An Oregon teen arrested last month in connection with an alleged mass shooting plot targeting a mall in southwestern Washington subscribed to a “nihilistic violent extremist ideology,” according to officials.
Similarly, FBI officials said Guy Edward Bartkus, the man accused of bombing a Palm Springs, California, fertility clinic last month, “had nihilistic ideations.”
It’s this “preoccupation with themes of violence, hopelessness, despair, pessimism, hatred, isolation, loneliness, or an ‘end-of-the-world’ philosophy” – as the FBI defines nihilistic ideation – that allegedly drives these individuals to violence.
Here’s how experts and authorities describe nihilism.
What is nihilism?
Nihilism, which is usually defined as a philosophical concept rather than a set of actions, is the belief that “all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated,” according to Alan Pratt, professor emeritus at Embry-Riddle University.
Nihilism is “associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence,” Pratt wrote in a philosophical definition. “A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.”
Nihilism is also often connected to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that “its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions,” according to Pratt.
Retired senior FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole, who has researched past violent actors to provide the FBI with its initial definition of nihilistic ideation, describes nihilism as “something on a continuum.”
“A person’s outlook on life is never black or white,” O’Toole told CNN. “Over the years, there have been some people that have planned mass violence, where their nihilistic thinking, or view of the world, was very extreme, and then you have some where it’s less extreme.”
Hellbound and Down 