Existentialism on George's Blog

Nausea

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:32:18 -0500

Summary

Antoine Roquentin, an isolated aspiring biographer, inhabits Bouville (mud town) like a ghost. “Nausea” by Sartre is not so much a story as it is an attempt to let the reader have an experience. Roquentin’s alienation provides the space to observe, producing the typical results of social critique. Yet, he goes beyond this to grapple with the existence of things in general.

Thoughts

This book will have a very hit-or-miss reception among readers. It can be easily dismissed as another case of a melancholic Frenchman who needs to spend more time in the sun. When I picture Antoine, he is quite pale, so those readers would probably be correct. However, for my friends who don’t know when to stop asking questions, this book will give you a few more.

The Road

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:33:26 -0500

Summary

A nameless father with his nameless boy tries to survive in a world that has been destroyed by a nameless catastrophe. Whatever it was that destroyed the earth left its surface coated in ashes and its skies so perpetually cloudy that nothing can survive. There is no life save a few scattered bands of humans slowly dying off by starvation or violence.

Thoughts

McCarthy does a great job of world building, or I should say withering. It turns out he can describe dilapidated cityscapes just as well as western prairies. This book has been lauded as being a champion for climate change, but I think that is incidental. The main question is as Camus says, “why not commit suicide?”. McCarthy destroys the world and all the creeping things that crawl along its face just to put this question in sharper relief. This book also made me realize that all post-apocalyptic stories are actually just visions of who humans are without society. There are many mini apocalypses in history we can use for inspiration, like the siege of Leningrad or countless other sieges that remove the mask of society to expose the truth that lies beneath, the earth is not a symphony of symbiosis, but a network of mouths and teeth. Even your own body will eat itself if you can’t find something else to sacrifice.

Man's Search for Meaning

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:32:39 -0500

The author is a neuroscientist and psychologist who is also a concentration camp survivor. The first half of the book is split between an autobiographical description of his experience in the camps as well as some psychoanalysis on himself and other inmates and guards. After being released he founds a new school of psychology called “logotherapy”. The second half of the book talks more about what this school of psychology is and how it works. To boil down this guy’s philosophy is as follows:

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:33:31 -0500

At some point during a conversation, I asked a question that was half-joking and half-serious. I asked, “If life is suffering, why is it morally okay to continue bringing more life into this world?” Little did I know, I would soon read a book that asked the same question. This book, published in 2010 by Thomas Ligotti, was an explanation of his own philosophy, which happened to be extremely dark. Ligotti starts by explaining that most people have the assumption that “being alive is alright,” and it is from this assumption that most philosophy is built. Instead, Ligotti starts with the assumption that “being alive is NOT alright,” and proceeds from there. This book could be considered an agreement and expansion of Peter Zapffe’s “The Last Messiah,” in which Zapffe argues that consciousness (mostly a sense of self) is a class A blunder by evolution. Ligotti calls this level of consciousness the “Mother of All Horrors,” as it has given us the ability to realize that we are puppets, turning us into uncanny things that no longer belong in nature. Zapffe concludes that the best course of action is for humanity to implement a two-child limit, causing the gradual extinction of the human race. Ligotti and other philosophers argue that parents have blood on their hands for bringing more uncanny, absurd creatures into this world of suffering. He also points out the similarities between this worldview and Buddhism, in that the destruction of the self is the goal of both, just with different wrapping paper. Ligotti argues that many philosophers have arrived at the same conclusion that he has, but they have made a twist at the end to allow them to tell the same story differently or come to a different conclusion, which is usually the conclusion that “being alive is alright.” There was a quote near the end of the book that has really stuck with me, which captures the isolation communicated in the book. It went something like, “Humans are the only species that, if they were to instantly go extinct, would not be missed.” As a bit of trivia, this book was a primary inspiration for Matthew McConaughey’s character in the first season of True Detective. Overall, this book was difficult to read due to how dark it was. The writing was quite good, but it was the definition of defeatist. It has given me much to think about.

