The Rejuvenating Power of Nihilism

By John Marmysz

The essence of nihilism as a psychological phenomenon is defined by a perceived 
incongruity between real-life capacities and ideal standards of achievement.  From the 
perspective of the nihilist, nothing that we do is of worth because nothing of which we are 
capable measures up to the superlative standards set by absolute Being, Truth, Goodness, 
Beauty, Freedom, etc.  Since perfection is always beyond our reach, all of our 
accomplishments in this world are judged to be substandard by the nihilist.  Human life is, 
thus, a constant and hopeless struggle that involves a perpetual falling away from the 
highest, most worthy ideals.  The further we reach, the more painfully we fall away from 
all that is true, good and perfect.

We might venture to inquire into the more general circumstances that occasion this 
seemingly depressing incongruity.  It is has often been suggested that the psychological 
problem of nihilism is a phenomenon arising in response to larger cultural and societal 
changes in the world.  For instance, John Zerzan has claimed that the march of 
technology, in the direction of the complete industrialization of society is the deep, causal 
factor in the emergence of modern, passive nihilism.(1)He follows Heidegger in this regard, 
claiming that technology tends to promote an instrumental sort of thinking in which human 
beings lose their sense of freedom and happiness, in the process becoming alienated from 
nature itself.  Nihilism, Zerzan seems to believe, is a problem unique to life in late capitalist 
societies where market forces and the drive towards profit and efficiency have eroded our 
confidence in the highest moral values.  The nihilist feels a sense of passive despair as a 
result of being crushed under the heel of capitalist technology.  The ideals of Being, Truth, 
Goodness, Beauty, Freedom, etc., come to mean nothing, and the passive nihilist laments 
this incongruity between the way that the world is and the way that it should be, feeling 
powerless to change anything.

 
While it is highly questionable that the sole cause of nihilism is the operation of 
market forces and technology, it seems less questionable that nihilism certainly introduces a 
distressing predicament strongly associated with cultural crisis, change and transition.  
What I would like to argue here is that nihilism has less to do with technology, as Zerzan 
claims,  and more to do with cultural transition generally. The phenomenon of nihilism 
becomes most apparent during times of cultural upheaval and change because it is during 
these periods when the legitimacy and desirability of the collective values and aspirations of 
a people are most likely to be thrown into question.  During such periods, individuals may 
lose the strength of their taken for granted and unquestioned confidence in the socially 
sanctioned activities and undertakings encouraged and advocated by civilization.  The 
shattering of this confidence may encourage meditation by individuals on the criteria by 
which valuable things in general are judged.  When this occurs, a period of reflective 
reorientation and crisis is ushered in, and the individual is called to re-evaluate the highest 
values of civilization in light of the most unconditioned, absolute and categorical standards 
of worth.  With this, it becomes apparent that the actual values of civilization that we are 
socialized into are not, in fact, the objects of our highest aspirations.  Rather, in 
participating in the projects of the collective, we were all along motivated by a more 
ambitious, yet hidden, desire for perfection.  Though the consummation of this desire for 
perfection is doomed to failure, in falling away from it we are able to appreciate and 
contemplate its grandeur.  Thus, nihilism, though often emerging from the painful and 
tumultuous confusion of cultural upheaval, never-the-less announces itself as more than a 
simple threat.  It also ushers in a period of crisis, and thus opens up the opportunity for 
action and the re-evaluation of values.  Whereas authors such as Zerzan commonly 
emphasize the passive and despairing side of nihilism, what I would like to do here, rather, 
is to underscore its active and rejuvenating powers.

We know that the ends and goals we pursue as worthwhile are, to a great degree, 
conditioned and reinforced by the groups that we find ourselves in.  Though all of us may, 
perhaps, initiate changes in our own communities, none of us may refuse to be born into 
those communities or to be influenced by them.  The manner in which we interpret and 
understand the world is irretrievably colored by our upbringing, and as we grow and 
mature into adulthood we inherit traditional ambitions from the various communities and 
subcultures that we belong to.  Society molds and conditions the individual from the 
outside, rewarding those beliefs and behaviors that are beneficial to the group while 
discouraging and punishing those that threaten collective cohesion.

