I commented yesterday that widespread cultural adjustment to nihilism has happened before, for Buddhism is the nihilism of the East.

Western nihilism is different.  We don’t follow the Noble Eightfold Path, because we no longer admire anything noble.  Despite a few superman pretensions, ours is a nihilism for the vulgar.

Macho nihilists say "Maybe there isn't any meaning, but I'm brave enough to live without it.  Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger."  That is just a pose.  They can't really live without meaning -- they seek it in the idea of living bravely.  The problem is that they haven't anything to be brave about.

Pop nihilists say "Meaning is a drag -- who needs it?  I'm so cool I like life pointless."  That is another pose.  They don't really like life pointless -- they seek meaning in seeming to like it pointless, in being cool.  The problem is that in a pointless life, being cool is as pointless as everything else.

Political nihilists say "If I need a meaning, my group will construct it for me.  Whatever we say is true, that's true for us.  And when we win, it will be true for you too."  The problem is that there is no such thing as "true for us."  If the group said rape were okay, that fertility were a disease, or that a man and his dog were married, these things would still all be false.  We can't change reality by changing the way we talk.  We can only pretend to.

Most real-life nihilists are a mix of the three flavors:  a little Macho, a dash of Pop, and a sprinkling of Politics.  Some few of them wear the nihilist label proudly.  Others downplay their nihilism -- they don’t want to be extremists.  But meaninglessness is the point of nihilism; there isn't much you can do to moderate it.

Tomorrow:  Why Is It So Easy?

Nihilism is the belief that everything is meaningless.  Usually this belief is coupled with the view that nothing we perceive is even real – that the world is a mocking veil of illusion.

One would think this error would be confined to a few despairing intellectuals, but in our day it infects even the general culture.  This raises a question:  Can one adjust to nihilism?  Can one become resigned to meaninglessness?

In one sense, yes, adjustment is certainly possible – in fact, it has happened before.  The ancient Eastern adjustment to nihilism is Buddhism.  According to Buddhism, the great problem of life is suffering; the great cause of suffering is desire; and the great origin of desire is the illusion of personal existence.  For suffering to end, desire must end.  For desire to end, the illusion must end.  To attain nirvana is to be annihilated, nothing more and nothing less.  Expressions like “tranquility” and “bliss” are misleading, because such terms designate experience, and the illusion of experience has been obliterated.  The futile chase for meaning has finally ended.

But in another sense, no, adjustment is impossible.  For if my very existence is an illusion, then what difference does make that I am suffering?  There is no need to seek annihilation, since I am not really here in the first place.  So if I do seek annihilation, then plainly I am not adjusted to meaninglessness.  I am merely trying to find meaning in the thought of an adjustment to meaninglessness.

Tomorrow:  Déjà Vu, Part 2 of 2

A good high school graduation present

To “live like an animal” isn’t really to live like an animal, but only to live as a human badly.  For although we too have animal powers, we do not, we cannot, experience our animal powers as animals do -- nor would it be good for us if we could.  For us, every impulse is mediated and modified by mind; the notion of a “raw feel” is a dissipated fantasy.

Ideally, the mind acquires wisdom; ideally, the lower powers acquire discipline.  Then, rather than champing at the bit, they are taken into partnership with reason.  Like salt dissolved in water, they remain themselves, and yet they are drawn out of themselves -- held in solution by a flood of rational meaning.  Animals feed; we share meals.  Animals mate; we marry.  Animals flock; we practice friendship.

Tomorrow:  Déjà Vu, Part 1 of 2

Some people dispute the classification of man as a rational creature because we abuse our rational powers.  What they overlook is that when we have bad reasons, even then we have reasons; when we obstinately choose to rationalize the unreasonable, even then we engage in reasoning.  Such is our paradoxical dignity, even in the way that we sin. We are but little lower than the angels, some of whom fell, as did we.

Tomorrow:  Living Like an Animal

To say that animals have natural inclinations is not to say that animals never behave inappropriately, as when one male animal attempts to mount another.  Rather it means that the creational design provides a standard for considering the behavior unfitting.  In such a case, what nature provides to draw males and females together has misfired.  The fact that the creature may become habituated to such behavior leaves this judgment untouched; even things that are bad for us can become “second nature.”

It is easy to see how misfires can happen among subrational animals.  During breeding season, the territorial defense response of the male stickleback fish is triggered by the sight of red, because competing male sticklebacks have red bellies.  But the male stickleback attacks anything red, not just other fish, because it is incapable of understanding its ends.

Among human beings, the etiology of misfires is much more complex because we have rational souls.  Even though we are capable of grasping our ends, we may misunderstand them -- sometimes willfully.

Tomorrow:  Paradoxical Dignity