Nihilism is a term around which orbits a body of beliefs, all connoting the rejection of traditional religious faiths, moral principles, and political arrangements. Derived from the Latin nihil (nothing), it has been used in English at least since 1817. At base it is the belief in nothing, as opposed to the absence of belief.

In metaphysics, nihilism is an extreme form of skepticism that denies existence. It can be traced to the ancient Greek sophist, Gorgias, who held that nothing exists; but even if something existed, it would be unknowable; and even if it were knowable, it could not be communicated. In ethics, nihilism is associated with the Marquis de Sade and Friedrich Nietzsche and involves the repudiation of all norms derived from divine revelation, classical philosophy, and social custom. Virtuous behavior for Nietzsche’s Übermensch or superman is not to obey received mores of natural law, but to “will his own desire as a law for himself.”

In nineteenth-century politics, nihilism became associated with the radical Russian intelligentsia who, during the 1860s and 1870s, denied all authority over the individual but affirmed terrorism to promote science, materialism, and revolutionary change in behalf of “the People,” abstractly conceived. Perhaps the most celebrated nihilist is a fictional character, Bazarov in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1862). Although repudiated by his creator, Bazarov became a paragon for a whole generation of radicals. The character was probably modeled on the Russian literary critic V. G. Belinsky (1811–48), who was noted for the enthusiasm with which he defended his frequently changing convictions.

In twentieth-century politics, nihilism is associated with fascist and Nazi doctrines, especially since the latter are linked to aspects of Nietzsche’s thought.

Many Americans on the Right assume that nihilism is a European export, foreign to their country’s values, institutions, and traditions. In a sense this assumption is true. But conservative denunciations of nihilism are not restricted to the left-wing disciples of Nietzsche, Bazarov, and the Marquis de Sade. Nihilism is a protean concept, adaptable to changing historical contexts. Within conservative discourse, the idea is used to assail radical apologies for modern, capitalistic political economies. The nihilistic implications behind Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, for example, have long been criticized in such conservative journals as National Review and the Intercollegiate Review.

Irving Kristol has written one of the most frequently cited conservative critiques of nihilism. One aim of his Two Cheers for Capitalism (1978) was to expose the apparent inability of libertarianism to oppose nihilism in principle. Kristol called attention to the fact that modern liberal democracies are rational and secular to a hitherto unprecedented degree. “Modern, liberal, secular society,” he noted, “is based on the revolutionary premise that there is no superior, authoritative information available about the good life or the true nature of human happiness [worked out, for instance, by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas], that this information is implicit only in individual preferences, and that therefore the individual has to be free to develop and express these preferences” in the marketplace. Unfortunately, in the marketplace just about anything goes if it sells—including, ironically, those books and magazines, recordings and television shows that are subversive to the very idea of ordered freedom. Kristol believed that most libertarians—even those of the caliber of Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman—had not sufficiently answered the nihilistic challenge in the unregulated marketplace.

Also, libertarianism’s silence in the face of secularization renders it impotent to oppose nihilism. Modern liberal democracies are increasingly neutral in matters of religion. The widespread disestablishment of religion in the West, asserted Kristol, has probably contributed to “a diminution of religious faith and a growing skepticism about the traditional consolations of religion.” Ironically, once the religious spirit is weakened—especially where that spirit is characterized by the Puritan or Protestant ethos—such esteemed values as honesty, sobriety, diligence, and thrift begin to wane in the marketplace.

Ultimately, however, the secularization of modern life has given rise to “the blithe and mindless self-destruction of bourgeois society which we are witnessing today.” The real enemy of liberal capitalistic societies, wrote Kristol, is not socialism but nihilism: “Only liberal capitalism doesn’t see nihilism as an enemy, but rather as just another splendid business opportunity.” That is the challenge, according to Kristol, to which most Austrian economists and committed libertarians have “no answer.” Since few apologists for libertarianism have responded satisfactorily to the dangers of nihilism in the marketplace, Kristol is willing to give only “two cheers” for capitalism.

While some conservative discourse has been directed at the nihilistic implications of the secularized free market, most has been focused on the decadence of post-1968 American culture. Here the religious Right has been especially vocal. Among Catholics a landmark essay on nihilism is Michael Novak’s The Experience of Nothingness (1970), which sharply critiques the widespread debasement of meaning and value in American culture. The cinema, television, and music industry have been virtual midwives to nihilistic sentiments. As a result, argues Novak, America “is a civilization of massive dissolution.” Among Protestants, books such as Jerry Falwell’s Listen, America! (1980) and Charles Colson’s The Struggle for Men’s Hearts and Minds (1986) and Against the Night (1989) have also assailed the nihilistic currents in contemporary American morals and manners.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the Right has been influenced by a number of culture critics who, while themselves not “movement conservatives,” have written penetrating critiques of American culture. Works like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s A World Split Apart (1978), Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind (1987), Jacques Barzun’s The Culture We Deserve (1989), and John Silber’s Straight Shooting (1989), among others, have stimulated conservative responses to spiritual malaise, decadent culture, and the mass media. Anymore, the proselytes of nihilism do not have to be imported from Europe; they are home grown. Bloom noted, for example, that filmmaker “Woody Allen helps to make us feel comfortable with nihilism, to be imported from Europe; they are home grown. Bloom noted, for example, that filmmaker “Woody Allen helps to make us feel comfortable with nihilism, to Americanize it.”

• Cunningham, Conor. A Genealogy of Nihilism: Philosophies of Nothing and the Difference of Theology. New York: Routledge, 2002.
• Hibbs, Thomas S. Shows about Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld. Dallas: Spence Publishing, 1999.
• Rosen, Stanley. Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay. 2nd ed. South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2000.