https://meaningness.com/nihilism-is-not-an-ism Meaningness logo The uncanny absence of nihil -ism Vivid Impressionist portrait of Nietzsche by Edvard Munch, 1906 Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche by Edvard Munch It's natural to assume nihilism is an -ism: a philosophy, an ideology, a conceptual framework, like communism, Buddhism, or rationalism. Then, like those eternalist systems, it would have famous proponents, books full of explanations, and maybe even schismatic subsects. But it doesn't. This is surprising, and revealing. "Nihilizing" is a thing we all do at times: refusing to recognize meanings that are right in front of us. That is the active aspect of nihilism, considered as a stance, not a system. Stances are simpler, more fundamental patterns of thinking and feeling and acting than systems. They powerfully affect our ways of being, whereas ideologies are mostly just intellectual verbiage. When people talk about nihilism, often it is as if it were a system. Most people reject the imagined system; a few advocate it. Neither group notices that there isn't one. As a stance, both nihilism and eternalism--its opposite--are highly unstable. We slip back and forth, usually without even noticing. We fall into nihilism briefly--sometimes for as little as a few seconds--and then slip out again. It's just that, in the moment, "nothing means anything, really" felt like a perfectly sensible way of looking at things. And so you did. And then you moved on. But something went wrong for a bit there--something you'd do better to avoid. Committing to nihilism, deciding that you "are a nihilist," is unusual, and typically a big deal. It's a conversion experience, and the adopted identity may persist for years. It's uncanny that you can go that long without noticing that there isn't an -ism. That's a feature of the peculiar cognitive distortions nihilism produces as a stance. There are a great many books "about nihilism" written by academics: philosophers, cultural historians, and literary critics. Surely that's where you'd go to find the -ism? But no. It turns out that few of them are about nihilism, even as a stance; they are about other topics. I'll discuss them in the first section of this page. You would think that, if nihilism were an -ism, there would be famous nihilists, but the only one most people have heard of is Friedrich Nietzsche. He is--not coincidentally--my favorite philosopher. The second section here explains why he wasn't in fact a nihilist at all, but did write the most important books about nihilism as a stance. The true theoreticians of nihilism are not academics, but talented amateurs writing on blogs and web forums. The last section is about them and their work. Books with "nihilism" in the title I read several dozen academic books "about nihilism" in preparation for writing about it myself.^1 This confirmed that, like botulism, nihilism is not an -ism. There was much less to them than met the eye at first. Nearly all the ones written in the past hundred years are actually books about books about nihilism. They mainly review the previous books. And since several like that have been published every year for decades, they are mostly books about books about books about ... about books about nihilism. When they are not about books, they are mostly about nihilists, rather than nihilism. There isn't a nihil -ism for them to be about, and academics don't know how to write about stances. And the nihilists they discuss are all fictional! They review novels that feature supposedly nihilistic characters. These are storytellers' attempts to imagine what it would be like to accomplish nihilism. A realistic portrayal would be boring and depressing: catatonia. So the characters commit colorful murders instead. That dramatizes the rage aspect of nihilism, but isn't particularly realistic or interesting either. When "nihilism" books discuss real people, it's Nietzsche plus a few existentialist philosophers, and the books admit that none of them were actually nihilists. They were worried about how to avoid nihilism, instead. Some authors come out either for or against "nihilism." Most of them actually advocate or excoriate other related ideologies, not nihilism: existentialism, miserabilism, atheism, fascism, materialism, hedonism, or specifically-moral nihilism. The rare few that discuss nihilism itself treat it as a mere tendency, one that raises only a vague and hypothetical problem. I have found none that bother to engage seriously with nihilism in its own terms. This is uncanny, don't you think? Many philosophers and cultural historians say nihilism is the most important issue of the past century, but they never come to grips with the substance of it. Their "problem of nihilism" is how to respond to a threat they cannot locate--because it is not a coherent ideology. It is a psychological phenomenon, not a philosophical one. No academic book explains why the many conceptual arguments for nihilism, as advanced by talented amateurs, are mistaken.