Though human desires and aspirations are certainly shaped by outside social forces, 
this does not mean that internal forces play no role whatsoever in this regard.  Humans are 
called from within just as forcefully as they are from without.  As Emile Durkheim 
observes, humans have an innate "longing for infinity"(2)  that expresses itself in the 
unquenchable desire for the ultimate.  As we struggle for achievement, this innate 
endowment provides not only the motivation for our striving, but a standard against which 
we judge our accomplishments.  Different individuals have, at differing times, called this 
internal force by different names:  Elan Vital, Will, Will to Power, Spirit, Soul, The 
Animating Principle, etc.  It is, however, always represented as the internal, innate life 
force that makes us alive and human.  This internal drive seeks dissipation and expression, 
never resting satisfied so long as some of its energy is held in reserve.  Its goals are very 
general and very ambitious.  It seeks the superlative, the ultimate and the infinite in 
whatever it attempts.  It desires perfection.  It wants to touch Being, Truth, Goodness, 
Beauty and Freedom themselves, and it remains unsatisfied so long as these things are out 
of reach.

So it is that humans are called from both inside and outside.  From the inside, 
nature tells us that we must engage in activity and striving.  What we possess is never good 
enough, and we must always try to transform what we have achieved into something better 
and different.  This inner drive takes perfection as its standard, pushing us forward when 
we might otherwise fall into complacent satisfaction with our already actualized 
accomplishments.  We are constantly reminded by this inner daimon that there is always 
more to do and higher levels of accomplishment to achieve.  It makes us feel dissatisfied 
with what we have and motivates us to reach for what we don't already possess.

From the outside, however, society tells us that we should pursue those ends and 
goals valued by, and useful to, the group.  The collective gives concrete shape and purpose 
to our inner drives, allowing for the realization of hopes and plans.  While the call from 
inside is idealistic, the call of the group is more pragmatic and realistic.  It encourages us to 
reign in our desire for perfection and to pursue those projects that afford the greatest 
chances of success.  Unqualified perfection does not exist, the group tells us, and so in 
order to avoid the senseless dissipation of our life's energy, society claims that we should 
redirect our efforts towards those more modest projects that may realistically result in 
fulfillment.

The inner and the outer forces that shape humans are, thus, in conflict.  The inner 
drive for "infinity" perpetually struggles to free itself from the constraining force of 
collective expectation, while the force of the collective never ceases to tyrannize and direct 
the sum total of human aspirations.  Locked in a war for dominance, the individual and the 
collective encounter one another as on a battlefield.  Yet, like soldiers who find their 
purpose in fighting the enemy, neither the individual nor the collective can do without one 
another.  They are bound together by their mutual antagonism.  This antagonism brings 
into existence an entity that is dependent upon both and yet transcends them both.  Like the 
war that is larger than any of its participants, this emergent entity acts to bind the individual 
and the collective ever more tightly and intimately together, perpetuating engagement and 
strengthening the commitment of each side to its respective role.  This emergent entity is 
culture.  The force of culture cements the individual and the collective into a discontented 
whole.

Social scientists and philosophers have speculated endlessly concerning the nature 
of the "social glue" that binds people together in groups, and though they may disagree on 
many details, one thing seems clear.  Culture is a force that affects and shapes both 
individuals and the groups to which they belong, and no group of individuals is able to 
fully break free from its influence.  Culture, however, is a teacher whose method of 
instruction is sometimes very covert and subtle.  We often don't consciously realize what 
we have been taught until our presumptions are thrown into question and our worldviews 
have been challenged as dubious.  This sometimes happens when outsiders bring to our 
attention certain details of our beliefs that seem curious and counter-intuitive to them.  From 
the "outside," the values and concerns that a culture takes seriously may appear odd.  For 
instance, to an American it may seem strange that Japanese custom requires one to remove 
one's shoes before entering a domicile.  When questioned why this is the case, a person 
from Japan might not even know how to answer.  It is just the way that things have always 
been done, it might be claimed, and no one has ever bothered to offer an explicit 
explanation or reason for the custom.  Many of the customs, assumptions, and values that 
are propagated throughout a culture are of this nature.  We unreflectively absorb them, and 
as long as they go unchallenged and remain ungrounded, they continue to covertly color 
and direct our understanding and perception of the world around us, binding us in 
comradeship to some people and alienating us from others.

