I think that existentialists, expecially the non-religious ones like Sartre, had a reputation for being gloomy. Was that due to their personal ideosyncrasies, or is there something genuinely depressing about the human condition?
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Existentialists' reputation for being gloomy
- Thread starter GrowingSmaller
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"What is unseen is eternal"
I'm not sure the reputation you note, GrowingSmaller, is entirely deserved, or that the case is that simple. While I agree that ideas have consequences, some of which concern emotional outlook on life, yet there are other factors that play into mood. But perhaps you mean a particular class of better known "non-religious" existentialists of which Sartre would be one. Or the emotions of a particular Zeitgeist.
On the other hand from my vantage point, I would think the ubiquity of sin and suffering and death and entropy in the world would give more logical grounds for a depressed outlook than seems the case. And I would think such reflection would produce more hunger than seems the case for the kind of solution the gospel of Jesus offers. But one of the products of willful blindness (Romans 1) is hope in that which God is not ... or just going on without hope.
And perhaps I digress from your present interest?
On the other hand from my vantage point, I would think the ubiquity of sin and suffering and death and entropy in the world would give more logical grounds for a depressed outlook than seems the case. And I would think such reflection would produce more hunger than seems the case for the kind of solution the gospel of Jesus offers. But one of the products of willful blindness (Romans 1) is hope in that which God is not ... or just going on without hope.
And perhaps I digress from your present interest?
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Existentialism get's it's gloomy reputation from it's gloomy writers. It is amost entirely deserved from some of them.
Albert Camus:
Albert Camus: THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS
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Eudaimonist
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In all seriousness, I think that Sartre did explore something true about the human condition that had started to express itself in the culture of his day. Sartre wasn't just making things up. God's assassination did have real consequences for the culture.
He also tried to find a solution to the problem, so I don't think he was being negative overall. He was dealing with real gloom that some people had experienced, and focusing on anything gloomy as a subject must itself seem gloomy after a while. This had even expressed itself in his phrasing of the problem, such as suggesting that people were "condemned to be free". ("Condemned" only makes sense if one is predisposed to have a negative attitude towards one's own responsibility to make choices.)
Personally, I don't suffer from existentialist angst even though God is Dead, so to me personally it seems that I am not the subject of his study. I have my own solution to the problem.
eudaimonia,
Mark
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Yeah I think that the non-religious ones like Camus (as Variant points out) tended to be more gloomy. I have only read Sartre but he seemed to be presenting as if his ideas were essential to the atheist-in-the-world. I think that on the other hand there are plenty of atheists who are not so heavy and deep, and enjoy life whilsyt at the same time being just as much a "dasein" as Sartre was.
I suppose that would be part of your subjective world, based on a personal or sultural view of the bible. But it is not an essential experience of man to be so saddened.
Do you feel like you are 'trapped' in a wicked creation, wicked because of peoples willful choice of evil? Do you think that sadness is a moral response, in that it might effect change or something? Or does the response have to be transcendental or religious?
Go ahead you are welcome.
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Did anyone read the "existential edition" of the New Scientist magazine publieshed a few months ago?
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Definitely true in my case. I can't relate to gloomy existentialism at all. It is foreign to my own experience of life. If I suffer at all from any of the "symptoms" that he explored, it is only as a barely audible murmur, and not as anything like a real problem.
eudaimonia,
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No, while I have long read New Scientist magazine, I stopped doing so this year. What was in that edition?
eudaimonia,
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IIRC questionsl like:
Why something rather than nothing? A: Quantum field fluctuations. Why laws of QM? A: Unknown.
The hypothesis that there may be infinite universes (wdue to infinite energy at Big Bang, onlypartially used in ours). The distance to the neqt universe identical to ours up till this point in time was given.
Also an essay on consciousness, bats experience, and modelling consciousness on a computer.
Why something rather than nothing? A: Quantum field fluctuations. Why laws of QM? A: Unknown.
The hypothesis that there may be infinite universes (wdue to infinite energy at Big Bang, onlypartially used in ours). The distance to the neqt universe identical to ours up till this point in time was given.
Also an essay on consciousness, bats experience, and modelling consciousness on a computer.
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I've seen it before. But I don't find it gloomy. I find it quite heavy, in the sense that it's reminding us of responsibility, but not depressing. Someone could take the 'abandoned in the midst of infinite possibilities' line and find it quite uplifting.
I wouldn't use the video as a primer for existentialism. The quotes are hard to understand without context. Some of the lines are famous, but does that mean we understand the author's intent accurately?
