On existentialism

Last night I watched Richard Linklater's movie Waking Life (2001). Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed, especially when it featured a chemist (Eamonn F. Healy of St Edwards University) spouting on about evolution. This piece, by Robert Solomon (Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin), on the other hand, struck me as offering a good statement for the relevence of existentialism.

The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us for the new century. I'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately, sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it's a philosophy of despair. But I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life. But one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it. It's like your life is yours to create.

I've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about. It's something very concrete. It's you and me talking. Making decisions. Doing things and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting. Nevertheless, what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. Makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are.

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Just a note that many of the so-called postmodernists also have strong existential aspects. I think this particularly true of the Heidegarrians. Further, in my opinion, they avoid many of the problems of the earlier existentialists (Kierkegard and Sartre being the obvious examples - although some put Nietzsche in there as well)

...we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are.

This is my philosophy of life to a tee but, lately, this kid and this gent have personified it to the nth degree.

By Sean Storrs (not verified) on 30 May 2006 #permalink