Part V: The Manifestation of Existentialism and Its Miscalculation 

In my first post, I posited that we live in a culture dominated by existentialism with most of us unaware of its supremacy. I also referenced that two of the loftier goals of existentialism were personal freedom and personal responsibility, but what seems to be more prevalent in culture currently are their opposites. Very few take any kind of personal responsibility anymore, choosing instead to judge or cancel and freedom has all but disappeared, replaced by affirmation and acceptance, which have more to do with attention and recognition.

Every cultural change that has been “thrust” upon us (I use Sartre’s word intentionally.) moves us beyond original ideas, which is normal for culture, but in areas of freedom the cultural movement has been substantial in recent years. In the past, there was truthful (I hesitate to say true) freedom of speech. I may not have liked what some had to say, but I supported their right to say it and they did the same for me but that mindset has become hard to find. Say the wrong thing and risk being canceled. Post the wrong thing, even in the past, and be canceled. That is not freedom of speech; that is attacking the very idea that gave the right to hold such a view. The attacks do not come from one side but from all sides. Those on one side blame the other side and vice versa. Everyone wants to blame everyone else, but the blame is ours … all of us. Those looking to judge and cancel, do so from behind a curtain we have built and continue to support … a social media account, an obscure email or a nondescript text message. The informal restriction of freedom is here, and unless something changes, it will become formal soon. All of this, in my humble opinion, is a manifestation of existentialism’s miscalculation, which is the subject of this post. 

Existentialism’s advocacy, in my opinion, for agency and condition regarding man is not the problem. The problem, as I see it, is the failure to address human nature, which is and has been a foundational issue in philosophical circles forever. That failure has left much unexplained and wide gaps of inconsistencies, which weakens all philosophical approaches, especially existentialism. The question regarding human nature is still there, despite the effort to remove it from the conversation, and there is still many referencing its presence. Existentialism untethered man, like no other philosophical approach before it, from his religious moorings, giving him boundless freedom and power; what did he do with it? Well, to be honest, that is the issue. Nothing changed; nothing was different. Man did what he had done in the past; he is no closer to the truth than he was prior to existentialism. However, man does appear to be more broken than before, which suggests to many, whether right thinking or wrong thinking, that there is something to the issue of human nature after all, especially considering all that is new to culture.   

I think Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and maybe even Camus would be surprised, maybe even shocked at where we are in culture today. There would be astonishment as to why we have not evolved past crime, selfishness or deceit. If a human being does not have a pre-ordained nature, why does he keep repeating the same mistakes over and over as if he did? If we develop and create our own essence, is there no means to learn from past mistakes? I believe there would be little support from the past for the canceling of others as that betrays several foundational beliefs of existentialism, especially in the areas of personal freedom and authenticity. Sartre did acknowledge that man is conditioned by culture, but he still advocated for man to fight against this conditioning. The issue of human nature, however, is still an issue. 

Let’s look at this issue through a different angle; let’s look at it through the lie, as all of us are familiar with it and can follow its progression. If man’s nature is not bent towards the lie and instead, it is bent towards the truth or its neutral alternative, then from where does the lie arise? It cannot flow out of the nature of man if man has no preordained nature to lie, as there would be no nature from which it could flow, nor can it flow out of a neutral nature due to the constancy we see regarding the prevalence of lies. If nature in neutral we would see lies but we would not see it so widespread, seemingly in everyone. Therefore, the only other option available to us is that it must be conditioned into us through societal influences, but there are issues with that thinking as well. With no preordained nature, we are told that our essence is created and developed through our own agency. There are those who advocate lying as a means of self-perseveration or as the manifestation of confusion as one contemplates how to live in an absurd world, but both of those do not answer this question, why do small children lie? 

As the father of two children who are now grown, I distinctly remember not teaching them to lie when they were small. On the contrary, my wife and I tried very hard to teach them to tell the truth. We did not send them to a place where they were taught to lie. Everything we did was done with the goal of telling the truth. Even before they attended school, they lied. Why is that? How do we explain the lie in small children without including in our explanation an innate nature? How do we explain that we all have lied and continue to lie without including in that explanation an innate human nature predisposed to lying? I admit the issue is more convoluted than simple, but it does present a dilemma. 

I have no answers to offer other than the one we do not want to hear … All indications are that we do have a preordained nature that predisposes us to lie. I am open to other options, but for me, this option checks more boxes than any other option. This is just one issue; there are others, but they all come back to this issue of essence. If we create and develop our own essence, from where do we develop a disposition that lies and is capable of doing other more serious offences? Conservatives, liberals, atheists and even existentialists will have many fundamental disagreements on many issues, but on these issues, there is a consensus. No one endorses lying, murder, theft or any other heinous act, and yet, they continue to exist. Why? 

An existentialist would suggest, as I stated earlier, that they are the result of the problem or the confusion faced in the search for meaning in life that is, to existentialists, absurd, but that is a weak retort if, inside the same philosophy, we acknowledge the astounding ability to develop and create our own essence. Would this confusion that causes us to lie not also affect the creation and development of our essence? As you can see, there are more questions than answers, but I do believe there are enough questions to justify more discussion. I do respect the stance an existentialist takes in the complete rejection of murder on the grounds of it infringing upon another’s efforts to live an authentic life, but would that rejection not, itself, be an infringement on the murder’s life and the attempt to live it? There are difficult questions with seemingly no easy answers.  

Sartre would suggest that one’s freedom cannot place a limit on the content of choice, again, a hard stance to take in certain situations; he valued the manner of the choice more than the actual choice itself, but still the choice, according to Sartre rested completely within the individual or at least it should. Yes, existentialists believe life is absurd, but in an absurd world, there is plenty of room for order and structure, especially if creation and development contribute to both. For Sartre and other existentialists, it always came back to the idea of freedom and how it was defined. Inside existentialism freedom is always defined as an individual choice, which is confined to and owned by the individual. 

Here is my issue. Individual freedom, which is owned and confined to the individual, will move outside the individual at some point if exercised. One never exercises individual choice in a vacuum. Individual freedom that splashes over into crime will act upon another; the same can be said of individual freedom splashing into altruism. The issue in both cases is that individual freedom is no longer individual; once it is put into action in community, and it will, it moves away from the individual, interacts with others and infringes on them. Nihilism rejected the idea of morals and values for this very reason while existentialism embraces individual morals and values, presenting a dilemma. When it comes to morals and values, can they be held in isolation by the individual or does that place the individual into a kind of moral paralysis or turn the individual into a moral hermit? 

Questions like these are why thinking matters. I will have one final post on this topic. Until then …