Nihilism Needs A New Imagination - A Prologue
This essay is a prologue because this topic has me so riled up that I spent my morning looking at grad schools where I could read for a living and address it with a book. It's not just a topic. It's a moral obligation for us to speak up in response to the postmodern muck of manosphere podcasts and their guests regaling absolute garbage to an entire generation of kids, leaving them with a bleak imagination for the future that awaits us. For now, the following is a thought appetizer. It ends with a thread of hope, as of course, I am not trying to be nihilistic about it.
Let's start with the bleak imagination, I mentioned.
Exhibit A: Social Media became pervasive in 2010 - but hey yes lets keep arguing about causation and correlation, because as if the problem is not obvious.
Exhibit B: Optimistic Nihilism - Gen Z's latest obsession which is a semi hopeful trend, but we will get to that shortly
Exhibit C: Mr 'Don't Die' with smart sounding words strung together but with the philosophical depth of a puddle in a desert. We will start with him.
We have been here before. We have denied death before. Ernest Becker won a Pulitzer for writing a book about it, and then we had Sheldon Solomon and two of his colleagues write a profound follow up and almost necessary reading for this generation about a decade a ago. And yet here we are again. From Peter Thiel to Balaji S’s obsession with 'Eternal Life,' to Bryan Johnson being the face of the 'Death is the final frontier' movement. This movement is so philosophically inept that I have to use a Calvin and Hobbes strip to address it.
Death denial is an understandable phenomenon. Keeping time finite makes it valuable, and this value drives productivity. However, it also leads to the formation of cults. When you deny death, you inadvertently create opportunities for people to sell this denial in various forms, from basic anti-aging serums to the vampiric practice of Bryan Johnson infusing an extracted liter of blood taken from his son’s body. Nope, I did not make that up.
For the age that we are hurling towards - we might have to infuse a more mystical understanding of time. And if that word makes you curl your rational feet, then how about flexible?
Selling people a future - where death is something to be conquered, will only make them fear it even more. Look at what 'nature is something to be conquered' did to the planet. Death is not a literal act of annihilation of the body, it is a necessary stage for the progress of our collective being. As Camus famously wrote
Face up to death. Thereafter anything is possible.
Now onto the topic of Optimistic Nihilism and Gen Z.
Nihilism, to me, is less of a philosophy and more of a cope. It's a mask of detached coolness in the face of deep existential dread. Optimistic nihilism is another mask on top of it, which is not surprising given the layers of unprocessed grief buried under the various kinds of posturing in this era of soulless content creation. From reality TV devoid of any reality to sarcastic and cynical humor used to deflect any emotional valency.
But at least the word has entered the Gen Z lexicon and hence psyche. And there in lies the hope.
Negating something requires the acknowledgment of it. Without the concept of God, atheism is impossible. Without the acknowledgment of everything, nihilism is impossible. This is not just some hyperbole but a nod to something beautiful that recently happened.
Oscar winning director Darren Aronofsky sent this email to a 17 year old filmmaker Wesley Wang.
It's a film about a high school kid finding comfort in the number 7 in a world which feels increasingly chaotic and yes nihilistic. Titled - Nothing, except everything.
Here's a talented kid - representing the pathos of his generation - with something extraordinarily beautiful and poetic, which is going to be released as a feature length film from a major studio.
That gives me hope — not just for what has happened but how it has happened. To reclaim our imagination, we have to reclaim our attention. In a world where content has been 'Mr. Beastified,' the essence of what we pay attention to has been made hollow by an obsession with video views. It’s a hopeful relief to see an earnest story from a teenager getting financial backing and a chance at attracting the world’s attention.
Given a choice between Mr Beast's next stunt and Nothing, Except Everything - I know what I will be giving my attention to.
What about you?