Roberto Mangabeira Unger: The Mind at War

In this second part of my eight part series on nihilism, I discuss four fundamental flaws in the human condition:

1. Mortality: “although we experience an unlimited fecundity, nature has decreed our death” 
2. Groundlessness: “we are unable to grasp the solution to the enigma of existence”
3. Insatiability: “we demand the infinite from the only thing we have around us, the finite”
4. Susceptibility to belittlement: “we feel that we share in the nature of the divine and the infinite, but our lives are wasted in a series of petty compromises, a carapace of routine and surrender begins to form around each of us, as a result of which, we die many little deaths”