I am not an expert in philosophy by any stretch so feel free to poke holes in what I'm about to say, but I somewhat agree with the author's points here, assuming we take nihilism to mean "to both believe and feel nothing has meaning". I think the author may have the causation in the first point backwards though. To truly feel like nothing has any meaning, I think you must first be quite miserable - I doubt anyone first chooses nihilism and then becomes miserable because of that choice. Imagine all of your relationships, your career and all of the other things people usually care about feel meaningless - you would probably be miserable and depressed. It is one thing to believe that life is objectively devoid of meaning. It is a different thing to subjectively feel that nothing in life has meaning.If you accept that a true nihilist has to be depressed, I would agree that the third point follows. Acknowledging a depressed individual's viewpoint that it is okay to feel everything is meaningless - that this viewpoint is not indicative of a mental health issue that should be addressed - would probably erode societies ability to improve the lives of depressed individuals (assuming improvement means they suffer less).
As to whether other people's suffering matters to you or not, I suppose that depends on the individual. The author seems to think it is not ok for people to suffer, but obviously not everyone would agree with them here.
nimvlaj30|4 years ago
I wrestled with this in my undergrad, which plunged me into a depression that I had never known before. This was doubly troublesome for me because I had previously believed that God existed and had a plan for my life– some kind of universal determinism, destiny, or fate. Going from that mental model of the universe, to one in which the universe is random, cold, uncaring, and devoid of meaning is quite a shock to the mental health.
My happiness came back significantly once I discovered Existentialism, which the author seems to dislike. Existentialism is the belief that while there is no objective meaning to the universe, there is a subjective meaning. I can love my wife, enjoy my job, and enjoy a few brews with my buddies. All of those matter to me, and they don't have to have universal significance. They don't have to have objective meaning. Hell, people might not even be truly conscious or free anyway. It's not going to stop me from having a good time and loving life.
The author makes broad assertions with very little explanation and few references to back them up. I'm still not convinced nihilism makes you miserable and ineffective. I'm still not convinced that that wouldn't be ok from an objective standpoint (although I'd have a problem with it, subjectively). I'm not convinced that it erodes our culture's ability to tackle problems or change people for the better (in fact, maybe it's the first step). And even if it did, who is to say that isn't okay? Obviously those who lose out will not like it (subjective meaning). But there is no objective meaning to any of this. It's random, inconsequential, cause-and-effect bullshit from top to bottom. Who says it means anything at all?
But if it means something to you, then that's great.