Why I Hate Nihilists

Actually, as you can probably tell, I don't hate nihilists. That just seemed like a good click-bait title for a post about internalized prejudice. You've surely heard of the topic of internalized prejudices before, probably in the context of racism or sexism. As you've heard, just because you belong to a certain group of people is no guarantee that you will see that group positively. If you grow up in a society that portrays people with your skin color or your chromosomes (etc.) in a negative light, to some extent you're going to think that your group and you yourself are no good, just as you were taught. You might for instance feel with great certainty that, while it's acceptable and barely noticeable for other people to express their culture, their attractions, their beliefs, their gender, if you were to express yours, it would be too political, confrontational, or abrasive. 

I know I have this sort of internalized disdain for my own beliefs, but it's so strong still that as of now I honestly don't even fight it. When I'm writing, I can say what I want because no one has to read it if they don't want to, and when I'm around people who I already know hold similar views to mine I can talk about what I really think because I know they aren't bothered by it. But in personal interactions with many people, if the subject of religion or hobbies comes up, I just bumble my way out of it without saying anything in particular. Why is talking about hobbies an issue? Because my primary hobby is writing, and most of what I've written for the last couple years has been about getting out of Christianity. I'm sure I sound like the most boring person in my office because when people ask what I like to do I keep avoiding the question. Sometimes I say I like to paint. Have I painted anything recently? Well, no because I've been spending almost all my free time writing for quite a while. What do I write? Oh, you know, this and that, just stuff. So... clearly I don't actually do anything at all; my real hobby must be watching dust settle. I'd love to tell people that I wrote a book and am kind of actually posting on a blog somewhat regularly now, but I don't want to tell them what either of those things is about! I'm trying to hurry up and write another book that doesn't have anything to do with religion as soon as possible so I don't sound like such a bump on a log anymore!

I know I'm inappropriate and unseemly because of what I am. I'm something a decent person shouldn't have to be subjected to in the course of their day. Kids pick up a lot, you know? And as a kid I was surrounded by the message that people like me are unpleasant and even dangerous. I still "know" that's true. I know I should get out of people's way so I don't ruin their day. I know I should never bring up my opinions on this junk I spend so much time writing about because if I did bring them up people would be completely justified in trusting me less. (It's not like I'm asking anyone to make me president--can't think of any job I would want less--but I remember finding the info on what Americans think of atheists in this Gallup poll that got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago notable. Heaven forbid that when there's a tough decision to make it might fall to someone who actually acknowledges the responsibility rests in human hands.)

Of course it is completely reasonable for good, god-fearing people to mistrust someone like me. I was taught clearly what people like me are: enemies, villains, psychopaths, apostates, infidels, the unchosen, vessels of wrath, heathens, vile, selfish, hateful, angry, dishonest, arrogant. Just like I remember that two plus two makes four, I remember that I am a contaminant. I know I am a failure. In our community there was one thing you had to do to be successful, just one, and I couldn't manage to do it. 

I can't imagine what it's like for people who grow up surrounded by negative views of their race, since they get bombarded with these prejudices even more pervasively from even more angles and have to deal with the effects while they are still children, while in my case, even though I learned the negative views I'm talking about as a child, I didn't have to deal with the problem of unconsciously applying them to myself until I was an adult.

Anyway, this has been my venting session because I'm sick of how boring or evasive I probably seem to some people around me these days. But maybe they just think I'm a spy or a superhero or something. That's possible, right?

To be fair, I don't think people would feel negatively about me if they knew my position and how I arrived at it well. It's the idea of having to bring up an awkward topic without having the opportunity to explain it well that scares me, and it's just an unlucky coincidence that I'm still in a phase where I write about it a lot, which makes it hard to completely avoid naturally. Also I suppose it's some sort of unlucky coincidence that I happen to be in a lot of situations where people make their Christian beliefs obvious in contexts that don't have anything to do with religion so then half of me wants to go along with the trend and half of me says, no, their beliefs are normal, yours are inherently too religious for this context and inherently confrontational. 