^2 I've had to do that mostly from scratch. Apparently this has no academic value,^3 but these arguments matter because they stabilize the stance. When in the grip of nihilism as a psychological process, faulty "proofs" of meaninglessness suddenly seem compelling. My hope is that explaining both what's wrong with each, along with its valid underlying intuition, will help afflicted readers extricate themselves. What about Nietzsche? By the late 1800s, educated elites understood that Christianity and rationalism, the West's two main eternalist systems, were deeply flawed and probably unfixable. It was polite to go through the motions of pretending to believe, but increasingly many didn't. That may be fine for us, they thought, but what if the masses catch on? There was no plausible third ideology. "Nihilism" was the possibility that pious morality and sober rationality would no longer keep the rabble's base instincts in check, and the nihilist apocalypse would ensue. Nietzsche was not polite--one reason I love him. He proclaimed the death of God (meaning that no one takes Christianity seriously anymore) and the rise of Dionysus (the anti-rational god of drunken revelry). At times he described himself as "a nihilist," by which he meant not that everything is meaningless, but that he actively rejected the available eternalisms. He also condemned "nihilism," understood as apathetic unwillingness to take problems of meaningness seriously. He particularly included Christianity and "Apollonian" rationalism in that. Nietzsche's intention was to develop a new, positive alternative. "Active nihilism," which he praised as the project of destroying religion and rationalism, was merely a step toward that goal. Unfortunately, he had a complete and permanent mental breakdown before he worked out what the better alternative might be. He was not a systematic thinker, and probably would not have advocated a new eternalist system. On the whole, he may best be classified as an existentialist--as many historians do. He exhorted the courageous individual to create their own original values, in defiance of society. Nietzsche is easy and fun to read: straightforward, vivid, and outrageous. He was brilliant; the best philosopher of all time, in my opinion. He also frequently contradicted himself, couldn't assemble a coherent theory, and much of his writing is quite wrong. He was crazy. His best work was done in the year before his catastrophic psychotic break, and you can tell he was on the edge of losing it. His thinking shows all the emotional dynamics of nihilism, and all its characteristic cognitive distortions. Nevertheless, all the books about books about books about nihilism are a lineage of working out implications of his thinking.^4 The impression that there's some worked-out theory of nihilism probably derives from the misunderstanding that Nietzsche must have produced one, because he was such a towering genius. And, when amateurs try to develop a personal theory of nihilism, it's generally obvious that Nietzsche is their main source--although they may have read only summaries, or skimmed his clickbait titles (Beyond Good and Evil, The Antichrist, The Will to Power) rather than seriously working through his writing. You could not do so and mistake him as saying that everything is meaningless. Amateurs are the true theoreticians of nihilism My explanation of nihilism in this chapter draws primarily on amateur, non-academic sources: blogs, internet forums, and self-published books, plus in-person conversations, pop culture, and my personal struggles with it. These sources reflect ways laypeople understand nihilism, which is significantly different from philosophers' views. They better reflect the trouble with it we all get into at times. I am highly sympathetic to this amateur work! These are genuine attempts to take nihilism seriously, which academics have never bothered to do. Since nihilism--as a stance--is a common and dire problem, this is important. Laypeople feel they have to work it out for themselves, because the pros refuse to do their job. On the other hand, it's naive: meaning is pervasive, so nihilism is false, and it's impossible to make sound arguments for it. I respect the attempt, even if the results are at best silly, and often creepy. The arguments of amateur nihilists articulate ways intelligent people in the grip of the nihilistic stance try to maintain it, in the face of the obviousness of meaning. I do that nihilizing sometimes, and you probably do sometimes too. Examining the details can help us stop. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 1.Here, as throughout the book, I'm using "nihilism" to mean specifically what philosophers call "existential nihilism," i.e. "everything is meaningless," which is also what non-philosophers almost always think "nihilism" means. 2. 2.There are a few good philosophical journal articles that address individual arguments. I cite some later. 3. 