Nihilism, understood as the absence of a transcendental purpose, lies at the heart of the conflict that Israel initiated against Iran. But it is also what lies at the heart — the empty heart — of the West’s belligerent attitude. I believe it will also be the defining characteristic of the new nomos emerging from the decay of the US-led Western order. And that should worry us, because nihilism breeds violence.
This is not new. Many thinkers — Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Heidegger, among others — have warned for over two centuries that this would be the outcome of a long process: the structuralization of meaning and purpose — once embodied in religion in the West — and its subjugation to the state. They spoke while in the midst of this process, foreseeing the consequences if the course was not altered. It wasn’t.
Heidegger argued that the material, utilitarian worldview — which values things solely for their external utility — had deprived humanity of any sense of meaning. The war between Israel and Iran seems to have no meaning: it is logical, but it does not make sense. Logical, because we can trace the geopolitical path that led to it, even identify individual motivations — and yet, it still does not make sense. Unless we interpret it as proof of its nihilistic nature: its sense lies in the fact that it has none.
That is what historian and sociologist Emmanuel Todd suggested in a 2024 interview for Elucid: “I have two working hypotheses on Israel,” he said. “The first is that of nihilism, due to a lack of meaning in Israeli society — the meaning of its history. The second, a consequence of the first, is the hypothesis that the situation will get even worse.” And it has. The violence unleashed in Gaza — and now in Iran — is violence stripped of moral restraint, driven only by material logic.
I will not attempt to predict the outcome of this conflict or who will be victorious, because there are many better analysts than myself — and they hold contradicting views. Is Iran following Russia’s Ukraine strategy to turn this into a war of attrition? Or has Israel really weakened its capacity to react? Personally, I find the first option more plausible — but Iran has also been hurt, so we cannot rule out the second completely.
Will direct US intervention — its indirect role being obvious — lead to regime change? I believe the Iranian regime is stronger than many assume — certainly stronger than Assad’s — because its strength (and its weakness) lies in a metaphysical claim. But regime change remains a possibility — and one that would be catastrophic for the region. Perhaps even more so for the US, which would have to deal with the fallout.
Some argue that this is precisely what the US wants. They point to a 2009 Brookings Institution report titled “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran” which appears to support such a conclusion. A collapse in Iran would also disrupt plans for the North–South trade corridor and the Chinese New Silk Road — both of which threaten US control of maritime trade. It could also cut off cheap oil flows to China, though I doubt this would have a major impact, given China’s diversified energy sources. Still, both China and Russia have condemned Israel’s actions in the strongest terms — lending credibility to these claims.
Israeli strategists appear to believe that their state will benefit from the ensuing chaos by asserting regional dominance — there is no other way to interpret their desire for regime change in Iran. The US under Trump wants to pivot away from West Asia and toward East Asia. Israel is either trying to carve out a position of power amid declining US presence, or it wants to drag the US into yet another Middle East war that will force it to stay — to the detriment of its own interest.
Iran has long been on Netanyahu’s radar. It was the end goal of a 1996 policy paper titled “A Clean Break” written for him by a group of neoconservatives led by Richard Perle, just as he came to power. And power is something Netanyahu is now desperately clinging to. Just days before the attack on Iran, he narrowly survived a proposal at the Knesset that could have dissolved his coalition. He still faces multiple criminal charges in Israeli courts. Many suggest that the ongoing genocide in Gaza — and now the attack on Iran — are attempts to distract from a political collapse that could land him in prison.
Trump could be decisive in this war — but true to form, he behaves erratically. On the one hand, he amplifies Israel’s claims about a nuclear threat. On the other, he seems to foresee the consequences this intervention might have on his presidency. He manifests the divide that runs through the US establishment — and, more broadly, through US society — torn between its delusions of grandeur and the inescapable reality of internal incoherence and lack of purpose.
Leaders reflect the common denominator of the people they represent. Both Trump and Netanyahu seem to lack a clear sense of purpose, even though they clearly state their objectives. Trump because he seems to grasp that the US role in world affairs must change, but does not know how. Netanyahu because he has plunged into a profound nihilism. He no longer defines himself by what he is, but by what he is not — his enemies define him.
That is what Emmanuel Todd also suggests in the same interview quoted above: “Perhaps in the unconscious depths of the Israeli psyche, being Israeli today is no longer about being Jewish — it’s about fighting the Arabs.” This is the only way to explain the uncontrollable violence unleashed in Gaza — and now in Iran. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said that “Tehran would become Beirut,” referring to the application of the infamous Dahiya Doctrine.