Of course, just because no justification for a particular cultural belief has ever been 
offered does not mean that one might not exist.  There are any number of possible ways 
that one might justify, explain or account for particular cultural beliefs.  However, in order 
to make seemingly strange customs and beliefs comprehensible to an outsider, such 
defenses must appeal to a common bond that holds across differing cultural groups.  A 
Japanese person might explain that by taking off one's shoes before entering a house, it is 
hoped that the cleanliness of the house's interior will be retained.  In this manner, an appeal 
is made to the virtue of cleanliness, which is presumably a value that Americans adhere to 
in companionship with the Japanese.  Any time that we attempt to communicate, argue and 
reconcile ourselves with others who possess beliefs, ideas and customs or values different 
from our own we must do so by appeal to higher principles that all involved interlocutors 
recognize as legitimate.  Without access to such higher principles and standards of 
legitimacy, no understanding would be possible between individuals possessing seemingly 
inconsistent cultural beliefs.  However, since intercultural communication and 
understanding is possible, it follows that there must be some general standards that human 
beings recognize as authoritative and transcultural guides to correct thought and practice.

When we try to communicate with those outside of our own culture concerning 
issues of value and worth, we are forced to make appeals to standards that transcend our 
own particular cultural systems.  The appeal to common values requires that we engage in a 
process that involves abstraction from particular, concrete instances of valuable things.  No 
two people will agree on the value of every particular thing, but they may agree on the more 
general standards by which particular things should be judged valuable.  Cultural 
particulars call our attention towards, and hint at, some of the things that we consider 
important, but they can also obscure, disguise and get in the way of our ability to recognize 
some of the more general and abstract values that guide and condition our adherence to 
them.  If we allow ourselves to focus too closely on these sorts of particulars (as 
sociologists and anthropologists often do), we run the risk of misunderstanding the larger 
significance and meaning that cultural practices possess for us as human beings.  Though 
we have become quite adept at dividing ourselves into a huge variety of groups and 
subgroups, such diversity belies the fact that as human beings we share an essence that 
unites us as one.  This essence is the "longing for infinity."

The longing for infinity finds its voice in the struggle of individuals within the 
collective, and it expresses itself through the accomplishments of culture.  Yet culture also 
has its own essence.  Emerging out of the human struggle within the collective, culture 
takes on a life of its own, reinforcing the bond between groups of individuals.  As culture 
develops and evolves it goes on to seek its own highest values.  This search is energized by 
the creative contributions of, and the battle between, a wide variety of individuals, groups 
and subgroups.  During periods of cultural development, the needs of the collective and the 
innate drives of individuals are most closely allied.  At such times there is ample 
opportunity for the individual to find a variety of means for expressing and exercising the 
inner impulse for infinity.  Likewise, particular collective norms and values have not 
solidified to the point of reification, and so the expectations of the group are more fluid and 
less unpliant than they may, at other times, become.  This is a situation that allows for 
cultural flowering and growth.  Culture, at such times, is dynamic, expressing itself in 
activity and the expansion of possibilities.  It is a force of becoming whose symptoms are 
animation and creativity.

However, as Oswald Spengler has pointed out, the dynamism of culture has a 
tendency towards the complacency of civilization.(3)In civilization, the drive for infinity is 
quashed by the realistic and conservative forces of the collective.  Its emergence signals that 
the collective has won the war, and that the individual has become a prisoner.  Whereas 
culture is characterized by energy and creativity, civilization is the crystallization of culture.  
It is rigid and static.  It expresses itself in the desire for preservation and conservation.  As 
a culture moves towards becoming a civilization, it experiences the realization of its latent 
possibilities, yet in the process loses the impetus for further development.  In civilization, 
culture develops a firm identity with which it remains satisfied.  The task of civilization is 
the protection and perpetuation of this identity, and as civilization triumphs, culture sings 
its swan song, leaving behind the very force of energetic life and animation that made its 
accomplishments possible in the first place.  Civilization is earthly and lower.  It dismisses 
the soaring visions of culture as overly general, vague, impractical and, therefore, useless.  
Yet it was precisely because of these very same characteristics that development and 
creative activity were first possible.  The energy of culture served to motivate the activity 
that led to the realities of civilization.  Whereas the accomplishment of civilization is that it 
has already learned and discovered much, the liveliness of culture stems from the fact that 
there are still many battles to be fought and that there is still much to do.  Culture is the 
battlefield.  Civilization is the armistice.

