[clarity20]

When postmodernists describe language as referential and arbitrary, they are moving headlong toward nihilism when an "uh oh" borne of caution and self-awareness is in order. Language comes from the human need to communicate, which need none of us can erase; and to be aware of this is a step toward proper humility in the face of our contingency as beings. "Melancholy" and disaffection are likely outcomes if instead you cling too hard to egotism and insist on seeing yourself as a utopian reshaper of entire worlds.

[MrVandemar]

As Terry Pratchett once wrote:

   “... that you are nothing more than a lucky species of ape that is trying to understand the complexities of creation via a language that evolved in order to tell one another where the ripe fruit was.”

[PaulDavisThe1st]

and as Terry Pratchett might have written but probably didn't, he himself is an ape convinced that the complexities of creation are necessarily more than telling a friend where the ripe fruit is, without much evidence.

[082349872349872]

> moving headlong toward nihilism

It's generally only after having arrived at nihilism that they can begin to make progress, so that's a positive entry in my books.

[clarity20]

But that is refutable. You're not a true nihilist as long as you take advantage of the accoutrements of civilization, even down to the technology that enables you to make that post. You can avoid taking advantage of such technology in the spirit of "starting over" (even Pol Pot tried that) -- or you can say the technology around you admits of some advantages, which means limiting the nihilism/radicalism enough to pay credit to something around you. (To borrow from the postmodernists: "Not that there's anything wrong with that.") But for a nihilist that would be an unlikely reversal: the ego having stomped everything under its foot, is now making room for something outside of itself.