Camus once said that nihilism is “not only despair and negation, but above all the desire to despair and to destroy.” The urge to destroy — to enact violence — is the result of a lack of purpose, where violence becomes the substitute for meaning itself. But as Hannah Arendt warned, violence, though it may fill the void momentarily, cannot create — it can only destroy. And that is why Israeli society is collapsing.
Iran stands as a mirror to this collapse — only differing in degree. I believe — though I stand to be corrected — that these are the only two states that explicitly legitimize their existence based on a metaphysical claim. Shi’a Iran, under the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih and the concept of the occultation of the last Imam, has made support for the state a tenet of faith. Zionist Israel was, according to Ilan Pappé, founded on the principle that “God does not exist, but He promised us this land.”
The Shi’a subordinated God to the state; the Zionists instrumentalized God, then discarded Him. In both cases — in all such cases — when religion is subordinated to the structural logic that gives rise to the state, nihilism inevitably follows. And nihilism breeds violence.
Whilst I agree with a lot of this, I don’t believe in the tenet that nihilism breeds violence. This particular conclusion needs way more nuance if it’s to hold water IMHO.
I personally have been profoundly nihilistic for quite some while now. I read too much about the “stupidest timeline” we are on. However, simultaneously I was in my professional life devoted to finishing the quality of life instruments I co-developed. The funny thing was that my internal justification for the use of these was what changed, once I learnt the full power of the survey and experimental techniques I had access to. We “sold” the instruments to funders as ways to broaden the idea of cost-effectiveness of interventions in society: to use resources where they have the greatest benefit. Yet I ended up rejecting this justification for a whole host of reasons, incluoding (but not limited to) the fact the paradigm was merely a disgsuised version of neoclassical economics, the implementation (just like existing measures) concentrated on totals and averages rather than distributional issues etc.
I came to see that these instruments could be used in maximin strategies by governments: help the worst off and using methods that actually passed muster. I passionately believe in that. And since my circumstances changed, I saw “stuff on the ground” – the people at the bus-stop – who cared passionately about society, our suburb and recognised in the core, even if they might not be able to enunciate it well, that our political system is rotten and isn’t there to help them in any way. I do not for one moment think I know how to reconcile this nihilism about how we as society are running off a cliff, with the remaining desire to produce stuff for both the population, and for the individuals at the bus-stop. But I find violence is alien to me. Maybe I’m just naive.
If you “saw … people … who cared passionately about society, our suburb” and retain a “desire to produce stuff for both the population, and for the individuals at the bus-stop”, then I submit you’re not a nihilist.
“But I find violence is alien to me. Maybe I’m just naive.”
For myself, I find the potential for violence within me closely linked to the degree of fear I experience–much of which, on first reflection, I habitually see as solely generated by external events (like the present Iran/Israel War).
However, on further reflection, what I would call my powerful primitive sense of fear seems to have significant internal origins– often quite separate from such external political events. In other words when I experience fear, I am habitually much more comfortable seeing the causes in external events rather than in any internal rage I may have experienced as a consequence of, say, emotional abandonment by Mommy and Daddy.
I link nihilistic behavior closely to anger, rage and the apparent necessity, in my case, of appearing invulnerable, because vulnerability is just too painful–a “wonderful,” negative feedback loop that can lead to personal as well as collective self-destruction.
I tend to agree with Terry. While this might be assuming something about the writer that is unwarranted, there appears to be a reaction against nihilism due to the concept that there is no predefined purpose to existence, imposed upon us by a higher power, as this may threaten one’s faith. I see that elsewhere more starkly, but it might infiltrate here too. Perhaps we need, any more, a different term now that the term “nihilism” has been defined in popular vernacular as acting to destroy all structures both physical and conceptual, simply perhaps to gain a feeling of personal power.
I, on another hand, see the lack of an imposed purpose as the opportunity to define one’s own purpose. This can be difficult, it requires discipline to avoid turning inward and making self-aggrandizement one’s purpose. But it’s also the ultimate opportunity.
Odd, or perhaps interesting, how all this leads one to realize that the way forward is indeed a narrow way.
This post displays a commitment to idealism that is rather remarkable. The author doesn’t mention the raft of theories that have worried about the corrosive effects of capitalism on values. I could tick off a few and I’d usually say “starting with Marx” but today’s post reviewing Cassidy’s book on capitalism’s critics provides a more comprehensive list including some predating Marx. In any case, some reference to this crowd of people objecting to capitalism’s tendency to make “all that is solid melt into the air” is requisite.
As far as Netanyahu’s nihilism goes, doesn’t Zionism provide just the sort of motivating orientation that lifts him out of the nihilistic doldrums? Isn’t the Greater Israel project still in the works? I recently read an article — author forgotten, sorry — who pointed out how one wing of Zionism, in the wake of failed messianic hopes centuries ago, did actually take on a deliberately nihilistic stance but only in the service of Zionism. We currently experience that as “they do nothing but lie,” along with killing the dispossessed. For those not part of the project it sure feels like nihilism, a violation of the sort of ideal speech situation frame Habermas used to write about, but for those in the know it’s just part of attaining the final goal.
