Existentialism

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I watched Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers today (did you know that 'classic' film originally couldn't get a release in America until Roger Corman decided to pick up the rights, sight unseen. He showed it at drive-ins across America and made a million dollars in profit off of it (second only to his other big drive-in success of the same year - Night Nurse Nelly). After that, it got major distribution.

anyway it got me to thinking that there are two distinct strands of Existentialist angst which can best be illustrated by comparing the films of Bergman to the films of Woody Allen:

1. Bergman exemplifies one strain, in which that fact that there's no ultimate Purpose to life is seen as a reason to despair by people who want there to be a spiritual reason for our existence because all they see as an alternative is pain and despair and it would be nice if all this anguish had a point at the end of it - except they're too rational to believe in salvation.

2. Woody Allen exemplifies the kind of existentialism which sees life as being full of wonderful things, but thinks this is somewhat spoilt by the awareness of all the suffering which also occurs. And even if you're lucky enough to have it good, it's bound to end in disappointment &/or death anyway, so that kind of takes the gloss of everything too. This view is fundamentally different from the first version because it's based on an instinctive understanding that rather than life's value being dependant on Purpose, life has, or can have, intrinsic value - it would just be a more satisfactory state of affairs if there was a Purpose which compensated for all those instances where this is not the case. This second interpretation is no bar to making the most of life, even if ones appreciation of life is dampened at times by existentialist angst.

Anyway, I haven't read any of the famous existentialist writers, so my question is have I completely missed the point? Is existentialism something richer than either or both of my examples would suggest?

― Michael Williams, Saturday, 21 September 2002 19:29 (twenty-three years ago)

But most of that is just despair or angst, presented in an existential way, but not by a long way all of existentialism.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 21 September 2002 19:38 (twenty-three years ago)

but isn't Existentialism's view that there is no over-riding point or purpose to life inextricably linked to the angst and despair which tends to result from such a bleak assessment of our place in the scheme of things?

― Michael Williams, Saturday, 21 September 2002 19:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I think the term angst as we use it comes from existentialism, yes - used this way by both Kierkegaard and Heidegger (except they used it to reach different conclusions!). The main line of existentialism was a reaction against the Kant-Hegel belief that objectivity about human desires and needs was possible, and that there is a non-reducible subjective element. Angst was supposed to be a dread/unease of various aspects of life, to be addressed by some sort of (partly or fully, depending whom you prefer) chosen 'project' - i.e. that one finds ones own purpose in life, to simplify grossly. Kierkegaard felt the only sensible choice was to decide to believe in God; Heidegger to select your own meaning. This latter is the Woody Allen option - he chooses the Marx Brothers, and if we take that as merely an example, I'm with Woody.

For me, most existential thinking has been stumbling around trying to fit its ideas and implications to the morality the writer believed in. Sartre certainly struggled with that all his career - unconvincingly, for me. The only one I'd recommend reading is Camus, because he was a great writer. And (urgent and key point) the only international footballer to win a Nobel!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 21 September 2002 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Okay, but isn't replacing Purpose with Meaning simply replacing one abstraction for another? How can 'meaning' exist except in relation to the irreducible subjective experience of felt value?

― Michael Williams, Saturday, 21 September 2002 20:21 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't want to start being the defender of existentialism, because I'm not an admirer or an expert by a long way. Anyway, its point was that Hegel did think that meaning could be sorted out objectively, with no residual subjective element; existentialism disagreed. For me, the only reason we have to make up our own meaning in life is because the phrase 'the meaning of life' is a category error (and we're back to Kant) in the first place: pace the synesthesiasts, it's like the colour of seven - there's no such thing, you just assign something you like.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 21 September 2002 20:43 (twenty-three years ago)

and by assigning Meaning to something you 'like' you're making a qualitative judgement no? in other words, if I don't see any Purpose to life, but find Meaning in the Marx Brothers, all I'm really saying is that I find value in the Marx Brothers and that value gives them 'meaning' to me; they're 'meaningful' to me because they have relevance to me, and they have relevance because I 'like' them. There are good and bad experiences in the world, and the good, by definition, are worth admiring, pursuing, enjoying, etc. But describing such experience as meaningful seems to me to add nothing at all but a false air of Significance; precisely what the Existentialists are supposed to be refuting.