3.To be fair to individual academics, the fallacies are in each case obvious, if you are not emotionally motivated to believe them. Academia gives no credit for pointing out the obvious, even when no one has gotten around to doing it previously. Unfortunately, this leaves many important matters unspoken. 4. 4.They usually also cover Soren Kierkegaard, an earlier existentialist Christian who worried about nihilism and had some minor influence on Nietzsche, plus various earlier Russians who didn't. Kierkegaard is super tedious. I haven't read the Russians, who sound even more so. 3 Comments Navigation Meaningness is a book, best read in order. Start with an appetizer, or the table of contents. To hear about new content, Subscribe by email subscribe to my email newsletter, Follow Meaningness on Twitter follow me on Twitter, use the Syndicate content RSS feed, or see the list of recent pages. The book is a work in progress; pages marked [?][?] are under construction. This site also contains standalone essays that are not part of the book, plus a metablog of news and commentary. You can read recent comments and join the discussion. Hover or click on terms with dotted underlining to read a definition. Book contents * Why meaningness? [ ] Informally introducing the central themes of the Meaningness book. + An appetizer: purpose Five confused attitudes to life purpose, as an introduction to meaningness. + Preview: eternalism and nihilism Two stances that don't work: "Everything has a definite meaning" and "Nothing means anything." + What is meaningness? Meaningness is the quality of being meaningful or meaningless. + Misunderstanding meaningness makes many miserable Mistaken attitudes toward meaning create unnecessary psychological/spiritual/existential suffering. * Stances: responses to meaningness [ ] The overall conceptual framework: "stances" are simple patterns of thinking and feeling about meaningness. + Stances trump systems People think they approach meaning in terms of religions or philosophies, but in practice, "stances" matter more. + Stances are unstable Stances--responses to meaning--are unstable thought-patterns. Often we adopt several contradictory ones in rapid succession. + Nebulosity Meaningness is cloud-like: nebulous. It is real, but impossible to completely pin down. + Pattern Brains automatically find meaning and pattern; we need them to act. Unfortunately, brains also find meaning and pattern where there are none. + Fixation and denial Fixation and denial are the two simplest ways of refusing to deal with the nebulosity of meaningness. + Confused stances come in pairs Wrong ideas about meaning come in mirror-image pairs, which fixate and deny opposite aspects of reality. + No middle way Polarized pairs of confused stances cannot be resolved by compromise. There is no middle way between them. + Accepting nebulosity resolves confusions about meaning [ ] Confusions about meaning can be resolved using a method for looking at ways nebulosity affects the subject matter. o Not a general dialectic The method for resolving confusion about meaning through accepting nebulosity is not a general dialectic, or logic for resolving all false oppositions. + Confusion, completion, misery and joy Properly understanding meaning eliminates needless suffering. An application: ethics. + Meaningness as a liberating practice A practice of replacing confused, dysfunctional patterns of thinking and feeling about meaning with accurate ones. + The psychological anatomy of a stance The key aspects of a stance toward meaning, and how to use them effectively. + Adopting, committing, accomplishing, wavering, appropriating Concerning relationships one may have with stances: basic attitudes toward meaningness. + The Big Three stance combinations Dualism, nihilism, and monism are the three main approaches to fundamental questions of meaning. This book proposes a better, fourth alternative. + Schematic overview: all dimensions A complete summary overview of all the dimensions of meaningness, with all the common stances one can take to them. * Meaning and meaninglessness [*] Eternalism fixates meaning; nihilism denies it. Recognizing that meaning is both nebulous and patterned resolves this false dichotomy. + The puzzle of meaningness What is the meaning of an extra-marital affair--or any relationship? A philosophical short story illustrates the puzzle of the nebulosity of meaningness. + Meaningfulness and meaninglessness Some things are meaningful, and others aren't. This is obvious; yet most confusions about meaning begin by denying it. + Extreme examples, eternalism and nihilism Claims that everything is meaningful, or that nothing is, are motivated by fears: fear of the opposite. + [?][?] No cosmic plan Great confusions about meaningness stem from the mistaken assumption that there must be some sort of eternal ordering principle. + So how does meaningness work? We have a choice of explanations: ones that are simple, clear, harmful, and wrong; or ones that are complex, vague, helpful, and approximately right. + Rumcake and rainbows Meaning cannot be either objective or subjective. But