Nihilism & The Absence of Meaning | Ep. 24
[00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome back. I'm your host, Brandon Ward. Another episode of order within. Episode 24. Today, we're going to be going over. Nihilism and the absence of meaning this is an interesting one. It's a very prominent. Perspective and mindset in our culture today. And I think.
[00:00:25] It can be damaging to people. Living lives without meaning. Is a very tough place to be. We're going to go over what nihilism is. We're going to look at the emptiness that can come about from it. Destruction and how they correlate together. Replacing God with human reality. The copping out aspect of this and then the counter to nihilism. So let's start with a definition of nihilism.
[00:00:59] And where this comes from. So a lot of the I'm going to, I'm going to go over some thinkers, kind of nihilist thinkers, who. Have coined a lot of this and actually talk about the, I think there's some misconceptions around, sorry, there for the noise in the So misconceptions around.
[00:01:18] The thinkers and philosophers of nihilism. Nihilism is derived from the Latin word, Nile, meaning nothing. And in the 19th century, there were prominent philosophers leading philosophers, the four that I'm going to discuss. Today, our Freidrich. I'm going to talk about them briefly and then we're going to get into some other pieces here. So the, a lot of the nihilistic perspectives and philosophies was born out of the enlightenment
[00:01:45] Which is a period driven by scientific discovery. And much of the countering of mysticism. And. The magic. The.
[00:01:58] Superstition.
[00:02:00] These. Magic mystery. Superstition drove a lot of the medical world, the scientific world. There were a lot of very. They weren't rooted in, in. Factual reality. A lot of the beliefs that were During the 19th century leading up to the 19th century. So the enlightenment period brought about a time of great scientific discovery.
[00:02:24] And it counted a lot of the religious beliefs at the time. And From this spawned, what is known of nihilism and a group of nihilist. And so the idea is that. Life is meaningless. And that. It's just. Nothing. We're just here surviving. There's no meaning there's no. There's no connection. It's just a random, meaningless existence is what we're taking part in.
[00:02:54] But there's a lot of the. The challenge to a lot of this is the nihilist. The nihilistic philosophers are actually talking about the problems of nihilism and how they've noticed this happening in their time. And that it's dangerous. And so we'll start with. Frederick Heinrich Jacoby. Who's a German philosopher.
[00:03:18] And then in the 18th, late 18th and early 19th century. So he actually popular popularized the term nihilism and he wrote about it during the, as a response to the enlightenment period, as I was saying,
[00:03:30] But what he was saying is that he was very critical of this new way of thinking. Believing increased. Levels of rationalism would destroy the individual's entire sense of self and their understanding of their place in the world.
[00:03:43] And so he had a very fatalistic perspective on what could be, we have not gotten there Thankfully, but we're still pushing towards that direction. And the goal is here to counter these things is to think about them differently because living a life without meaning is a very empty life. It's a very difficult life.
[00:04:02] To live. And so they were alluding to this. Frederick Jacoby was one of the first people to identify it and talk about the problems that it could potentially have for us as a society. Søren Kierkegaard is another. Philosopher a Danish. The theologian and philosopher. Who feared the trend towards nihilism and his fear was that it would create a corrosive and destructive effect on society. He was a religious man and held tightly onto his faith.
[00:04:31] Despite the creeping doubts on its validity, following the enlightenment. So again, that's the counter to some of the superstitious beliefs that we once had held around how the world works. The way things function. Having faith does not mean that we deny science, that we don't look into the world around us, that we don't explore it. In fact, I would argue that it's the opposite of that. I think having faith.
[00:04:56] True genuine faith will bring us into It will pique our curiosity. It will pull us into exploration. And looking at the wondrous world that God has created. If you believe those things, I'm not saying you have to believe those things. I'm a faith oriented person. So I'm not going to deny that fact.
[00:05:14] But there is a paradoxical component to science and religion. I see them as one, two sides of the same coin, reflecting creation in all of its totality. And so understanding that if we lose that spirituality and we go full blown rationalism without any kind of meaning beyond this world.
[00:05:36] This is where we get to the point that we are today. It's a very dangerous place to And destructive. And that's what these philosophers are saying. So I've got two more. I'm going to cover. And then we're going to continue to expand into the episode here. Ivan Turgenev. Was a Russian novelist who wrote about nihilism.
[00:05:55] And he also was recognizing the growing cynicism amongst the youth of the 19th century in Russia. He wrote a novel called fathers and sons. And in that book, the hero. Bazarov believed in nothingness or nihilism. And he recruited a group of followers who shared a similar mindset. However in Turgenev novel Barzarov attitude shift when he falls in love and realizes his own life's calling.
