Existentialism

This weekend in reading a book review on Existentialism, I was reminded how limited but useful this philosophy can be. Limited because we have many other human needs besides individual freedoms. We need socialization, spirituality, emotions, and instincts, for instance.

But perhaps the biggest problem with existentialism is how to define it? That’s what confuses so many. The writer of the review took a stab at it by saying that it is the individual’s concrete existence, or really, whatever a person chooses to make of oneself at any moment.

This, of course, involves individual responsibility, besides freedom, and, of course, the associated anxieties that it can give us. It reminds us that we literally make up the rules, which can be disorienting, without rules being imposed on us from up above. However it’s quite valuable in our modern world, the Me world, where old rules no longer seem to apply. Although the philosophy grew mostly out of WWII and the turmoil in Europe and how to explain the world that went mad. The strength of the philosophy still speaks to us. We are responsible for our own actions, and what we do has consequences as well as potentials for us. 

I’ve always felt at home with this individual philosophy. In fact, while in Paris a few years ago I visited Café de Flore where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone Beauvoir had their renowned discussions. I even had the waiters point out where the two of them usually sat (it was in the front corner of the Café). Camus called this new era absurd. But it was that time of the absurd that gives a useful context and perspective of life that we live  today.

While many like the flexibility that comes with this point-of-view, most don’t like the responsibilities. That’s the rub. We wish the philosophy came free without complications. And that’s our dilemma today. We want things that are free, truly free, but the reality of life is, like economics, there is no free lunch.

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