When I was a wee lad back in high school, reading Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, the philosophical notion of “nihilism” had a perverse je ne sais quoi that held a certain appeal to a white middle-class suburban teenager looking for an innocent and bookish form of rebellion. The Sex Pistols blew that sense of innocence all to hell. Real nihilists, they seemed to say, are all in.
It’s hasn’t really been until now, in the 21st century, in the sixth year of the Obama presidency, that I’ve finally come to understand the true destructive nature of “real” nihilism. We have the current band of sociopaths leading the Republican Party – and nihilists they be -- to thank for that. How else to explain the collection of charlatans and ne'er-do-wells that appear dedicated solely to the careful, calculated and complete destruction of everything America has ever stood for?
These are people who deny global warming at the bidding of multi-national corporations; who deny evolution in defense of a 13th-century theology; who suffer no compunction even as they deny social and economic justice to those less fortunate than themselves.
These are people who rewrite history books rather than engage in an examination of our nation's mixed-bag record; who deny women choice and birth control because if you can’t have one why would you need the other; who lie about the reasons for war and then allow crocodile tears for the senseless deaths of soldiers to fall on the covers of their carefully carried -- yet little read -- Bibles.
These are people who look upon those devastated by the Great Recession and accuse them of being lazy and irresponsible; who look upon DREAMERS and call them anchors; who claimed for years that Barack Obama came from Kenya and then, when proven ridiculously wrong on that count, fell back on the claim that he’s a communist and a Muslim. Really? Really.
These are people who care for nothing. Truth means nothing. Morality and justice have no place in their ideology. Their Horatio Alger stories are a fantasy. Their “shining city on a hill” sits behind a closely-guarded locked gate.
And now they would have us believe that the deaths of Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin, and Oscar Grant, and Eric Garner, and Jordan Davis, and all the others, are actually the fault of the black community. That those boys and men needed to pull their pants up, get a job. That oppression and lack of opportunity are not what’s tearing apart a community and destroying a people. That needy children don’t carry painful memories of crumbling schools and empty bellies, of mistreatment and debasement, of dead fathers and uncles and cousins, with them into adulthood. That respect is not an issue.
Sure, the looting in Ferguson is unfortunate. But an undirected, misguided explosion of anger is to be expected when the real target of your frustration is armed and dangerous and would just as soon see you dead.
So the nihilists have succeeded in pitting us against one another, but I believe we’re taking sides along the wrong battle lines. The real war isn’t between black and white, the real war is between the haves and the have-nots. The nihilists hope you won’t notice.
Same as it ever was.