>Hmm. Well, rather than agonising over the difficulties inherent in nihilism, the post modern approach is mild annoyance or "Cheerful Nihilism", a sang froid acceptance of the meaninglessness of it all.

Meaninglessness? This is undeniablly not me. What I do may be pretty insigificant in the grand scheme of things, but what I do is not meaningless. Carl Sagan once wrote something to the effect that "We are how the universe explores itself." You can give your life meaning, that up to you. An inherhent meaning, or purpose, or reason though, is what we're talking about.

>Sound like you? It wasn't an attack, I leave that to more experienced philosophers ;-) .

Well, I do want to bring up what you posted first:
Hmm. Well, for a start, Lyotard characterizes postmodern nihilism as an "incredulity toward metanarratives". Metanarratives are the underlying, agreed foundations we rely on to make sense of the world. Religion, political institutions, morals.

That doesn't sound like a nihilist, that sounds like a scientist! How does religion or political institutions help you make sense of the world? They're both man made. Lets take Religion for example, does the Great Turtle help me make sense of the world? Well, in a delusional way, I suppose. Wouldn't you agree?

>How about this. *You* propose a basic premise we can agree re life/morality/virtue and we can argue from there.

Hmmm. Ok, well, let my ask a couple questions first, then we'll see where that leads us.

Is it agreed you believe there is some reason to our life. So assuming we're alive, and a plant is alive, and a chimp is alive, is it agreed that we are all "equally alive"? If so, do sunflowers and orangatans have a reason to live? Is it the same as ours? Else, why do you think that humans are "more alive" than the rest of the living creatures on this planet.