Existentialism Essay (for school)

Post Reply New Topic

Here is my essay for school on the progress of existentialist philosophy...

Hope you like it...

John Gallin
Banting Secondary School
Grade 12 English

Kierkegaard and Existential Contentment
“Existentialists are rarely contended people”

Existentialism is a 19th and 20th Century philosophy which holds that the path to moral redemption consists in self-reflection, individual angst and individual moral judgment; sort of an alienated European’s Buddhism. Criticism of existentialism from both traditional moral codes and outright radicals states that existentialists themselves are not very happy people, they seem to be depressed all the time and never seem to get any better. My theory is that people who never seem to be contended tend to become existentialists instead of the other way around. Existentialism is a quasi-viable ‘prozac’ philosophy which depressed people invented in the hopes of redeeming themselves. The people who created the philosophy of existentialism tended to be the same people who became incredibly depressed or faced an uncertain future; middle-class intellectuals in a world spiraling out of control towards it’s singular destruction. Existentialism is not the cause of depression but merely a coping skill created by the people who realize the pain of the modern world the most; powerless intellectuals trying to make a better world.

It is clear even from a cursory glance at existential philosophy that these are not happy people, Sartre goes out and simply says it “Everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness and dies by accident”. Friedrich Nietzsche similarly says “What good is my happiness? It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!” The inevitable question is whether existentialism depresses people or whether depressed people become existentialists. I believe that existentialism is essentially the child of it’s time; as all philosophies are. The chief standard-bearers for existentialist thought were bourgeois, quasi-liberal intellectuals (Nietzsche, Sartre, Kirkegaard). In the 19th and 20th Century these bourgeois intellectuals witnessed their loss of power to the ‘rabble’ and the ‘mob’ (Totalitarianism, yellow journalism) and watched ideologies which demanded total conformity reduce their countrymen to the status of variables in a spreadsheet (Eugenics, Marxism); they watched in short the complete destruction and corruption of the liberal intellectual’s traditional value system (Kantian ethics, Christianity, culture, art). To fill this void in the souls of humanity these intellectuals created existentialism; a philosophy that tried to combine Western Religion (redemption, individual choice) with Eastern Religion (moral law, eternal recurrence) and atheism (a world without God, moral questioning). This would be a tall order indeed; especially after the collapse of all previous value systems in Hiroshima and Auschwitz .

In the 20th Century the decline of the middle class (Marx’s petty bourgeois and favourite antagonist) had many unique and apparently contradictory causes. If the 19th Century was the century of the Bourgeois (Napoleon, Disraeli, The French Revolution was instigated by bourgeois intellectuals) than the early 20th Century was the era of the mob (fascism, Marxism, anti-intellectual populism) no less an authority on mob politics than Hitler said “The Petit Bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the communist always will” . In all the worst ideologies of the 20th Century there is a rabid hatred towards bourgeois intellectuals, a contempt towards objective reality (versus political fantasy) and a willingness to sacrifice everything for ideological leverage (it is said that the only resource Stalin truly valued in the entire Soviet Union was his NKVD secret police cadres) . Nazi, Communist and other ultra-militant propaganda all echo a genocidal rage against the bourgeois (Jewish Bankers, Kulaks, Squares, Capitalists) even today’s ultra-radical propaganda shows a contempt for “bourgeois capitalists” (arguably everyone except radicals themselves) . After Nazism, Stalinism and extreme violence perpetuated by all margins of the political spectrum the bourgeois intellectuals created a moral code that was a redeeming mirror image of totalitarianism; totalitarian radicalism demanded total obedience while existentialism demanded individual thought, totalitarianism demanded total conformity whereas existentialism warranted distinction and individuality . The conflict between totalitarian pseudo-rebellion and existential reflection is common in many movies today such as The Iron Giant, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings and forms the crux of some Eastern Religions like Taoism and Buddhism. Chief in Buddhism is a desire for reflection, compassion, individual thought and respect for other beings; existentialism is essentially the European equivalent of Buddhism. Existentialism neither acknowledges nor denies the existence of supernatural entities (Gods, demons, nature spirits) but claims that they are irrelevant to the moral development of human beings; a devout Buddhist like the Dalai Lama would agree. Buddhism holds that use of animals is an individual moral choice similar to the use of forestry or oil; Existentialists would share veggie burgers with the Dalai Lama over such a thought. Both Friedrich Nietzsche and Buddhist canon toy with the Eastern idea of “eternal recurrence”; as seen in films like Groundhog Day which states that people keep making the same mistakes until they fundamentally learn; as though they were literally trapped in a temporal loop. The problem (one Kierkegaard was only dimly aware of; but one which Nietzsche foresaw) was that the Buddhist elements, the Christian elements and the altogether modern elements tend to contradict each other in existentialism.