1) The Iranian regime for decades has prioritized “Death to Israel” – the extermination of the Jewish people. 2) The Jewish people are rightly determined that they will never allow another Holocaust. 3) The Iranian regime can never be allowed to have nuclear weapons, period. 4) Everything else, all the bloviating chatter and whining and faux moralistic tears and wails driven subliminally by hatred of Jews disguised as humanitarian concerns, is nothing more than irrelevant hot air. 5) Should Israel and the rest of the world wait until the Iranian mullahs detonate a nuclear weapon in Israel or anywhere else before saying, “Oops, our bad, looks like the Iranian regime does have nukes after all” instead of proactively taking action now to defang the serpent?
If the Jewish people, at least those in Israel, are determined to never allow another Holocaust, then why are they perpetrating one of their own on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank?
The Israelis, really Zionists, as distinct from Jews in general, have become the very Evil they once suffered under.
An “accident” at Dimona can also generate a lot of “hot air.”
You wouldn’t be the dreaded John Sweeny Todd, the ‘Demon Barber’ of Tel Aviv, would you?
If it’s so important that Iran is denied nukes, why does Israel never acknowledge their stockpile?
The Iranian regime for decades has prioritized “Death to Israel” – the extermination of the Jewish people.
Who gives you the right to equate Israel the country with “the Jewish people”? There are plenty of Jews who don’t support Israel and their ranks are growing. The constant talk of Israel’s “right to exist” seems to deny any right for people who live on land that Israel wants to exist. This is not humanism or even good religion.
Jews are not worse than other groups, or better. In fact they are the same and certainly capable of being villains. Just ask all the dead babies in Gaza.
No Holocaust means no Holocaust for anyone, or it used to mean that.
Technically the term carefully chosen by Iranians is “the Zionist regime” which of course does not mean Israel as such not to speak of elimination of Jewish people.
Iran would have nothing against an Israel that was a human rights respecting, multicultural, egalitarian state that was not constantly terrorizing it’s neighbors and trying to be the local hegemon.
Excellent point Polar. This is a vital distinction that is carefully ignored by the propagandists of western powers when they blare out their calls for suppression of Iran. A careful mistranslation of the Farsi.
Category error here. Israel is not the Jewish people.
I agree with this argument, but not with the argument that this is nihilism. Rather the opposite. This is very real eschatological purpose. Whatever about the US and Europe, which I will agree are in an existential abyss and rapidly shifting to rule by fiat, Israel is a completely different case. We’re dealing with religious crusade or SS trooper mentalities openly on display throughout Israeli society. Were the crusaders or nazis nihilistic? I disagree here. The Israelis clearly believe in something, even if it is only in themselves. And the US political class certainly believes in them also.
Re “no longer about being Jewish” the author I’d forgotten in my above comment, Gabriel Piterberg, in his book The Returns of Zionism describes the surprising level of antipathy Zionists felt towards more traditional Jews who, more or less, conceived of their religion in terms of Torah interpretation that Zionists felt led a far too legalistic orientation. Writers like Gerhard-Gershom Scholem argued that Zionism must instead draw on the more impulsive, inspiration-based teachings of the Kabbala. They ridiculed Torah Jews. Piterberg’s book is fascinating, e.g. hard to imagine that these people would be drawing on Wilhelm Dilthey’s hermeneutics to argue for inspirational identifications with past warrior heroes of Judaism in order to get around the Torah scholars.
I agree. The zionists do have values and are ready to kill children for it.
Here is a real nihilist. ”He doesn’t care about anything, he’s a nihilist.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JLLCyrf8Ro4&pp=ygUWTGVib3dza2kgbmloaWxpc3QgcG9vbA%3D%3D
In any case, I really, really appreciate your more philosophical posts about current events, Curro. It tickles a nerve that goes beyond the concrete, mundane, immanence of events. It gives you a feeling of that maybe there is a teleology or at least dialectics if things, rather than a stochastic, value-free chain of events. There may be more to it than my decreasing real income.
“the US political class”, most of them anyway, are paid to believe in them. A couple billion dollars and about a year’s worth of propaganda and they would change sides. Not the evangelical maniacs, though.
For the nazis, there’s actually a strong argument they were; I think Camus has a whole discussion on it in The Rebel. For the Crusaders, I think it was closer to pure “herd morality”, though there’s an argument (and not just existentialist, also Marxist) that this represents a regression in the same direction as nihilism. Especially at least since the Enlightenment (and if you believe in the “moderate / radical enlightenment” dichotomy, I could see the argument that this is what divides them).