As civilization triumphs, the individual must submit to greater and greater forms of 
restraint in exchange for the guarantee of a role and a place within the civilization.  So it is, 
as Freud claimed, that humans undergo the repression of their innate, anti-social drives, 
redirecting those energies into the service of civilization.   Such diversion has both benefits 
and costs.  The growth and flourishing of civilization takes place, at least to a large extent, 
by means of squelching our innate, human drives.  We usually don't even notice this 
happening, and we often become unreflectively entangled within activities and relationships 
that dissolve our unique, personal awareness of ourselves and our mighty aspirations.  In 
our everydayness we surrender to the public world and melt away into the projects of 
civilization, becoming instruments rather than selves.  Heidegger calls this situation 
"falleness"(4)and characterizes it as the height of inauthenticity.  To have fallen is to lose 
one's way in the quest for that which is most important and worthy.  It involves becoming 
immersed in everyday activities which, in demanding our attention, distract us from 
greater, more important pursuits.  These greater pursuits, though they may be consciously 
forgotten, still insistently call to us from within, tormenting us with feelings of emptiness 
and anxiety.  So long as we turn away from the longing for perfect Being, Truth, 
Goodness and Freedom, we are tormented with the feeling that there is unfinished business 
to be taken care of.  Though repression, sublimation and falleness help to produce all of the 
grand and wonderful accomplishments that we take pride in as members of a common 
civilization, they also have the effect of producing latent feelings of discontent and 
dissatisfaction that may become manifest through mental illness, disease and spiritual 
malaise.   These are the tradeoffs for the benefits of civilization.(5)

During the vital and dynamic period of cultural development, we generally accept 
these tradeoffs as bearable.  Through ongoing negotiation and compromise, many of the 
contradictions between the individual and the collective might be smoothed over and 
worked out, and the duties and tasks that civilization demands of its members may serve as 
conduits through which individuals pursue their own spiritual needs.  A school teacher, for 
instance, might pursue ultimate Truth by way of performing teaching duties, or a scientist 
might pursue Being itself through research that produces useful products and technology.  
However, there are periods of time when the incongruity between the needs of civilization 
and the needs of the individuals becomes so pronounced that nihilism pushes to the fore 
and asserts itself as a problem that can't be ignored.  When a civilization demands of its 
members that they sacrifice their own inner aspirations for the sustenance of the collective, 
nihilism emerges as an especially pervasive social problem.

The apex of civilization occasions the most extreme manifestations of nihilism.  It is 
at this point that the ideals of the past crumble into nothing and all creative possibility is 
forgotten.  This transition to nihilism doesn't take place overnight; rather it is a long, 
protracted decline, and so the people who live through this period are torn between the 
ideals of the past and the realities of the present.  The pinnacle of development in a cultureÕs 
soul also marks the point at which it must begin to wither and deteriorate.  Individuals who 
participate in the life of a culture experience this slow decline as a sense of loss.  Their 
nostalgia comes from the feeling that the highest, most noble accomplishments lie in the 
past, and that measured against those accomplishments, nothing in the present world is 
really worthy.

Nihilistic decline has occurred at various times throughout recorded history, but the 
apocalyptic claim that nihilism necessarily signals the final and unequivocal death and 
dissolution of a culture is overly dramatic.  In this I agree with Zerzan when he writes, 
"Nihilism is not a one-way street with no return."(6)  It seems obvious, simply by 
recognizing our own indebtedness to fallen civilizations like the Ancient Greeks, 
Egyptians, Chinese, etc. that cultures often become so inexorably intertwined that it makes 
no literal sense to speak of a "pure" culture with a distinct life cycle.  The biological image 
of birth, maturity, old age and death, which became so influential with Spengler, may be a 
bit misleading, in other words.  Though cultures rise and fall, they do not literally die out.  
Rather their influences reach into other cultures and find new life in the interaction with 
foreign customs and folk ways.

In our present day, it has been claimed that it is this very intertwining of diverse 
elements that has contributed to cultural confusion and a widespread lack of confidence in 
the traditional values previously taken for granted.  Multiculturalism and diversity, while 
intended to promote tolerance and liberality, may also run the risk of encouraging the kind 
of relativism and confusion that contributes to nihilism.  This is a major point stressed in 
Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind.(7)   His suggestion for combating this 
trend is to settle on a cannon of basic texts from which we can draw our collective wisdom 
and ideals.  However, such utilitarian measures seem too self-conscious and calculated to 
be truly convincing.  Once exposed to the vastly divergent and contradictory wisdom of the 
world's cultures, we just can't go back.  We must now face the possibility that many of the 
values, "truths" and ideals that we previously took to be universal and objective are really, 
in fact, relative to our cultural upbringing.