meaning does exist: as interaction. + Schematic overview: meaningness A schematic overview of eternalism and nihilism as confused responses to meaningness. + Eternalism: the fixation of meaning [ ] Eternalism is the wrong idea that everything has a definite meaning, fixed by an external ordering principle. o I get duped by eternalism in a casino Gambling, religion, and addiction: a personal story. o The appeal of eternalism [ ] Eternalism promises everything you could want from meaning: safety, support, certainty, reassurance, and control. Solid ground! # The promise of certainty What we want most from meaning is guarantees. Religions, political ideologies, and other eternalist systems promise certainty; but they cannot deliver. # The illusion of understanding It's deluded to think we mostly understand issues of meaning (ethics, purpose, value, politics). Ideologies deliberately create and sustain that illusion. # The fantasy of control Eternalism promises complete control over life--but that is an impossible fantasy. Influence through collaboration and improvisation are possible, however. # The wheel of fortune Eternalism promises answers about good and bad--the meanings we care about most--but cannot deliver. # Eternalism as the only salvation from nihilism Eternalism's final promise is to keep nihilism at bay. There is a better alternative to both! o Eternalism is harmful Eternalism--belief in fixed meanings--makes promises it can't keep. It makes us do stupid, crazy, evil things. And we still love it and keep going back for more. o Eternalist systems Systems such as religions and political ideologies reinforce eternalism. They dispel doubt by denying nebulosity. o Accomplishing eternalism Accomplishing eternalism would would mean knowing the meaning of everything, and acting accordingly. This is impossible, because there are no fixed meanings. o Exiting eternalism Learning skills for escaping the grip of eternalism--the delusion that everything is meaningful. o Eternalist ploys and their antidotes [ ] Ploys--ways of thinking, feeling, talking, and acting--which stabilize eternalism; and antidotes to use against them. # [?][?] Imposing fixed meanings Forcing fixed meanings on experience always eventually results in unpleasant shocks when reality refuses to conform to your pre-determined categories. # [?][?] Smearing meaning all over everything Monist eternalism--the New Age and SBNR, for example--say everything is meaningful, but leaves vague what the meanings are. # [?][?] Magical thinking Magical thinking--hallucinating causal connections--is powerfully synergistic with eternalism (the stance that everything has a fixed meaning). # [?][?] Hope Hope is harmful in devaluing the present and shifting attention to imaginary futures that may never exist. # [?][?] Pretending Eternalist religions and political systems are always partly make-believe, like children playing at being pirates. # [?][?] Colluding for eternalism Because eternalist delusion is so desirable, we collude to maintain it. To save each other from nihilism, we support each other in not-seeing nebulosity. # [?][?] Hiding from nebulosity Hiding from nebulosity is a ploy to preserve eternalism by physically avoiding ambiguous situations and information. # [?][?] Kitsch and naivete Eternalist kitsch is the denial of the possibility of meaninglessness. This leads to willfully idiotic sentimentality. # [?][?] Armed & armored eternalism When nebulosity becomes obvious, eternalism fails to fit reality. You can armor yourself against evidence, and arm yourself to destroy it. # [?][?] Faith Privileging faith over experience is an eternalist ploy for blinding yourself to signs of nebulosity. # [?][?] Thought suppression Thought suppression is a ploy for maintaining faith in non-existent meanings. It leads to deliberate stupidity, inability to express oneself, and inaction. # [?][?] Bargaining and recommitment When eternalism lets you down, you are tempted to make a bargain with it. Eternalism will behave itself better, and in return you renew your faith in it. # [?][?] Wistful certainty Wistful certainty is a ploy for reinforcing eternalism based on the thought that there must exist whatever it takes to make eternalism seem to work. # [?][?] Faithful bafflement Faithful bafflement is a ploy for maintaining the eternalist stance that remains committed but begins to doubt. # [?][?] Mystification Mystification uses thoughts as a weapon against authentic thinking. It creates glib, bogus metaphysical explanations that sweep meaninglessness under the rug. # [?][?] Rehearsing the horrors of nihilism Reminding yourself and others of how bad nihilism is can help maintain the eternalist stance. This is the hellfire and brimstone of eternalist preaching. # [?][?] Purification Purity is an obsessive focus for dualist eternalism. It mobilizes emotions of disgust, guilt, shame, and self-righteous anger. # [?][?] Fortress eternalism In the face of undeserved suffering, is difficult not to fall into the stance that most things are God's