Nihilism Within our Modern Work Culture

Ivan Chiu (STC); photography by Tungsten Tang (CDNIS)

On Nihilism

Up until the 19th century, religion - in the form of Christianity -virtually dominated every aspect of Western society. Every thought and motion that trickled through the web of civilized societies was indivisible from religion. Discoveries, inventions, breakthroughs; all were attributed to God. To call any accomplishment human was heresy; the lesson marked by the grave of Galileo. Ethics, morality, societal values - all were governed solely by those belonging to the Church; devotion to the establishment, therefore, was necessary to validate individuals’ meaning and purpose in life. To do otherwise would have been considered a perverse crime, enacted against the self as well as the community. Such was the life of non-secularism.

And yet, by the late 19th century, atheism had firmly established its roots in the core of Western society. All it took was a century to overthrow a belief held at the forefront of humanity for millennia. How did this come to be?

Beginning in the 17th century, and unbeknownst to the Church, piles of seasoned, dry firewood had been stacked discreetly beneath the stage on which all major Western societies stood. Undisturbed, a pile became a mound, a mound became a mountain, until it too became a structural behemoth. All it took, then, was for a spark to ignite. Who were these revolutionaries who had inadvertently crafted the beginning of the greatest revolt ever to come upon mankind? To name a few: Newton, Darwin, Descartes, Fahrenheit. It is unclear when the match was lit, but ignite, it did. The unstoppable, rampant wildfire permeated all of Western society, reducing structures where it went to brittle ash and char. No longer did people turn to religion or metaphysics to look for a meaning in life; gone were the days of the absolute and the transcendent. The smoke and the fames cleared. Perched on the ashen remains of the stage was Science.

What do we call the scandalous series of events depicted above? The Age of Enlightenment.

The concept of an omniscient Christian deity was abandoned for rational and evidently perceptible Science; along with this apparent disintegration of faith in the concept of God, went the doctrines that surrounded the entire structure. Judeo-Christian values became the subject of scrutiny and criticism; it became clear that religion could no longer be the foundation of civilization. This realization is evidenced most notably in history by the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who daringly proclaimed: ‘God is dead.’

‘Whither is God?’ he cried; ‘I will tell l you. We have killed him---you and I.’ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) What, then, is morality? Nietzsche thought the Judeo-Christian framework of morality - echoed throughout history, from Moses, to Jesus, to Augustine - was by no means a self-evident part of human nature. In the sudden absence of a structured narrative within our lives, humanity confronts the chaos and meaninglessness of life, inevitably plunging into a state of despairing angst. To describe this Godless state of existence, Nietzsche used the term nihilism (nothingness).

Industrialization, Capitalism, and the ‘work culture’

Along with the revolution of science and objectivity, the Age of Enlightenment also triggered a wave of industrialisation, fervent and aggressive as never seen before in human history. The newly ‘enlightened’ philosophy emphasizing external objectivity traversed social spheres, becoming not simply its own school of thought, but also shaping an entirely new lifestyle. In a Jungian sense, the introspective style of thought that stood at the basis of Christian teachings was diminished substantially, giving rise to more extroverted personalities that gazed upon externalities with newly polished, curious eyes. Capital, as a means of fueling materialism, became the determiner of social standing. Those who stood at the top of monetary hierarchies cared not if they spent money in order to fulfill their ‘enlightened’ desires and looked to the rest of society for a source of production; a singular, linear rope had been tossed down to the pits of society. Those who were oppressed and left to dwindle in impoverished darkness, convinced that the spark of light and hope floating ominously at the corner of their view was nothing but a devious act of trickery, scrambled eagerly for their hold on the rope, desperate to escape their stagnating existence. This has led to the emergence of large-scale profit-making factories, production line workers and the continual striving for efficiency and productivity. Since then, our progress in this respect has not receded once, and seems to be continuing in full vigour.

With the rise of industrialization and the constant striving for efficient production, it has become evident that the general population gradually shifted their search for meaning from metaphysical spiritual doctrines to externally and socially constructed frameworks. Where do we see this in its clearest and most prominent form? Our modern work culture.

The so-called work culture which pervaded civilizations for the majority of human history revolved around the notion that available professions were for the most part bound to an individual’s social standing; social standing was in turn bound to the circumstances of their birth. From Greece, to Rome, to Medieval Europe, rigid, birth-based social structures were an incontestable reality: slaves, plebeians, and patricians were all imprisoned by the same structured society. For them, meaning in life was essentially bread, circuses and religion.

The Age of Enlightenment toppled the pillar of religion; it liberated social structures from their legal confines. What did we imagine as to be the result of this? Unrestrained by the Church, all citizens would have greater opportunities to climb social structures, pursue their individual passions and become productive contributors to society. What, then, is the reality we observe? Whilst standards of living have risen substantially across all levels of society, the feudalistic levels of inequality that existed for millennia has seemingly maintained itself with equal rigidity and severity. Though capital became the replacement for birthright when determining social standings, Price’s law stands unwavering: slaves became ‘wage slaves’, freedmen became ‘the working class’. Circuses became tabloids, Netflix, YouTube… The pyramid remains intact.

What of religion? Mainstream society has thrown a bag over God’s head and painted it green. Social standing and capital have replaced God, signalled by an increasing emphasis on career and productivity as the source of meaning in life. It is also for this reason that over the years, the career has become synonymous with the self.

What happens when one struggles to identify with one’s career? An annual survey of job satisfaction, beginning in 1987, revealed that three decades ago, job satisfaction stood at 61.1%. However, in 2010, job satisfaction plummeted to an all-time-low of 42.6%. Another study performed in 2015 revealed that 1 in 4 Americans felt they were not making a meaningful contribution to the world through their career.

When one struggles to find meaning in one’s career but can no longer turn to religion, one feels alienated, forced to confront the despairing meaninglessness of existence. Nihilism characterizes the marking of every thought with a foreboding sense of purposelessness. Most of us repress this dread and resort to following the rest of society, becoming one of the monotonous ‘clout chasing’ herd. This is no sustainable solution. From 2017 to 2018, the number of workplace suicides in the US rose by a staggering 11%; this horrifying trend is echoed in wider American society, where suicide rates have steadily increased by 33% since 1999, evidencing a wider societal issue[3]. Meaning is what sustains the will to live; meaninglessness has the ability to render a person’s mental fortitude into dust.

Though one’s career is not the only source of meaning in life, the increasing pressure and emphasis on a career as the only meaningful pursuit is by no means a triumph of modernity. Windowless corridors, chartered cubicles, incessant murmuring, indifferent deadlines, indifferent workers, indifferent societies. The 9-5 office job, composed primarily of menial administrative tasks, and unfulfilling responsibilities, is an unfortunate reality for the majority of the working class. The crisis of meaning derived from the corpse of religion has yet to be properly addressed, manifesting itself as a fatally pernicious issue growing within modern society. It is clear that society as a whole needs to have a proper discussion and to reconsider its priorities, or humanity is doomed to suffer subsequently dire consequences with no apparent way out.