What is more Sisyphean than downloading a dating app, uploading a photo, and then perpetually swiping through face after face, engaging in an utterly mundane task over and over, in the hope of one day, perhaps, finding a connection and meaning. Then there are the dates themselves: A charade of bad-faith inauthenticity, where you ask the same questions and hear the same boring answers, on seemingly never-ending repeat.
And even if it does end, if you meet someone and delete all the apps, the repetitive searching of online dating only emphasizes the futility of all romantic quests. But engaging in the dating rituals at a quicker pace, and on repeat, highlights the absurdity of relationships: You meet someone, date, break up, or stay together, and at the end, of course, you die. If you are lucky enough to fall in love, of course, the intense moments of authenticity that accompany the experience are worthy of celebrating, even to the cynical existentialist.
And if not, then for Camus at least, the absurd journey itself is worthwhile, as long as you are conscious of its absurdity. Like Sisyphus, we must acknowledge the meaningless of our quests even while embarking on them. Now, you might think you want to play host. But what if that desire reflects an unquestioning need to fit in with the rest of society, rather than a true individual want? This waiter does not truly desire to act so waiter-ly, proclaims Sartre. Instead, he is merely acting out the role he believes is expected of him.
Maybe you want to have some friends over… But must you really serve them food and wine? If you get tired or bored of the chatter, would it not be more authentic to take a little nap in the middle of the party? Or kick them out?
Existentialism demands that we ask ourselves repeatedly: Why am I acting this way? What do I truly want to do? Anyway, if all your questions lead you to the conclusion that you really do want to invite people over, take their coats, and serve them delicious food and wine, then by all means do so.
Just be aware that, behind this charade of domesticity, lurks the forever-potential horror of bad-faith inauthenticity. To fully comprehend your freedom you have to accept only you are responsible for creating, or failing to create, your personal purpose. Without rules or order to guide you, you have so much choice that freedom is overwhelming.
Life can be silly. They define absurdity as the search for answers in an answerless world. The absurd posits there is no one truth, no inherent rules or guidelines. This means you have to develop your own moral code to live by. Sartre cautioned looking to authority for guidance and answers because no one has them and there is no one truth.
Any purpose or meaning in your life is created by you. You have the answer, you just have to own it. By signing up you agree to our privacy policy. Article Being Human. I agree with a lot of the existentialist theory. However, what do they believe with regard to illnesses eg cancer or natural disasters? They emphasise that once we are born, we are responsible for everything, however, if we live a healthy lifestyle no smoking etc how can we be responsible for getting cancer??
Hi Elena. Good question! In a spirit of experiment, here are 10 possible reasons to be an existentialist — or at least to read their books with a fresh sense of curiosity. Sartre was so excited when he heard this that he literally turned pale, according to De Beauvoir. He went to study philosophy in Berlin for a year, then came back to work out a philosophy based on his own very Parisian experiences. He created a philosophy not just of cocktails but of cafes and jazz songs; of the movements of waiters as they glided across the floor to top up his glass; of sleazy hotels and public gardens; of the passion for a desired lover or the revulsion from an unwanted one; of tiredness, apprehensiveness, excitement, vertigo, shame, war, revolution, music and sex.
Especially sex. He emphasised the importance of action in living out his philosophy, which accordingly inspired readers to struggle against colonialism, racism, sexism and all kinds of social evils on existentialist grounds. Martin Luther King Jr was among those who read both him and Martin Heidegger , the German phenomenologist who had most influenced Sartre.
Sartre observed that the 68ers wanted everything and nothing — meaning that they wanted freedom. Existentialists think that what makes humans different from all other beings is the fact that we can choose what to do. In fact, we must choose: the only thing we are not free to do is not to be free. Other entities have some predefined nature: a rock, a penknife or even a beetle just is what it is. But as a human, there is no blueprint for producing me.
I may be influenced by biology, culture and personal background, but at each moment I am making myself up as I go along, depending on what I choose to do next. But, to invent it, he is free, responsible, without excuse, and every hope lies within him.
What would it mean for us today, if we truly believed this idea? For a start, we might be more sceptical about the simplified popular-science arguments suggesting that we are out of control of ourselves — that, when we speak, click on a button, or vote, we are only following unconscious and statistically predictable forces rather than deciding freely. What intrigues me is the eagerness with which we seem to seize on this idea; it is as though we find it more comforting than disturbing.
It lets us off the hook, taking away the existential anxiety that comes with making a genuine choice. It may be dangerous: other research suggests that people who have been convinced that they are not free tend to make less ethical choices. Then there is the question of social freedom. After the s, the battle for personal liberty seemed to be mostly won. The achievements have been great — and yet, in the 21st century, we find ourselves less sure than ever about how far our freedom includes the right to offend or transgress, and how much of it we want to compromise in return for convenience, entertainment or an illusion of total security.
This did lead to some unpalatable behaviour, as when De Beauvoir became involved with her own young students before apparently passing them on to Sartre. He was a serial seducer: one scurrilous journalist in chortled over rumours of him tempting women up to his bedroom by offering them a sniff of his Camembert cheese well, good cheese was hard to get in Sartre and De Beauvoir instead chose to live by their own philosophy of honesty and free choice.
She marshalled evidence to show, on an epic scale, how women grow up to be more hesitant and self-doubting than men, and less inclined to pursue the basic existentialist goal of taking responsibility for their lives. Many women, reading the book, decided to shake off their inhibitions and have a go after all. The chapter that most shocked contemporaries concerned lesbianism — and Sartre, too, was a supporter of gay rights, although he remained convinced that sexuality was a matter of existential choice rather than a given reality such as blue eyes or dark hair.
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