James Sire, widely respected apologist, author, and lecturer who served for more than thirty years as senior editor at InterVarsity Press, provides five reasons why nihilism is unlivable:

1st) From meaninglessness nothing at all follows, or rather, anything follows. If the universe is meaningless and a person cannot know and nothing is immoral, any course of action is open. One can respond to meaninglessness by any act whatsoever, for none is more or less appropriate. Suicide is one act, but it does not “follow” as any more appropriate than going to a Walt Disney movie.

2nd) Second, every time nihilists think and trust their thinking, they are inconsistent, for they have denied that thinking is of value or that it can lead to knowledge. But at the heart of a nihilist’s one affirmation lies a self-contradiction. There is no meaning in the universe, nihilists scream. That means that their only affirmation is meaningless, for if it were to mean anything it would be false. (In other words, nihilism is self-refuting.)

3rd) Third, while a limited sort of practical nihilism is possible for a while, eventually a limit is reached. In order to deny God one must have a God to deny. In order to be a practicing nihilist, there must be something against which to do battle. Practicing nihilists are parasites on meaning. They run out of energy when there is nothing left to deny. Cynics are out of business when they are the last ones around.

4th) Fourth, nihilism means the death of art. Art is endowed with structure by the artist. But structure implies meaning. So to the extent that an artwork has structure, it has meaning and thus is not nihilistic. A junkyard, the garbage in a trash heap, a pile of rocks just blasted from a quarry have no structure. They are not art. Some modern art attempts to be antiart by being random. Art implies meaning and is ultimately nonnihilistic, despite the ironic attempt of nihilists to display their wares by means of it.

(5th) Fifth, and finally, nihilism poses severe psychological problems for a nihilist. People cannot live with it because it denies what every fiber of their waking being calls for—meaning, value, significance, dignity, and worth. Nietzsche ended his life in an asylum. Ernest Hemingway affirmed a “lifestyle” and eventually committed suicide (despite his reputation for hypermasculinity,he was fascinated by different forms of gender expression and fluidity), Transgender people futilely live in denial of what reality is screaming to them with respect to their gender.

The fifth reason explains the skyrocketing rate of suicide and depression among transgenders. 20% have committed suicide and 40% have attempted suicide. 80% are treated for depression.

In part 3, we consider Christopher Rufo’s lecture entitled “Inside the Transgender Empire.”

Part 3 is here