The Tortured Nihilist
On Intellectual Spite and the Ego of the Modern Nihilist
My time on Substack has exposed me to so many incredible individuals and artists. It has truly been a pleasure to indulge in all of the incredible work on here. However, one style of writer frequently appears in my feed, whether that be through notes or posts: the forced cynic. These accounts masquerade as the tortured artist, sharing their poems and reflections around heartbreak and misery (often without invitation) in the comments of others’ work. They will seemingly speak from a place of higher intellect, making sure to impose this idea on the reader that they, in fact, have experienced the world in its truest form and barely survived to tell the tale. Now, this is already quite annoying, not just in part to an overuse of cliches and rather cringeworthy metaphors, but also due to the potential harm it could cause in their later work.
The pursuit of hyper-consciousness, often framed as a pursuit for the absolute truth of existence, often results in the individual confining themselves in a self-made cage of cynicism: rejecting not only the idea of a possible fulfilling existence, but the entire idea that it is an ideal worth pursuing. This always brings me back to my favourite book of all time, and the protagonist who guides us through this first-person account of a life lived in self-imposed turmoil. A piece of work so powerful that it changed my own outlook on life and is a constant reminder of how life could be: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground.
The False Hyper-Consciousness
The unnamed protagonist, often referred to as “The Underground Man”, famously asserts that “to be conscious is an illness, a real, thorough-going illness”. He has reached this state of awareness through years of exhaustive deciphering and observation, forcing him towards a life of nihilistic living. For many, this realisation, that consciousness has led to an inherent suffering within the human experience, is not a radical claim: in fact, it has often been the launching pad for many thinkers to acknowledge this suffering and to find a way to negate its effects. However, this is not the aim of The Underground Man. Our protagonist has set out his nihilistic claims and now not only lives by them, but actively rejects any attempt from others to pull him from this pit.
As stated, whilst this claim does hold weight, it does not mean it is a claim to live by on its own. In fact, this refusal to accept that, although life may be predominantly suffering, it can still be worth living, is not the sign of a higher-intellectual: it is instead the sign of someone who is scared to tackle that which holds them back. This awareness (and subsequent rejection of anything more) acts as a barrier: it protects them from feeling it necessary to solve the problem, and as such, this individual might claim to have come to a profound understanding about life, when in reality they are restricting themselves from living that same life they claim to know better than anyone.
The Ego of The Nihilist
There is a profound and hidden egoism that drives this position, as those who adopt this perspective will often frame it as a form of knowledge that they alone have uncovered: they believe that those who view the world as holding any sort of positive traits or experiences are merely blind to the truth, and that they themselves are now cursed to traverse life separated from this illusion. Again, this is passed off as the position of a higher-intellectual, and yet they appear to simultaneously reject the idea that someone can both hold this position and continue to examine life and find meaning within it. This is the position of The Underground Man, as he believes that his nihilistic stance is a natural part of his self-proclaimed intellect. This leads him to embarrass himself in social settings, forcing his apparent uninterest in the social world onto groups of people: most notably, a group of old classmates who invite him to dinner, only for The Underground Man to try (and fail) to ruin the group’s evening. They simply ignore him, whilst he scrambles to follow them to their next location to continue this pursuit, ultimately losing the group along the way.
There is also much to be said about these individuals often coming to this nihilistic conclusion through experiences that many suffer from: the likes of heart break, rejection and failure, which are so common within the human experience that it has been the muse of many artists to create and, as such, reconnect with the honesty of living that this position, ironically, seems to reject. Yet, the egoism that fuels this position supersedes this, and as such, these experiences, which most can relate to, are framed as being unrelatable to anyone but the individual holding this worldview.
The Death of Life
The problem with this position is that it offers no way forward. Those who adopt it merely do so to use it as an excuse to retreat. The Underground Man, to reference him again, is met with a handful of opportunities to experience a true human connection - something that can cure this nihilistic stance - and yet he chooses to reject them, seeing it better to live within his worldview than to participate in the more positive worldviews of others. The leading example of this within the novella is when The Underground Man meets a prostitute by the name of Liza: she is assumed by The Underground Man to hate her life, and yet she rejects his nihilistic perspective. Instead, she shows compassion and care for The Underground Man, even showing up at his home upon his request after spending the night together. This baffles him, and he cannot understand why she won’t break, at one point even appearing to show care for Liza as well. This is quickly squashed once he realises that he is now venturing out with his life-defining nihilism, but it brings forth an interesting insight: this nihilism, although initially held through his previous experiences, becomes forced when the opportunity to escape is presented. The Underground Man must force his own ideology on himself as it has become all he has, and as such, the opportunity to experience some form of happiness is also rejected.
As stated previously, this can be seen clearly in those who force this position: their justification and framing are clearly shown to be over-exaggerations that the individual now wishes to use to fuel the “tortured artist” persona they wish to adopt. It is not subtle, and to those outside of this position, it reads not as a profound understanding of what it is to be human, but instead as a rejection of what it is to be human.
The Choice of Underground-ism
This “underground” detachment from what life can offer is a choice. The fall into nihilism, whether through true hardship or through an over-exaggeration of normative experience, is a refusal to continue the pursuit of humanity. It is an acceptance of where you now lie and a reaffirmation that it is here that you wish to stay. The truth is that a life lived this way is not a life lived, but is a life quelled by fear, and to continue in this vein will not lead to an outside appearance of mystery and sophistication, but instead it will show how scared you are of your own human condition.
Mmm. I think I can look back at my life and see a period in which I would have been called a nihilist. That version was a very unhealed version but still something I experienced. This piece was very poignant. My nihilism was born from trauma and healed through therapy and deep introspection. Thanks for sharing.
Nihilism has always struck me as a form of intellectual laziness. It confronts the absence of divine meaning and responds not with responsibility or creativity, but with a refusal to take ownership of one’s own life by forging meaning where none is given. What makes this posture particularly grating is the air of superiority with which it is often defended: caring, striving, or attempting to create one’s own meaning is dismissed as naïve—a lesser form of existence. And then they use it as an excuse for their lapses in manners. Get off of it and give me a break😩 (Love your work as always)