Combatting Nihilism

I was going to write about something else this week. But then I watched a random video on YouTube just about nihilism.

Maybe it’s worth just refreshing myself on the definition: “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.”

I don’t think it would be an understatement, to be honest, that I was a nihilist for much of my later teens. And in many ways, it’s an understandable (note not justified) conclusion to have about the world. On the macro level, systems of racial capitalism and imperialism have left the planet on the verge of disaster for those in the Global South (if not already experiencing climate crises). Empires play pawns with our fellow colonized nations (including New Afrika and indigenous nations here in the US). We’ve lived through multiple economic crises because of capitalism’s traits, a pandemic, and the expansion of the surveillance state. On a micro level, universities peddle to us this selfish attitude about the fact that the world is off to ruin, and therefore in the time we have, we should get our own, make our money, and disregard anyone outside our immediate spheres of influence.

Without an understanding of dialectical materialism, or at the very base level a clear analysis of the implications of capitalism, it’s so easy to continue to just say screw it all, nothing matters, religion is…