An Increase in Nihilism Plays Havoc With Mental Health | Psychology Today

To understand some of the puzzling trends in recent American literature, it helps to have a basic knowledge of the so-called “post-structuralist” theory that took hold in U.S. English departments in the 1960s. This theory, at its heart, is nihilistic—nothing can be trusted, nothing is certain, nothing is as it seems.

In the West, where religion was already losing its grip, nihilistic thinkers have succeeded, to a degree that might have surprised even them, in undermining the foundations of civilization itself, calling its most fundamental values and tenets into question. The founding mythologies of nations, cherished stories of heroism and or goodness past or present, the ideals that make life, for most of us, understandable and rewarding, were “interrogated,” judged to be naïve and or perfidious, then pulverized and dumped on the landfill of history.

Source: An Increase in Nihilism Plays Havoc With Mental Health | Psychology Today

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