Existentialism FOR DUMmIES‰
by Christopher Panza and Gregory Gale
01_276990-ffirs.indd i 6/27/08 11:43:28 PM Existentialism For Dummies® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, 317-572-3447, fax 317-572-4355, or online at http:// www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affi liates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITH- OUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZA- TION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930834 ISBN: 978-0-470-27699-0 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
01_276990-ffirs.indd ii 6/27/08 11:43:28 PM Existentialism FOR DUMmIES‰
by Christopher Panza and Gregory Gale
01_276990-ffirs.indd i 6/27/08 11:43:28 PM Existentialism For Dummies® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, 317-572-3447, fax 317-572-4355, or online at http:// www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affi liates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITH- OUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZA- TION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930834 ISBN: 978-0-470-27699-0 Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
01_276990-ffirs.indd ii 6/27/08 11:43:28 PM About the Authors Christopher Panza was born and raised in New York. After struggling unsuccess- fully to fi gure out the meaning of his existence as a young teenager, he decided to go to the State University of New York at Purchase, where he could major in philosophy and literature and fi gure out all the answers. He got his degree, but no fi nal answers to the meaning of life. After college, he spent a few more years working in business and hammering away at that meaning-of-life question. In frustration, he decided to then attend the University of Connecticut to pursue his master’s and doctoral degrees (in philosophy) in order to fi nally get an answer. Once again, he accumulated more degrees but arrived no closer to the mean- ing of life. So he fi gured he’d at least put his degrees to work and has worked as a professor in the Philosophy and Religion Department at Drury University, in Springfi eld, Missouri, since 2002. He received the University’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2004, which is surprising given that he tries to infect students with the same frustrating desire to seek answers to unanswerable questions. In addition to his interests in existentialism, Chris has interests in (and teaches on) a number of other topics such as ethics, Confucianism, free will, and modern phi- losophy. Chris is also married and has one three-year-old daughter, Parker, with one more addition to the family on the way. Chris is hoping to infect his own chil- dren one day with the same desire to investigate life that has long invigorated him and as a result made life an interesting and mysterious experience.
Gregory Gale discovered existentialism at the tender age of 15 and has been dancing over the abyss ever since. After receiving his BA in Philosophy from the Colorado College and his MA in Philosophy from the University of Connecticut, he went wandering the earth in search of his Dasein. He has spent most of the last 15 years teaching everything from Jean-Paul Sartre to Dr. Seuss, and prides himself on making diffi cult material accessible to everyone. Most recently, his search for meaning, value, and a really good bourbon took him across the country in a beat-up Toyota Tercel. He wound up in Las Vegas, Nevada where he lives, works, writes, and pursues his philosophical investigations into the exis- tential signifi cance of Elvis Impersonators, Showgirls, and the Poker Philosophy of Doyle Brunson.
01_276990-ffirs.indd iii 6/27/08 11:43:28 PM Dedication Christopher Panza: To my wife, Christie, and my daughter, Parker, for their never ending source of love and support. Also to my mother Janice, my father Tony, and my sister Amy, all of whom have endured having a philoso- pher in the family for far too long.
Gregory Gale: I’d like to dedicate this book, with much love, to my father, Anthony Lloyd Gale, and my mother, Rosemary Gale. From the depth and breadth of your humanity, I learned to measure all things. I also dedicate this book to my Uncle Steve. Nietzsche said that style is a great art. You were my favorite artist.
Authors’ Acknowledgments Christopher Panza: My primary acknowledgement is to my wife, Christie, and my daughter, Parker. Both of them had to endure many months of watching me type away at a computer instead of engaging in family-oriented projects and plans. Christie has been very understanding and supportive of this project, not to mention graciously agreeing to read and edit early drafts of a few chapters. I’d also like to thank Lisa Esposito, my department head, for helping to arrange work assignments (and for taking some on herself) so that this project could be completed. Also I’d like to thank Jason Swadley, a former student, for com- menting on some early chapter drafts. Lastly, I’d like to thank Charlie Ess for agreeing to serve as the technical editor for this book and providing many good and insightful comments on how to improve the draft.
