Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism

Introduction. THE PROBLEM OF NIHILISM

For the wise man as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise man dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what was done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind. —Ecclesiastes 2:18 The problem of nihilism, as this passage from the Old Testament suggests, is nothing new. It is, in fact, a perennial concern and a source of anxiety that has had an influence upon human life and thought throughout history. A phenomenon that has affected both individuals and whole cultures, nihilism has been likened to a “malaise,” a “cancer,” and a “sickness,” while also having been called a “divine way of thinking,” and an inspiration to artists and scholars. Nihilism has been deemed both a “disease” and a “cure”; something to be feared as well as welcomed. In short, it is a phenomenon that has been considered both an evil and a good. However, by far the most common and widely accepted understanding of nihilism today places it in the category of things to be avoided and shunned. The term has come to be used as a popular expression of ridicule or insult, though it is, even in scholarly literature, often utilized without much precision . These days, the term nihilism is regularly deployed as a weapon, calculated to dismiss an opponent’s “overly negative” or “pessimistic” line of reasoning . Tellingly, despite the many accusations of nihilism, very few of those 1 Introduction The Problem of Nihilism so charged have been eager to accept the label. The energy directed against dispelling allegations of nihilism testifies to the disturbing power of the word, yet rarely have either the attacks or their rebuttals been informed by an adept understanding of the history or philosophical ideas that accompany the word and the concepts to which it is attached. One purpose of this book is to explore and clarify these meanings. As traditionally constituted, the problem of nihilism exhibits itself in a tendency toward despair that accompanies philosophical reflection on the discrepancy between realistically attainable accomplishment and the superlative standards that humans formulate for themselves. Simply put, the problem of nihilism asks, “Why should I strive for knowledge when certainty is never attained? How can I avoid despair when the greatest excellence eludes me? Why should I struggle to do good when in the end I, and everyone who remembers me, will die?” All human effort, nihilism incessantly torments us, is a “striving after wind.” Because of the emphasis that nihilism places upon the hopelessness and vanity of life’s struggles, it has often been assumed that it always necessarily leads to an attitude dominated by despair. This is untrue. A second goal of this book is to demonstrate that nihilism is compatible with, and indeed preferably accompanied by, a more well-balanced attitude that includes a sense of humor. The two major foci of this investigation, then, are to explore the complexities and ambiguities that are involved in the concept of nihilism, ultimately with the aim of formulating a clear and philosophically adequate definition of the term; and to demonstrate that the phenomenon of nihilism may be responded to with an attitude of good humor. The opening four chapters of this investigation pursue the first goal. Chapters 1 through 3 offer a selective historical survey of philosophers, literary figures, and political movements that have explicitly dealt with the problem of nihilism. This beginning step toward scrutinizing the phenomenon proceeds by simply presenting the problem and describing the manner in which it has been confronted in the past. I focus in these sections not necessarily upon those who have analyzed and offered scholarly studies of nihilism, but on those who have wrestled with the problem existentially, expressing their struggles passionately in their works and actions. In this manner I illustrate how the concept has evolved over time, taking on the associations that help to explain why today the term nihilism contains so many difficult ambiguities. During the course of the fourth chapter I isolate the fundamental issues that are important to the problem as considered in the previous chapters and propose a richer, more complete and clear definition of nihilism than has been previously offered. Nihilism, I find, is a philosophy that rests upon three basic assumptions: (1) Humans are alienated from such perfections as absolute Being, Truth, Goodness, Justice, Beauty, etc.; (2) This...