will, but not the horrible bits. + Nihilism: denying meaning [*] Nihilism is the wrong idea that nothing is meaningful, based on the accurate realization that there is no external, eternal source of meaning. o You've got nihilism wrong Whether you think you are a nihilist, or think you are not--I think you are mistaken. Nihilism is impossible--but so is avoiding it. o The emotional dynamics of nihilism Nihilism relies on three emotional strategies to deny meaning: rage, intellectualization, and depression. It also causes anxiety. o [?][?] Cold comfort: the promise of nihilism Nihilism promises you don't have to care, because nothing means anything. But you do care--and you can't escape that. o [?][?] The nihilist elite Nihilism requires unusual intelligence, courage, and grit. Nihilists know this, and consider themselves an elite class. Membership is a major attraction. o [?][?] Nihilism is hard It's a pity that it's so hard to be a nihilist. Nihilism is mistaken and harmful, but its insights into what's wrong with eternalism are accurate and useful. o [?][?] Nihilistic rage and clarity Nihilistic rage wants to destroy whatever has meaning, and whoever points to meaning. o [?][?] Nihilistic intellectualization and understanding [*] When desperate to deny all meanings, we use absurd pseudo-rational, pseudo-scientific, intellectual arguments to justify nihilism. # The uncanny absence of nihil -ism Nihilism, like botulism, is not an ideology or conceptual system. It is a stance: an emotionally-charged way of being. # 190-proof vs. lite nihilism Nihilism says nothing means anything--but no one actually believes that. Lite nihilism weakens the claim, to make it plausible. # 190-proof nihilism: intoxicating intellectual idiocy Nihilism defends itself from the obviousness of meanings with spurious intellectual arguments. Here's how to dispel them. o [?][?] Nihilistic depression illuminates the shadow Realizing that eternalism will always fail can result in anguish, pessimism, depression, stoicism, alienation, apathy, exhaustion, and paralysis. o [?][?] Nihilistic anxiety opens into play Anxiety is a natural reaction to uncertainty. In nihilism, pervasive loss of meaning makes everything uncertain; existential angst is a response. + [?][?] Sartre's ghost and the corpse of God Existentialism, a hopeful alternative to rigid meanings, makes wrong metaphysical assumptions, and cannot work. It collapses inevitably into nihilism. + The complete stance [ ] Meaning is nebulous, yet patterned; meaningfulness and meaninglessness intermingle. Recognizing this frees us from metaphysical delusions. o The appeal of complete stances Resolving problems of meaning by recognizing inseparable pattern and nebulosity will improve your life. o Peak experiences Peak experiences and the complete stance are similar in texture, but differ in intensity, conceptual content, and causes. o Obstacles to the complete stance Meaning and meaninglessness, pattern and nebulosity all obviously exist--yet we resist recognizing and admitting this. Why? o [?][?] Observing meaningness How to catch meaningness in action; ways of watching confused and complete stances. o Finding the complete stance The fundamental method for resolving problems of meaning: by finding nebulosity, pattern, and their inseparable relationship. o Textures of completion [ ] Patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting in the complete stance, which resolves problems of meaning. # Wonder Wonder at the vastness, beauty, and intricacy of the phenomenal world: a texture of the complete stance. # Open-ended curiosity Open-ended curiosity gives you the freedom to interact with the world without metaphysical presuppositions. # [?][?] Humor Recognizing the inseparability of nebulosity and pattern gives experience a texture of good humor, and the funny sort too! # [?][?] Play Playfulness, which recognizes the mingled pattern and nebulosity of meaning, is a characteristic texture of activity in the complete stance. # [?][?] Enjoying the dance of nebulosity and pattern Enjoyment of the intertwining dance of nebulosity and pattern is a characteristic texture of the complete stance to meaning. # [?][?] Creation Creation is the characteristic activity of the complete stance; its densest texture. o Stabilizing the complete stance Going beyond resolutions of specific problems: consistently maintaining an accurate stance toward meaningness. * Unity and diversity [ ] Stances concerning connection and separateness: monism, dualism, and participation. + Schematic overview: unity and diversity Schematic overview of the stances concerning connection and separateness: monism, dualism, and participation. + Monism and dualism contain each other Monism and dualism are opposites. But because each is obviously wrong, each turns into the other when cornered. Sneaky! + Boundaries, objects, and connections [ ] Errors of monism and dualism: denying and fixating object boundaries and connections. o [?][?] Non-existence: Scarlet Leviathan Confusing nebulosity with