Nihilism
by Mary Burt
Our culture is diseased. Yes, it is sick. I’ve always suspected as much, but recently had it confirmed by a book called Pathologies of the Modern Self (NY: New York University Press, 1987). Although I only read editor David Michael Levin’s introduction, I learned some pretty harrowing things. Levin asserts that, following the death of God, Western culture has brought about “the destruction of our faith in ourselves” (ibid., 21). He goes on to say that the nihilism that pervades our culture “is not just a sickness of the modern Self, but is also a distinctive affliction of our historical embodiment