| There is a popular definition of "nihilism" which is "the belief that life has no meaning" but for Nietzsche, and most existentialists that followed, there was a much more insidious nihilism that this comment embodies. For Nietzsche and thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir it is a fact that "life has no meaning and we all die", the real question is "what do you do with this?". For both of these thinkers real nihilism is "pretending this isn't happening". Nietzsche is often partially quoted saying "God is dead" as though it's some sort of atheistic battle cry, but it's not that at all. The full quote is: > God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? Nietzsche is pointing out that the old way we used to deal with existential despair was religion. This is how meaning was created. But like it or not that system of meaning is largely gone and cannot be trivially replaced. Nietzsche's entire life's work is about confronting this existential horror and coming up with new ways to live. de Beauvoir, in The Ethics of Ambiguity, goes on to catalog all the strategies we have for dealing with this problem. Pointing out that nihilism ultimately leads to the rise of Nazism. Likewise far right extremism in the US can be viewed as a natural reaction to the failure of systems of meaning across the US. The point being is that when you see articles like this, your response doesn't have to be and should not be merely to dismiss it until you feel better. For a great overview of this perspective of nihilism I highly recommend Nolan Gertz's Nihilism from the MIT Press |