This is our contemporary crisis, and it signals the beginning of the end for modern 
human beings.  But in the words of Giannini Vattimo, it is also signals a point of 
Verwindgung, or an opportunity for convalescence and recovery.   Caught in the 
difficult stage of cultural transition, we must find a way of prospering in an unfamiliar 
world as we reel from the shock of our passage.  We must attempt to develop concepts that 
make sense of our changed perception of humans and their role in the universe.  As we fall 
further away from traditional values, we only prolong our feelings of homelessness and 
bewilderment the longer that we stubbornly grasp at remnants of the past.  This being the 
case, we should learn to refashion those remnants into something useful for the future.  
Our convalescence must end at some point, and when it does humankind should emerge 
strong and confident, rather than weak and grieving.

The undermining of the highest values of civilization has the effect of emphasizing 
to individuals that these values were simply conventions all along, and in revealing this 
fact, the threat of nihilism emerges.  Once in the grip of nihilism, the incongruity between 
desire and reality opens up an abyss in human life producing a situation in which humans 
feels unfulfilled, incomplete and impatient with the world.  This situation, though 
unpleasant, is not necessarily one that should be, on the one hand, passed over as quickly 
as possible, ignored or disregarded, or, on the other, allowed to languish on forever.  The 
problem of nihilism has the import of a crisis, and as such it holds a transformative power 
that promises other things for the future.  Nihilism is the decline that follows a climax in 
human achievement, and as such it allows the distance necessary for the appreciation of the 
completed tasks of the past.  In this way it is a bittersweet moment in the flux of life, 
embodying both the pain of loss and the pleasure of beholding culmination.  Nihilism is 
neither a wholly negative nor a wholly positive situation.  It is, rather, a phenomenon that 
signals a turning point in the value structure of a civilization.  It is an opportunity to 
convalesce, meditate and to linger on our present condition.

"What is to be done?"  This is the question repeatedly asked throughout the 
literature of nihilism,(8)and now we can begin to understand its force.  The question is in 
one sense a sincere request for direction and guidance, while in another sense it is a cry of 
despair and confusion.  It is a question posed at those points when the highest values of 
civilization lose their legitimacy and people are left in the lurch, floundering in the abyss of 
their lost faith.  In losing the values of convention, the nihilist is made aware of an inner 
drive that remains unchanged.  As it indicates a falling away from the hopes of the past, 
nihilism also attunes us to our own spiritual depths.  It signals the possibility for renewed 
growth and future development.  It is an indication both that something has gone wrong 
and that there still remains an inner ambition for the pursuit of higher purposes and goals.  
It is a downwards movement that creates room for an upwards movement.

If the history of culture is conceived of as a never ending vacillation between ascent 
and decline, growth and decay, rise and fall, then nihilism corresponds to those periods 
during which a culture experiences the exhaustion of its greatest possibilities.  Such periods 
have ambiguous characteristics.  On the one hand, they are the pinnacle of civilized 
achievement.  When a culture has reached its full potential, it has produced its greatest 
successes and experienced its most wonderful triumphs.  It has grown to its full height.  
On the other hand, such periods also embody a climax or a pinnacle that signals 
consummation and completion.  There is nothing higher to reach for, and so cultural 
rigidity and stagnation are initiated at the very moment when the highest achievements have 
been attained.  These are the periods when the desire for conservation and the perpetuation 
of the present order predominate.  The symptoms of cultural nihilism, then, may 
correspond with the greatest accomplishments of civilization.  Whenever these 
accomplishments are accompanied by the repression of the human drive to push farther and 
higher, nihilism is inaugurated.

