5) Everything is Meaningless...?

          The intellectual who holds that everything is meaningless would more likely than not say that he believes that his opinion is correct.  This implies that others ought to agree with him, at least on non-peripheral issues, whether or not the intellectual intends this implication.  Please note that I have no problem with this.  But to this situation, I might respond, “If the world truly is meaningless, then what reason have I not to simply continue pretending as if the world was meaningful?”  The cynical intellectual might respond, “Because, it is merely pretending.  You’d be living a lie.”  By saying this, the intellectual appeals to the benefits of aligning one’s life with truth.  But what is so good about aligning one’s life to truth if everything is meaningless?  How can we say that a man ought to believe the truth?  There are no “oughts” if everything is meaningless.
          That is the colossal problem with the opinion that everything is meaningless.  By arguing its philosophical credentials to me, the cynic has simultaneously provided me with absolutely no incentive to actually agree with him.  He says that everything is meaningless?  Well, then, why should I not simply continue pretending as if it was not so?  His philosophy cannot stop me.  Moreover, it is not hard to find good reason to acquire even a pretended sense of meaning, now that pretending is justified.  It was observed in many concentration camps in Nazi Germany that, among those never taken to their deaths in the gas chambers, the difference between those who lived and those who died was that those who lived had a powerful sense of purpose and meaning. If the world truly is meaningless, then they were merely pretending.  And yet their "pretending" has inspired billions.