Gregory Gale: There are too many people to thank, and I apologize in advance to anyone I may have forgotten. First off, thanks to the folks at Wiley Publishing for making this such a positive experience, and for all the hard work to make Existentialism For Dummies the best book it could be. Thanks to our project editor, Tim Gallan, for all his patience, hard work, and clear direction, which has consistently kept me on the right path. Our copy editor, Sarah Faulkner, was magnifi cent and often knew what I was trying to say better than I did. Our acquisitions editor, Michael Lewis, helped us distill a massive subject matter into a workable project and get it ready for prime time. Charlie Ess kept us honest by policing our content and making sure we knew what we were talking about. The book is deeper and truer for his efforts. I am deeply grateful to you all for your assistance.
01_276990-ffirs.indd iv 6/27/08 11:43:29 PM I owe my involvement in this project to Adam Potthast; for getting the ball rolling I am deeply grateful. Many other friends and family members also made this possible through their support and criticism. In particular, Andrea and JJ Christensen, Tara Vazquez, David Maddow, and Lorraine Miller threw themselves into the project and were a tireless source of interest, questions, encouragement, and thoughtful criticism. Each of you has contributed to this work and I appreciate each and every one of you.
Finally, I want to thank the teachers who helped make philosophy and exis- tentialism essential parts of my life. Fr. Richard M. Jacobs got me hooked on philosophy when he introduced me to Plato at 14, and used Theology class to open my mind rather than close it. Dr. Clark “Doc” Thayer immersed me in existentialism and postmodernism. For the former I thank you, for the latter I forgive you. Thanks also to John Riker for giving me the courage to follow my heart and live the philosophy I was studying. Finally, I must thank too many professors to name in the Philosophy Department at the University of Connecticut for pushing me harder than I’ve ever been pushed; for teaching me that even analytic philosophy can be done with passion, fl air, love, and joy; but most of all, for your understanding when I decided it was time for me to go. Thank you.
And special thanks to my brilliant and tireless partner, Chris Panza. I could not have asked for better. Hey, Chris, I think we’ve almost got that boulder up the hill. . . .
01_276990-ffirs.indd v 6/27/08 11:43:29 PM Publisher’s Acknowledgments We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/. Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
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01_276990-ffirs.indd vi 6/27/08 11:43:29 PM Contents at a Glance
Introduction ...... 1 Part I: Introducing Existentialism ...... 7 Chapter 1: What Is Existentialism? ...... 9 Chapter 2: The Big Names of Existentialism ...... 15 Part II: The Fundamental Problem: God Is Dead ...... 23 Chapter 3: If God Is Dead, Is Life Meaningless? ...... 25 Chapter 4: Anxiety, Dread, and Angst in an Empty World...... 47 Part III: Living a Meaningful Life in a Meaningless World ...... 109 Chapter 5: The Challenge of Absurdity and Authenticity ...... 73 Chapter 6: Understanding Our Unique Way of Existing in the World ...... 111 Chapter 7: Not Tonight, Honey: Why We Need More Passion in Our Lives ...... 131 Chapter 8: Sar tre’s Existentialism: Learning to Cope with Freedom ...... 157 Chapter 9: Finding Authenticity: Facing Death, Conscience, and Time ...... 179 Chapter 10: Kierkegaard: The Task of Being a Religious Existentialist...... 203 Chapter 11: Niet zsche: Mastering the Art of Individuality ...... 235 Part IV: The Enduring Impact of Existentialism...... 271 Chapter 12: Fear and Loathing in Existential Politics ...... 273 Chapter 13: Existentialism and Other Schools of Philosophical Thought ...... 297 Chapter 14: Doing Psychology the Existential Way ...... 309 Part V: Part of Tens ...... 323 Chapter 15: Ten Great Existential Movies ...... 325 Chapter 16: Ten Great Works of Existential Literature ...... 341 Index ...... 355
