Nihilism and developmental psychology

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Nihilistic tendencies for thought and perception are found in the theories of leading developmental psychologists.

The old dichotomy of meaning versus non-meaning is perhaps first made clear by the ancient Greeks, when Protagoras argues from the nihilistic position that all meaning is relative, while Plato maintains that there is an absolute truth (see Lee, 2005). Nihilism, in the philosophical sense, has been defined as:

a. an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth and

b. nothingness or nonexistence ( see www.dictionary.com)

If that seems a bit life negating or dangerously relativistic, and in turn forces us to look for an explanation to prove that there is meaning, then we should acknowledge that nihilistic thought is an aspect of that process. Indeed, Nietzsche (1884), in order to raise man up to the level of creator, had to first derail him from the tracks supposedly prescribed by God, with the violent declaration that God is dead. With that destruction of absolute meaning, and the ensuing angst and threat of meaninglessness that followed, the fate of man became the responsibility of each of us bold enough to accept such responsibility. Existentialist luminaries such as Albert Camus realized it was just such a lack of meaning that both allows and necessitates that we create meaning through our actions (Crain, 2011).

Indeed it seems that the dichotomy between absolute meaning and none, as it is played out in the imagination of men and women who invent gods, stories, and philosophical treatises, is itself part of the creative process through which the constraints of structure and meaning are made salient, thus enabling us to imagine and construct alternatives in which nihilistic thought plays a role. Latent in such thinkers, as well as all of us, I will argue, is perhaps a capacity for nihilistic thought that is a necessary precondition for such creative thinking in general. This latent capacity is perhaps alluded to in the various stages of development as outlined in the theories of prominent developmental psychologists. This then is the point of departure toward some preliminary musings on this topic that I hope others will contribute to. I will discuss briefly some of the major contributors to developmental psychology, drawing heavily from William Crain’s (2011) Theories of Development, and look at what might be the role of nihilism in their respective theories.

Nihilism: Latent or learned?

In 1762 Rousseau challenged the feudal state by suggesting that the best way to raise children is to let them learn according to their nature, without conditioning from society or the church (Crain, 2011). Rousseau believed that in this way the young person would learn to judge everything based on his own experience and that this is “real thinking” (p. 19) or creativity as opposed to mimicry. Considering that during Rousseau’s time, all laws of society were directly bound to church and state, Rousseau was attempting to free humanity from those constraints to allow for individual creative responses to the environment so that a new society could be imagined and realized. It could be argued that there is a nihilistic element here in that what was considered the absolute and sacred structure of feudal society was being challenged. Although that challenge was based on the laws of nature, if we understand nature to include man’s capacity for creative and innovative thought, an element of nihilism begins to emerge because such creativity must be founded on a realization that we can create new meaning through our actions, thoughts, and artifacts. This of course assumes that all meaning is not already preordained, in which we are merely mechanistically responding to stimuli according a set program, genetic, divine, or otherwise. Our natural and innate capacity for creativity rather, like open source social constructivist collaborations (Harvey, 2010), is always open for modification in real time via epigenetic changes in genetic structure as well as genetic mutations whereby combinations most conducive to survival prevail (Kaufman, Kozbelt, Bromley, & Miller, 2008). Indeed, Ryan, (2006)), argues that it is an ability to be creative which is of utmost importance for survival and as such is one of the salient characteristics that people look for in potential mates.

Building on the ideas of Rousseau, Piaget suggested that as the child’s body and mind mature, they encounter the environment and build unique cognitive structures (Crain, 2011). Piaget thus acknowledged both the role of the environment and the nature (genetic predisposition) of the child in development, and laid out a series of stages in which specific thought and actions were likely to take place. In what he terms the 4th period of development, running form age 11 into adulthood, Piaget shows that in this stage the person begins to be capable of abstract creative thought - imagining utopian worlds that as yet do not exist. Perhaps imagining such worlds requires an ability to see through the physical structural limits of our surroundings and imagine that the rules or authority of the existing order are no necessarily recognized or strictly adhered to. How else could our imaginations depart the constraints of the physical world? This kind of thought seems analogous to what might be termed the pre-stages of nihilism.

Kohlberg developed Piaget’s theories further, in which he neither attributes stages of development as following a genetic code or as resulting from conditioning forces of society. Rather, Kohlberg (Crain, 2011), describes his stages as emerging from our own mental processes and unique thinking about our encounters with our environment. This concept again makes clear the importance of a creative response to environment. Kohlberg (1981) goes as far as to suggest a seventh spiritual stage of development that takes place around midlife to old age. It is at this point Kohlberg suggests that people begin to become philosophical or spiritual in response to what they often perceive as the meaninglessness of human suffering and struggle. Erikson (as cited in Crain, 2011 p. 296)) also identifies a stage in life when people in old age tend to ask themselves what makes a life meaningful? This tendency could be interpreted as a response to a form of nihilistic thought emerging at this specific time in life. Not surprisingly it is at this time when such thoughts will not interfere with duties of child rearing and may therefore not be a threat to the species. It is also when many people turn toward religion and/or philosophy in response to the specter of nihilism. Some researchers such as Gibbs (2003) have noticed a similar tendency in teenagers, who often see adult society as totally meaningless and strive to create meaning for themselves. It is therefore not surprising that at this age or stage, many young people read Nietzsche and Camus for the first time and identify with both nihilism and existentialism as they try to create and become themselves in a process of self discovery. Embracing the lack of absolute meaning may trigger the response which allows such a process to unfold. Indeed the scholar John Marmysz (2003), in his book Laughing at Nothing, describes nihilism as “the gap that enables the striving toward” (p. 73). This gap, or opening, facilitates the reinterpretation of laws, art, and beliefs that are prerequisite for tossing out old dysfunctional dogma and replacing it with new. Such a transformational process is of course necessary at times and is everywhere apparent in history as new generations have picked up ideas and modified them to fit evolving circumstances.

While some may be uncomfortable with the sudden responsibility of co-creators of meaning, and cling ever more ardently to a belief in some absolute, others will take this opportunity and begin to create meaning by aligning their actions with what they decide is worthwhile for humanity and society.

Piaget, Kohlberg and Erikson all recognized consistent patterns of behavior that emerge in invariant sequence at different stages in life, some which are more focused on creativity than others (Crain, 2011). These patterns seem to lend credence to that aspect of behavior that can be reduced to our genetic code. If for example, Chomsky (1992) is correct, and a universal grammar is an innate human capacity genetically coded into our behavior patterns, then it is feasible that nihilistic thought tendencies might be similarly latent. Indeed, as an aspect of creativity, a capacity for nihilistic thinking may serve as counterpoint to what is known and help us probe an ever-evolving world where we must be able to engage and disengage with various structures in our search for the optimal pathway through time and space. And, as Chomsky has maintained (as cited in Crain, 2011 p. 354), because children are able to rapidly learn language way beyond what their exposure to grammar would allow, an ability to create language must already be latent. Along these same lines, it is unlikely that a child would have the time to fully comprehend nihilistic implications into thought processes, unless that tendency was already part of our genetic blueprint.

It has been Two thousand years since Protagoras claimed all is relative and Plato argued that there is absolute meaning. It seems that such a capacity for thought, whereby the dichotomy of a belief in absolutes, tempered with a healthy dose of nihilism that allows us to evolve, what at any given time is beneficial to perceive as absolute, has long been a part of our mode of perception, i.e. our nature. Indeed, in order to perceive objects and concepts as something, they must be measured against their opposite, of non-something or nothingness.

References

Crain, W. (2011) Theories of development: Concepts and applications 6th edition. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall

Chomsky, N. (1992) On cognitive structures and their development: A reply to Piaget. In Beakley, B., Ludlow, P. (1992) The philosophy of mind: Classical problems/contemporary issues. Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Gibbs, J. C. (2003) Moral development and reality: Beyond the theories of Kohlberg and Hoffman. London: Sage Publications.

Harvey, L. (2010). Applying social systems thinking and community informatics thinking in education in (Ed.) Rudestam, K. E., & Schoenholtz-Read, J. (2010). Handbook of online learning. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Hauser, M., Chomsky, N., Fitch, W. T. (2002) The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science Vol. 298, 1569 (2002) DOI: 10.1126/science.298.5598.1569

Kohlberg, L., Power, C. (1981) Moral development, religious thinking, and the question of a seventh stage. Zygon Journal of Religion and Science Vol 16. No. 3 pp. 203-259 DOI: 10.1111/j1467-9744.1981.tb00417.x

Kaufman, S., Kozbelt, A, Bromley, M., Miller, G. (2008) The role of creativity and humor in human mate selection. In (Ed.) Geher, G., Miller, G. (2008) Mating intelligence: Sex, relationships, and the mind’s reproductive system. New York: Taylor and Francis.

Lee, M. K. (2005) Epistemology after Protagoras: Responses to relativism in Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus. Oxford. Oxford University Press

Marmysz, J. (2003) Laughing at nothing: Humor as a response to nihilism. Albany: New York Press.

Nietzsche, F. (1884). Thus spoke Zarathustra. In (Ed) The portable Nietzsche. Translated by Kaufmann, W. (1976) New York: Random House.

Ryan F. (2006) Genomic creativity and natural selection: a modern synthesis. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society Vol. 88, No 4. pp. 655-672 DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2006.00650.x