really thoughtful piece... i can feel how much pain there is in what you’re describing... there’s so much horror in seeing mass shootings, fascist rhetoric, the crushing of the poor, billionaires hoarding while others starve… it makes sense that it can feel like the world is falling into nihilism...
but when i read your examples, what stands out to me is almost the opposite. the people you write about don’t seem to believe in nothing, they seem to believe too much. far-right movements are driven by deeply held myths about identity, purity, and control... billionaires believe in endless growth and extraction. even the people drawn into extremist spaces online aren’t empty; they’re full of anger and longing for belonging, and someone has offered them a story to live inside....
when a kid is radicalized on a forum, it isn’t because they’ve stared into a void and found nothing there. it’s because someone handed them a meaning so totalizing that it eclipsed everything else. that belief can be monstrous, but it’s still belief....
to me, nihilism would look like a collapse of all these narratives, where no one is sure what’s true and no story can hold. what we’re living through feels more like the violent collision of competing meanings, each side absolutely certain, each convinced they must fight to preserve their vision of the world.
so while i understand the urge to call it nihilism, especially when hopelessness creeps in, it seems like the real danger right now isn’t a lack of belief… it’s the kind of belief that leaves no room for anything else.
incredible incredible analysis of the world . thank you for tackling reality and writing about is so poignantly with full care . can't put into words how much more sane your writing makes me feel as you cut through the veil of disillusionment with a well informed image of reality that doesnt sink into the pessimism so easy to fall into . what youre writing is so important and needed . thank you !!!!
Carl Jung writes in his memoir, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections":
"I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life ...
"They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success or money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually contained within too narrow a spiritual horizon." #p140
... too narrow a spiritual horizon. May be the central illness we are plagued with in these modern times. Are we all just biological robots, epiphenomenons in a reductive materialistic universe - human animals to be farmed by (soon to be) trillionaires?
So true, and well said. Thanks so much for posting.
"Nearly every mass shooter in recent years has been radicalized on forums that are deeply disturbing, and almost entirely far-right. These cold, dark places are the ultimate example of what can happen when purposeless people reach for anything resembling community, anything resembling meaning."
That’s another shocking aspect to this violence and its immediate spread via social media without any gatekeepers. PBS news hour had a psychologist that was advising parents how to cope with distress in their children if they saw these videos, I think it is really needed because there is no way to censor this video content nor should there be.
American Exceptionalism going on for far too long, with most Americans feeling disempowered except at the point of a gun. Not even wanting to think or reason anything out, or become aware there is a world outside of the US of A, so crazy excesses prevail.
Problem is the rest of us live on the same planet, and insist on having a right to (a different) life!!!
Very true and i think that this is another shocking aspect to this violence and its immediate spread via social media without any gatekeepers. PBS news hour had a psychologist that was advising parents how to cope with distress in their children if they saw these videos, I think it is really needed because there is no way to censor this video content nor should there be.
Been feeling this way for a number of years, but this piece really does capture how pointless the mad dash to prove if a shooter is of this ideological stripe or that when they’re all lost in the swamp of doomerism.
There’s nothing worth fighting for or accomplishing for them, so why not lash out and get attention that way… I only fear at this stage of climate change and late stage capitalism, that we’re too late to avoid the bulk of mass calamity.
really thoughtful piece... i can feel how much pain there is in what you’re describing... there’s so much horror in seeing mass shootings, fascist rhetoric, the crushing of the poor, billionaires hoarding while others starve… it makes sense that it can feel like the world is falling into nihilism...
but when i read your examples, what stands out to me is almost the opposite. the people you write about don’t seem to believe in nothing, they seem to believe too much. far-right movements are driven by deeply held myths about identity, purity, and control... billionaires believe in endless growth and extraction. even the people drawn into extremist spaces online aren’t empty; they’re full of anger and longing for belonging, and someone has offered them a story to live inside....
when a kid is radicalized on a forum, it isn’t because they’ve stared into a void and found nothing there. it’s because someone handed them a meaning so totalizing that it eclipsed everything else. that belief can be monstrous, but it’s still belief....
to me, nihilism would look like a collapse of all these narratives, where no one is sure what’s true and no story can hold. what we’re living through feels more like the violent collision of competing meanings, each side absolutely certain, each convinced they must fight to preserve their vision of the world.
so while i understand the urge to call it nihilism, especially when hopelessness creeps in, it seems like the real danger right now isn’t a lack of belief… it’s the kind of belief that leaves no room for anything else.
incredible incredible analysis of the world . thank you for tackling reality and writing about is so poignantly with full care . can't put into words how much more sane your writing makes me feel as you cut through the veil of disillusionment with a well informed image of reality that doesnt sink into the pessimism so easy to fall into . what youre writing is so important and needed . thank you !!!!
Carl Jung writes in his memoir, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections":
"I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life ...
"They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success or money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually contained within too narrow a spiritual horizon." #p140
... too narrow a spiritual horizon. May be the central illness we are plagued with in these modern times. Are we all just biological robots, epiphenomenons in a reductive materialistic universe - human animals to be farmed by (soon to be) trillionaires?
The matrix right 🤨
So true, and well said. Thanks so much for posting.
"Nearly every mass shooter in recent years has been radicalized on forums that are deeply disturbing, and almost entirely far-right. These cold, dark places are the ultimate example of what can happen when purposeless people reach for anything resembling community, anything resembling meaning."
Start liking it. There no longer is any need to keep up the charade - the United States and its catamites are an empire now.
My daughter pointed out that she has witnessed two live murders on screen this week alone. It’s heartbreaking.
May we find a way to counter the fall towards nihilism.
Thank you for this piece, JP.
That’s another shocking aspect to this violence and its immediate spread via social media without any gatekeepers. PBS news hour had a psychologist that was advising parents how to cope with distress in their children if they saw these videos, I think it is really needed because there is no way to censor this video content nor should there be.
Sick America!
American Exceptionalism going on for far too long, with most Americans feeling disempowered except at the point of a gun. Not even wanting to think or reason anything out, or become aware there is a world outside of the US of A, so crazy excesses prevail.
Problem is the rest of us live on the same planet, and insist on having a right to (a different) life!!!
Very true and i think that this is another shocking aspect to this violence and its immediate spread via social media without any gatekeepers. PBS news hour had a psychologist that was advising parents how to cope with distress in their children if they saw these videos, I think it is really needed because there is no way to censor this video content nor should there be.
Been feeling this way for a number of years, but this piece really does capture how pointless the mad dash to prove if a shooter is of this ideological stripe or that when they’re all lost in the swamp of doomerism.
There’s nothing worth fighting for or accomplishing for them, so why not lash out and get attention that way… I only fear at this stage of climate change and late stage capitalism, that we’re too late to avoid the bulk of mass calamity.
Thank you for writing this. It moved me to tears.