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Introduction ...... 1 About This Book ...... 1 Conventions Used in This Book ...... 2 Foolish Assumptions ...... 3 How This Book Is Organized ...... 4 Part I: Introducing Existentialism ...... 4 Part II: The Fundamental Problem: God Is Dead ...... 4 Part III: Living a Meaningful Life in a Meaningless World ...... 5 Part IV: The Enduring Impact of Existentialism ...... 5 Part V: The Part of Tens ...... 5 Icons Used in This Book ...... 5 Where to Go from Here ...... 6 Part I: Introducing Existentialism ...... 7
Chapter 1: What Is Existentialism? ...... 9 Existentialism Is a Philosophy ...... 10 The Top Ten Existential Themes ...... 12 Existentialism’s Place in the History of Philosophy ...... 12 Chapter 2: The Big Names of Existentialism...... 15 Kierkegaard Makes Philosophy Personal ...... 16 Nietzsche Declares that God Is Dead ...... 17 Heidegger Systematizes Existentialism ...... 18 The French Popularize a Growing Movement ...... 19 Contemporary Existentialists Keep the Movement Going ...... 21 Part II: The Fundamental Problem: God Is Dead ...... 23
Chapter 3: If God Is Dead, Is Life Meaningless?...... 25 Who Died? What the Death of God Means ...... 26 Just an observation, not a celebration ...... 27 The death of absolute systems of thought ...... 27 Killing the God Called Reason ...... 30 What reason is all about ...... 30 Where’s the human element? ...... 31
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Plato: The good stuff is elsewhere ...... 32 Kant: The world isn’t knowable ...... 35 The Death of God and Religion ...... 37 How Christianity lost its mojo ...... 37 Being religious isn’t a “Get out of jail free” card ...... 39 Science Becomes Its Own Religion ...... 40 The scientifi c worldview: Science as God ...... 41 Science can’t replace God after all ...... 42 So What Have You Lost If God Is Dead? ...... 43 No easy answers: Rejecting all absolutes ...... 44 The baby with the bathwater: Meaning, truth, and value ...... 44 The danger of nihilism ...... 45 Chapter 4: Anxiety, Dread, and Angst in an Empty World...... 47 Are Emotions Key to Understanding Life? ...... 48 Emotions: Not traditionally valued by philosophers ...... 49 Emotion: A source of insight in existentialism ...... 51 Recognizing the Insights That Moods Provide ...... 54 Your moods disclose how you exist ...... 54 Moods are the fl avors of life ...... 56 You’re always tuned in to the world ...... 58 Everyday moods and existential moods ...... 59 Anxiety: The Existentialists’ Favorite Mood ...... 60 Distinguishing anxiety from fear ...... 61 Having anxiety means you’re an individual, like it or not ...... 63 Sensing nothingness everywhere ...... 65 Revealing the dizziness of freedom ...... 68 A love-hate relationship with anxiety ...... 70 Part III: Living a Meaningful Life in a Meaningless World ...... 109
Chapter 5: The Challenge of Absurdity and Authenticity ...... 73 Absurdity 101 ...... 74 Defi ning absurdity...... 74 Everyday conceptions of absurdity...... 75 Understanding the Irrationality of the World ...... 76 What makes up the world ...... 76 Different ways of seeing order in the world ...... 77 Like it or not, the world is entirely irrational ...... 79
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Viewing Irrationality from a Human Perspective ...... 80 How you can come to see accidents everywhere ...... 81 You’re addicted to imposing order on the world ...... 83 The absurdity of imposing order on the disorderly...... 84 Authenticity 101: Striving to Be Genuine ...... 86 The connection between authenticity and genuineness ...... 87 Everybody digs authenticity ...... 88 Matching just the right template ...... 89 Understanding authenticity as representing...... 90 Authentic people: In the driver’s seat and in control ...... 92 Taking Stock: Who Am I? How Can I Be Authentic? ...... 92 Why existentialists reject worldly authenticity ...... 93 Embracing existential authenticity: Seeing the kind of being that you are ...... 94 The central truth about who you are: Humans are absurd beings ...... 95 The many truths of your absurd nature ...... 96 Authenticity 102: Living Inauthentically Means Running Away ...... 98 Inauthentic people take the path of least resistance ...... 99 Suicide is not the answer ...... 100 Covering up the truth won’t save you ...... 102 Embracing Absurdity: “The Myth of Sisyphus” ...... 