Crimes Without Motives: Exploring the Modern Riddle of “Nihilistic Violent Extremism”
“If you are not calling on the one true God and Jesus, His Son (or the Blessed Virgin Mary, the saints, or St. Michael and the good angels), there is only one other spiritual option, and that is Satan.”
“Will Satan reward his human minions for their servitude? No. Rather, he will use them and drain them in this life. Then, when their lives are over, he will torture them for an eternity for his own sadistic pleasure.”—Father Stephen J. Rossetti, Diary of an American Exorcist
In 2025, the FBI devised a new crime category, “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” (NVE). Both the label and the idea behind it are new to most people. However, many casual observers saw an act that may rank among its first manifestations on their own television sets.
A National Calamity
For many Americans, July 13, 2024, may rank among the days they remember for the rest of their lives. That afternoon, a twenty-year-old man fired several shots at Presidential Candidate Donald Trump. One shot hit Mr. Trump in the ear. One year later, the Associated Press published a retrospective. Much of it focused on errors attributed to the Secret Service. However, the article also spent a few words describing the shooter.
“In many ways Crooks and his motivations are still a mystery. He was killed by a Secret Service countersniper and did not leave much information about why he did what he did. Investigators say they believe he acted alone and they didn’t find any threatening comments or ideological positions on social media that shed light on his thinking.”
Many argued that the Secret Service had to know more about the would-be assassin than they shared with the nation. The idea that such a public and potentially consequential act could happen and leave so many unanswered questions seemed impossible. However, this desperate act may well fit into the new category.
Defining NVE
Like many new terms, there is still considerable disagreement over NVE’s exact definition and to whom it applies. So far, most commentators are on the left side of the spectrum, so they tend to see it as a manifestation of right-wing extremism. However, some recent attacks by leftists also fit the template. In other cases, like the attempted assassination, there is not enough information to reliably assign it to either side of the spectrum.
Perhaps a federal law enforcement official stated it best in a search warrant application quoted by the leftist news site, Politifact. “‘Nihilistic violent extremists’ act ‘primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability.’” The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) uses a more inclusive definition: “individuals or loose online networks driven primarily by a generalized hatred of society or a fascination with extreme violence, who promote or carry out serious harm for the sake of violence, notoriety, or chaos rather than coherent political, religious, or strategic goals.”
In a recent article, The Washington Post summed it up even more succinctly: “The message is that there is no message.”
Acts and Actors
The Post went on to provide three harrowing examples of NVE-inspired acts. “A 15-year-old shooter in Madison, Wisconsin, who left behind a manifesto… in which she described the human race as ‘filth.’ A 24-year-old man who plotted a drone attack to blow up the Nashville power grid… A self-described ‘anti-natalist,’ 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, blew himself up outside an in vitro fertilization clinic…, having argued that humans should not be brought into existence without their consent.”
Most observers of the trend—it is really too early to call anyone an expert in this developing field—agree that NVE bands have specific characteristics. Their connections to one another are very loose, usually limited to sharing strategies online. Most are young. Virtually all are under age twenty-five, and many are under eighteen.
Their goal is chaos, and they choose largely unprotected targets with the greatest potential to cause disruption. They prefer centrally located venues with multiple entry points. Schools, churches and large public areas such as parks and fairgrounds are popular NVE targets.
Conscious and Unconscious Nihilism
The feature of NVE that makes it unfamiliar and uncomfortable is the word nihilistic. Everyone knows what violence is and has some knowledge about extremism, but what is a nihilist?
Perhaps the character most closely associated in the public mind with nihilism is Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who also popularized the phrase “God is dead.”
The work nihilism is based on the Latin root “nihil,” meaning “the absence of anything.” The English words “nil” and “null” come from the same root. In the simplest terms, it means that nothing means anything. To the nihilist, there is no morality or ethics. Therefore, there is no reason to conform to any objective standard of behavior. Human behavior and humanity itself have no importance.
While very few people would claim to be nihilists, nihilism has a considerable effect on modern life. Devoting oneself to entertainment is, in essence, a form of nihilism. How many modern people are glued to their smartphones, watching a never-ending supply of cute cat videos, old episodes of television shows or cooking demonstrations showing dishes that the viewer will never prepare or taste? At the end of such an evening, the viewers have learned little, accomplished nothing and helped no one—not even themselves.
Such “activity” may be a brief and pleasant diversion for someone who is physically or mentally tired after a long and productive day, but for an increasing number—many of them young—it is the tenor of their lives. Such is the root of the modern upsurge of nihilism. Too many people have never tasted accomplishment and, therefore, see nothing in their lives that is of any real value or importance.
Satan’s Opportunity
Saint Jerome, who translated and compiled the Vulgate Bible, is credited with the saying “fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum,” usually translated to “engage in some occupation, so that the devil may always find you busy.”
Indeed, it takes little effort to find Satan at the root of nihilism.
Catholic tradition holds that Lucifer, the highest of angels, was condemned to Hell because he refused to serve God. From that moment to all eternity, his existence became useless, an endless torment without the hope of accomplishment. He can create nothing. His only ability is to tempt humanity to join him in his futile and meaningless existence.
Satan, of course, has many tools he can use for such a purpose. In the modern world, one of the most valuable strategies has been to convince human beings that nothing matters. Convince someone that their lives are merely a nihilistic slog, and they will soon desire to escape it. Of course, they do not know that an eternity of fruitless suffering awaits.
This trap is Lucifer’s work, and many infected with nihilism in one form or another fall right in.
