Nihilism and Anti-natalism: Society's #1 Enemy

How do you find meaning in a cruel, meaningless world? Is it worth living in this kind of world? If not, then should we cease to exist? These are some of the questions I stumbled upon after look deeper into two feelings that surfaced in class while discussing some of the trends in families nowadays, fear and hopelessness. Throughout the week I decided to investigate both feelings and how they affect families, and I stumbled on, perhaps, some of the strongest concepts caused by these two, Nihilism and Anti-Natalism.

Nihilism is, in essence, the belief that life is meaningless. This concept fully embraces the idea that we came into existence out of chance, and that, once our life is over, there is nothing after it. I found hopelessness to be strongly tied to Nihilism because if we are here only by mere chance, and there is no purpose or meaning to our existence, then many things stop being relevant to people, and they simply take the most convenient route to achieve whatever they want. Yes, families are affected by Nihilism because if life is meaningless then nothing we do matters, and everyone should be out there looking after themselves. I have personally seen the effects of Nihilism in families, parents abandoning their children, their spouse or companion, infidelity, physical and mental abuse because it was easier to believe that none of these things matter in the end, rather than making efforts to improve these relationships. Does this sound familiar in a lot of communities? Do you know someone that has done this or has suffered through any of these cases? I have.

The second concept I studied, Anti-Natalism, states that humanity should stop having children because it is morally wrong. It claims that having children is wrong because we live in a cruel world, a world that does not care and is bound to make anyone born in it suffer, and advocates for sparing children the pain that they would inevitably go through just for living in this world, so the only solution to end the suffering is to cease to exist. The concept claims to be based on mercy, when, in my opinion, it is based on the fear to see someone you love suffering. However, this is not the only kind of fear that fuels anti-natalism, the fear of missing out in opportunities in love, work, education, among others is a strong factor that people consider when deciding to not have children, believing that by not having children they could be happier in life. Of course, no one wants to see their loved ones go through pain, or to lose promising opportunities, but by keeping children from being born, society would also keep the next great individuals from being born; people that would be great leaders, inventors, artists, people that might bring a better tomorrow. In consequence, society would become stagnated instead of thriving because its fear of what might be kept it from seeing things as they truly are.

Both Nihilism and Anti-Natalism are common among our communities, most people will never tell you that they believe in them, but, perhaps without noticing, they will engage in actions that promote these concepts. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, I know those things are wrong because I know that life is not meaningless, and that the world is not some planet-sized torture machine, but I’m afraid most people do not know these things, and they fall into self-destructive concepts such as the ones I’ve shared in this entry. It seems as if society tries to move forward, it has forgotten along the way the pillars that it was founded on.