
2020's Existentialist Turn - lermontov
https://bostonreview.net/philosophy-religion/carmen-lea-dege-2020s-existentialist-turn
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nickysielicki
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.

~~~
soufron
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
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)

~~~
UncleMeat
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.

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k__
We certainly live in strange times.

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.

~~~
yelloweyes
You forgot: work until you're 65 so you can enjoy your last 10 years with a
broken body

~~~
acwan93
Reminds me of this I heard/read somewhere:

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.

~~~
nradov
There's a certain survivorship bias at work, but I see old people around with
plenty of energy. I think many use lack of energy as a plausible excuse when
they're really just lazy.

[https://suereynolds.net/](https://suereynolds.net/)

~~~
d3nj4l
I wouldn't say lazy. Many people who've been through the grind for 40-50 years
just don't have the _will_ to do anything outside of that any more.

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matthoiland
>On the one hand, and for the most part, people have expressed an urge to
restore certainty ... Politically speaking, citizens have looked to strong
leaders for containment and control, a phenomenon some call the “authoritarian
reflex.” And the uncertainty vacuum has been filled by conspiracy theories,
war rhetoric, the denial of scientific facts, and an increase in surveillance
measures.

Interesting take on the rise of authoritarianism around the world.

~~~
bluetomcat
Liberal democracy is on a downward slope ever since the 2008 recession.
Individual economic uncertainty in wide groups of society has been fueling
anti-capitalist sentiment, while left liberalism was entirely fixated on
sexuality/race/gender, without ever acknowledging deeper problems under the
surface causing economic exclusion and divide.

~~~
bleepblorp
Liberal democracy has been on a downward slope since reaching a high-point
when communism collapsed in the early 1990s. There's no longer a need for
countries with marginal commitments to the principle of democracy to keep up a
democratic pretext in the interests of keeping communism at bay.

~~~
Animats
I've made that point before in a different way. Capitalism has achieved an
ideological monopoly. There's no competition left from communism. It is not an
accident that capitalism delivered the most for the average worker when there
appeared to be an alternative way to run things. That's the period from about
1920 (the Russian Revolution) to 1980 (the USSR was still hanging on, but
nobody believed in the promise of communism any more.)

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.

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reggieband
> We might have found that we prefer to be certain about the future, however
> grim it may be.

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".

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfKyNxfyWbo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfKyNxfyWbo)

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techbio
I'm surely not the only one who stopped watching the news to read Camus' "The
Plague".

Can't recommend this choice highly enough.

~~~
soufron
Go read "The Rebel" now :D I find his essays to be even more brilliant than
his prose.

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lebrad
"It isn't freedom from. It's freedom to." -Sartre

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mensetmanusman
I have dealt with the uncertainty in a surprising way.

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.

~~~
3gg
I have made similar observations. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but
it is like one needs to frame a different mindset to face the new reality, and
then despite the reality, that new mindset brings a certain peace with it. In
accepting the uncertainty and your powerlessness, you cease to plan too much
ahead and just take things for what they are. That frees you from the stress
of predicting the future, which then gives you more energy to embrace the
immediate. And that, among other things, slows down the perception of time.

Also, I hadn't woken up to sunlight in years. Completely transforms your
sleep.

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ilaksh
I think an overlooked factor in the social problems is structural economic
issues, including ones that have been building for decades. But beyond that I
think the systems of government and money are too simplistic and at this point
outdated and need to be completely revised.

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082349872349872
[http://existentialcomics.com/comic/102](http://existentialcomics.com/comic/102)

