That’s the common perception of nihilists, who are not to be confused with anarchists, leftists, liberals, existentialists, or any of the other common epithets that could apply to the disaffected.
Is this depiction? accurate? Yes, surely for some nihilists, the depressive type, there is some laying about – no question that being a skeptic should inure against the robotic enticements to work that James Livingston inveighs against in No More Work. Yet the name “nihilism” shout stand for much more than “slacker.” Let Thomas Ligotti, in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, give a better profile, though he applies to pessimists, a related species:
Composed of the same dross as all mortals, the pessimist cleaves to whatever seems to validate his thoughts and emotions. Scarce among us are those who not only want to think that they are right, but also expect others to affirm their least notion as unassailable. Pessimists are no exception. But they are few and do not show up on the radar of our race. Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause.
Here comes Harvard Professor Steven Pinker to slay this nihilist/pessimist scourge. Forget all the negativity – It’s a Beautiful World, says the Better Angels hopemeister in his soon-to-be released follow-up entitled Enlightenment Now. Now Pinker is no religionist, and says he is an atheist. He likes science and reason, and wants more of them. Lest anyone gets it wrong, though, he sees great things from our species:
According to the latest data, people are living longer and becoming healthier, better fed, richer, smarter, safer, more connected–and, at the same time, ever gloomier about the state of the world. As the political scientist John Mueller once summed up the history of the West, “People seem simply to have taken the remarkable economic improvement in stride and have deftly found new concerns to get upset about.” How can we explain pessimism in a world of progress?”
Pinker blames “news” for the pessimism, that old media bogeyman, but good luck getting this all straight. Whatever metrics you want to use about the world, only a “child,” as Ligotti likes to call the Soroptimists and Soros-Optimists, would see goodness abounding. Pinker likes American “democracy,” wants more of it, leaving out the horrific present of our racist-rapist president’s re-enactment of Whites-Only America. Pinker thinks climate change is nicely solvable using the wonders of the free market and governmental assistance – greenwashing the looming certainty of climate catastrophe. Pinker highlights, as does his genuflector Bill Gates and professional statistics hack Bjorn Lomborg, the steep reduction in what is termed “extreme poverty” over the last few decades. Nice that the “share’ of extreme poverty has gone down, but left out during this headlong rush to extract every available mineral and fuel from the earth’s reserves by trans-national capitalizers and criminal financiers is the disgusting, monumental economic inequality of the developed world, along with the stubborn fact that over 2 billion human beings, made of the same DNA/RNA fiber as Pinker and Gates, exist on this planet on less than $2.50 a day.
There can be oceans of debate over certain areas of the nihilist/pessimist vs. the Dr. Panglosses raging throwdown, and all that ill-gotten money may have benefited a few people and some chosen city’s skies. Unlike the slacker above, social nihilists do go to work, as social reality dictates, do fall in love, do have happy sex, do try to live a life of humanist value. Is there “meaning” or “purpose” in that? Of course not – not as viewed from the angle of history or space. But in the little microcosm of the self, that brute fact doesn’t tend to matter – there are happy times to find, without getting all stupidly effusive about the burgeoning wonders of our “connected” imperiled rock.
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