Using TMT to Uncover the Motivations of Violent Nihilists
By Jackson Foran | August 14, 2021
The notion of violent nihilism has become increasingly relevant in the past few decades due to the prevalence of seemingly senseless violence. For instance, many shooters are believed to have no underlying ideology.1 Agential risk studies scholar Phil Torres, who would agree with this conviction, describes the goal of the violent nihilist character as “to kill as many people as possible and then die.”2 Despite this, we must recognize that a rejection of the traditional value system does not entail a rejection of all values. Charles Manson, for example, is cited by Becker as the head of his own system of heroism.3 As with Manson, violent nihilists reject the traditional immortality sources of mainstream culture and actively work against this system through violent means. Hence, it seems that TMT could allow us to better understand the seemingly un-rational perspective of violent nihilists. In this short essay I will show that through the lens of TMT, violent nihilism is a worldview in its own right, as exemplified by nihilism’s claim to an ultimate Truth, the use of nihilism as a means to control death, and the phenomenon of heroism within the nihilist perspective.
A claim to Truth is necessary for any immortality ideology.4 Without Truth, the promise of life is falsified. The notion of Truth necessary for a functioning worldview has been conceptualized as the “omnipotence of thoughts,”5 exemplifying the power held by a Truth. In this framework, the “Truth” posited by nihilists is the denial of any possibility of value, especially any value in human life.6 Despite this, their Truth is framed as a value itself, as evidenced by the fact that nihilists view themselves as above those people subscribing to traditional societal values; they are superior because they have rejected the falsities of meaning. The effect of their “knowing” this Truth exemplifies the value attributed to this Truth. The characterization of attacks as an attempt to prove the “Truth” of nihilism is supported by the professed motivations of those individuals framed as violent nihilists, for example, the school shooter Eric Harris. Harris explicitly refuted the values and the worldview of “normal” society through the rejection of “civilization as artificial,” “artificial” here implying fictional. Moreover, he reasoned that since “morality, justice, and other values are products of civilization,” they are “arbitrary and therefore meaningless.”7 Harris characterized the principles of “civilization” as “social words,” which, for him, implies that “they had no real meaning.”8 Hence, it appears that violent nihilists do believe in and find value from a (paradoxical) Truth: the Truth of the falsity of values.
In addition to securing immortality through connection to Truth, worldviews also provide strategies for controlling death. Psychoanalyst Otto Rank describes “power” as “a magical concept” which allows one to control life and death.9 Violent nihilism is often characterized by power; several of the “violent nihilist” shooters cite philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche as an inspiration for their ideologies, grossly misinterpreting his notion of the “will to power.”10 Additionally, many shooters are typified as sadistic in that they had a desire for “power over others” in order “to fill an inner emptiness with a feeling of strength.”11 Dispensing death to others secures one’s own immortality because it materializes the fact that one has the power to give both life and death; hence, one can give themselves life.12 Harris’s reflections illustrate this conception: violence made Harris “feel like a god, having the power to give life or death.”13 Thus, the desire for control reflects the use of nihilism as a means to control death, therefore portraying nihilism as a worldview.
In violent nihilism, an individual desires to bring about as much destruction as possible in order to be revered by a small group of like-minded nihilists. The greater the destruction, the greater the impact, and, consequently, the greater the heroic representation.
Furthermore, nihilism is used as a means to heroism. In Becker’s terms, heroism entails one’s efforts to “make the biggest possible contribution to world life, show that [one] counts more than anything or anyone else.”14 “[S]ocial consensus” is necessary for heroism to succeed.15 Becker recognized the ability of “antiheros” to generate their own heroic ideals with the following of small groups, as with Charles Manson and his family.16 Contemporary TMT researchers provide examples of “fringe groups” similar to Manson’s family in “the Bloods and Crips, the People’s Temple, Heaven’s Gate, [and] Aum Shinrikyo.”17 In violent nihilism, an individual desires to bring about as much destruction as possible in order to be revered by a small group of like-minded nihilists. The greater the destruction, the greater the impact, and, consequently, the greater the heroic representation. The desire for omnicide is a clear reflection of this, as omnicide implicates the largest possible impact. Heroic notions are present in the examples of violent nihilists. Shooters often view their actions as occurring on a grand scale, as exemplified by Harris’s grandiose belief that he could personally kill the majority of people on the planet: his ultimate goal was “eliminating almost everyone in the world.”18 In terms of recognition, a large portion of shooters viewed their actions as a means to become idolized and “famous.” Shooter Seung-Hui Cho, for example, saw himself as connected with “Jesus and Moses” in “how he would be remembered.”19 This is an explicit reference to heroism in the worldview of violent nihilism. From this, we recognize that a system of heroism exists in this fringe group of those who profess to deny all meanings.20
In conclusion, we see that, if we are to examine violent nihilism through the lens of TMT, it appears to be a worldview in its own right. With the knowledge that nihilism entails a system of meaning, we may be better able to understand the minds and motivations of violent nihilists.
Jackson Foran is a rising senior at Georgetown University studying Philosophy, Math, and Psychology with a focus on existential psychology and Terror Management Theory. The above text is based upon Jackson’s long essay “Terror Management Theory, Nihilism, and Omnicide: An analysis of the tools provided by TMT to characterize violent nihilism.” In addition to writing essays on death and nihilism, Jackson also writes satire for the Georgetown Independent magazine.
REFERENCES
Peter Langman, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin: 2009), 31-32, 35, and 144.
Phil Torres, Morality, Foresight & Human Flourishing (Durham, North Carolina: Pitchstone Publishing, 2017), 124.
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973), 137-139.
Otto Rank, Psychology and The Soul, trans. William Turner (Mansfield Center, CN: Martino Publishing, 2011), 86-87.
Norman O. Brown, Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History (Middletown, CN: Wesleyan University Press, 1985), 71.
Stanley Rosen, Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 2.
Langman, Why Kids Kill, 31-32.
Jefferson County, Columbine Documents, 26009.
Otto Rank, Beyond Psychology (New York: Dover Publications, 2011), 129.
Peter Langman, School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 33 and 116.
Langman, Why Kids Kill, 41.
Ernest Becker, Escape from Evil (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), 108.
Langman, Why Kids Kill, 43.
Becker, The Denial of Death, 4.
Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, and Jeff Greenberg, In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror(Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2003), 31.
Becker, The Denial of Death, 6-7 and 138.
Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life(New York: Random House, 2015), 54.
Langman, Why Kids Kill, 31. See also Jefferson County, Columbine Documents, 26011.
M. Alex Johnson, “Gunman Sent Package to NBC News,” NBC, April 19, 2007, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna18195423.
For other instances of the drive to fame in shooters, see Eric Hart, Does Anybody Like Mondays? The Brenda Spencer Murder Case (Hart Publishing, LLC, 2012), 82 (Brenda Spencer); Charles Wallace, “Massacre in Erfurt,” Time Europe 159, no. 18 (2002): 24 (Robert Steinhäuser); Steve Fainaru, “Alaska School Murders: A Window on Teen Rage,” Boston Globe, October 18, 1998 (Evan Ramsey); Helen Hickey De Haven, “The Elephant in the Ivory Tower: Rampages in Higher Education and the Case for Institutional Liability,” Journal of College and University Law 35, no. 3 (2009): 543 (Wayne Lo).