Nihilism is a philosophy that rejects values and the valuation society places on people, objects, and life, and instead states that everything is meaningless. That's according to online learning platform, Masterclass.
But it's not that clear cut. It turns out there are different forms of nihilism. However, all discuss the human condition and its existence. And share some underlying principles.
One is that existence is useless. "A nihilist believes there is no purpose to having values or beliefs because everything in existence is unfounded," explains the Masterclass site.
They also believe there is no truth. "Everything is unfounded and useless, including the truth, so there are no reasons to uphold moral principles for your own sake or the sake of anyone else," states Masterclass.
The third principle is that everything is meaningless. If there is nothing, and nothing we do matters, then all things are meaningless, including the meaning of life.
Nihilists are usually portrayed as "moody, brooding or radical types who have decided that we are insignificant specks floating around an infinite universe, and that therefore nothing matters," says The Ethics Centre.
Think the Joker from Batman. He lives with the belief that the world has failed him, nothing matters, no-one cares, and therefore, we shouldn’t care about anything or anyone either. “Everything burns” in the end, he states. So why not speed up the destruction?
We mentioned earlier that there are different forms of nihilism.... Well, here they are:
Epistemological nihilism is more than the skeptic who questions the validity of information. This person flat-out denies that knowledge exists altogether. In their mind, if there is knowledge in the universe, we cannot attain it, therefore it might as well not exist at all.
An ethical nihilist basically believes that there are no ethics. In other words, there’s no reason to hold themselves or anyone else to any ethical standards.
And those who go by existential nihilism hold the belief that life has no meaning. "Everyone everywhere, at every point, has no value to the universe," explains Masterclass. "Existential nihilism overlaps with the branch of philosophy called existentialism."
Passive nihilism states that nihilism is its own end, and there is no reason to pursue higher values. While political nihilists believe that no-one should hold any political views and should instead try to tear down all political institutions.
