My response to ‘Optimistic Nihilism’, a YouTube video by the channel Kurzgesagt which espouses a philosophy of the same name. Throughout, I’m going to be discussing Optimistic Nihilism as it’s represented by Kurzgesagt; I don’t know if it enjoys an intellectual life beyond the channel. The featured image and all unlabelled quotations are taken from this video, which you can find below.
My argument with Optimistic Nihilism is that it trades intuitive truths about God and life for an attractive humanist fantasy. Optimistic Nihilism distorts the institution of science to justify its metaphysical prejudice against a Creator. It banishes God, embraces complete ethical relativism, and so arrives at some of the worst moral teaching I have ever had the misfortune to clap eyes upon. It falls victim to unqualified faith in the unqualified hubris of the scientific-atheistic worldview in its scramble to allay the fundamental human fear that life is meaningless.
The Logical Error
Here’s Kurzgesagt’s narrative. After our accidental bursting forth into consciousness, the human race grew in knowledge and wisdom. We learnt of the incomprehensible size and scale and age of the cosmos, and we learnt that we aren’t a notable part of it. We learnt that our place in history is brief, that our lives are chance events and that our actions are inconsequential. “We learnt that the twinkling lights are not shining beautifully for us, they just are”.
Do you see the logical bait-and-switch here?
Claim: Gaining scientific knowledge about the universe allows us to infer about its design and intended purpose (or lack thereof).
Within Kurzgesagt’s argument, that sounds like this:
The universe is large and old, therefore human life is without purpose or meaning.
That’s simply not the case. Astronomical knowledge cannot equip us with any relevant insight by which to decide whether or not there is a Creator. Increased knowledge about the natural world has not conferred to us any factual information about the universe’s purpose, or ours. The function of science is to observe observable things, not to infer about non-observable realities from those observations. Learning that the stars are distant balls of gas rather than holes in the cosmic ceiling does not tell us anything about the intended purpose or design of those actual stars. We cannot infer anything new about the value of human life from learning that the universe is vast and ancient. They are unrelated variables.
It irks me that we pretend nihilism is scientific. Kurzgesagt make it seem that as humans develop intellectually, they inevitably come to reject belief in God and accept that the universe is purposeless. That’s not true.
Optimistic Nihilism wants us to believe that we are too mature to believe in God. We are to think that belief in God belongs to a less evolved people. We are to believe wholeheartedly in the human race, who through their scientific method and maturity of thought have achieved insight enough to prove that God is not real and that life is but a beautiful accident. That’s not true either.
The Rejection of Intuition
Here’s the thing. Human beings begin with deep, intuitive notions about life. We know intuitively that our lives are significant, that our actions matter, that there is a right way to live. We act as though that is self-evidently true. We passionately feel that we were made for a purpose. Something in us produces the strongest conviction that a higher reality exists, and our whole being longs to taste it. We are filled to the brim with unearthly longings. On the evidence of every story our species has ever told, we know that the universe was created by a Creator, and with purpose.
People start from a position of belief in Higher Things, and all that that entails. Optimistic Nihilism acknowledges these intuitions, and it rejects them. Kurzgesagt don’t provide a good reason for doing so: they just call God improbable and move on. Which kind of grinds my gears.
Over 70 years ago, C.S. Lewis spoke to this same issue:
“‘Evolution itself,’ [Professor D.M.S. Watson] wrote, ‘is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or…can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.’ Has it come to that? Does the whole vast structure of modern naturalism depend not on positive evidence but simply on an a priori metaphysical prejudice? Was it devised not to get in facts but to keep out God?”
– C.S. Lewis, ‘Is Theology Poetry?’
I understand that scientific atheists today may be unhappy with Watson’s ageing representation of them, but I think the point still stands. It all comes down to a motivated assumption of belief.
Belief in Optimistic Nihilism requires you to oust your innate beliefs, to make a logical leap where scientific evidence cannot assist. The only way to make that leap is by first having a motivation to disbelieve in God. What motivation could suffice for this? We are filled to the brim with unearthly longings, and we are devastated when we can’t find anything with which to fill them. The response of the nihilists is to flee to the fortress of scientific cynicism and call everything foolishness.