― Michael Williams, Saturday, 21 September 2002 20:59 (twenty-three years ago)

They are insisting that meaning comes from a choice, an act of will. Their attempts to link that to any notion of the good never convinced me at all.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 21 September 2002 21:02 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't believe any exercising of Will is possible in the absence of a context of felt value. This doesn't mean one needs to be immediately aware of the qualitative consequences of the outcomes one considers in the instance of making a decision; just that any rational decision depends to some degree on an immediate subjective sense of value. How can a decision about the relative desirability of differing potential outcomes be made except in a context of immediate value apprehension; value by which other potential values may be measured? How can value judgements be purely rational, how could they possibly be made in a valueless vacuum?

― Michael Williams, Saturday, 21 September 2002 21:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't ask me!I think Heidegger posits a foundation of subjective/personal but not willed factors, such as your family, bodily needs, loyalty to country and so on; this would form the context. It also depends what you are meaning by value - moral, or just personal desires? Your personal desires are what determines some values, i.e. does this contribute to fulfilling those desires; whereas the moral thing is, I think, existentialism's big failure.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 21 September 2002 21:55 (twenty-three years ago)

why is a duck

― donna (donna), Sunday, 22 September 2002 02:04 (twenty-three years ago)

top illustration of a category error, Donna.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 22 September 2002 10:32 (twenty-three years ago)

two years pass...

Well, what's so joyless about wanting to be alive and to live in the moment?

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), October 11th, 2004.

ned's post is from the come anticipate i heart huckabees thread...

i find this impossible to do... and in much of the relevant literature that i've read, this
perspective is usually only arrived at after a catastrophic event or a prolonged period
of depression or being despondent.

i cannot live 'in the moment' because i am too aware of what will happen as a result of my actions. i care a lot about how others feel about me and what they think of the things i do. not in some superficial way that i want to be loved and for everyone to know how i great i am. something more all-encompassing than that. i think that existentialism, as i know it, is lacking compassion. it's difficult for me to articulate exactly how i feel about the subject because i'm not exactly sure how i feel.

i also think that the belief in a higher power kind of negates a lot of existentialism. is this so? i guess, with regard to christian-oriented religions, you could argue that deism, the belief that god made everything and then stepped back, could allow for personal philosophical exploration.

anyhow, i can't live in the moment because i am incredibly neurotic. i think that most philosophy leads me deeper towards a very troubling sense of solipsism, which just confuses me further.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Monday, 11 October 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I never understood why Satre, whilst claiming that existentialism was an intrinsically positive philosphy (which I would generally agree with), used such gloomy language ('anguish, abandonment, despair') in his writings on it. Seems rather self-defeating to me.

― Wooden (Wooden), Monday, 11 October 2004 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

He also said "I never felt a day of real despair in my life". I guess I am very much an existentialist, but it's not a conscious decision - a confluence of circumstances when I was 18-21 kind of hammered my world view into such a state that any other option was impossible. I don't know whether I had one fulcrum moment; I don't think so. Theism of any kind would seem to negate existentialism, because of the emphasis it palces on the future, on reincarnation or redemption or whatever. I don't think I've ever been neurotic, but I do think that I'm quite selfish, maybe solipsistic, when it comes to my philosophical approach to life. But that's philosophy - you can't know ought but the inside of your head.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 11 October 2004 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

i also think that the belief in a higher power kind of negates a lot of existentialism. is this so?

Kierkegaard to thread, please.

― Milo Auckerman (miloaukerman), Monday, 11 October 2004 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost re living in the moment, i'd have to say you are indeed living in the moment despite yourself, because that doesn't necessarily have to mean acting out some choose-your-own-adventure (adventures only existing in hindsight anyway, say satre) at any given moment to prove your existentialist will power. whatever moment you find yourself in, there you are living with consequences of previous choices, living within the physical constraints of the universe (of which cultural mores, values, etc. are a part), as well as making choices. you can't not live in the moment.

and kierkegaard predates existentialism, no? though his stuff was influential.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Monday, 11 October 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

someone want to briefly summarize kierkegaard? what's all this either/or business?

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Monday, 11 October 2004 19:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Now there's a challenge.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 11 October 2004 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

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