In a way, as I mentioned in my other long comment, I think the purest expression of nihilism today is TINA, “resistance is futile”, etc. It all comes down to murdering the will, to think or act with any concrete, positive value. The uncontrolled lashing out by those in our dying system with weapons and the submission by those without them are two sides of the same coin.
Thanks for your thoughtful posts but some of us would prefer to take this out of the realm of philosophy and more into the realm of behavior. This certainly won’t answer the meaning of life question but it does seem to explain the way people act. Nature and nurture have created us. All else is speculation.
But if one wants to make this about nihilism then Israel at this moment could be taken as an example of the “i’ll be gone, you’ll be gone” business culture that seems to rule much of the USA. A “lifeboat” where so many have dual passports may be prone to foolish and self destructive risks. The Netanyahus have a condo in Miami. Perhaps it’s less about nihilism and more about self deception. The reality of 9 1/2 million trying to control the entire ME may be at hand.
This is a nice change-up from the discussion of the military situation, and I agree with your main thesis 100%. I think you’re absolutely right that Iran is one of the few states in the world today with a genuine ideology too. Therefore it can imagine possibilities and act outside the world that TINA would build (which is also why it’s subtly capable of some things that not even Russia or China are).
I would interpret a few details differently though:
1. To the extent Iran recognizes a certain unity between the state and religion, I don’t know if I would consider that new or uniquely Iranian. I’d say that’s always been characteristic of Islam in general, and it arguably proceeds directly from the central doctrine of Tawhid (God’s transcendental oneness), which implies you ultimately can’t separate practical & political values from religious ones. If that seems extreme, it’s always been a thread in classical political philosophy (a lot of Islam, especially the more Turco-Persian flavors, look like Neoplatonist ontology with Aristotelian ethics once you scratch the surface).
2. Whenever Shi’ism is the primary cause for some aspect of Iranian culture, I would also actually downplay the Revolution as the starting point. Instead, you probably have to go back to the Safavids who officially converted the country (there’s always been a latent sympathy for Shia ideas in the eastern half of the Islamic world though). Because they still had a dynastic monarch at the top, it’s easy to miss how revolutionary, and in some ways republican, the Safavids were.
3. Veleyat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) OTOH is a pretty revolutionary doctrine, especially for Iran where it represents a decisive break with monarchy. The supreme irony is that it’s arguably a nod to early American democracy (by way of de Tocqueville) as much as Shi’ism being what binds their civilization together. De Tocqueville argued that the judicial branch was the least predisposed to monopolizing and abusing power so the Iranians gave the veto, some military command, and a few other typical executive powers to essentially their supreme court justice. That’s also what makes the idea that killing Khamanei will “overthrow” the government really stupid, beyond the fact that he’s both old and sincere enough that he expects to die soon anyways.
4. Back to your main point of nihilism, this is arguably what makes the Islamic Republic really interesting: it’s arguably still the only government in world history to unofficially adopt existentialism as a doctrine. The most explicit thread I’m aware of is through Ali Shariati, but there’s an argument that (most?) Qom clerics themselves hold to a more religious form of it tracing back to Mulla Sadra (which has other interesting implications that would probably be off topic here and maybe on this site).
«Is Iran following Russia’s Ukraine strategy to turn this into a war of attrition?»
I think Russia sees this more as a war against the Nazis (cf. “denazification”) than a war of attrition. I hope Iran understands it similarly.
All wars are wars of attrition: the only question is if one attritts more and when. But short of global thermonuclear war, HOW each side attritts can be determinative. IMHO, in Ukraine Russia has forborne from inflicting pain upon civilians for fun and profit, not adopted a strategy of attrition.
I think Iran has to calibrate its response over time so that Israel is weakened without (ideally) bringing the US into the conflict, inflicting just enough pain to Israel as payback for its unprovoked attack and a little bit more as payback for Gaza, until regime change is achieved in Israel. As has been mentioned somewhere, Israel had hoped to lure Iran into retaliating immediately with hundreds, even thousands of missiles, thinking this would assure US entry into the war. So far that hasn’t happened. The ideal end of this war would be when Israel and the US are out of missile defense resources, and Israel’s economy has come to.a full stop, at which point Israel would sue for peace. But Israel, being ruled by fanatics, won’t do this unless or until cooler heads prevail there, producing regime change. So the question to ask is: do such cooler heads even exist in Israel now? Not likely. The future looks bleak indeed. For the Middle East and the US, where nihilistic sociopaths seem to be everywhere in Western politics now.
Break out the fainting-couch and smelling-salts.
Nah, let’em wake up on their own, on the floor.