The Beautiful Myth
Listen to the narrative entire. I’ll turn again to that old master, C.S. Lewis, to give the myth its full treatment. He weaves the spell better than I ever could. Apologies for the length of the quote, but it’s important to get a sense of the grandeur of the ideas we’re throwing around here.
“The play is preceded by the most austere of all preludes: the infinite void, and matter restlessly moving to bring forth it knows not what. Then, by the millionth millionth chance – what tragic irony – the conditions at one point of space and time bubble up into that tiny fermentation which is the beginning of life. Everything seems to be against the infant hero of our drama – just as everything seems against the youngest son or ill-used stepdaughter at the opening of a fairy-tale. But life somehow wins through. With infinite suffering, against all but insuperable obstacles, it spreads, it breeds, it complicates itself, from the amoeba up to the plant, up to the reptile, up to the mammal. We glance briefly at the age of monsters. Dragons prowl the earth, devour one another, and die…As the weak, tiny spark of life began amidst the huge hostilities of the inanimate, so now again, amidst the beasts that are far larger and stronger than he, there comes forth a little naked, shivering, cowering creature, shuffling, not yet erect, promising nothing, the product of another millionth millionth chance. Yet somehow he thrives. He becomes the Cave Man with his club and his flints, muttering and growling over his enemies’ bones, dragging his screaming mate by her hair (I never could quite make out why), tearing his children to pieces in fierce jealousy till one of them is old enough to tear him, cowering before the horrible gods whom he created in his own image. But these are only growing pains. Wait till the next act. There he is becoming true Man. He learns to master Nature. Science comes and dissipates the superstitions of his infancy. More and more he becomes the controller of his own fate. Passing hastily over the present (for it is a mere nothing by the time scale we are using), you follow him on into the future. See him in the last act, though not the last scene, of this great mystery. A race of demigods now rules the planet — and perhaps more than the planet — for eugenics have made certain that only demigods will be born, and psychoanalysis that none of them shall lose or smirch his divinity, and communism that all which divinity requires shall be ready to their hands. Man has ascended his throne. Henceforward he has nothing to do but to practise virtue, to grow in wisdom, to be happy. And now, mark the final stroke of genius. If the myth stopped at that point, it might be a little pathetic. It would lack the highest grandeur of which human imagination is capable. The last scene reverses all. We have the Twilight of the Gods. All this time, silently, unceasingly, out of all reach of human power, Nature, the old enemy, has been steadily gnawing away. The sun will cool – all suns will cool – the whole universe will run down. Life (every form of life) will be banished, without hope of return, from every inch of infinite space. All ends in nothingness, and “universal darkness covers all.” The pattern of the myth thus becomes one of the noblest we can conceive.’
‘Such a world drama appeals to every part of us. The early struggles of the hero (a theme delightfully doubled, played first by life, and then by man) appeal to our generosity. His future exaltation gives scope to a reasonable optimism, for the tragic close is so very distant that you need not often think of it — we work with millions of years. And the tragic close itself just gives that irony, that grandeur, which calls forth our defiance, and without which all the rest might cloy. There is a beauty in this myth which well deserves better poetic handling than it has yet received; I hope some great genius will yet crystallise it before the incessant stream of philosophic change carries it all away. I am speaking, of course, of the beauty it has whether you believe it or not. There I can speak from experience, for I, who believe less than half of what it tells me about the past, and less than nothing of what it tells me about the future, am deeply moved when I contemplate it. “
– C.S. Lewis, ‘Is Theology Poetry?’
It’s remarkable how little this debate has changed in the last 70 years. The ‘Scientific Outlook’ of Lewis’ day is singing very much from the same hymn sheet as Kurzgesagt.
Kurzgesagt’s account of the past is compelling, and their vision of the future intoxicating. Humanity can do anything and go anywhere, limited only by the scope of our imagination and the cleverness of our hands.
