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Existentialism and dread and absurdity have very little to do with practical problems like pandemics and more to do with the human condition. I feel like the au

Existentialism and dread and absurdity have very little to do with practical problems like pandemics and more to do with the human condition. I feel like the author does a poor job of establishing the premise introduced in the title and first paragraph, and the rest of the article is just a summary of existentialist thought. Existentialism is something that's about you as an individual, it's all very inward facing. The idea that society at-large is facing a problem, and therefore we're all having an existentialist moment together is a weird claim to me.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
I don't know. Cutting everyone off from human contact so that they face life alone feels fairly existential to me - not in theory, but in practice.
- nickysielicki 6y ago
  It's about the "dizziness of freedom", it's about wanting your cake and to eat it, too. When you have no choice in the matter, where's the internal conflict?
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    You are completely alone in the universe. Nobody is going to make any choices for you or help define your life. You have to decide who you are and how you live. That's how it came down, practically and especially emotionally, to a lot of people who were quarantined. Seems pretty existential to me.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      >Nobody is going to make any choices for you or help define your life. You have to decide who you are and how you live. Except of course the culture and language you’re born into, the public education and legal systems that curb and define your behavior, popular gender and sexual mores... Modern humanity is a massively socially-constructed and mediated entity, defined by these interactions in their present and historic forms. Existentialism is largely a retreat from this reality into the fictive notion of an individuality because it shields one from engaging with the larger terrain, within and without oneself.
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        My point is that, during quarantine and isolation, a bunch of that external stuff disappeared.
        claudeganon 6y ago
        My point is that it didn’t because it’s not really “external” to us, but always a part of us and we a part of it. Humans’ evolutionary advantage over other species is our capacity for imitation, which allows for us to transfer skills and abilities outside of and beyond what is inherited through biological descent. But what this also means is that we’re constantly running these imitative, collective structures within ourselves at all times, seeking more and to share our own permutations of them. The reason people go insane in isolation is not because they’re confronted with they’re “freedom,” but because they’re more disconnected from this networked collectivity from which our notion of “self” is constituted.
        AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        There is an element of truth in what you say, but it's not wholly true. We aren't as much a slave to conditioning as you say - especially when the stimulus disappears for an extended period.
    - acituan 6y ago
      > You are completely alone in the universe. Nobody is going to make any choices for you or help define your life. You have to decide who you are and how you live. That depends a lot on what you think you are. As far as hyper-individualistic egocentrism is internalized, indeed you are an insular, isolated entity hopelessly alone in your existence. If you throw a dash of blank-slatist postmodernism on it, indeed you are whatever you define to be and gosh it is so hard to choose what to be and you might as well be nothing. If you see yourself as the continuation of past generations with a purpose to leave something for future generations, while doing your share for your current fellow humans, in short, if you matter to other people, then your life has meaning and you are as connected as one can ever be. If you see the struggle of your ancestors on these same problems, and the gifts they have left for you including the genes, epigenetic methilations and memes (i.e. everything from science to culture to music), if you see yourself as the fallible human being with the curse of having infinite potential (because we are the best generalist species but can only be so many things and achieve so much in our lives) therefore making sure to raise and leave something valuable for your following generations (doesn’t even have to be own kids), suddenly your choices are not as high stakes and you just have to do your best with what you got. Both definitiions straddle the same existential problems, isolation, meaning, choice/responsibility and death. One gets crushed under them, the other thrives with the challenge they provide.
      - plensch 6y ago
        You changed my outlook on life. And I am grateful that you did.
      - totetsu 6y ago
        Two years ago randomly I gave about 100 bucks to an old guy runnig a restraunt towards fixing the blown off roof of his log cabbin next door. I visited again recently and that act had inspired the community to start a crowdfunding project, they had fixed up the cabin, started building a campground and a dog run. I went on a river climbing excursion with some people from my region. One of them after made a comic book with a character heavily inspired by my image. Just going about our lives even pursuing individualistic goals, we never know how we are influencing the people around us.
    - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
      This is how it was before covid too. Perhaps it was a necessary wake up call.
  - hcrisp 6y ago
    I think Sartre said when you look over the edge of a high building you feel fear, but when you realize nothing is stopping you from throwing yourself off, you feel anxiety. A real life of the party, he was. If you want to read a slightly less-depressing existentialist, try Kierkegaard.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Sartre can speak for himself. Those aren't the emotions I feel.
  - fluentmundo 6y ago
    > When you have no choice in the matter, where's the internal conflict? Uh.... this completely misunderstands like literally everything Sartre wrote, the point of which was that you ALWAYS have a choice.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
lavishlatern 6y ago
How is the current pandemic now causing dread in people? Sure, most people experience existential crises individually, but now we have an event that is causing a lot of people to experience it at once. In fact, the first time existentialism became mainstream was in the aftermath of World War II, a large scale global disaster that shook people's faith in God and Government (capital G). Is the coronavirus pandemic not the most global disaster since WWII?
- colechristensen 6y ago
  The feeling i get from reading existentialist works compared to the popular usage of the word existential are quite far separated, the same goes for any school of thought with a name entering the popular vocabulary (i.e. cynic, stoic, hedonist, ...) In scope, even more global than WWII, in intensity though, nowhere remotely close... very different kinds of situation that don’t easily draw comparison.
  - lavishlatern 6y ago
    I mean existentialism literally gained popularity post WWII. See how much more popular Neitszche and Kierkegaard became many years after they had died. Camus, on the other hand, was celebrated during his lifetime. Is it so absurd to think that the pandemic is probably one of the worst events many people today have ever experienced? One of the reoccurring themes of existentialism is that individuals form their own meaning, a meaning that may be radically altered if they've lost their job due to the pandemic, have been hospitalized due to the pandemic, or have lost someone to the pandemic.
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      1 in 1800 people has died in the US, and about 1 in 50 has tested positive. The rest of us have to stay home from work and can't go out to restaurants? There's unemployment spikes, but that has happened before too... say, 2009? Several other previous recessions? For some people it's the worst, certainly many have died... but the average person? the median person? Yes there's the inconvenience and stress of social isolation, yes there's unemployment... but still let's keep things in perspective, comparing it to a world war is a bit extravagant. Whole cities were bombed out of existence, the infrastructure of Europe was completely destroyed, the deaths around the world were enormous in places and primarily young people in the prime of their lives... It just doesn't compare. Not that it isn't a very difficult situation all around, but don't overrate people's suffering.
soufron 6y ago
Existentialism is about going back to reality as you perceive it. It's not about being self-centered. You should read or re-read The Stranger, and you'll see that it has much to do with the current pandemic.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  If you were going to name one Camus novel to illustrate your point, why didn't you choose La Peste (The Plague)? The subject matter is even timely! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    I've thought a lot about this book this year, though I haven't read it since I was a teen.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    The Plague is Camus' most novel-ish book and least philosophical. There is philosophy there (should a doctor resist an inevitable plague?) but there is also a lot of metaphor (many read it as an allegory for nazi-sympathizing france) and even just classic character development. This is very different from The Stranger, which spends like 1/3 of its words on a philosophical conversation, or something like Myth of Sisyphus, which doesn't even attempt to be a story.
mxmilkb 6y ago
"First, it has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely inefective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy. Moreover, since contemplation is a luxury, this would be only another bourgeois philosophy. This is, especially, the reproach made by the Communists" -- Sartre, second paragraph of Existentialism is a Humanism, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exis...
srtjstjsj 6y ago
The pandemic isn't just bad, like getting hurt or losing money. It turned our lives upside down, calling into question the meaning and value of institutions we previous largely took for granted -- from school to office to commute to social relationships and how we interact.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