non-existence is a common, sometimes harmful, source of conceptual confusions. + [?][?] Monism: the denial of difference [ ] Finding the specifics of life unacceptable motivates the escapist fantasy of monism: the stance that All is One, denying diversity. o [?][?] Critiques of monism [ ] Monism can be criticized from the points of view of dualism, nihilism, or the complete stance. # [?][?] The dualist critique of monism According to dualist gloss eternalism, monism is wrong because it falsely claims that it is possible to achieve union with God. # [?][?] The nihilist critique of monism The nihilistcritique of monist eternalism is that it is factually false. # [?][?] The complete stance's critique of monism From the point of view of the complete stance, monist eternalism fails on its own terms. It cannot deliver what it promises. + [?][?] Dualism: the fixation of difference Fear of contamination by the messiness of reality--always changing and ambiguous--motivates dualism, the stance that denies connection. + [?][?] Participation Participation is the recognition that both boundaries and connections are both nebulous yet real; neither objective nor subjective. * Selfness [ ] Abandoning selflessness and egoism equally, we can play with the ambiguous self/other boundary; supple, skillful selfing for successful, satisfying interaction. + Schematic overview: self A schematic overview of stances regarding the meaningness of the self: non-self, True Self, and intermittently continuing. + [?][?] A billion tiny spooks Representationalism tried to exorcise the ghost in the machine, but succeeded only in splitting it into innumerable tiny ghosts. + [?][?] The true self Monism and dualism both offer concepts of the supposed true self as a coherent entity. + [?][?] Selflessness Several views of selflessness, in different religions and philosophies. + [?][?] Intermittently continuing [ ] An optimistic view of the self as incoherent, but not non-existent, and not necessarily problematic. o [?][?] Neither objective nor subjective Meanings are interactions: neither inherent in external objects nor merely mental. They are on-going, collaborative activities. * Purpose [ ] Dividing purposes into higher and mundane, mission pursues higher ends and rejects pragmatism; materialism seeks only selfish goals. Both are mistakes. + Schematic overview: purpose A schematic overview of stances toward purpose: mission, materialism, and enjoyable usefulness. + Mission [ ] It is attractive to think that we each have a unique, transcendent, ultimate purpose in life. Unfortunately, this belief is both false and harmful. o Mission: defects and obstacles The delusion that you can find your true, unique personal life-purpose causes only suffering and failure. o What should I do with my life? Just discover your unique talent, follow your passion, and success is guaranteed--this is terrible advice! o [?][?] Politics make for mediocre missions Taking political activism as a personal mission usually messes up your life, and messes up politics too. o [?][?] Antidotes to fixating higher purposes How to let go of attractive, mistaken idea that you have one ultimate purpose in life--without falling into nihilism o [?][?] Antidotes to denying mundane purposes How to come to grips with the mundane messes you've made while pursuing a grand mission, so you can clean them up. + Materialism [ ] Materialism says that only mundane purposes like money, sex, and power count. It wrongly rejects higher purposes--but those too are not ultimate. o Rejecting materialism Common critiques of materialism, from religion, political idealism, personal idealism, and nihilism. o [?][?] Materialism: defects and obstacles Materialism fails on its own terms. It cannot deliver the satisfaction it promises. o [?][?] Antidotes to fixating mundane purposes Ways to find freedom from the compulsive need-driven quality of mundane desires, and enjoyment free from grasping. o [?][?] Antidotes to denying higher purposes How to recover compassion and creativity when in the grip of self-centered materialism. + Mission and materialism mingled Mingling mission and materialism attempts to gain both self-indulgent and self-justifying goals--but loses both enjoyment and empathetic joy. + [?][?] Enjoyable usefulness [ ] Recognizing the nebulosity of purposes frees us to enjoy life and be useful to others. o [?][?] Want what you like Discovering what you actually like can be surprising, and supports enjoyable usefulness as your purpose in life. * [?][?] Personal value [ ] Agonizing over whether you are ordinary or special--or feeling smug about one or the other--can be resolved by choosing to be noble instead. + Schematic overview: value A schematic overview of stances toward personal value: specialness, ordinariness, and nobility. + [?][?] Specialness Specialness is a sense of having been picked out for destiny by the Cosmic Plan. That causes you and others much trouble. + [?][?] Ordinariness If we could just manage to be ordinary, we would not have the responsibility