"Nihilism" Defined |
A Progressive Living Definition |
Nihilism is defined as the radical negation of all values. Thus, in a nihilistic perspective, there would be nothing wrong with, say, torturing babies. First used by the Russian novelist Turgenev* to describe young rebels, the term originally had a somewhat milder flavor, and implied the destruction of an illegitimate, existing social order so as to make room for a better and more legitimate future society. Though it has not often been pointed out, the reductionistic materialism that long served as a fundamental tenet of the sciences, especially as conceived Positivistically, leads directly to nihilism. Emergentism, on the other hand, makes it clear that nihilism is incoherent. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, often accused of being a nihilist, was in fact a critic of some of the values extrolled by Christianity, and was actually a severe critic of nihilism proper. (* In Fathers and Sons, 1862.) |
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