Nihilism and Idealism in "Our Lady of the Peace"

For any person of any ethnicity who verbalizes even a vague threat of suicide over a recalcitrant vending machine bag of greasy Fritos - and compares her plight with Tibetan monks lighting themselves on fire and Eskimos floating off to oblivion on icebergs - life surely is a dark and murky puzzle. Each day must be full of terrible episodes based purely upon ignorance and indifference. This Frito girl is nihilism in motion, nihilism personified. There is a boat-load of it wherever one looks in America these days, if, that is, one is looking and feeling and not just existing. Nihilism, according to Merriam-Webster Online, is "a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless"; and it is also defined as "a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral...
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