An entertaining, and particularly engaging, introduction is delivered in John Green's brief but informative crash course youtube video. The video covers its history as a branch of philosophy, its main concepts, and its subject matter: what it really means to be human. So, as a new way of thinking about the nature of existence that arose in a particular intellectual climate of mid-20th Century Europe, existentialism grapples with our unique nature.
“Everything that I have tried to write or do in my life was meant to stress the importance of freedom” Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism's figurehead, once expressed about that unique nature of ours. Sartre elaborately explored the nature of this human freedom, what to do about it, the ways we deny or subvert it, and the trouble this gets us into.
Existentialists describe our kind of freedom as 'radical', conveying that it is inescapable, irreducible, even that we are ‘condemned’ to it. That is, we must be free. There are no exemptions, no passes, no loopholes. But wait, we’re talking about freedom right? Why do so many of us try to escape it, pretend we aren’t free, or deny this aspect of being human when it sounds like such an unequivocally good thing to have?
Understanding we’re free isn’t necessarily liberating. It provokes anxiety to be in the face of the openness of so many choices about who to be, what values to live by, who to build relationships with, what to devote our lives to, what to say yes to and what to say no to.
But to deny or subvert our freedom comes at a significant cost. If we’re not living true to what it means to be human, and not doing the difficult work of self-discovery to find out what it means to stay true to ourselves particularly, psychological symptoms often flourish, as if to announce the inner life is being shunned, the struggle for authenticity foregone, a method to personal happiness left in the dark.
Denying our freedom is called 'bad faith' in the existential tradition. There are countless varieties of such self-deception, or dishonesty about the unique nature of our free existence and the fact that we ourselves, in refusing to deal with the situations we find ourselves embedded in, create our own tiny, hemmed-in boxes and traps. Little deals we make with ourselves that gain a modicum of false comfort or security to avoid or numb ourselves to dizzying choice. The existentialists point to the fact that even a prisoner or someone in objectively limiting, oppressive, or tyrannical conditions, still has the right to choose how to respond to their circumstances and how to act.
“Everything that I have tried to write or do in my life was meant to stress the importance of freedom” Jean-Paul Sartre once expressed. Indeed, existential analyses of what it means to be human centralize their point upon the special means by which self-consciousness makes human beings uniquely free compared to other animals.
Our kind of freedom is called ‘radical’ by this same tradition, conveying that it is inescapable, irreducible, even that we are ‘condemned’ to it. That is, we must be free. There are no exemptions, no passes, no loopholes. But wait, we’re talking about freedom right? Why do so many of us try to escape it, pretend we aren’t free, or deny this aspect of being human when it sounds like such an unequivocally good thing to have?
Understanding we’re free isn’t necessarily liberating. It provokes anxiety to be in the face of the openness of so many choices about who to be, what values to live by, who to build relationships with, what to devote our lives to, what to say yes to and what to say no to.
Since existentialism’s heyday in the mid-20th Century, many parts of the affluent world have seen a vast increase in product and service consumer commodities, tens of thousands of proliferating options that require a kind of daily sorting through that taxes attention, energy, and resources (ponder, for instance, the 45,000 items that are now stocked in American supermarkets).
Perhaps our overconsumerism is only giant distraction to asking the deeper questions about who we are and who we’d like to become, something the existentialists analyzed as usually involving some anxiety, emotional pain, guilt, and struggle that we naturally, and maybe even compulsively, avoid.
But to deny or subvert our freedom comes at a significant cost. If we’re not living true to what it means to be human, and not doing the difficult work of self-discovery to find out what it means to stay true to ourselves particularly, psychological symptoms often flourish, as if to announce the inner life is being shunned, the struggle for authenticity foregone, a method to personal happiness left in the dark.
“Everything that I have tried to write or do in my life was meant to stress the importance of freedom” Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism's figurehead, once expressed about that unique nature of ours. Sartre elaborately explored the nature of this human freedom, what to do about it, the ways we deny or subvert it, and the trouble this gets us into.
Existentialists describe our kind of freedom as 'radical', conveying that it is inescapable, irreducible, even that we are ‘condemned’ to it. That is, we must be free. There are no exemptions, no passes, no loopholes. But wait, we’re talking about freedom right? Why do so many of us try to escape it, pretend we aren’t free, or deny this aspect of being human when it sounds like such an unequivocally good thing to have?
Understanding we’re free isn’t necessarily liberating. It provokes anxiety to be in the face of the openness of so many choices about who to be, what values to live by, who to build relationships with, what to devote our lives to, what to say yes to and what to say no to.
But to deny or subvert our freedom comes at a significant cost. If we’re not living true to what it means to be human, and not doing the difficult work of self-discovery to find out what it means to stay true to ourselves particularly, psychological symptoms often flourish, as if to announce the inner life is being shunned, the struggle for authenticity foregone, a method to personal happiness left in the dark.
Denying our freedom is called 'bad faith' in the existential tradition. There are countless varieties of such self-deception, or dishonesty about the unique nature of our free existence and the fact that we ourselves, in refusing to deal with the situations we find ourselves embedded in, create our own tiny, hemmed-in boxes and traps. Little deals we make with ourselves that gain a modicum of false comfort or security to avoid or numb ourselves to dizzying choice. The existentialists point to the fact that even a prisoner or someone in objectively limiting, oppressive, or tyrannical conditions, still has the right to choose how to respond to their circumstances and how to act.
“Everything that I have tried to write or do in my life was meant to stress the importance of freedom” Jean-Paul Sartre once expressed. Indeed, existential analyses of what it means to be human centralize their point upon the special means by which self-consciousness makes human beings uniquely free compared to other animals.
Our kind of freedom is called ‘radical’ by this same tradition, conveying that it is inescapable, irreducible, even that we are ‘condemned’ to it. That is, we must be free. There are no exemptions, no passes, no loopholes. But wait, we’re talking about freedom right? Why do so many of us try to escape it, pretend we aren’t free, or deny this aspect of being human when it sounds like such an unequivocally good thing to have?
Understanding we’re free isn’t necessarily liberating. It provokes anxiety to be in the face of the openness of so many choices about who to be, what values to live by, who to build relationships with, what to devote our lives to, what to say yes to and what to say no to.
Since existentialism’s heyday in the mid-20th Century, many parts of the affluent world have seen a vast increase in product and service consumer commodities, tens of thousands of proliferating options that require a kind of daily sorting through that taxes attention, energy, and resources (ponder, for instance, the 45,000 items that are now stocked in American supermarkets).
Perhaps our overconsumerism is only giant distraction to asking the deeper questions about who we are and who we’d like to become, something the existentialists analyzed as usually involving some anxiety, emotional pain, guilt, and struggle that we naturally, and maybe even compulsively, avoid.
But to deny or subvert our freedom comes at a significant cost. If we’re not living true to what it means to be human, and not doing the difficult work of self-discovery to find out what it means to stay true to ourselves particularly, psychological symptoms often flourish, as if to announce the inner life is being shunned, the struggle for authenticity foregone, a method to personal happiness left in the dark.