I have been thinking of nihilism for a long time now and it seems to me that it is something to be avoided at all cost. Primarily because of the absence of values it brings and the uncertainty such a mindset would bring to society. I myself think it is a strong precursor to a destructive society and a big factor to certain events we see and hear around the world today.
First of all we have to look at the definition of Nihilism, from Merriam-Webster.
a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless.
The reason this is an important topic is perhaps not so much that people are full blown nihilists but rather that they have a tendency to fall back to it in times of hardships and ultimately lead people into inaction, procrastination and rejection of society to varying degrees.
The underlying premise is that people simply give up due to despair and hopelessness in certain situations, which does not necessarily have to be a bad thing but more often than not it is undesirable. It is important to mention that it is seldom that clear cut and it is mixed with a lot of other factors, but nihilism is a primary one. To further explain, the rejection of societal values has obvious problems when people stop following the laws as they find it pointless, they do outrageous and radical things that are condemned universally by all or perhaps they go out of their way too create mayhem.
We have the extension of this that it leads to the employment of certain ideologies. It is possible to go as far to say that people eventually find meaning in radical ideas much more easily while they have fallen into a nihilistic state to fill void of a meaningless existence. Is it then possible to then attribute all this to nihilism? Is Nihilism degrading society and slowly destroying it through the absence of values or perhaps can it be a good thing?
Is this an important topic? Am I wrong? Let us discuss it in the comments.
This is first and foremost a discussion on what nihilism has done to society and what it is currently doing, it is a thoughtful discussion where we try to get closer to understanding of the topic rather than being exactly right.