“Whatever.”
You say it breathlessly, maybe waiving a cigarette in the air. A roll of the eyes, a small head shake. All that matters is that whatever the topic is, it goes away as soon as possible, rolling off your shoulders like a passing rain. There’s a heaviness on your heart that matches the gloom outside that not even your ethically sourced coffee, so much better than that mass-produced brown water at the chain down the street, can pierce.
Whatever, man. You don’t care. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. We roll on, trying to find something that’s true, authentic, real. Maybe you’ll care about that, if you ever find it, if it even exists. Maybe.
If you came of age in the late 80s and early 90s, you are likely more than familiar with this sentiment. A world-weariness that wields detachment like a shield. For the danger of caring is that you may get hurt. And the danger of actually seeking out that which you need instead of just passively waiting for it to come to you is that it takes work, and work is a total bummer.
“Ennui” is a term for this attitude that gets thrown around a lot, probably because the use of French can give what is essentially self-abuse an air of sophistication. I remember seeing a bumper sticker from time to time that read, and I kid you not, “I’d Rather Be Masturbating.” It was a fitting slogan for the time, less sophisticated than how our Gallic brothers and sisters might have put it but a more, let’s say, American crystallization of the attitude: “Nothing matters, the people running the world, as well as my fellow citizens in it, are all idiots, so rather than participate in this mockery of civilization I’d be better off playing with myself.”
At the time, I thought it was funny in an edgy, subversive, shocking way, the kind of humor a fourteen-year-old finds transgressive, similar to going into the middle of a family gathering and yelling out the F-word. However, the deeper implications were lost on me then but now I realize that an entire generation has, indeed, taken the bumper sticker’s slogan at face value and demonstrated what economists like to call revealed preferences.
The thing is, by not caring about anything and retreating into self-imposed isolation, jerking it is the ultimate outcome. Unless you’re a monk, preserving knowledge, brewing beer and making cheese, and getting closer to God while praying for the world, you’re just putting yourself in the cage prepared for you by the rulers of this world. And we all know what the caged animal does in captivity. Spanking it while the world burns.
Retreat is a selfish act. It abandons the future without a fight. Actively not caring about what will happen because you’ll be dead is peak atomized individual, the idea that nothing that happens outside of you is important, or even real. Succumbing to the mentality that there is no such thing as a tribe or a nation or a civil society or a greater good is not mature, realistic acceptance of how things are, but a total capitulation to it.
“Voting doesn’t matter! Democracy is for dummies!” Okay. But those dummies are still the ones doing stuff to you. Is it more sophisticated and enlightened to just give them this power over you? Have you no sense of honor, of dignity, of spite to maybe use this process to prove its ridiculousness? Or maybe, just maybe, at a certain level, you can affect your state and local elections to the point where the people in charge can actually make a positive difference?
“The world is full of idiots and morons! Why should I care about them?” Then just go jump off of a cliff already and save us all the food, water, electricity, and oxygen you’re using up. If that’s really how you feel, then see you later by.
“Our culture is a sewer!” Here’s one instance where your indifference helps. Don’t give money to people who hate you. But at the same time, you have a chance to support people who don’t, to spread the word about them, and to create that which you want to see in the world. The ability to make something out of nothing is one spark of the divine we are given that no amount of foolishness in the halls of government and industry can take away from us, for it is a gift from the Almighty. If you don’t think there’s enough beauty in the world, go make some.
If you are involved in any sort of artistic endeavor, if you dare to call yourself an artist, then you have to care. You have to care a lot. You have to feel. You have to have a vested interest in the outcome of things. You have to see the world beyond the contours of your member. You have to get into the arena and take chances and risk being hurt. Stop being such a wimp.
To care is to invite pain and heartbreak. But it is also the only chance to feel the thrill of victory, of mastery, of competence. Bored indifference or ironic attachment is a plague that has befallen at least two generations, and is yet another reason not to romanticize the 1990s or pine for that decade’s return.
The Internet and social media provides ample opportunity to play a character, to maybe take one aspect of your personality and turn into the whole. There is danger, naturally, that this persona will bleed over into the real world, the character will subsume the actor, and the authenticity of one’s being will be threatened by the self-imposed role. Everybody wears different masks from time to time in different situations, but these masks, like those of Comedy and Tragedy we are all so familiar with from antiquity, are situational and do not replace one’s core entirely.
These personae, however, provide yet another shield against the dangers of vulnerability. There is no need to betray what one really thinks or feels when one can allude to it through hints and insinuations that may or may not slip through the cracks of smirking indifference. And whether they do or whether they don’t. . . . whatever.
It is true that a religious fervor of caring so much that it turns into tyranny is a besetting vice of the past twenty years. But this is because the religion of those undertaking this particular moral crusade is one of vice, malice, hatred, and envy. It is the recrudescence of the same impulse we saw in 1917, in 1848, in 1789. It is the Christian impulse minus Christ, the thing we were told would lead to heaven on Earth but which invariably leads to death camps and slaughter.
So take a hard look at yourself. Take stock of what it is you are made of. Are you a full-fledged, autonomous, thinking and feeling human being, or are you a meat puppet easily distracted by consumer gadgets and endless entertainment options that reflect your nihilistic attitude? When they come for you, when they find you, whoever “they” are and supposing “they” win, will they find you ready, willing, and able to fight and die for what you know is right and good and true? Or will they find you hunched over your phone, hand to the gland, squeaking “Not now, guys!”
– Alexander
Another fantastic post. You have developed a very effective sharpness for properly displaying the image and feelings of the modern man. At a glance, it feels humorous- but then quickly gets depressing.
I lived my 20s entrenched in the kind of snooty nihilism you describe. You've captured it well.
I think the point (maybe accidentally) implied by this post is that people need to understand that their lives have purpose. After that, nihilism is impossible