartheid and nuclear war are evil? How can we objectively call Adolf Hitler one of the worst humans who ever lived, for trying to exterminate an entire culture?
On a fundamental level, most of us understand that all of these things are really terrible, but the danger is that because we can't logically explain why we feel this way, we can never convince someone else to follow the same path. And that was exactly what Friedrich feared. In fact, many people still blame him for the Nazi era because even though he saw all these dangers, he continued to preach nihilism. He believed that if we could overcome the collapse of civilization that nihilism would ultimately cause, we could then create a new course of action for humanity. He believed that to advance as a species, we must create a new morality, one that does away with the prejudice of what existed before.
Because at the end of the day, demolishing your old home shouldn't make you homeless; instead, it should present you with the opportunity to build a bigger, better home. Pause and look around you for a moment, take in everything that is happening, especially on social media, and you will see that we as a species may be heading towards another bout of nihilism. Think about it; Religion no longer has any say in what is morally acceptable, people are destroying long-held cultural beliefs and practices and are instead charting new directions for themselves. Anything, no matter how despicable you think it is, now has a loyal fan base advocating why they have the right to do whatever they want, and in reality, why not? That's the question no one can answer. Humanity will continue to inch forward until one day none of us will be able to tell the other they are wrong because “why are they wrong?”
I basically fell in love with Nietzsche's idea of deconstructing values and rebuilding my walls and ceilings all over again for a long time, but for a period of 10 years of my life I dedicated myself to thinking about the whys behind the values and perceptions of reality, until I reached the maturity to maintain my construction of thought within the oldest pillars of humanity, as I strengthened these personal values within me: honesty, fidelity, marriage, property, patriotism, family, compassion, empathy and generosity. They guide my character within a critical evaluation, as I have become closer to common assistance and the spirituality of religion as an important rite for me, my family and the community around me.
William Shakespeare once wrote: “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor musician that struts and frets on the stage, and then is heard no more; It is a story told by an idiot, full of sound and fury but without meaning.” If life truly has no meaning and we have no purpose in being here, our response should be to make the best of a bad situation. Instead of seeing the glass as half full or half empty, we can simply remain wary of nihilism, it doesn't mean we can't give it a personal evaluative meaning, I can very well understand that it is a glass half full of water. , and depending on the situation it will seem half full or half empty to me, therefore, to value it I will use concrete, solid values that lead me to a serene and meaningful life.
Because at the end of the day, only life is reason enough to live.
Another point is that we have a life to do whatever we want, at least in this reality. It's important to stay up to date; We want to live life on our own terms, so it's important to align our views accordingly.
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