I don't know. Cutting everyone off from human contact so that they face life alone feels fairly existential to me - not in theory, but in practice.

nickysielicki 6y ago
It's about the "dizziness of freedom", it's about wanting your cake and to eat it, too. When you have no choice in the matter, where's the internal conflict?
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  You are completely alone in the universe. Nobody is going to make any choices for you or help define your life. You have to decide who you are and how you live. That's how it came down, practically and especially emotionally, to a lot of people who were quarantined. Seems pretty existential to me.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    >Nobody is going to make any choices for you or help define your life. You have to decide who you are and how you live. Except of course the culture and language you’re born into, the public education and legal systems that curb and define your behavior, popular gender and sexual mores... Modern humanity is a massively socially-constructed and mediated entity, defined by these interactions in their present and historic forms. Existentialism is largely a retreat from this reality into the fictive notion of an individuality because it shields one from engaging with the larger terrain, within and without oneself.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      My point is that, during quarantine and isolation, a bunch of that external stuff disappeared.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        My point is that it didn’t because it’s not really “external” to us, but always a part of us and we a part of it. Humans’ evolutionary advantage over other species is our capacity for imitation, which allows for us to transfer skills and abilities outside of and beyond what is inherited through biological descent. But what this also means is that we’re constantly running these imitative, collective structures within ourselves at all times, seeking more and to share our own permutations of them. The reason people go insane in isolation is not because they’re confronted with they’re “freedom,” but because they’re more disconnected from this networked collectivity from which our notion of “self” is constituted.
        AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        There is an element of truth in what you say, but it's not wholly true. We aren't as much a slave to conditioning as you say - especially when the stimulus disappears for an extended period.
  - acituan 6y ago
    > You are completely alone in the universe. Nobody is going to make any choices for you or help define your life. You have to decide who you are and how you live. That depends a lot on what you think you are. As far as hyper-individualistic egocentrism is internalized, indeed you are an insular, isolated entity hopelessly alone in your existence. If you throw a dash of blank-slatist postmodernism on it, indeed you are whatever you define to be and gosh it is so hard to choose what to be and you might as well be nothing. If you see yourself as the continuation of past generations with a purpose to leave something for future generations, while doing your share for your current fellow humans, in short, if you matter to other people, then your life has meaning and you are as connected as one can ever be. If you see the struggle of your ancestors on these same problems, and the gifts they have left for you including the genes, epigenetic methilations and memes (i.e. everything from science to culture to music), if you see yourself as the fallible human being with the curse of having infinite potential (because we are the best generalist species but can only be so many things and achieve so much in our lives) therefore making sure to raise and leave something valuable for your following generations (doesn’t even have to be own kids), suddenly your choices are not as high stakes and you just have to do your best with what you got. Both definitiions straddle the same existential problems, isolation, meaning, choice/responsibility and death. One gets crushed under them, the other thrives with the challenge they provide.
    - plensch 6y ago
      You changed my outlook on life. And I am grateful that you did.
    - totetsu 6y ago
      Two years ago randomly I gave about 100 bucks to an old guy runnig a restraunt towards fixing the blown off roof of his log cabbin next door. I visited again recently and that act had inspired the community to start a crowdfunding project, they had fixed up the cabin, started building a campground and a dog run. I went on a river climbing excursion with some people from my region. One of them after made a comic book with a character heavily inspired by my image. Just going about our lives even pursuing individualistic goals, we never know how we are influencing the people around us.
  - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
    This is how it was before covid too. Perhaps it was a necessary wake up call.
- hcrisp 6y ago
  I think Sartre said when you look over the edge of a high building you feel fear, but when you realize nothing is stopping you from throwing yourself off, you feel anxiety. A real life of the party, he was. If you want to read a slightly less-depressing existentialist, try Kierkegaard.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Sartre can speak for himself. Those aren't the emotions I feel.
- fluentmundo 6y ago
  > When you have no choice in the matter, where's the internal conflict? Uh.... this completely misunderstands like literally everything Sartre wrote, the point of which was that you ALWAYS have a choice.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