The chief contradiction in modern existentialism consists of the question of emotion; how should we control and regulate our emotions, if ever? Thomas Hobbes believed that some degree of emotional repression was necessary to keep society cohesive. Popular counterculture holds “all you need is love”; as if rutting like farm animals during a wet spring would solve all social problems from anorexia to Zimbabwe’s corrupt government. Sartre (alongside Buddhists) believed that the path to redemption consists in compassion, self-awareness, self reflection and detached analysis of one’s emotions. Kierkegaard simply restated Christian ideals in an existentialist format talking about brotherly love, leaps of faith, compassion and individual moral judgment. Nietzsche, ever the cad completely debunked Christian morality leading to a world where willpower is the chief moral authority. If Muslims became existentialists (and we can only pray for such surreal Western Influence) they would adapt Islam as Kierkegaard adapted Christianity. Existentialists are as divided as the non-academic world as to how emotions should be regulated and what role emotions should play in an individual’s moral development. Sartre believes in a degree of ironic self-awareness and emotional repression that borders on the ascetic; while Nietzsche does the complete opposite and preaches domineering passions, rage, and focusing your emotions as a weapon as much as a guide. In pop psychology (common on places like the Internet and Matrix Sequels) the question of managing emotions is never brought up and is completely dismissed by self-proclaimed philosophers such as Ayn Rand, Alesteir Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard and Timothy Leary. The counterculture of the 1960s and 70s is a reasonable proof of the imperative by philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and Sigmund Freud that we need to repress our emotions to some degree for society to function. Total emotional liberation makes one as much a slave as to one’s passions as drug-induced madness. One can only read about the tragedies of the counterculture era to confirm this. Countless young men and women reduced their brains to cauliflower with “mind-expanding” drugs, were infected with HIV or the like and joined political causes so radical and detached from reality that they could not express their ideas in plain English, let alone preach to non-radicals . We are still feeling the paradox backlash from the counterculture, primarily in the form of conservatism against it (O’Reilly, Bush, Ann Coulter) or nostalgia for it (Clinton, Austin Powers, That 70’s Show). It is unlikely that the unfinished business of the 60s and 70s will magically go away but one issue that was settled by those twenty years of unlicensed psychological experimentation on a grand scale was the issue of repression. Freud and Hobbes were right; some repression of human emotions and instincts is necessary for a functional, worthwhile society; anarchism has failed since time immemorial and social rules (such as lines, numbering systems and bureaus) exist as much to protect the poor (women, blacks, disabled people) as the powerful (conservative men, Anglos, Athletes). In an anarchistic society there is nothing preventing one class of people from exploiting another and in a society with no emotional restrictions there is nothing preventing rape, pillage, terrorism and ubiquitous murder. All existentialist philosophers have believed in emotional control as the price of freedom; existentialists are as divided as conservatives or non-philosophers regarding how much control is necessary. Some existentialists follow traditional views regarding emotional control such as Christianity (Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky), democratic socialism (Camus and Sartre) or Judaism (Victor Frankl). Other, more radical existentialists inverted or digested moral codes; (Friedrich Nietzsche comes to mind) leading to a world where willpower is the sole source of moral imperative. Existentialists disagree at least as much as the rest of the world as to the path to redemption or the moral life. All existentialists can really agree on is the transcendental power of individual moral choice. The only thing two non-conformists necessarily agree on is their rejection of conformity; a vegan, a goth, a marxist, a geek, a druggie and a punk rocker (to use high-school parlance) disagree on everything except their rejection of mainstream conformity. The only problem is that when you have two or more people rebelling in the exact same way; you have the exact same conformity you rebelled against. The diversity (some would say schizophrenia) of the existentialist movement further proves it’s thesis about individual choice being the ultimate arbiter of self. Disagreement: far from disproving the thesis of existentialism; only shows that existentialism encourages individual choice and diversity. Just as there is no “right way” for everyone to live their life (contrary to what self-righteous militants tell you); there is no “right way” to apply existentialist philosophy.

Existentialism is unlikely to go away; it is also unlikely to “calcify” into a set form like Marxism did. You may agree with the meta-narrative or existentialists or you may deny it but in doing so you yourself are making an individual moral choice. As certain pretentious Canadian rockers said “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice”. Many popular movies and subculture trends today mirror existentialism such as Emo, Independent films and the picaresque or “Punk” literature tradition. Existentialism will probably have a bigger impact on our future society than Marxism and Utilitarianism will; our modern (or ultra-modern) cultural mores of individual responsibility, intellectual rebellion and individual moral choice were first tabulated by Existentialists. Even today we feel the dust and walk the ancient treads of Kierkegaard’s paths.

Bibliography

Arendt, Hannah; The Origins of Totalitarianism; Random House; New York, 2004

Arendt, Hannah; Responsibility and Judgement; Random House; New York, 2004

Heath, Joseph; Potter, Andrew; The Rebel Sell; Harper Collins; Toronto, 2004

Herman, Steve; Stebben, Greg; Everything You Need to Learn About Philosophy; Simon & Schuster, New York, 2004

Hoffer, Eric; The True Believer; Harper Collins; New York, 2002

Magee, Bryan; The Story of Philosophy; DK Publishing; Westmount, Quebec, 1998

Neiman, Susan; Evil in Modern Thought; Princeton University Press; Princeton, New Jersey, 2004

Nietzsche, Friedrich; Thus Spake Zarathustra

Nietzsche, Friedrich; The Will to Power

Stokes, Phillip; Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers; Arcturus Publishing Limited; Wigston, Leicester, 2004

Thody, Phillip; Introducing Sartre; Icon Books; Victoria, 1998

Deleted

Thanks guys...

good, now go back and actually read more on existentialism, your lacking in understanding in the subject.

Use "it's" to mean "it is", otherwise it's "its".