Why I Call Myself A Nihilist

To begin with, what do I mean when I call my a nihilist, or rather, what is it that I do not mean by calling myself this. First, I am no idealist, and therefore I have no desire to see the current structure burn to the ground. Thus, I am not a political nihilist. I tend to be more pragmatic with my disbelief. I do not believe in any authority that cannot be deposed by a more powerful, more determined enemy. It is the right of any citizenry to stand up and revolt against their government if they see fit to do so (also if, and only if, they have the will and the brute strength for such an undertaking--as well as the will to suffer the consequences should they lose). Though I grant the government no inate authority, still I cannot concieve of any replacement government that would be better. Besides, revolutions most often end up with a lot of needless bloodshed that does nothing to make the political situation any better. Also, I refuse to ally myself with the anarchists. Anyone who believes that anarchy is a viable alternative to corrupt government obviously has little knowledge of human nature. Or as Hobbes says: in a state of anarchy, there can be "no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." In anarchy every man is a ruthless, blood-thirsty tyrant.

Nor am I so naive as to believe that nothing actually exists (though I think this is more a notion that people have of nihilists than a belief held by any nihilists). As Descartes points out: "cogito ergo sum," I think therefore I am. Now I'm sure many first year philosophy students will try and prove Descartes wrong through all kinds of semantic circlings, but the fact of the matter is that fundamentally he is correct. That I can percieve anything at all stands as proof positive that I do exist. It does not matter how skewed my perceptions may be. It doesn't even matter if I am in fact simply someone elses dream. The fact that I can question my existence means that, however different reality may be from what I percieve, still I am a part of that reality. Supposing for one second that this is in fact nothing more than a dream, that does not change the fact that this is the only reality I know and therefore this is the reality which I must live in and work with.

I have (or I should say had) a good friend who titles herself a moral nihilist, and though I like this term a great deal, I do not think it quite fits me either. As far as morality is concerned, I would rather call myself a moral existentialist. I do believe in morality, I just don't think it is inherent in the world. I believe it is a product of man, and that outside of man it has no existence at all. Please do not mistake me for holding such a simplistic view as to believe that someone actually sat down and decided what is right and what is wrong. Morality is to a great extent instinctual--generally part of the herd instinct: i.e., preservation of the species. The morals that can not be explained away by instinct, such as taboos against sex, I attribute to social conditioning. As to what brought a particular society to hold its own particular social norms, I can only say that of this particular geneology I am in ignorance.

Now with all that out of the way, I can finally ask: what kind of nihilist am I? I am what you would call a metaphysical or philosophical nihilist. I do not believe that anything in existence is inherent or necessary, with the exeption of perhaps death. That is to say, the only thing that is not transient is transience itself. All morals and ideals are creations of man. If any of these have value, it is only the value man has attributed to them.

If this post has come off as seeming random and chaotic, I apologize. My thoughts have been rather random and chaotic lately--hopefully I will soon be able to pull myself up out of all this muck and return to some sense of normality.