Meaning, Nihilism, and Hope

Fresno Bee, May 25, 2025

Fertility clinic bombing in Palm Springs sheds light on nihilistic violence 

The bombing of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs last weekend points toward a dark philosophical dead-end. The alleged perpetrator seemed to have a misanthropic, anti-life worldview. According to a report by the LA Times, a website that may be linked to the bomber advocated for “sterilizing this planet of the disease of life.” A speaker there declared, “I’m angry that I exist.” The fertility clinic was likely targeted as a symbol of birth, life and hope.

The root problem here has been described as “anti-life nihilism.” A more familiar term may be pessimism. The 19th Century pessimist, Arthur Schopenhauer, said life was an “unprofitable episode disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence.” He suggested it would be a favor to the next generation to “spare it the burden of existence.”

It is easy to imagine this leading to violence. The Washington Post warns of a rash of nihilistic violence, claiming that “nihilistic extremists are often motivated by a philosophy that seeks to hasten the world’s downfall.” If you think existence is rotten, you may want to annihilate it all. Those who hate life may view life-affirming people with bitter animosity.

But nihilism is not necessarily violent. If life stinks, indifference is as likely as hatred. Disillusionment and despair often give birth to apathy and listlessness. If nothing matters, then why bother with anything?

Various solutions to nihilism have been proposed. Religion is an obvious one. The loving God of Christianity gives meaning and purpose to life despite suffering, sadness and death. In Buddhism, salvation is found in the insight that suffering is caused by attachment to the ever-changing world of experience.

A different approach can be found in art, science and humanism, rooted in ancient Greek philosophy. Greek philosophers argued that human virtue and wisdom were intrinsically valuable, despite the indifference of nature and the gods.

Modernity builds upon this. Scientific knowledge has value in itself. It is amazing to understand the immensity of the cosmos, the history of humanity or the inner workings of cells and atoms. The quest for knowledge makes life worth living. There is always something new to discover and more wisdom to be gleaned. The nihilist gives up on knowledge. One cure is to rediscover the joy of curiosity.

Art also has intrinsic value. We can delight in the music of Mozart, the lyrics of Bob Dylan or the architectural wonders of the world. We can also actively create art. The fun of drawing, singing or writing is freely available. A nihilist might complain that nothing human lasts. But the energy of the creative imagination is an antidote to that complaint.

We can also find value in friendship and love, as well as in natural beauty, physical pleasure or athletic achievement. Social life and purposeful activity provide deep wells of meaning. When nihilists reject life, they reject these basic goods. This indicates a broken spirit lacking in vision, compassion and ambition.

The great American philosopher William James offered a cure for pessimism in an essay entitled “Is Life Worth Living?” He said that pessimism results from too much thinking and not enough active responsibility. The gloomy, world-weary nihilist suffers from what James called “speculative melancholy.” The solution is to stop whining, get out in the world and get to work. We have a choice in the matter of meaning.

If life seems meaningless, remember that you are free to create something better. As James said, “Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”

As we celebrate Memorial Day, we discover another remedy for nihilism. We can learn from the commitment of those who sacrifice their lives in service to others. We all die. But this gloomy fact need not undermine the will to live. Rather, faith in life is renewed by observing that the best lives are lived in uplifting others.

Pessimism and nihilism are perennial problems. They indicate a deep challenge for the human spirit. We are the only beings in the universe — as far as we know — who wonder whether life is worth living. If we understand our unique capacity to ask this question, we may also realize how wonderful it is to exist as beings who think, question and create.

Read more at: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article306995306.html#storylink=cpy

Thanksgiving Religious Liberty

On Thanksgiving, be thankful for liberty

Thanksgiving-Brownscombe
Puritan Thanksgiving

Fresno Bee, November 14, 2014 

We should be thankful that the Pilgrims are not in charge of Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims condemned sports and other recreations along with idleness, gluttony and drunkenness. They celebrated modesty, frugality and hard work.

One Pilgrim, William Bradford, recounted an incident in which some men refused to work on Christmas Day. Those slackers spent Christmas playing “stoolball” — an ancestor of cricket. The governor of the colony condemned them for playing while others worked.

Richard Baxter, a Puritan preacher of the 17th century, wrote, “Set not your hearts upon your belly or your sport.” Our Thanksgiving rituals would make Baxter’s heart sink. Baxter was obsessed with the idea of redeeming time from vain pursuits. He thought that since our time on Earth is short, we ought not waste time on “needless sports, and plays, and idleness, and curiosity, and compliment, and excess of sleep, and chat, and worldliness.”

Our Thanksgiving myth celebrates the proverbial work ethic of the Pilgrims. We picture them toiling in the fields. We forget that they were uptight about sport, play and idle talk. We picture them sharing the bounty of their harvest with Indians. But we forget that they eventually slaughtered their Pequot and Wampanoag neighbors.

The Pilgrims were religious fundamentalists. They fled Europe in the name of religious liberty. They were also glad to escape the indolence of European culture. They saw labor as a religious calling. Hard work could prove worthiness for eternal life. Lazy idlers were not going to make it to heaven.

Few Puritans remain. Few see hard work as a religious duty. Even fewer believe that we should avoid playful amusements. Ironically, one of the most common places to hear the term “work ethic” is in sports, where we praise an athlete’s “work ethic.” How odd, to Puritan ears, that we have turned sport into ethical work!

The Puritans were ultimately focused on another realm of value — beyond work and recreation. For many of us, however, life simply is a round of working and consuming. And Thanksgiving has become a celebration of overeating, sports and consumerism.

The Pilgrims would be appalled. But one does not have to be a Puritan to recognize that there is something sad about a holiday devoted to eating, shopping and watching TV.

One of the fundamental problems of human life is that we are never satisfied — either with our work or with our play. When we are busy, we dream of vacation. When we are on vacation, we are anxious to get back to work. All November long we dream of Thanksgiving. But after four days of football, family and fattening foods, we are ready to get back to work.

Philosophers have long wondered about this paradoxical feature of our lives. Schopenhauer, the great pessimist of the 19th century, argued that life was either incessant toil or boring leisure. We slavishly work to create leisure. But when we have free time, we quickly fill it up with trivial games and amusements that are not worthy of human dignity. We work like dogs. And when we are not working, we behave like dogs.

The solution, of course, is to find work that you love and to fill your leisure with uplifting activity. There is something to be learned from the Puritans’ idea that work is a religious calling. If we discovered meaning in our work, then work would be something valued for its own sake, rather than a means to an end.

But the Puritan ethic has limits. There is menace in the missionary zeal of Puritans who condemn sports and other amusements in the name of redeeming time. The goal of finding meaningful work and uplifting recreation is important. But meaning cannot be imposed. It is created under conditions of liberty.

If there is something to work hard to defend, it is the idea that our time is our own. We redeem it according to our own best judgment. Some play; others pray. It’s up to each of us to decide how we want to spend our time. The idea of liberty led the Pilgrims away from Europe. We should be thankful today that we are free of the Pilgrims — free even to waste our time on pigskin and pumpkin pie.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/11/14/4235743/ethics-on-thanksgiving-be-thankful.html#storylink=cpy