2020's Existentialist Turn
bostonreview.net
bostonreview.net
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.
That's how it came down, practically and especially emotionally, to a lot of people who were quarantined. Seems pretty existential to me.
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.
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.
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.
Uh.... this completely misunderstands like literally everything Sartre wrote, the point of which was that you ALWAYS have a choice.
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?
In scope, even more global than WWII, in intensity though, nowhere remotely close... very different kinds of situation that don’t easily draw comparison.
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.
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.
Watching Netflix at home, WFH, etc... While awaiting "certain covid" of course, its only for the privileged.
For the not so privileged the trauma can be easily compared to violent times: it's all about unemployment, domestic violence, hunger, collateral death, etc
They get a cat instead of a kid, they expect to never be able to buy a home, they expect not to have a pension and to enter the later stages of their life in a climate of turmoil and an ever-decreasing safety net.
Whether that's true, of course, is debatable. But it's been somewhat surprising and very painful to see how many of the 30-and-below people around me are utterly pessimistic about their future prospects on various axes. The pandemic mostly registered to them as a punch to the gut, and as something that probably accelerates a number of their other concerns. If anything, it /hasn't/ been too traumatic because they were already pessimistic.
It’s interesting that our current ‘modern’ culture focuses on feelings much more, such that someone may feel they are going through something worse than WW2 and we to affirm their feelings or we are ‘hating’ them.
I imagine the spectre of nuclear armegedon during the height of the cold war was pretty scary, so maybe its still a false claim, but its hard for me to say as i wasn't alive then. I will say that i think this year has been one of the most anxious of my life, only partially due to covid.
-- Sartre, second paragraph of Existentialism is a Humanism, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exis...
My life and those of my loved ones goes pretty well. But I see issues in my social circle.
People realize their lifes suck.
They worked all week in a shitty job, just to go to a party, concert, or the cinema at the weekend.
They worked all year in a shitty job, just to have 2-4 weeks of holidays that were fun.
They were in relationships that only survived, because they were able to take some time without their partner.
Nobody in my social circle died of Corona, but a few people killed themselves or broke up with their partners of over ten years.
That showed me how thin the layer of "goodness" around many peoples life really is.
Somehow I reached the point in my life where I started to question all these things many years ago.
When you're young, you have the energy and time, but no money.
When you're middle-aged, you have the energy and money, but no time.
When you're old, you have the time and money, but no energy.
The previous generation can just put in 9-5, work in one company their whole lives. and rely on their retirement pension in old age.
Millennials today have no such luxury. They have to manage their careers and finances personally or they will be left penniless when they are old.
Interesting take on the rise of authoritarianism around the world.
Note that I do not think we were doing that badly before Trump and other authoritarians. It's just that a lot of people perceived the world was getting dangerous for them (probably because it became more inclusive, and also because they watch Fox news).
Or authoritarianism is a reaction to the perceived failures of (classical) liberalism to counter modern realities that are perceived as challenges because it suits would-be authoritarians to present them that way.
If you're on the left, I'm talking about immigration, and if you're on the right, I'm talking about climate change...
And really if by critical theory’s definitions that everything is relativist then what’s the problem?
Classical liberalism can under attack from critical theory over the last 40 years and has manifested in mainstream adoption of this type of thinking. This betrayal and dismissal of classical liberalism has forced the right into authoritarianism as the norms of liberal democracy have been dismantled.
China is interesting. It's theoretically communist, but in practice mostly capitalist now. It's authoritarian, but more by constant bureaucratic pressure than random hits by goon squads. There's central planning, and five-year plans that have real effect, yet most of the movers are private companies. Finance is tightly controlled; manufacturing less so. People move up in the government by starting in low-level jobs and getting promoted; there is not much movement between business and government. So far, results are reasonably good.
Even most of the current leftist ideas seem strangely authoritarian and dogmatic.
A list of questions that should have been answered before any response was put in place.
What is the death rate per infection.
What is the asymptomatic rate in the general population.
What is the transmission rate for asymptomatic carriers.
A small army of less than 10k researchers sampling the whole population of the US at random would have been able to answer those questions in a week and we could have decided on an actual scientific response. Instead of whatever ideological response we get depending on who is in power at whatever level of the government.
It could be that letting the virus run wild as fast as possible is the best possible response. It could be that we need to take a note from China and weld people in their houses. We don't know, and no one wants to find out.
Anyone who says 'scientific facts' with a straight face when making a suggestion about the pandemic with the state of knowledge we have is at best clueless and at worst a charlatan and should be removed from whatever position they currently occupy.
One of my favorite pop-psychology ideas was an idea about managers. Apparently there was some study (probably never peer reviewed or even sufficiently well founded, but what do I know?) where people were given bosses that were one of: "super nice", "super mean", or "usually nice and sometime mean". The result, as I recall, was that the bosses people disliked the most were the usually nice bosses. The speculation was that with a horrible boss you at least knew what to expect. You could plan around someone who is consistently mean. The "usually nice" bosses were unpredictable which lead to higher stress amongst the participants. I may be mis-remembering and filling in more details, but I think this result held regardless of the frequency of the "usually nice".
> Heidegger claimed that the fundamental human experience is alienation, felt as homelessness, anxiety, and a pervasive fear of death
For more on this, Lex Fridman recently had a talk with Sheldon Solomon [1]. They discuss a path from Heidegger toward Ernest Becker's "The Denial of Death".
Can't recommend this choice highly enough.
Pre-Covid, I could map out the rest of my life with near certainty assuming no death. Stable career, next promotions, children’s age/steps, etc.
Now, the uncertainty has been freeing in a sense, because I almost felt trapped in following through with the path that my mind seemed certain until retirement/death. The certainty almost made me live all life simultaneously and therefore time flew by.
This time has been slow and steady, and I have appreciated that.
Also, I hadn't woken up to sunlight in years. Completely transforms your sleep.