Take the phrase, 'hell is other people' from Sartre's play No Exit. Sartre is making a comment on how the self becomes an object in the eyes of the other person.
I wouldn't use the video as a primer for existentialism. The quotes are hard to understand without context. Some of the lines are famous, but does that mean we understand the author's intent accurately?
Take the phrase, 'hell is other people' from Sartre's play No Exit. Sartre is making a comment on how the self becomes an object in the eyes of the other person.
English/French version here.
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I admit I did not read much existential literature, even thuogh it was one of my favourite philosophies.
So nooj you say that (and I dont reacll where I read of it) the reputation for gloom is not deserved. I have been influenced by the existentialist philosophy a bit, but I find that facts about the world like war, famine etc are depressing, rather than the human condition itself. Being a person has a lot of scope for great enjoyment, and I don't think that being influenced by phenomenology of whatever really makes things worse. In fact I think it can help clear away the webs of confusion left by various thinkers over the centuries.
So nooj you say that (and I dont reacll where I read of it) the reputation for gloom is not deserved. I have been influenced by the existentialist philosophy a bit, but I find that facts about the world like war, famine etc are depressing, rather than the human condition itself. Being a person has a lot of scope for great enjoyment, and I don't think that being influenced by phenomenology of whatever really makes things worse. In fact I think it can help clear away the webs of confusion left by various thinkers over the centuries.
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"What is unseen is eternal"
Agreed, as implied by my previous "I would think" language. I am reminded--well, if memory serves--of Tolkien's commentary on hobbits being like common human folk in that they mentally ignore dark and threatening concerns in favor of immediate pleasures like ale and second breakfasts (perhaps Tolkien had simple pleasures during WW I or II in mind) and in that they can at times arise to to become uncommon heroes like Frodo and Sam.
1) Trapped? Certainly there is evil one cannot escape. But the definition of evil becomes key, and not always easy to pin down. Among questions that are central to the issue, I think, becomes whether one is trapped by one's own nature despite everything else--part of free will/determinism debates which I will not solve here. Two illustrations are worth mentioning though. Is the prisoner of Auschwitz free to be happy? Or is the drunk (or meth user) able to become permanently sober?
2) I'm not sure what you mean, but I am reminded of Jesus' "Blessed are those who mourn" language, where mourning in context probably is assumed to be done on account of moral evil and offenses against God (including one's own offenses) with the expectation of future divine rectification and comfort ("... for they shall be comforted"). Of course the object of and motivation for sadness determines its moral nature (e.g., "sad that I was caught") unless perhaps the sadness in some cases can be pure chemistry (e.g., reaction to a drug or a chain reaction to toxins microbial strains produce), but then it is impossible wholly to divide human nature (or immanent v. transcendent nature and purpose).
For me, sadness and gloomy perspectives illustrate how inescapable religious questions are from human experience and intellectual commitment, not necessarily to exclude naturalistic causalities. Human and divine causalities are usually intimately intertwined and, at least in some respects, mysterious, although my religious outlook includes the eventual complete victory of good as God defines it. And that has at least some influence on my mood.
I once looked at a leaf that was partly green and growing, partly brown and dead. I thought it representative of the world in its present course without explaining too much.
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Well, there's an existentialist position on that as well. Camus would probably say that war must be opposed, famine must be fought together, we should all link arms in solidarity and face the world. That may not be a more positive position, more grim and dogged.
Yes, I think so too. But has phenomenology helped you live your life? I have to admit that I haven't made the connection yet between clearing away the intellectual cobwebs and applying it to myself and projects. I am in bad faith, or a sinner as Kierkegaard might put it.
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Jade Margery
Stranger in a strange land
I think whether you find existentialism gloomy or not depends on how well you deal with the concept of personal responsibility. Like nearly everything else in life, it's a matter of perspective. I've always thought it was a healthy, uplifting philosophy, and consider myself an existentialist. To me, the idea that the meaning of our lives is what we make of it is beautiful and self-affirming. It inspires me.
But for other people, I can see how it could be depressing. My boyfriend, for instance, is an agnostic leaning toward atheism, but he still clings to a belief in an afterlife because the idea that this is all there is horribly depresses him. He feels like without some greater meaning, some destiny or role to be achieved, life is pointless. I think he just likes being miserable, but hey, whatever floats your boat...
But for other people, I can see how it could be depressing. My boyfriend, for instance, is an agnostic leaning toward atheism, but he still clings to a belief in an afterlife because the idea that this is all there is horribly depresses him. He feels like without some greater meaning, some destiny or role to be achieved, life is pointless. I think he just likes being miserable, but hey, whatever floats your boat...
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