[00:06:22] And. That in that book, the political activist called themselves nihilist. And so they sparked a series. Of reactionary, protest and activities in order to question and usurp preexisting social ideology. So there was it's. The age of enlightenment challenge, the superstitious religious ideas, which I'm going to have an episode on the distinction between God and religion. I think it's very important to have that conversation. Many people correlate the two as
[00:06:52] And I've seen that be damaging, very damaging to our relationship with our creator. And so because of that, The pushback that happened after the enlightenment is justified. It's understandable. But when we go too far in one direction, We often create more chaos, but just in a different way. And that's what has been happening. And so the last philosopher that I wanted to talk about is the German philosopher, Frederick Nisha.
[00:07:21] This he's probably the most famous too. An often closely associated with nihilism. He was, he also feared the great, the impact that it would have on society. He even called nihilism the great danger to mankind, a respective weariness, the will turning against life, the tender and sorrowful signs of the ultimate illness.
[00:07:43] Of and what, in his mind, the ultimate illness is humans. Opposing life and existence. That really is what it is. And when you see where we are today, And it's interesting how all this ties back into a lot of the climate change components. I am all about sustainability and nurturing the earth. I love this planet. There's so much glory and bounty and abundance here. It's a treasure.
[00:08:08] A treasure of creation that should be honored and cherished and loved. But to pretend that, and to take the perspective that humanity is a parasite. Feeding and giving nothing back to the planet is a very dangerous and destructive. Perspective to have, and that's where we find ourselves. And climate change is a way to justify.
[00:08:30] That perspective. So Nietzsche was famous for declaring. God is dead. Arguing that we had destroyed God through the process of, to scientific discovery. But what he was saying is that God is not actually dead. He's saying that our perspective and our relationship with God is dead the way we are behaving.
[00:08:50] Is dead, not God itself. Our new found attitude. And nothingness perspective. The nihilistic perspective is what he was meaning when he said, God is The interesting thing is. He, so the, he had a great fear of this destroying the world. And he wanted to expand his knowledge of existence and explore that and grow that a greater knowledge of the world in order to find a new, spiritual significance. That's what his push was. So it started with the God is dead component in perspective
[00:09:25] What he was witnessing and seeing around him, but he knew that we had to go beyond that. We needed more, we needed to expand on our perspective of existence and that actually led into. Uh, existentialism. In the 20th century. So Nietzsche is often credited for being a nihilist, but he's really calling out nihilism and the dangers of it, and that he called for an expansion of our awareness and significance in life.
[00:09:52] So starting with that. It's important because a lot of the modern thinking is driven by these philosophers of the 19th century as a means to validate the nihilistic perspective. But the philosophers of the past are warning us of nihilism. They're telling us of the dangers of nihilism, not encouraging us to be nihilist.
[00:10:16] But that we could potentially destroy our society and all that is valuable. If we do not.
[00:10:22] Recognize the dangers at hand.
[00:10:25] And so with this. There's an attraction to this idea to nihilism because it gives us a sense of control and protection. If there's no meaning if there's no connection. If. Everything means nothing. And then it's all just a random crapshoot. Then we can feel in control knowing that there's nothing outside of ourselves influencing or impacting that we can have the idea, the illusion that we are in control. And we can feel protected knowing that this is what it is. It's random. There is no meaning. So I'm going to make the most of what I have now, and then that will justify whatever I do on a day-to-day basis.
[00:11:03] So that will justify my hedonism, that will justify my consumption. That will justify my. Poor relationships that will justify whatever, because none of it matters anyway, nothing's connected. So we are here. It's an easy way to.
[00:11:20] Feeling control and protected in a world that is ultimately much out of our control. We control very little in our lives. The things that we do control though our mindsets, our perspectives, our daily actions, the things that we do day to day, the small things are what we control. And so this emptiness justifies the means.
[00:11:41] Thinking about it like this. And when we believe that nothing has meaning and that it's only a crapshoot, it's a survival of the fittest, What's going to stop anyone other than laws in place from doing terrible things. The nihilism can justify terrible behaviors. It pushes us to do bad things because we don't see a connection between anything. We think everything is meaningless. So therefore our natural slant is going to be negative.
[00:12:08] It's going to attack. And it's going to place a massive amount of emphasis on the material world, the physical world that we're in there will you, it creates an over attachment to physical life, to the world that we're living in when we have these perspectives. It. It roots us in materialism in an unhealthy way.
