ABSTRACT
Popular titles on nihilism in the market today are as bleak as they are catchy. They shock. They scandalise. More importantly, they sell. They appeal to the morbid fascination behind the claims that God is dead, life is meaningless, morality is a sham, and human beings have no intrinsic purpose. But are these claims as bad and as threatening as they seem to be? This book argues that these notorious views, as well as our ‘human, all too human’ urges to indulge them, are a result of a misguided understanding of nihilism. This chapter surveys the sensationalist public image of nihilism. It shows how the concept is employed pejoratively by almost all philosophers (and religious leaders) to indicate a widespread cultural crisis of truth, meaning, or morals, as well as within extreme and sensationalist philosophies and countercultural agendas. It begins to cast doubt on the assumption that nihilism is something to fear, or a problem which human culture should overcome by way of seeking, discovering, or making meaning.