103 Sisyphus and his punishment ...... 103 Rebel without a cause . . . but a smile ...... 104 Chapter 6: Understanding Our Unique Way of Existing in the World ...... 111 Different Ways to Investigate Existence ...... 112 Investigating the meaning of existence ...... 112 Knowing existence means knowing you ...... 113 Science: Analyzing life from the outside ...... 114 Viewing life from the inside out ...... 115 Living in Your Everyday World ...... 116 The nuts and bolts of your life ...... 117 Space, the fi nal frontier of life ...... 118 Meaning: Life’s requirement ...... 120 Life’s a workshop, and you need tools ...... 121 Doing without thinking: Look, no hands! ...... 122 Coming to Grips with Who You Are ...... 124 Sensing others all around you ...... 125 You’re everyone and no one ...... 126 Falling away . . . from yourself ...... 127 Being authentic: Determining the shape of your life ...... 129
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Chapter 7: Not Tonight, Honey: Why We Need More Passion in Our Lives ...... 131 Seeing Passion as a Life of Engagement ...... 132 Freedom reveals the individual ...... 133 Cultivating a sense of passion ...... 134 It’s not what you do but how you do it ...... 135 Truly Passionate Life Finds a Cause ...... 136 Your cause should express your life ...... 137 You should commit to a cause worth dying for...... 138 Choices must include mystery and risk ...... 140 Truth Is Passionate Living ...... 142 What is truth? ...... 142 Truth is subjective ...... 143 The paradox of living in truth ...... 145 Making truth yours alone ...... 146 The crowd is untruth...... 148 Why Modern Life Drains You of Passion ...... 150 The present age is so dull ...... 151 Kierkegaard’s attack on the media ...... 153 The Internet: A modern passion-killer? ...... 155 Chapter 8: Sar tre’s Existentialism: Learning to Cope with Freedom ...... 157 What Does It Mean to Be Free? ...... 158 Freedom means always having a choice ...... 159 Free choice means free action ...... 160 Our most basic choice is living ...... 161 What Sartre Means by “Existence Precedes Essence” ...... 164 A human being is not a watch ...... 164 Being human means being free ...... 165 Condemned to Be Free (And Responsible) Whether You Like It or Not ...... 167 The inescapability of choice ...... 169 You bear sole responsibility for your choices ...... 170 Freedom Is So Important Because It Brings Hope ...... 172 Free choice creates value and meaning ...... 173 How your choices affect you ...... 174 How your choices affect the world ...... 176 tFreedom is the highest good...... 177 Chapter 9: Finding Authenticity: Facing Death, Conscience, and Time ...... 179 Embracing Death as the Key to Life ...... 180 Confronting death is essential ...... 180 Keeping an eye on the inevitable: The Grim Reaper is up ahead ...... 181 Making choices becomes monumentalin light of death ...... 183 Meeting death alone: It’s inevitable ...... 185
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Conscience Nags You to Be Yourself ...... 186 The voice of conscience is always there ...... 187 Conscience: You talking to you about you ...... 187 Face it: You’re guilty! ...... 188 Chin up! Face your limitations!...... 189 The Importance of Living in Time ...... 191 The everyday view: You’re in time ...... 192 The existential view: Lived time ...... 193 Pulling Yourself Together through Time ...... 194 You always exist in the future ...... 195 . . . And you always exist in the past ...... 196 Joining future and past . . . in the present ...... 200 Chapter 10: Kierkegaard: The Task of Being a Religious Existentialist ...... 203 or Not to Be Your Self ...... 204 The self: A tension of opposites ...... 205 The hard work of being a self: Bringing together polar opposites ...... 206 Being a self before God ...... 207 Despair: Attempting toescape your true self ...... 207 Despair: The path to sin ...... 209 Inauthentic Life Stages: Aesthetic and Ethical ...... 210 The aesthetic stage: Life without choices ...... 210 The ethical stage: Finding your meaning within roles ...... 216 Fear and Trembling: Embracing the Religious Life ...... 222 The strange story of Abraham and Isaac ...... 223 Why faith must be offensive ...... 229 Why Abraham is an existential hero ...... 