How large of a role has unacknowledged nihilism played in the pandemic?
I spend quite a bit of time trying to grasp why we’ve arrived at our present state, why we collectively allowed so much destruction to take place, and why we allow it to continue. The total apathy that most people have for the victims of lockdowns, school closures, socially-disruptive quarantine protocols, mask/vaccine mandates is shocking, even now. No one really seems to care. Why? “Free-floating anxiety” is a precondition for the descent into a mass formation psychosis, as Dr. Malone and others tell us. But what alleviates this anxiety? I believe the answer is destruction and suffering. Which is why so much destruction and suffering has been inflicted. The great mass of people, upper middle class, above-average intelligence, have been drifting through life with an unacknowledged nihilism. They feel a black emptiness at the edges of their lives, kept at bay by steadily and unceasingly gorging on the empty cultural calories that our social order produces in great abundance. This being unable to nourish the spirit, the anxiety develops, the psychological splinter that gives birth to untethered nihilism, untethered unhappiness, perpetual discontent. Someone in this state seeks solace in the suffering of others, their anemic spirit finds temporary relief from their sourceless anxiety. Look at the state of art today, nothing more than graphic depictions of suffering.
The pandemic erupted amid a perfect cultural storm, where there existed a spiritually and morally lobotomized, credentialed professional class, who exhibit all the symptoms of free-floating anxiety/unacknowledged nihilism, and who latched onto the pandemic as their latest salvation. The suffering that emerged from the pandemic response has been a feature for them, a source of sustenance. The drama, the anchored fear, the anchored anxiety, has been like psychological heroin to these people, alleviating the unanchored fear and anxiety that has pursued them their entire adult lives. The nihilist feeds on the suffering of others, whether he knows it or not.