Yet in nihilistic decline, possibility is, ironically, reconstituted and new ambitions 
are discovered.  The life force that animates individual human beings within a collective 
may be siphoned off into the conservation of the status quo, but this force will never 
remain happy and satisfied there.  The spirit becomes bored, frustrated and discontented if 
restrained for too long.  It needs to expand itself, seeking new projects and adventures.  As 
culture solidifies into civilization, it offers fewer and fewer concrete challenges to the 
individuals who participate in its life.  This being the case, the innate longing for infinity 
finds fewer and fewer legitimate outlets.  Discontent grows as a result and civilization loses 
its allies.  With the fragmentation of the citizenry, a civilization slides into a period of 
decline, and its highest aspirations become curiosities of the past.  But as its successes 
crumble and disintegrate, new potential is created, and the vitality of culture is reborn.  The 
spiritual energy of individuals is again unleashed to seek infinity.  Nihilism, in this manner, 
emancipates the innate dynamism, creativity and potentially destructive capacity of human 
nature.

Situating the moment of nihilism within a grander cycle of ascent and decline grants 
it a kind of inevitability and necessity.  Conceived of in this way, nihilism acts as a 
necessary condition for all else that is encompassed within the cycle of cultural history.  
Within a nihilistic historical framework, decline is understood as a necessary stage that 
must follow the glorious moments of cultural ascent.  If the great accomplishments of 
civilization are to be marveled at and cherished, then to deny the worth of any condition 
making those accomplishments possible is to fall short of fully appreciating the struggle 
and difficulty involved in the pursuit of ideals.  Decline is a necessary condition for the 
greatness of civilization.  It fits into a bigger picture, and so should be understood not in 
isolation, but in the context of history's larger processes.  When understood in this 
fashion, nihilism can not only be endured, but appreciated.

A grand, "objective" perspective on history stands in sharp contrast to the lived, 
subjective experience of individuals within history, however.  From within history, 
understanding is fragmentary, and the pains, frustrations and sufferings that one 
experiences may seem to be without purpose or meaning.  From this subjective 
perspective, one's declining confidence in the values and ideals of the past might be 
experienced as a reason for regret and passive despair.  Hopelessness may follow from the 
death of yesterday's unlimited hopes, and the present may seem to be without purpose.  In 
such times of crisis, the future becomes an unknown "nothing" which, if meditated upon 
for too long,  has the potential to absorb and dissipate all motivation towards activity and 
effort.  The notion of an endless, infinite, unstructured future, an abyss of unknown and 
unthinkable possibility, tends to confuse and overwhelm rather than to direct, motivate and 
focus one's efforts.

If it was possible to gain a God's eye perspective on the drama of human struggle, 
and to ally our own passions and emotions completely with the collective history of that 
struggle, we might be able to do away with the sort of incongruity between ourselves and 
the world that leads to personal despair.  But then we would be gods, not humans, and the 
transformation from the finite to the infinite would be complete.  While this may be a 
worthy goal to strive towards, we have yet to achieve it.  As Aristotle observed in Poetics,(9) 
the human mind can only grasp and truly appreciate dramas of a limited magnitude.  Any 
production that goes on for too long or that is too intricate squanders its significance on an 
audience, producing not pleasure but confusion and discomfort.  A clear beginning, middle 
and end allow us to encompass and make sense of the horrors of tragedy or the absurdities 
of comedy.   However, we ourselves are caught right in the middle of human history, and 
so we are fated never to have access to the beginning of the end of this life drama.

My departure point for the present discussion was the observation that many 
authors, such as Zerzan, tend to emphasize the negative and destructive aspects of nihilism.  
They characterize nihilism as a force of decline that should be fought against with all of our 
might and overcome with haste.  However, what I have here attempted to make apparent is 
that this negative force may play an important and positive role in the transitional periods of 
individuals and groups.  As values change and evolve, there is often a nostalgia and 
longing for the past.  Such periods are opportunities for people to come to terms with their 
situation, take stock of those things they believe to be important to them as human beings, 
and to finally orient themselves towards the future in a meaningful manner.  Nihilism is a 
moment of mourning that follows the death of old values and often precedes the birth of 
new ones.  As such it is an indispensable juncture between old and new times.

Eric Hoffer wrote,  "...every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem:  we 
undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves.  It needs inordinate self-confidence to face 
drastic change without inner trembling."(10)I suspect that such self-confidence is very rare, 
and that the "inner trembling" that characterizes the experience of nihilism in the individual 
is more common than not during periods of cultural transition.  Widespread spiritual 
suffering, frustration and despair normally accompany major changes in collective values.  
Sociologists and psychologists have studied this phenomenon extensively, finding that the 
upset of routine, habit and tradition tend to have unsettling psychological effects upon 
communities of individuals.  It is during such times of turmoil that the assumed and taken 
for granted are challenged and thrown into question, destroying the coherence of the 
collective worldview.  With the shattering of the taken for granted, individuals lose the 
familiar framework that allows them to organize and interpret the vast and chaotic 
phenomena of reality.  They may become confused and overwhelmed, being forced to 
recognize how easily their most dearly held assumptions about the world are swept away 
by forces bigger than they can control or even comprehend.  Such challenges to our 
understanding of the world are often experienced as painful and disruptive.