Kurzgesagt’s narrative is convenient for the present. It requires no faith, content to believe in the existence of only that which the eyes can see. It requires no action, content to believe that no ultimate consequences exist. It requires no submission, content to exalt ourselves to godhood and moral authorship.
It’s far better to convince ourselves that talk of God is all childhood foolishness and fairy stories. It’s far easier to swallow the lie and lose ourselves in the fantasy of the self.
The Counter to Existential Dread
Ultimately, Optimistic Nihilism is a response to a fundamental human insecurity: that our lives are meaningless within a purposeless universe. It sedates this fear, unconventionally, by embracing that same purposelessness and meaninglessness. Death is approaching from down the tracks, inevitable, final. We have oblivion to look forward to – all of our experiences, along with all the mistakes we’ve made and bad things we’ve done, will be swept away, poured unceremoniously into the void.
From that, this:
“If our life is the only thing we get to experience, then it’s the only thing that matters. If the universe has no principles, the only principles relevant are the ones we decide on. If the universe has no purpose, then we get to dictate what its purpose is.”
“If this is our one shot at life, there is no reason to not have fun, and to live as happily as possible. Bonus points if you make the lives of other people better. More bonus points if you help build a galactic human empire. Do the things that make you feel good. You get to decide whatever this means for you.”
Take a second with me
Let it sink in
sink
in
… so
Let’s hash it out. The inevitable fact of ultimate human obliteration means we ought to adopt complete ethical relativism. The scale of the universe means each person gets total moral anonymity. Disbelief in an immortal soul or in resurrection means there are no lasting consequences for any of our actions. Disbelief in a Creator means we don’t have to submit to any kind of moral order. We become endowed with godlike authority to live by moral codes of our own devising and second-by-second revising. And unto each of us is bestowed the freedom to totally disregard the idea of moral living altogether.
Subjective Experience is king. If each of us end in obliteration, all moral progress and all moral behaviour is ultimately pointless. In fact, every pursuit is ultimately pointless. Therefore, the only thing left for us nihilists, optimistic or no, is the pursuit of our own happiness above all else. A fresh gospel for our utopia in the stars: accept yourself as you are and do things that make you happy.
Perhaps that sounds utopian to some…?
I’m not going to try to argue for the existence of the spirit or the resurrection of the body, nor the certainty of any sort of eternal consequence for our actions. I’m just going to point out that if we were to actual live out Kurzgesagt’s moral relativist vision, we would each abominate even our own ethical standards. It is so obvious a truth that I barely need to say it: “do the things that make you feel good” is terrible, terrible advice! What makes me feel good is not what is good for me. A four-year-old could tell you this. Bad advice! I repeat, bad advice! Fortunately, people don’t seem to actually live like this, by and large, checking their behaviour only against the goodness of the feeling it produces in them. It must require a great deal of concentration.
Intellectual Humility/Hubris
And so, lastly. Scientific atheism claims to know, solely by virtue of human reasoning, that God does not exist. Nihilism claims to know, solely by virtue of human philosophical insight, that there is no purpose, moral or otherwise, to the universe. Reflecting on our human frailty, isn’t it far wiser to not claim definitive knowledge of these things? Christianity, at least, does not claim to know anything based on what people alone can work out. That seems a bit more realistic to me: it doesn’t require me to decide upon the emptiness of everything on the strength of astronomy.
While I profoundly disagree with their underpinning philosophy, I love the Kurzgesagt channel. It’s like they were tailor made for me – thoughtful commentary on interesting social/sci-fi topics, beautifully packaged. And I am a real sucker for high quality animation. Recently, their videos have carried more atheistic bias, and I would rather that were not so. And it’s downright irresponsible to preach such poor moral advice to such a massive viewership. Even still, I appreciate the time and effort they put into discussion of scientific, and now philosophical, ideas.
Also, I respect how they refused their opportunity to put down any other worldviews in their video. It is fashionable these days to be an atheist who makes fun of faith, but they didn’t. They believe that faith is the mother’s milk of the species, which we are soon to be weaned off. I believe they’re wrong. But we can still be pleasant about it. Hey, they were at least polite in their statement of God’s non-existence.
chumpishly 