of living up to our potential. Fortunately, ordinariness is impossible. + [?][?] Nobility Nobility is the aspiration to manifest glory for the benefit of others. * [?][?] Capability [ ] Resolving a false dichotomy between unrealistic views: being a helpless victim and being totally responsible for your circumstances. + Schematic overview: capability A schematic overview of stances regarding issues of capability. + [?][?] Total responsibility The delusion that we are, or can be, totally responsible for reality is prevalent in some religious and psychotherapeutic circles. + [?][?] Victim-think Victim-think is a strategy for denying all responsibility--on the part of individuals and social groups. + [?][?] Light-heartedness Playfully co-create reality in collaboration with each other and the world. * [?][?] Ethics [ ] Available ethical theories are either eternalist or nihilist; both are useless. We must recognize that ethics are both nebulous and meaningful. + Schematic overview: ethics A schematic overview of fundamental stances regarding ethics. + [?][?] Ethical eternalism [ ] An ethical system that reliably delivers correct moral judgements is a wishful fantasy. No such system is possible. o [?][?] Utilitiarianism is an eternalism Utilitarianism promises to eliminate ethical uncertainty, but instead replaces a difficult, messy problem with an impossible, tidy one. + [?][?] Ethical nihilism Ethical nihilism is the denial of all ethical rightness and wrongness. + [?][?] Ethical responsiveness Ethics is centrally important to humans, and is not a matter of choice, but is fluid and has no definite source. * [?][?] Authority [ ] A better alternative to the dysfunctional stances of mindlessly opposing authority and mindlessly obeying. + Schematic overview: authority A schematic overview of stances toward social authority. + [?][?] Reasonable respectability Reasonable respectability: the sheep's stance to social authority. + [?][?] Romantic rebellion Romantic rebellion does not seriously try to overthrow the system; it is faux-heroic posturing. It can be harmful, but also inspires great art. + [?][?] Freedom Value social order as a resource, satirize it as an impediment. * [?][?] Sacredness [ ] Resolving the twin delusions that nothing is sacred and that the only sacred things are those designated by some authority. + Schematic overview: sacredness Schematic overview of stances toward sacredness: religiosity, secularism, kadag. + [?][?] Religiosity Religiosity is the confused, eternalistic view that the sacred and profane can be clearly separated. + [?][?] Secularism Secularism is the stance that sacredness is mere superstition; nothing is sacred. + [?][?] Kadag Kadag: Because nothing is inherently sacred, everything can be sacred. * Meaningness and Time: past, present, future [ ] The problems of meaningness we face now are dramatically different from those of the past. We also sense new opportunities, and have new resources. + How meaning fell apart [ ] Over the past century, systems of meaning gradually disintegrated, and a series of new modes of meaningness developed. o A gigantic chart that explains absolutely everything This chart is an overview of Meaningness and Time: the past, present, and future of culture, society, and our selves. o In praise of choicelessness The choiceless mode of understanding meaning has no "becauses." Explanations are unnecessary because you are unaware of any alternatives. o The glory of systems Systems of society, culture, and the self were the foundation of the modern world. Their glories have passed. o Invented traditions and timeworn futures Invented traditions and timeworn futures are ideological time-distortion strategies. Highly effective in propaganda. o Systems of meaning all in flames [ ] How and why modernity failed. All systems of meaning--religious, political, artistic, psychological--began to fall apart. Nihilism seemed the only alternative. # [?][?] The collapse of rational certainty Modernity was built on certainty in science and mathematics. That was revealed as delusional during the early 20th century. o Countercultures: modernity's last gasp [ ] The hippies and the Moral Majority both tried to rescue systematic eternalism--and failed. We live amongst their wreckage. # What makes a counterculture? Countercultures defined as new, alternative, universalist, eternalist, anti-rational systems: there were two in the late 20th century. # Hippies and Evangelicals: monist and dualist countercultures The hippie counterculture was structurally and functionally similar to the Moral Majority Christian Right counterculture a decade later. # [?][?] The hippie family who invented contemporary conservatism The Schaeffer family, hippie gurus, created the American Religious Right. Too late, they realized they had created a monster: a tragedy in the ancient style. # Renegotiating self and society How--and why!