futilitarian means having the opinion that all human activity is futile. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
FUTILITARIAN — [Adjective, Noun] Holding the view that all human effort is ultimately futile; a person devoted to such a view or to profitless pursuits. A sardonic nineteenth-century lexical alloy, forged from futility ("uselessness, pointlessness") and utilitarian ("one who advocates utility or usefulness"), coined humorously c. 1827. Unlike a nihilist (who rejects all foundations of meaning) or a utilitarian (who coldly calculates benefit), a futilitarian is a quiet accountant of loss, tallying the cosmic deficit between exertion and outcome. It is the clerk meticulously filing documents he knows will be shredded, the scholar compiling an index for a book no one will read, or the gardener planting perennials on a crumbling cliff—a quiet, diligent homage to the absurd, finding a peculiar dignity in the choreography of the pointless.
adj
- Having the opinion that all human activity is futile.“In America the silence was more oppressive than the ignorance; but perhaps elsewhere the world might still hide some haunt of futilitarian silence where content reigned—although long search had not revealed it—and so the pilgrimage began anew!”
noun
- A person believing that all human activity is futile.“It is in the region of the Island that most of the battles take place between organized labour and the apostles of free labour. Let there be any industrial trouble of any kind, and down upon the district swoop dozens of fussy futilitarians, to argue, exhort, bully, and agitate generally.”
- A person devoted to profitless pursuits.