[00:12:31] Because once we recognize and we accept that we all perish all of us die. Eventually we all leave the earth. We're only here for a temporary time. It's all finite. And this is true for every one of us. We don't know when our time comes or goes.
[00:12:46] So there's significance in that, that there's urgency to the life that we
[00:12:50] But if we don't believe that anything else is beyond this world, then we will cling to this life. We will do everything that we can. To extend it, to sustain it, to clutch and cling to our existence as it is because in our minds, there's nothing else. So it creates a big attachment and emphasis on the material world.
[00:13:11] Control power money. All of these things become very viable when we have a nihilistic perspective.
[00:13:17] It's also an endless void to fill. There's no way you can fill that void. If you believe that there is nothing and there is no meaning, then there's no way to fill that void. There's nothing in life that can fill that void for us. But we go about trying to do it via through relationships. Through sex through food, through porn.
[00:13:36] Through drugs through video games, through shopping. Through social media attachments and attraction. So validation on social media, our desire to have followings.
[00:13:47] There's all the things that we seek the status, all to fill that void that we have inside of us, because. We don't think there's meaning we don't see life as a meaningful pursuit.
[00:13:59] It's problematic.
[00:14:01] It also makes destruction the way.
[00:14:04] It paves the path for consumption and destruction as the main means of the way we operate. If there's no meaning, then why create anything? If there's no meaning then why care. If there's no meaning, then why honor value anything? If there's no meaning.
[00:14:21] Why should things matter? Therefore we don't value them. We don't care for things. We don't appreciate them. We simply destroy and consume and anyone that has a different perspective, we attack.
[00:14:35] We come at them because they're countering our perspective on life. And that's dangerous. So we must destroy that perspective, the faith, the value that someone has, we must destroy the fact that they care that things matter to them because that's something that I don't have. So I will destroy it.
[00:14:52] So that they are on my level. It's a negative downward spiral.
[00:14:56] And it really seeks to annihilate all that may remind us we could be incorrect.
[00:15:01] It also replaces God with human morality. Now I understand again. Religion and God are two different things, but it's not often treated as such. And so there are absolutely ways that religions are damaging and destructive to humankind. The restrictions, the fear, the false beliefs that they have perpetuated and influenced into many people's lives. It creates a lot of unnecessary suffering. So I can understand the responses to turn away and refuse any of that.
[00:15:33] But the mistake is made when we look at religion.
[00:15:37] As the only moral piece that we have. Like when we throw out morality from that perspective, there is wisdom in these ancient religions. There's a reason that there are ties that thread all of these common major religions in terms of principles and philosophies. It's because it's a. Uh, human element. That is good for us. Some of these things are good for us. And I think the problem is too, is that it's been treated with a puritanical approach, looking at things from a.
[00:16:07] Punishment perspective. Eternal hell damnation. Punishment. That's the mistake. What I've come to realize is that the wisdom of these religions are teaching us that these are things to avoid. Not because we're going to be in hell forever, but we will create our own personal hell. The punishment and experiences that we feel will become.
[00:16:28] Out of what we're doing. So we will create scenarios in which we are suffering unnecessarily. Not because we're going to be in hell for eternal eternity, but because we're going to experience pain in the world. When we do these things, it's not a puritanical negative, you're wrong for existing, but they are warnings.
[00:16:48] In my mind, a sin is a warning. Not a punishment. So thinking about these things differently can help us understand that perhaps. Replacing God and morality with human morality could be a slippery slope because ultimately what we're experiencing in today's world, there's a massive divide in, in philosophies and politics because.
[00:17:11] Of the removal of God for much of our society, at least some of these founding philosophies. And it's been replaced with this modern, progressive. Moral high ground. Where anyone can declare their moral perspective, depending on some sort of calls that they're attaching it to. That's a very dangerous place. If it's not rooted in foundational human elements that are important to everyone, universally it's dangerous.
[00:17:43] And quickly morphs into cults and becomes destructive. There are countless examples throughout history, particularly in the 19th and 20th century of tyrannical ideas. Taking over populations and millions of people being wiped out because of it. All built around the idea of doing what's right. A moral high ground.
[00:18:06] That is a dangerous place to be when we replace these ancient moralities principles and philosophies with common whimsical human morality.
[00:18:17] Humans become the judge and jury, which is a very dangerous place to be. And it ultimately becomes a power play. People realize that once people respond to that, they can now manipulate that and leverage it in a way that helps them, that benefits their calls. It puts them in a place of power to say, this is right, and that is wrong.
