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After listening to the Nihilism series at FDR (Video and Bronze+ podcasts), I realized that I was at least something of a nihilist, in practice, without even knowing it.

The event I point to is the Sunday show right after Universally Preferable Behavior came out, in which I basically said of the book, “It’s nice,” or “It’s interesting.” I remember that feeling excitement (or, rather, anything) about the book was difficult, and it took me a number of months before I finally had a moment where it suddenly made sense, consciously.

Prior to FDR (and certainly for a while afterwards), I basically lived in a world where there were no absolutes, everything was opinion, and everything was a sales job. I just don’t think I had quite intellectualized it to that point, but was just living from moment to moment at that time. That is, I couldn’t explain why I didn’t believe, I just didn’t. When challenged, I seized.

The religiosity in my past was exceptionally nihilistic in terms of my desire for moral behavior being used to control and attack me, and though I hadn’t intellectualized it, I definitely put morality into an entirely relativistic category. As part of my deconversion from Christianity, I took my cues about behaving morally from the parts of my culture that I liked (which included “sex is not sinful” but also “taxation is moral, but not too much”).

Of course, the moral relativism wasn’t borne completely out of religiosity as my parents were not overtly religious my entire life. My father only became overtly religious at some point in my mid-childhood, in which the whole set of moral rules suddenly changed. Now, attending church was “good,” not wanting to attend church was “bad,” where before there was no moral category regarding attending church whatsoever.

There are more examples but I am a bit pressed for time at the moment. Thanks for reading!

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2 Comments »

Comment by Joey

2008-09-04 17:14:24

Nihilism has that nasty way of creeping up whenever you least expect it to. I too had the experience of finding nihilism when I thought there wasn't a nihilist in me. There is even a MEcosystem character that embodies many aspects of psychological nihilism.

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Comment by James Pyrich

2008-09-05 22:55:54

Thanks for your comment, Joey.

I wasn't really talking about nihilism creeping up on me, though. I was thinking more about how I had been a nihilist for pretty much my entire adult life up until very recently.

It was only the most recent series on nihilism that allowed me to recognize it all for what it was.

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