Content Warning: Nihilism/nihilistic ideation
Immortality is divisive; there are those who chase it with projects and aspirations to leave a legacy behind, and there are those who are struggling to live life as is. For the former, theories like Terror Management help to explain how immortality projects help us live a life that is meaningfully generative. This group actively looks for a contribution to life that lives beyond us as a way of immortalizing ourselves and thus, placating their death anxiety (Worm at the Core).
While Terror Management seems to explain this population well, I question its
Thred’s, “Nihilism”
applicability to the other group, a population that seems to be turning increasingly nihilistic. Class last week affirmed this idea when multiple peers agreed that chasing immortality isn’t of interest because many of us are struggling to want to live now. My extrapolation comes from a non representative population, so I outsourced to see if this feeling of struggling to engage with current life (let alone immortality) is reciprocated amongst others.
Thred, a social change website/art platform (see image to right and below), published an article in May 2022 that observes this same phenomena. They write that, “climate change, political turmoil, growing wealth inequality, and many more knock-on capitalist trends have caused a rise in nihilistic attitudes” especially amongst young people.
Thred’s, “Nihilism”
Overwhelmed with caring about so many devastating things, nihilism (at its most extreme) points to not caring at all. It seems as though the sentiment of my last blog post is relevant here too: I struggle to think about the future when I am drowning in the present. It seems extreme, but walk across any corner of the UW campus, and I can almost guarantee students parroting the phrases “I don’t care anymore”, “I’m tired”, “I’ve given up”, “I just can’t”, “There’s too much”.
So what implications does many’s turn towards nihilistic-like behaviors/attitudes have for TMT/death anxiety? Well, as I said last week, I’m still baking this thought (and thus, encourage others to test it/push back if it does not resonate). For right now, I’ve conceptualized it like this: it appears that for individuals (especially youth) turning towards nihilistic-like attitudes, death anxiety is disrupted by numbness. Instead of death anxiety, it more closely resembles death apathy. If this is true, I also wonder whether or not this manifests in physical consequences (becoming more risk-acceptant/engaging in less generative behaviors).
Image Description (first): A neon green background with varying neon pink skulls centered around one larger gray skull. There are yellow motion lines around skulls, signifying movement.
Image Description (second): A spiral background made of light and dark green. In the middle is a hand holding a skull, shaded and outlined in red. There are also red squiggles around the skull.