[00:18:37] You can do this. You can't do that.
[00:18:39] Power is very relevant to this when there is no meaning, the only. Thing that matters. Is power at that point. And then leveraging morality, philosophies perspectives becomes the means to go about destroying these things. It's a very dangerous place to be. And I see it all over the place.
[00:19:02] With the power plays. Many are seeking power.
[00:19:06] I think the bigger thing out of all of this is though. Is it creates when we have a nihilistic perspective on life. When we have an absence of meaning. We get swallowed up by the material
[00:19:20] we justify not participating.
[00:19:23] It justifies us not participating in life. If nothing matters. If none of this has any meaning. Everything is random. There's no connection in any of this. Then why bother? Why try. Why need to participate. I'm just going to. Do what I need to do to get by, to get me what I want to take from the world. What I need to give me the comforts that I need, and then leave the rest. I'm only going to consume. I'm only going to take.
[00:19:51] It's very hard to give when there's no meaning inherent underneath it. If you see life as only a random crapshoot. Survival of the fittest. Then that's the approach you're going to take. You're going to treat others. As if they are objects, you're not going to care. What happens to them. It's a great way to disconnect from any consequences of our own actions and thoughts.
[00:20:15] And disconnect us from the life around us. Disconnect us from this wonderful world that we're all part of. Including nature and other people and humans and animals and just existence in general. That means the food that we consume, the clothes that we wear, the things that we use when you realize that all of this comes from a single source and all of us, are energy being expressed in the infinite ways that it can be expressed.
[00:20:42] All of that is the same. Therefore honoring everything becomes a priority. That means the pin that you're writing with the computer that you're using, the phone that you're on. You value these things because you realize it's all coming from this one source of energy that we've been able to leverage and build and make things from that's an incredible place to live and be.
[00:21:06] But we'd forgotten a lot of this.
[00:21:08] So being hopeless, really justifies the lack of effort. It justifies the need. To not do anything to be honestly kind of bad people. To be very self-serving people to be self-absorbed to only care about what matters to us.
[00:21:25] Having a nihilistic perspective is also a very fixed way of viewing the world. Something that I've noticed is that many nihilist are very closed off to new information. Because the new information could potentially change their perspective. It could shift the way that they see the world. Therefore they refuse to see it now.
[00:21:45] This is also true. For people who are deeply religious. On the opposite. End of the scale, people refuse science, they review, they refuse to see new data. This can be true all across the board.
[00:21:58] But I've noticed it in particular. In a nihilistic perspective. That we refuse to see anything. And also we, what we do is we'll hold a perspective. That's pretty immature. Relative to what information is out there and available. And we'll just dumb it down and dismiss whatever doesn't fall inside that neat little category.
[00:22:25] Again, I see it a lot for with atheism as an example. And that's not what I'm talking about in today's episode, I'm talking about nihilism, but atheism is a prime example of that, where. People will cherry pick specific arguments from religious perspectives and then use that as a validation to dismiss the idea of God. It's very much the same thing with nihilism.
[00:22:44] It's using this perspective as a means to justify the emptiness and our behavior, and really what can come out of that is just a denial of new information. And a digging in on this empty perspective to continue to justify. The way we see the world. It's a, it's an unhealthy place to live in. It can be very unfulfilling and painful.
[00:23:09] For me, it's why.
[00:23:11] I want to do these things because I know what's possible. I know that emptiness. I know what it feels like to have no meaning in life. It's a terrible place to be.
[00:23:21] If I can share anything that can possibly help someone find their meaning in their life, find purpose in their life. To reconnect with existence as it is. And to go deeper into the world and cultivate the truth that lives within them and bring about their highest potential. Then I'm going to do
[00:23:40] That's why I'm doing this. And which comes to our final point here is that the counter to all of this is meaning and purpose.
[00:23:48] Opening ourselves to information and an exploring possibilities of what could be, what if we're wrong? What if there is meaning, what if things are connected? What if God is real.
[00:23:59] Those are the things that if you carry a perspective of nihilism, You must question seriously. You must bring about serious consideration of, because if we're wrong, if I'm a nihilist and I'm wrong, then I'm going to be wrong in a big way. If I'm faith oriented. And I believe that God exists and I'm wrong.
