Omnipotence and the Birth of Modern Nihilism
A Collision Between the Individual's Illusory Omnipotence and Uncontrollable Reality
Cyrille Ozanne
9/5/20265 min read
Nihilism is born of the dissociation between the real and the individual's expectations. The individual projects expectations onto a situation, more or less consciously, and envisions a mechanism from which they hope for a certain result. This process applies to both active nihilism and passive nihilism. We are here in a situation of illusion. It is common and occurs throughout reality. This illusory dimension stems from the fact that the personal reading of the situation and the envisioned chain of events exist, and are only justified, for the individual alone.
This configuration is human. We perceive our environment only through our mental construction. Recent studies and research on the subject show that the personal dimension of our relationship to the world is fundamental. Pareidolia is the perfect example of this: our mind is accustomed to seeing faces, and so it starts seeing them everywhere, even where there is none.
Safety and the illusion of power
This state of constant projection, with all its associated cognitive biases, gives the individual a deep feeling of security and a sense of power. These two feelings are linked. Materially, safety is gained through power, and power results in security. Yet power can only be defined in terms of superiority over the other's actions. Without that dimension, it is mere capacity for action. The only true power there is lies in being superior to the other.
Over time, human beings learn to find forms of superiority other than brute force. Within this primary dimension of power, our perception of the world plays a key role. Indeed, it is impossible to land a blow—let alone win a fight—without a clear vision of reality. Our capacity for action, and therefore our power and our security, depend on our perception and our ability to analyze reality.
Since the industrial revolution—and the trend keeps growing—this individual power becomes more abstract and sensory than real. Our ancestors, in their uncertain environments, regularly tested their strength. Whether in the countryside or in town, situations of genuine safety were very few. The individual had to draw on their power constantly in order to survive. It was continuously calibrated against reality.
With the industrial revolution, the development of technical control and safety prevented the learning of this real power, to the benefit of a personal feeling of omnipotence. The disappearance of randomness from the industrial process and the spread of electricity for lighting are two examples of progress where the gain in security can undermine serenity. The underlying question is indeed: are we happier and more serene than our ancestors? The answer is not necessarily positive.
Admittedly, our understanding, our control and our technical capabilities allow us to secure a degree of safety. Yet reality itself has not changed. It is far too complex to be entirely controlled. This control can only be exercised over a space limited in time and space, for each of us. A boss will control their employees at work, but not in their free time, for instance. My car is packed with technologies to ensure my protection, but the behaviour of other road users, animals or rocks cannot be controlled by me.
The anguish of the uncontrollable
And that is where the shoe pinches. This uncontrollable reality—despite our will to control it—creates a situation of permanent anxiety. In other words, our arrogance in claiming to control everything brings about a feeling of insecurity, born of the part of us that is aware that at least some sliver of reality escapes our control. On this point, our ancestors were perhaps more serene than we are. For them, danger was permanent. Most often identified, and given their state of permanent alert, the unknown weighed less heavily on them. An accepted and prepared danger triggers an emotional response of fear far weaker than a potential danger in a situation assumed to be serene.
By refusing danger in our daily lives, and by refusing the random and unpredictable nature of reality, we create for ourselves a feeling of insecurity that no amount of control will ever extinguish. As our knowledge and our capacity to act expand, bringing new dangers and new perspectives of danger into view, the vicious circle is endless. Our ancestors were not caught in this sense of power, yet paradoxically they were surely more serene than we are on this question. Our sense of omnipotence is a form of immaturity in the face of everyday danger.
In this sense, nihilism is our mind's response to a situation that defeats our omnipotence. Our representation of the world rejects any notion of danger, which it sees as a mark of weakness. Omnipotence—that is, our mind—is supposed to be able to handle every situation. So when a chain of circumstances leads to failure, challenging our certainty of security, if we cannot conceive of insecurity as normal, the mind short-circuits itself. In that situation, too often, the solution is thrown out along with the problem.
The nihilist's first reaction is to reject the values that led to the situation. Yet in order to get out of that rut, the situation must be reread in a tolerant, open and humble way. And those are precisely the values the nihilist rejects. We are faced with a paradox that nevertheless carries its own solution within it. The values that are rejected, and identified as the cause of the failure, are not values by divine decree. They are values because they benefit the individual, enabling them to digest this kind of situation. In other words, these values are not good because they lead to paradise. They lead to paradise because they are good. The values we deem responsible for our failure are not truly responsible. The real cause of failure is our inability to read, understand and manage reality.
From omnipotence to full potency
The fundamental problem here is that the individual must consent to move from a state of omnipotence to a state of full power. Nietzsche envisioned omnipotence. The individual seeks to broaden their scope of action in order to achieve omnipotence. Within the cultural framework of the time, the situation seemed obvious: with work, an individual could arrive at doing anything. They would become all-powerful. Their culture, still largely shaped by the concept of the divine, held that the human being, within the dimension assigned to them, was omnipotent—free to do as they pleased.
With the death of God, the formulation of quantum physics and globalization, humankind has not extended its omnipotence. It has extended its understanding of the world. Its power, however, remains the same. A human being of the nineteenth century and one of today have roughly the same capacities. But we have developed a technology that allows us to go further. We have no greater abilities—we have more technology. For example, a human being cannot fly, neither yesterday nor today. We invented airplanes to compensate for that limit. Much like an inflated balloon in a box defines itself as filling the entire box, the same balloon outside the box defines itself as being at its maximal extension. It cannot discover new limits for itself and must learn to define itself.
The individual of the nineteenth century could believe themselves omnipotent. They could do whatever they wanted. Paradoxically, the individual of the twentieth century can only be plenipotent: acting to the fullest extent of their capacities. To remain omnipotent, they depend on technology. The same paradox holds in psychology: omnipotence is not omniscience—the capacity to know everything across time and space—but to be "pleniscient": knowing to the maximum of one's abilities, in time and space.
Proofread and edited with the assistance of AI.