Nihilism as a philosophical concept postulates the following ideas: there is no morality that is called real; nothing clearly indicates the existence of the supreme creator of all things; Being has no truth, there are no right and wrong actions, objectively their value is the same. As you might guess, a nihilist is a person who has become disillusioned with the world. Nihilism is the most sarcastic concept, hiding under the guise of cynicism the bitterness of disappointment in everything and the awareness of the futility of being.
West European Nihilism
The greatest distribution to this term was provided by the nihilists of the 19th century, since it was during this period that the nihilist movement acquired a particular scale both in Russia and in the West. The concept of "nihilism" was first introduced by F.G. Jacobi, a German philosopher. The most striking nihilist in the history of philosophy is undoubtedly Friedrich Nietzsche, who believes that the true world (as it should be in the opinion of pro-Christian thinkers) does not exist, that this is nothing more than an illusion, a fiction. O. Spengler owns the idea of the decline of European culture, the destruction of previous forms of consciousness. Another well-known nihilist is S. Kierkegaard, who believes that the Christian faith is undergoing a crisis, which is the reason for the spread of nihilistic views.
Nihilism in Russia of the 19th century
From the second half of the 19th century, a movement began to increase in Russia that denied the prevailing foundations of social society. The sixties raiders preached atheism and materialism and ridiculed religious ideology. The term "nihilism" gained the greatest popularity thanks to the well-known novel by I. Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons" and the nihilist Bazarov described in it. The general popular sentiment fully corresponded to the ideas of nihilism, which served to spread this term among the masses.
Psychological point of view
For those who are a little familiar with psychology and such a concept as psychological protection, it becomes obvious that nihilism is just a form of such protection.
In fact, a nihilist is a person who has despaired of searching for the meaning and reason for his being in the world. The surrounding reality does not correspond to the internal ideas of a person about what the true world should be, and this contradiction is reflected in the process of denial. So, nihilism and nihilists are analyzed from the point of view of deep psychology. A person is torn between two trends - the desire for freedom and the need for belonging to a group. The stronger the desire for freedom, the more lonely the individual feels on his way. E. Fromm's work “Escape from Freedom” describes the characteristics of a protective mechanism when a person inadequately perceives this freedom, namely, the desire to destroy the world (at least through denying it) and the desire to destroy himself thereby rejecting the meaning of his existence. Proponents of the bodily approach in psychology note the external characteristics of a nihilist: an ironic smirk, provocative behavior, ironic remarks. These are defensive reactions fixed in the past, which have remained in the traits of man.
Thus, nihilism is a person’s original response to what is happening in the world, a protective reaction in response to objectionable manifestations of the surrounding reality.