231 The problem with contemporary Christians: They lack faith ...... 231 Chapter 11: Niet zsche: Mastering the Art of Individuality...... 235 Investigating Who You Are ...... 236 You can take charge of who you are ...... 237 You’re a sea of desire ...... 238 You’re biased: You can’t help it; it’s just you!...... 239 You can change: Analyzing the false belief that you’re a fi xed object ...... 239 You can be fooled by your own language ...... 240 Understanding the Self As a Chaos Made Orderly...... 241 Getting a handle on your unorganized desires ...... 241 Striving for selfhood through self-mastery ...... 243 Being an Individual Means Being Noble ...... 245 Nobles are in control of themselves ...... 245 Nobles love themselves ...... 247 Nobles have contempt for nonindividuals ...... 248 Relishing Change As Essential to a Noble Life ...... 249
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Nobles embrace change ...... 249 Nobles reject dogma ...... 250 The noble life is a path, not a destination ...... 251 Nobility Means Striving for Power ...... 252 Life is all about power ...... 252 True power seeks to develop internal beauty ...... 254 Powerful nobles ignore neighbors ...... 255 Nobles cultivate friendships with their enemies ...... 256 Nobles live dangerously ...... 257 Being a Slave: Rejecting Individuality through Hatred ...... 257 Coping with oppression by changing your interpretation of the situation ...... 258 Learning to see through the eyes of hate ...... 359 Using hatred to creatively reinterpret the world ...... 260 Letting resentment take control of your life ...... 261 Interpreting Christianity as just more slave talk ...... 263 Mediocrity of the Herd: Rejecting Individuality through Conformity ...264 The crowd takes away self-control ...... 265 The crowd represents the voice of the weak ...... 266 The crowd preaches equality and mediocrity ...... 267 Beyond good and evil: Breaking away from the crowd ...... 269 Part IV: The Enduring Impact of Existentialism ...... 271
Chapter 12: Fear and Loathing in Existential Politics ...... 273 Are Existentialists Political? ...... 274 Some are political; some aren’t ...... 275 Does existentialism lead to specifi c politics? ...... 276 Does Existentialism Lead to Evil? ...... 278 Real and Imaginary Flirtations with Nazism ...... 279 Nietzsche wasn’t a Nazi! ...... 280 The Heidegger problem: A Nazi in the family...... 286 Viva la Revolution! The French Left ...... 290 The French political scene ...... 290 Which Left is right? Sartre chooses Communism ...... 292 Camus rejects violence ...... 293 Politics of liberation versus politics of life ...... 294 Chapter 13: Existentialism and Other Schools of Philosophical Thought ...... 297 Existentialism’s Run in the 20th Century ...... 297 Existentialism and Modern Philosophy: A Strained Relationship ...... 298 Two branches of modern philosophy: Analytic and Continental ...... 299
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Where existentialism fi ts in ...... 301 Postmodernism: Existentialism’s bratty stepchild...... 302 Existentialism and American philosophy ...... 305 Existentialism and Philosophies of the Oppressed ...... 306 Alienation and otherness ...... 306 Racism as inauthenticity ...... 307 Chapter 14: Doing Psychology the Existential Way...... 309 Points of Contact: Existentialism Meets Psychology ...... 310 Stressing the importance of human uniqueness ...... 310 Putting the patient’s world front and center ...... 311 Focusing on freedom and anxiety ...... 312 Seeing the people as goal directed ...... 312 Finding meaning is central to your existence ...... 313 The Existential Psychologists ...... 314 Rollo May: Reconnecting with existence ...... 314 Carl Rogers: Fully functional individuals ...... 316 Viktor Frankl: Embracing the need for meaning ...... 319 Part V: Part of Tens ...... 323
