Should we embrace nihilism, as Nolen Gertz suggests, or try to overcome it? For Nietzsche, nihilism must be overcome – if we're strong enough. The key, argues Alex Silk, is to see how nihilistic beliefs – that, say, nothing matters – derive from nihilistic feelings and bodily states. Understanding the basic features of human nature and experience at the root of nihilism paves the way toward a healthier, affirming perspective on ourselves and human life. Nietzsche’s rhetorical style helps us incorporate such a perspective by engaging our feelings as well as our rational faculties.

“Nihilism”: what?

There is a popular conception of Nietzsche as nihilist and arch “anti” figure of all things moral. “Conclud[ing] that there is nothing good, nothing beautiful, nothing sublime, nothing evil in itself” (D 210) [1] might seem to invite such an understanding. And yet, in a characteristic Nietzschean twist, the self-described “Antichrist” and “first immoralist” (EH III:2, IV:2–4) is in fact an “anti-nihilist” (GM II:24, A 58), whose ideal is a wholehearted “affirmation” and “ultimate, most joyous […] Yes to life” (BGE 56, EH BT:2). What, then, is at issue in the talk of nihilism? Why is it so “danger[ous]” (GM III:14)? How, if at all, can we overcome it? One must tread carefully with an author who aims to “reduce to despair” any reader “who is ‘in a hurry’” (D P:5). We’ll do our best.

SUGGESTED VIEWING Nihilism and the meaning of life With Nolen Gertz

First, “nihilism”: what? Consider, to start, a state that might accompany acceptance of the so-called “death of God.” [2] Perhaps Fritz, once a devout Christian, has begun to lose his faith. Whereas he would once weep, “Lord, I come […] Dear savior image for sinners!” [3] at the thought of “God himself sacrific[ing] himself for the guilt of humanity” (GM II:21), now the same thoughts fail to move him. Belief in God no longer seems credible.

Fritz is profoundly disoriented. His interests, projects, pursuits no longer grab him with the same immediacy. How can they have any real meaning if they aren’t grounded in something higher, something independent of his own perspective? “Now that the shabby origin of [his] values is becoming clear, the universe seems to have lost value, seems ‘meaningless’” (WP 7[1887–88]).

The disorientation and uncertainty experienced in cases such as Fritz’s can be acutely painful, indeed a kind of suffering. Yet there are reasons for thinking it isn’t Nietzsche’s ultimate concern under the heading of “nihilism”.

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Rather than nihilistic beliefs that, say, nothing matters or that there are no higher values leading to feelings of weariness, hopelessness, and despair, the direction may be the reverse.

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A prominent theme in Nietzsche’s writings is the physiological origins of various psychological phenomena. Why, now, do existential thoughts of “why?”, “why bother?”, repeatedly spring to mind and persist in one’s attention? Or do nihilistic conclusions suddenly seem so plausible, in a way one can’t seem to shake? Rather than nihilistic beliefs that, say, nothing matters or that there are no higher values leading to feelings of weariness, hopelessness, and despair, the direction may be the reverse. The new nihilistic beliefs, “along with proofs, refutations, and the whole intellectual masquerade are only symptoms of a changed taste” (GS 39) – “the expression of a physiological regression” (WP 395[1887–88]). “Affective nihilism” (Gemes 2008) can lead to cognitive nihilism.

Roots of affective nihilism