--countercultures sought to reform psychologies and polities: to counteract alienation, anxiety, and anomie. # Rejecting rationality, reinventing religion, reconfiguring the self The 1960s-80s countercultures abandoned rationality because they believed it negated all meaning. They were wrong. # The personal is political The 1960s-80s countercultures dissolved the boundaries between self and society, ethical and political--setting us up for decades of culture war. # Rotating politics ninety degrees clockwise In the 1960s-80s, American politics shifted from economic to sacredness issues. This damaged public discourse, but created a new two-track class system. # [?][?] Countercultures: modern mythologies The Religious Right and New Age Left both promoted time-distorting meta-myths--imaginary past golden ages and implausible future utopias--to hide their defects. # Fundamentalism is countercultural modernism Fundamentalism is not traditional; it is a modern, countercultural movement, opposed to tradition and to post-modernity. # [?][?] Counter-cultures: thick and wide The hippie and Moral Majority movements both developed broad, deep cultures, with innovative approaches to every aspect of life, from music to dentistry. # Why both countercultures failed Failure to find new foundations for meaning, to recognize diversity, to provide community, and to transcend opposition: all doomed counterculturalism. # Wreckage: the culture war The culture war, political polarization, Baby Boomer bafflement: the unending zombie slugfest pairing the two countercultures of the 1960s-80s. # Completing the countercultures At root, the culture war is not about abortion, gay marriage, or marijuana. It is about shared misunderstandings of the nature of meaning. o Subcultures: the diversity of meaning [ ] The subcultural era (1975-2000) recognized the diversity of meanings, and provided a new type of supportive, voluntary social group. # [?][?] Subcultures: meanings at play With no responsibility to justify universal norms, or for solving social problems, subcultures were freed to play with meanings. # [?][?] Archipelago: subcultural politics "Archipelago" is a political model in which everyone can choose what social system to live in. It's impractical, but points to better solutions. # Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution How muggles and sociopaths invade and undermine creative subcultures; and how to stop them. o Atomization: the kaleidoscope of meaning [ ] The global internet atomizes cultures, societies, and selves into tiny brilliant shards. Meaning has lost context and coherence. Now what? # Not a good decade for thinking Cultural atomization--the widespread loss of conceptual coherence--has made serious intellectual work much more difficult in the twenty-teens. o [?][?] Fluidity: a preview Fluidity addresses the atomization of culture, society, and self with ships that sail the sea of meaning: collaborative, improvised, intimate, and playful. o Modes of meaningness, eternalism and nihilism From fundamentalism to atomization, different modes of relating to meaning overemphasize pattern or nebulosity. + Desiderata for any future mode of meaningness A positive and realistic vision for the future of society, culture, and self, drawing lessons from recent history. + [?][?] Sailing the seas of meaningness [ ] Social, cultural, and personal fluidity create vessels to navigate the ocean of atomized meanings, steering between nihilism and eternalism. o [?][?] Fluid understanding: meta-rationality Meta-rationality uses rational systems more effectively by taking them as nebulous tools, not eternal truths. o [?][?] Fluid self in relationship [ ] Fluidity recognizes that you have selves, rather than being a self, and that the self/other distinction is nebulous though patterned. # The Cofounders The path from professionalism to a deliberately-developmental relationship: a tale of startup cofounders. o [?][?] Fluid society A fluid society ideally provides the benefits of tradition, modernity, and postmodernity, while avoiding their defects. o [?][?] Fluid culture: metamodernism Metamodernism resolves the modernity/postmodernity conflict in favor of reconstruction, collaboration, ambiguity, and engagement. * Appendices [ ] A series of appendices, including a glossary and suggestions for further reading elsewhere. + Appendix: Glossary Definitions of words I've used in technical or non-standard ways in Meaningness. + Appendix: Further reading Explore the ideas of Meaningness in greater depth by reading the books that inspired it + Appendix: Terminological choices [ ] The Meaningness book gives some words distinctive technical meanings; some definitional choices could be misleading. o Terminology: Complete I borrowed "complete," as a term for stances that allow both nebulosity and pattern, from Dzogchen. o Terminology: Emptiness and form, nebulosity and pattern Why I use "nebulosity" and "pattern," rather than the related Buddhist terms "emptiness" and "form." o Terminology: Non-dual I avoid the term non-dual because it is used to mean several different things, causing confusion. 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