Chapter 15: Ten Great Existential Movies ...... 325 Ikiru (1952) ...... 326 The Seventh Seal (1957) ...... 327 Apocalypse Now (1979) ...... 328 Blade Runner (1982) ...... 330 Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) ...... 331 Leaving Las Vegas (1995) ...... 332 Pleasantville (1998) ...... 333 Fight Club (1999) ...... 335 Stranger Than Fiction (2006) ...... 337 Chapter 16: Ten Great Works of Existential Literature ...... 341 Hamlet, by William Shakespeare ...... 342 Notes from the Underground, by Feodor Dostoevsky ...... 343 The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy ...... 344 The Trial, by Franz Kafka ...... 345 The Stranger, by Albert Camus ...... 347 No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre ...... 348 The Blood of Others, by Simone de Beauvoir ...... 349 Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett ...... 350 Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice ...... 351 Run with the Hunted, by Charles Bukowski ...... 353 Index ...... 355
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02_276990-ftoc.indd xvi 6/28/08 1:14:20 AM Introduction
xistentialism is the philosophy of existence, of the nature of human Eexistence, its value, and its meaning. Because questions about existence have very little interest when people exist as rotting corpses, existentialism is really the philosophy that studies what it is to be alive. It isn’t defined so much by any unified answer to this question, but by the way in which it rejects traditional answers to questions concerning the meaning and value of human life, and the way that it insists that such questions are real and that the lack of any real answer is a problem. Existentialists, both theist and atheist, reject not only traditional religious systems that attempt to system- atically provide pat answers, but also the possibility of any ultimate answers. They insist that even if a God and a heaven exist, the meaning of this life and how you should live will always be open questions, requiring decisions you must face as an individual. Because existentialism considers the questions to be important, it seeks a way of living with the fact that no answers will be forthcoming.
The French existentialist Albert Camus says the fundamental question of philosophy is that of suicide, of whether life is worth living. Although not all the existentialists approach the question from this exact vantage point, it illustrates a widely held theme — while traditional religious and ethical systems ask, “How should I live?” the existentialist’s more fundamental ques- tion is, “How can I live?” If life is meaningless, if the inherited stories aren’t valid, how can you even approach the question of how you should live? How can human beings hungry for meaning live and flourish without giving in to despair when no meaning is provided to them?
About This Book Although this book is about the philosophy of existentialism and about the philosophers who developed it, it isn’t a book for philosophers. It’s for you.
We try to strike a balance in writing and structure. We want to meet the needs of the student who’s encountering these issues in a classroom setting, as well as the needs of the interested layperson who’s encountering them in real life. For both, we provide what we hope is an easy-to-read introduction in which we attempt to explain the often-complex theories of the existentialists in plain, easy-to-understand language.
03_276990 intro.indd 1 6/27/08 11:44:49 PM 2 Existentialism For Dummies
Existentialism is a philosophy that attempts to be relevant to real people and real lives, and we attempt to present the material in such a way as to highlight its relevance to your own life. We expect that many of the ideas we present here will resonate with your own thoughts and concerns. Although we encourage you to dive into the rich world of existential philosophy, lit- erature, and even movies, none of that is required. Each chapter and each section stands on its own, independent not only of the other chapters, but also of any knowledge of existentialism or philosophy in general. Everyone’s welcome; come on in!
Conventions Used in This Book Philosophy is a very precise discipline, and writing about philosophy nor- mally requires endless caveats and multiple subclauses and clarifications that would make even a lawyer’s head swim. To make a book about the exis- tentialists readable, we have to gloss over certain distinctions, and to keep you from hunting us down and killing us, we avoid endlessly bringing up the fine print. But with that in mind, we use the following conventions through- out the book: