Kevin Currie-Knight (East Carolina University) chats with Wendy Syfret (VICE Asia) about her new book The Sunny Nihilist: How a Meaningless Life Can Make You Truly Happy. They talk about such things as why the modern world relentlessly seeks meaning in everything, whether nihilism is a viable or liberating response, and whether/how nihilism is reconcilable with strong belief and activism.
3:00 - What is nihilism?
10:35 - When did Wendy come to nihilsm and find it liberating?
16:48 - Why do we in the modern world "find" meaning in everything?
25:41 - Why does "finding" objective meaning satisfy more than creating subjective meaning?
30:38 - Are the young generally more nihilistic than their elders? Where is nihilism in pop culture?
38:59 - How to reconcile nihilism with activism (another thing that Wendy cares about)?
Robert, Kevin and I inaugurate a new feature at EA: a New Year's Contributors' Roundtable. Publication was delayed due to my father's death, so...
E. John Winner and Dan Kaufman (Electric Agora) talk about the Marx Brothers and their relationship to American Comedy. 1:30 Vaudeville, Burlesque, and Musical...
In this wide ranging discussion, Kevin talks with youtuber Lewis Waller, of the philosophy/history youtube channel Then and Now. They talk about youtube as...