[00:24:22] Then I die and that's it. I will know nothing of my ignorance. I will just fade out like a candle. I would rather be wrong about that and just blot out into nothingness. Then I would, the other way around, which is why. Having meaning and purpose in our life matters so much. Things do matter. Everything that we do matters.
[00:24:44] All of life is connected. And it's connected at a quantum level. When you look energetically at where we are, life truly is connected. This isn't just some statement that I'm making. There's scientific evidence that backs the fact that all of life is one energy is not destroyable. It only changes form.
[00:25:04] So knowing these things, knowing that science has proven Is it really that far fetched to think that life can Continue beyond this world. Look at paranormal activities, ghost and things of that There is so much evidence now of activity happening that cannot be explained outright. Other that we're seeing things happening that is not on the plane. We are witnessing.
[00:25:30] Is it that far fetched to think that there are multiple planes, we know there are different layers of existence. That we live within again, science has shown So the quantum levels reveals to us that there are many layers to existence. So to claim that none of it matters and that there is no connection.
[00:25:48] Is. Quite false.
[00:25:50] And that comes back to finding what you care about. What if you're in this place, if you find yourself in this nihilistic place now, and I'm sorry if I'm being judgemental, I do not mean to be that My intention is to help and offer fresh perspective to empower you, to potentially make a change if you desire to do so.
[00:26:11] But. Find what you care about, whatever it may be. If it's one tiny thing, maybe you have a dog that you love, maybe a cat that you love, maybe it's literature or a certain movie series. I always mention. Harry Potter on this show. My wife has given me flack on my last episode. Cause I didn't have the references ready for Harry Potter. I'm going to do better at that in the future, knowing that if I have an example of a story or something I want to share, I'll have it ready. So I can be very clear on what I'm talking about,
[00:26:40] Find the things that you do care about. And.
[00:26:44] If it's one thing build from that, unpack it. Dissect it. What is it that you love about it? What is it that you enjoy about it? What is it that gets you going? Whatever that may be. If it's music, if it's food, if it's a designer, it really doesn't matter. Find the thing, the one thing and go into it, explore it. Unpack what's. What drives you?
[00:27:09] What makes you excited about it? What you enjoy? And from there, you can start to expand on qualities that you like about that thing and identify them in the world. And also, I. Question think, ask yourself. What if I'm wrong? What if I'm wrong? What does that mean for my life now? What would that change about my perspective?
[00:27:35] How would I live differently? If I was wrong.
[00:27:38] And see where you go from there. There's a lot of ways to explore these things and uncover what's living inside of us. Often nihilism is a way to protect ourselves, to keep us from experiencing the wounds that we experienced at a young age. And so it's a way to disconnect. From that pain in our past.
[00:28:02] To justify that nothing has meaning because we're wounded. And so it feels like nothing has, meaning life is only suffering. So how could there be meaning how can anyone. Have meaning in a world that's only suffering. But what I found is that when we're experiencing those things, That's the opportunity to reconnect and learn about what it is inside of us that may be driving those feelings.
[00:28:29] We're trying to turn away from that pain. And what we need to do is turn into an explore it. So that we can reconnect with those parts of ourselves. Because those wounded parts of ourselves are what unlock our potential and allow us to get back to enjoying and experiencing life. And so by doing that,
[00:28:47] We can counter this empty nihilistic perspective. As we begin to explore what may be hindering our experience. If you only know suffering and pain every day inside of yourself, regardless of what you're doing. Then there are things that are living inside of you that need to be uncovered stories and thoughts and beliefs that you've internalized that are not true to who you are because your true self is reaching out.
[00:29:12] That's where that conflict is. Our conflict, the conflict exists from how we're living and who we wish to be our true self that lives beyond this world. And when we're not aligned in those two places, there's pain, there's anxiety. There's insecurities, there's depression. And so if you're experiencing these things, it's often a sign and signal that there's work, that we need to uncover within ourselves to help heal and reclaim what we have severed.
[00:29:43] From ourselves. But there is meaning. And things are connected. And you can reconnect to yourself to find meaning in your life. Again, it is very possible.
[00:29:54] So, if you have any questions or thoughts, please hit me up. You can get me at on At Brandon Lee ward. It's my full name spelled out. You can also hit up my sub stack on order within dot sub stack. Dot com to get the updates and episodes right into your inbox. I'm working on a WordPress site too. So please, if you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, let me know. I'm happy to help. I want to help where I can. I hope you're enjoying the show next week. I'm going to do an episode on God and religion. I'm very excited about that one.
[00:30:28] And then we will go from there. So I do appreciate y'all's time. And until next time