lavishlatern 6y ago

How is the current pandemic now causing dread in people? Sure, most people experience existential crises individually, but now we have an event that is causing a lot of people to experience it at once. In fact, the first time existentialism became mainstream was in the aftermath of World War II, a large scale global disaster that shook people's faith in God and Government (capital G). Is the coronavirus pandemic not the most global disaster since WWII?

colechristensen 6y ago
The feeling i get from reading existentialist works compared to the popular usage of the word existential are quite far separated, the same goes for any school of thought with a name entering the popular vocabulary (i.e. cynic, stoic, hedonist, ...) In scope, even more global than WWII, in intensity though, nowhere remotely close... very different kinds of situation that don’t easily draw comparison.
- lavishlatern 6y ago
  I mean existentialism literally gained popularity post WWII. See how much more popular Neitszche and Kierkegaard became many years after they had died. Camus, on the other hand, was celebrated during his lifetime. Is it so absurd to think that the pandemic is probably one of the worst events many people today have ever experienced? One of the reoccurring themes of existentialism is that individuals form their own meaning, a meaning that may be radically altered if they've lost their job due to the pandemic, have been hospitalized due to the pandemic, or have lost someone to the pandemic.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    1 in 1800 people has died in the US, and about 1 in 50 has tested positive. The rest of us have to stay home from work and can't go out to restaurants? There's unemployment spikes, but that has happened before too... say, 2009? Several other previous recessions? For some people it's the worst, certainly many have died... but the average person? the median person? Yes there's the inconvenience and stress of social isolation, yes there's unemployment... but still let's keep things in perspective, comparing it to a world war is a bit extravagant. Whole cities were bombed out of existence, the infrastructure of Europe was completely destroyed, the deaths around the world were enormous in places and primarily young people in the prime of their lives... It just doesn't compare. Not that it isn't a very difficult situation all around, but don't overrate people's suffering.

soufron 6y ago

Existentialism is about going back to reality as you perceive it. It's not about being self-centered. You should read or re-read The Stranger, and you'll see that it has much to do with the current pandemic.

pmiller2 6y ago
If you were going to name one Camus novel to illustrate your point, why didn't you choose La Peste (The Plague)? The subject matter is even timely! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  I've thought a lot about this book this year, though I haven't read it since I was a teen.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  The Plague is Camus' most novel-ish book and least philosophical. There is philosophy there (should a doctor resist an inevitable plague?) but there is also a lot of metaphor (many read it as an allegory for nazi-sympathizing france) and even just classic character development. This is very different from The Stranger, which spends like 1/3 of its words on a philosophical conversation, or something like Myth of Sisyphus, which doesn't even attempt to be a story.

mxmilkb 6y ago

"First, it has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely inefective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy. Moreover, since contemplation is a luxury, this would be only another bourgeois philosophy. This is, especially, the reproach made by the Communists" -- Sartre, second paragraph of Existentialism is a Humanism, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exis...

srtjstjsj 6y ago

The pandemic isn't just bad, like getting hurt or losing money. It turned our lives upside down, calling into question the meaning and value of institutions we previous largely took for granted -- from school to office to commute to social relationships and how we interact.