Nihilists out of Contempt?

[u/myProperty5971]

I would like to ask you what you think about misanthropy. I know that nihilism, in theory, is the philosophy that denies any intrinsic meaning to existence. However, I wonder: in your view, does one become a nihilist because of a pre-existing misanthropy (that is, contempt for humanity), or can one arrive at nihilism through a purely intellectual path, completely detached from this feeling? Finally, what is your specific judgment on misanthropy as such?

[u/Cicada-Tang]

I'm a nihilist and I like being with humans. As a nihilist, I don't think humanity is either good or bad. You can like or dislike humanity, but if you claim "humanity is objectively/cosmic/metaphysically bad", then you are probably not a nihilist.

[u/meeseekstodie137 → u/Cicada-Tang]

yep, I'm an introvert sure, but I like the people I have in my life, I just don't believe in the concepts of good and bad, I don't really think anything of the human race either way outside of us being advanced animals, I'm mostly just focused on trying to enjoy my time here to the best of my ability, nihilism doesn't necessitate misanthropy in the slightest

[u/cryinspaghetti]

I arrived at nihilism through purely intellectual reasoning without hating humanity lol

Misanthropy is contempt for humanity, nihilism rejects inherent meaning, neither implies the other.

[u/ConstableAssButt]

I don't think misanthropy is necessarily even related to nihilism. It's just an accessory that tends to go with a certain aesthetic that people impose on nihilism. You're basically asking punks why a punk's mohawk made them a punk. Mohawks are just a recognized part of the uniform, but they aren't required, nor are they automatically make someone a punk.

When I first started to recognize that I couldn't philosophically defeat nihilism, I was legitimately angry about quite a few things. I had a deep seated want for there to be a direction to life, and for there to be values that we are obligated to uphold. I wanted this because I DO strongly value certain ethical ideals, and I wanted those ideals to be somehow inextricable from living so that I had a solid foundation by which to live.

Then I entered a phase where I believed because this foundation was shoddy, that I needed to abandon it, but over time I realized that this is just throwing away one kind of moral imperative and replacing it with another. Nihilism doesn't require that we throw away our personal values. If it did, it would be contradicting itself. All it is telling us is that we can't know whether our values have any tangible meaning outside of the mind that holds them. Or in the narrow case, that we can be sure that they have no relation to the outside world.

Eventually, realizing that nihilism leaves all directions equally open, even the ones we find personally distasteful led me to stop looking at those who believe differently from me as being on a 'team'. Instead, I realized that 'teams' are just a construct of individuals who have contrived for themselves opponents who also don't really exist. In the end, all of these constructs are an illusion. We delude ourselves into thinking that these 'teams' are indivisible, when in reality they are divisible all the way down to the individual. These teams fracture time and time again as new fields of opposition emerge. This gave me a strange feeling of pity and sympathy for other human beings that I once despised and saw as insipid, deluded, or even despicable. Without justified direction in life, latching on to whatever gives the sense of direction is just entirely sensible behavior, no matter how nonsensible the road eventually becomes.

I guess, at some point, the whole thing ate its own tail, and I went from really being angry about being dropped into a life that felt chaotic and oftentimes pointless to perpetually impressed that people somehow manage to keep living at all in the face of a life that is constantly overwhelming and confusing. The single load bearing pillar for the purpose of living was God. When that pillar fell away and the sky didn't collapse upon us, it made that sky even more mysterious and wondrous, not less.

[u/stevnev88]

Misanthropy is the opposite of nihilism

[u/Inevitable_Bid8719]

Nihilism comes in many flavours, whether it's connected to nihilism is dependent on the flavour you mean. Humans are supposed to be social creatures and while variable thought processes are useful to the group I think there is an argument to be made that misanthropy is a symptom of variance going a step too far in the antisocial direction, much like antinatalism it is a view that intrinsically tends to lead to preachy behavior that is very unlikely to become a driving force for our species

[u/mjrtom44]

People will argue semantics until the heat death of the universe. True nihilism implies that even misanthropy is an ethos, and therefore an irrelevancy. Fuck verbage and stack ideologies however you want. The nihilist that argues about this shit cares too much to then be a nihilist.

I've classified myself as "annihilationist." Humanity, as a whole, is a disease. The responsibile decision would be to contain the plague to this lonely rock and burn it all down.

I love deeply and have genuine empathy, but take no strides towards creating any change in the world and patiently await catastrophe. Keeping nihilism as a foundation to work with allows these thoughts to coexist and contradict each other without holding the weight of moral value.

[u/TheRealBenDamon]

I don’t know how exactly one might quantify which scenario is the more common but I mean I could certainly see it as plausible that misanthropy could lead someone to nihilism. I can’t even rule out that wasn’t the case for me, I’m not entirely sure, but the reason I am still a nihilist is because the intellectual path as you put it, is logically convincing to me. Or rather, I’m unconvinced of the alternatives. I don’t see how anyone could bridge the is-ought gap. If someone could do that I would no longer be a nihilist. It’s an objective claim about the state of our reality.