Someday maybe I'll get to a place where I don't feel like I'm loudly confessing to a felony if I mention my views, but, I don't know... that seems awfully hard to imagine. You want to know something stupid? Part of the reason I started using the term nihilist for myself was because once I couldn't believe in my old beliefs anymore I said to myself, well, I guess I don't believe in God now, and I guess you call someone like me an atheist. But I hate that word! It has so much baggage. It sounds so bad. But nihilist on the other hand sounds so bad that it's funny, which works out to being less bad. If you say you're an atheist, people will probably assume they know all about who you are based on the term, probably including some assumptions that aren't accurate. But if you say you're a nihilist, people will think that can't be right and will have to ask you for details before they feel like they understand you. It's not that stupid at least because it's not the only reason I use the term. I use it primarily because I think that my not believing in meaning and purpose is the most defining part of my views that people would actually care about knowing, so the term nihilist conveys what people are interested in knowing most directly. 

And even though I instinctually feel like I should be ashamed of my views, at least I know that instinct isn't correct. I'm not at the point yet where I know not to listen to that feeling in social settings, but when I can reflect on things calmly, I'm proud of the views I have now. I'm proud of myself for managing to find the truth despite having spent all my life in a system that pretty effectively hid or defamed sources of information deemed unorthodox. Even though everyone I trusted taught me to hold an incorrect view and told me I couldn't survive without that view and villainized those who opposed that view, I still chose the search for greater clarity about what was true over the protection of the view I thought I couldn't live without. And everything turned out alright in the end. I'm proud that I took on the risk of losing the life I had and glad that I came to find out there were other lives to be lived that actually suited me better. So venting aside, things are good. I just want to highlight these weird situations you find yourself in when you change your mind on views that your home community valued highly. 

And I'll add a reminder for all of us: Don't villainize. If you have a concern about a group of people, everyone will be better off in the end if you carefully discuss the specifics of what you think they are doing wrong than if you broadly paint them as evil and repulsive in every way. Everyone will be better off in the end if you take their explanations of their own actions into account and critique those explanations thoughtfully rather than writing them all off as lies. Calling out harmful actions as harmful is important--it's too important to be handled carelessly. If we're all careful, hopefully we'll all be less likely to misidentify what's harmful in the first place, but we're all bound to be wrong about some things sometimes, and if we're careful not to villainize and exaggerate, we can minimize the damage we're likely to do in the event we are wrong and try to avoid the damage that happens when we are right in our views but express them in a way that drives people away. The authorities I grew up around knew they were correct in their views. They knew that people who disagreed with them were hurting the world, so they felt justified in villainizing them. But from my perspective, all that led to was me knowing just as strongly that I'm correct but still feeling like the villain they told me to visualize. And I can't imagine it ever helped convince anyone among the villainized to change their mind either. 

Each of us can only live by our best understanding of what is right, but we have to remember that we never have complete certainty. The best thing we can do for everyone is to always build to code: Our ways of life should have the intellectual equivalents of circuit breakers and back doors built in. No matter how perfectly you think your idea is going to work, you should have measures in place to mitigate damage if it doesn't. I suppose the most important way my home community could have built in proper security features would have been by avoiding isolation. I think both people like me who ended up drastically changing our minds and people who kept most of their beliefs the same would have both benefited from not being raised in an environment where we were only presented with one perspective. Just getting to hear what people who differed from us had to say about themselves would have gone a long way--not trying to restrict every source of information whether educational or entertaining to only content created by Christians. The approach taken should have been, "If you're going to disagree with me, I at least want you to be the best person you can be despite our differences." Instead, the approach was, "Even a small disagreement would be catastrophic, so let me do everything in my power to make sure you equate other views with depravity so you won't give them a second thought. Why take measures to provide for your wellbeing in the event we disagree? There is no wellbeing outside of my way." Thus those of us who left have to work at remembering we aren't worthless and those who stayed aren't as equipped to enjoy and contribute to life in a diverse society as they could be. 

My most important takeaway for myself now is the same thing: There are a lot of opinions I'd like people to agree with me on, but I'm not going to try to convince them of my views by always playing up the worst versions of the opposing views I can find. I want to recognize and celebrate when people who disagree with me still have similar goals to mine. It's not all or nothing. Just because someone else isn't a nihilist doesn't mean they can't still be a happy, productive member of society. We can still work together and bring out the best in each other. I suppose even if they were to mistrust me at first we could work through that. There are people I might wrongfully mistrust but could learn to understand. Why villainize someone else by assuming they wouldn't do the same for me? That's one great thing that did come out of my upbringing: optimism. But I'm not going to get into a tangent on that now because this post is long enough already.