The pain, suffering and turmoil involved in cultural transition is not something to be 
avoided, however.  Change is not only necessary, it is unstoppable, and though it often 
takes us in directions that seem progressive, we should also recognize that change just as 
often occurs in directions that may be perceived as regressive. Today, the contributions that 
nourish and feed our communities come from a wide and diverse variety of people whose 
experiences and backgrounds differ radically.  Currently we are experiencing an explosion 
in the amount of serious and valuable discourse that originates from increasingly diverse 
perspectives.  Under these conditions it is likely that not everyone will agree on exactly 
what constitutes cultural ascent and what constitutes cultural decline.  On the contrary, we 
may be certain that in such a milieu the transitions considered by some to be favorable and 
wonderful will be considered by others to be loathsome and nihilistic.  For these reasons it 
seems to me that the phenomenon of nihilism will never wholly disappear.  Especially in 
the dynamic and multicultural world of today, it will remain a persistent and chronic 
phenomenon that brings frustration and pain while also spurring continued reflection and 
meditation on the nature of value.

Notes
(1)John Zerzan.  "The Age of Nihilism."  Anarchy:  A Journal of Desire Armed.  Vol. 18. #1 (#49/Spring-
Summer, 2000), p. 39.
  Some other works suggesting that nihilism is a result of capitalism and technology include:  Y.  
Sogomonov, P. Landesman.  Nihilism Today.  Moscow:  Progress Publishers, 1977;  Gianni Vattimo.  
The End of Modernity.  Baltimore:  The John Hopkins Press, 1988;  Arthur Brittan.  Masculinity and 
Power.  New York:  Basil Blackwell, Inc., 1989; Cornell West.  Race Matters.  Boston:  Beacon Press, 
1993.

(2)Emile Durkheim.  Suicide.  New York:  The Free Press, 1951.  p. 257.  (Durkheim, in the 1800Õs, 
conducted this classic investigation into the phenomenon of suicide, finding that suicide rates in France 
tended to increase during times of social change and industrial or economic crisis.  He called this type of 
suicide "anomic," meaning that it resulted from a sudden change in the character of the social values that 
constrain and shape the expectations of citizens.)

(3)Oswald Spengler.  The Decline of the West.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1926.  p. 31. In 1927 Freud wrote, "...I scorn to distinguish between culture and civilization."  He considered both to be 
those "respects in which human life has raised itself above its animal status and differs from the life of 
beasts."  See:  Sigmund Freud.  The Future of an Illusion.  New York:  Doubleday and Company, Inc., 
1964.  p. 2.  This equivocal usage is continued in Civilization and Its Discontents.

(4)Martin Heidegger.  Being and Time.  Albany:  State University of New York Press, 1996.  pp. 164 - 168.

(5)David Michael Levin argues that mental illness, and specifically narcissism, depression and schizophrenia 
are results of the nihilistic forgetfulness of Being.  He also claims that cancer has a similar cause.  See:  
David Michael Levin (ed.)  Pathologies of the Modern Self.  New York:  New York University Press, 
1987. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) offers descriptions of 
a variety of mental disorders, many of which appear to have features similar to the experience of nihilism as 
I have defined it.  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is the affliction that I was surprised to find had the most 
nihilistic sounding characteristics.  See:  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth 
Edition.  Washington DC:  American Psychiatric Association, 1994.

(6)Zerzan.  p. 41.

(7)Alan Bloom.  The Closing of the American Mind.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1987.
  Vattimo.  p. 4.

(8)It even appears as the title of Nikolai Chernyshevsky's famous novel:  What is to Be Done?  Ithaca and 
London:  Cornell University Press, 1996.

(9)Aristotle.  Poetics  II.7.1450b.25.

(10)Eric Hoffer.  The Ordeal of Change.  New York:  Harper and Row, Publishers, 1963.  p. 3.