The Myth of Sisyphus

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:32:22 -0500

Synopsis

Published in 1942 Camus began writing this book as France (his home country) was collapsing under the pressure of the German advance. Let’s just say it was probably a pretty dark time to be a Frenchmen. This book starts off by Camus asking what he considers to be the most important question in philosophy. Which is: does the realization that life is meaningless and absurd necessarily require suicide? He then begins by defining exactly what he means by absurd. According to Camus the absurd emerges when man’s passionate and ceaseless desire for an answer from the universe is, and forever will be met by silence. He asserts that many philosophers have started from this realization but have in the end taken a leap to get around or alleviate the discomfort of this conclusion. Either by turning to a God or elevating reason until it essentially serves the function of God. He labels this leap “philosophical suicide”. He says that suicide in general is admission that either life is too much for you or that you do not understand it. The same could be said of this philosophical leap. His approach is rooted in acceptance of the absurd without hope, but a perpetual revolt in spite of this fact. He uses the story of Sisyphus (the guy who is cursed to roll a rock up a hill only to see it roll back down again) as a guide to how to live in this absurd world. He says, “there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” This is the attitude of revolt that the absurd hero must adopt. To at once be fully conscious of the meaninglessness of your life while at the same time transcending this conclusion by acceptance. As the famous quote from this essay states “one must imagine Sisyphus happy”. The point is that you can choose to find freedom in a universe that does not have a predefined path.

The Stranger

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:32:22 -0500

This was a short story about a man who seemed to float through life mostly detached. You could almost say a stoic not by philosophy but by personality. Most things that attach people to this life didn’t seem to be there for him. A French man living in colonialized Algiers. Meursault is like Dostoevsky’s Idiot. He tells the truth, but instead of having a good heart, Meursault’s heart seems indifferent. Written by Albert Camus while Hitler occupied France, this book places the character in the most extreme of human situations. Meursault and the reader are forced to realize they are condemned to death and to try to find a way to enjoy the time they have in the face of absurdity and meaninglessness. I liked this book because just when you think you have a handle on it you remember a new detail that makes you look at it from a different angle. It is similar to no country for old men in that sense and in the fact that the ending leaves it up to the reader to write the conclusion. This book was not written from a place of answers, the character is just as clueless as the reader. That is valuable and leaves it open to many interpretations. Camus had this one sentence summary:

Fear and Trembling

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:30:43 -0500

Umph old baby Kierkegaard really stops you in your tracks and makes you look closely at a story you’ve heard a million times but points out that you’ve never actually understood it. As you can probably tell from the cover the story is of Abraham and Isaac. The main question of the book is what makes Abraham the “Father of Faith” and not a murderer? That question is so obvious but why has it never been talked about in any sermon other than the cursory “God said so?”. Kierkegaard wonders this as well. He spends the first section of the book elaborating on the insanity of request. He then describes his version of what faith is and why he’s never found anyone (including himself) that has it. Clearly, I can’t convey an accurate picture of what he was trying to explain in a couple lines but the gist of it (as I understood it) is that true faith requires a dual movement of the soul. The first movement is that of infinite resignation. That is to say releasing attachments that you have. The second movement is the infinite expectation by means of the absurd. This sort of reminds me of Schrodinger’s cat situation. In which one has given something up but at the same time has complete confidence that they will get it back, but that expectation never gets old or inhibits the resignation. Needless to say, it’s a complex idea which I am sure that I am bungling. The book then continues in a short investigation on the ethics of what Abraham did. In the epilogue of the book, he wraps up things nicely where he is talking about his belief that faith is “the highest passion of man” and that perhaps like love is an end to itself. Thus moving past faith, he thinks is part of the human tendency to always ask “what’s next?”. He illustrates this with this story at the very end of the book that has really stuck in my head: