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Ali Saleh — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 11:17:24 GMT

The Value of Philosophy in Curing for Intellectual Laziness

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Ali Saleh — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:25:49 GMT

The Absurd – Searching for Meaning

Resist Nihilism At All Costs

Philippe de Champaigne, , 1646

We are born and raised in a world captured by chaos and disorder. We consume ourselves in projects that give us a sense of meaning and purpose. Then, we die.Our lives are interspersed with ephemeral pleasures and pains, throbbing sorrows and fleeting joys, enrapturing love affairs and bittersweet heart breaks. We fill ourselves with anticipation and happiness, then tear ourselves apart from regret and disappointment.We suffer deeply. In our suffering, we harbour enough resentment to want to scream into the void. At some point, we recover. Then, we carry on with our lives.Why carry on living? Why suffer? What’s the meaning of it all?

There is no satisfying answer. The most sensible reply is it depends. Yet, these questions stubbornly reappear, flooding the imagination in the interludes of silence between routine and habit.

Several thinkers have offered their perspective. I place their ideas in conversation with each other. Afterward, I provide my own.

Life is Absurd

Civilization invented rules, stable institutions and recognizable hierarchies to overcome chaos and disorder. Nevertheless, our innate desire for structure and stability continuously collides against a recalcitrant universe governed by unpredictable antecedent causes, randomness and chance.

No matter how hard we try, the world refuses to conform to our expectations for order, justice, morality and reason. We always seem to come up short against the world’s silent indifference.¹

In searching for meaning, we face the looming prospect of nihilism, best characterized as the negation of all meaning, purpose, value and life itself. A nihilist resigns themselves to the belief that life is meaningless. Hence, whenever we question our life’s meaning and purpose, we face the absurd; the search for meaning in a life that may for all we know be meaningless.

The Myth of Sisyphus

Albert Camus argues that the absurd stems from human nature. There exists a subdued tension between the subjective importance we place on living fulfilling lives and the objective gratuitousness of it all. On one hand, we all tend to take our lives seriously, yet, on the other, we are able to recognize the cosmic insignificance of it all.

To illustrate, Camus tells the story of Sisyphus, the scheming King of Corinth. Sisyphus outwits the gods on several occasions. He incurs their wrath when he reveals the secrets of the divine realm to curry their favour. Once they discover this ploy, they impose an endless cycle of struggle.Sisyphus is condemned to push an enormous boulder up a steep hill for eternity. Whenever he reaches the peak, the boulder rolls down to its starting point. He then restarts, ad infinitum.

Sisyphus is heroic since he never succumbs to despair. Instead, he embraces his struggle and finds meaning in it. For this reason, Camus ends The Myth of Sisyphus with the line:

One must imagine Sisyphus smiling

Camus identifies three common pathways we take in confronting the absurd: i) suicide ii) religion iii) rebellion. Some pursue i) to escape the cruelty of fate and others pursue ii) in a futile denial of life’s absurdity.

For Camus, iii) is the most compelling. Finding meaning involves consciously and intentionally living in spite of life’s absurdity. This is rebellion; a persistent decision to live on and endure the stifling vicissitudes of life.

In rebellion, we embody the spirit of Sisyphus, relentlessly slugging the proverbial boulder of struggle over our shoulders.

Sisyphus

Laugh Now, Cry Later

Thomas Nagel begs to differ. Similar to Camus, he argues that the absurd is not grounds for a descent into nihilism. However, instead of human nature, he locates the absurd in the human psyche.Human beings are remarkable. We have the ability to reflect on the question of existence, come up short, suspend judgement and revisit it while continuing to live unimpeded. Thus, we can view our lives from a neutral bird’s eye point of view.

But, the difficult business of living demands that we take it seriously. Even when we detach from ourselves and view our lives impartially, we can never escape the plight of our human condition.

In this frame, the source of life’s absurdity resides in the tension between i) the subjective significance we all place on our lives and ii) our innate capacity to view our lives from an arbitrary third person perspective. Nagel describes this as the conspicuous discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality.²

When our life struggles are viewed from a neutral point of view — highly particular and localized initiatives void of any cosmic significance — we gain enough perspective to realize neither a death overcoming heroism nor a life negating hopelessness is in order. The irony of taking life seriously becomes apparent. Nagel thinks this experience can be sobering and comical.³ Thus, to face the absurd, Nagel advises that we rely on irony and humour.

To be sure, the human condition elicits all sorts of unpleasant experiences where humour would be distasteful and inappropriate. Nevertheless, we can always remind ourselves that none of this really matters.

Camus’ solution is too dramatic. We don’t need to wrestle with fate so to speak. A slightly detached attitude towards life is more suitable and appropriate. Simply live and let live.

Woody Harris, Paid in Full, 2002

Nagel is right in theory. Irony and humour are potent weapons against life’s toughest challenges. Humour especially affords us a measure of aloofness that makes even the most unbearable circumstances bearable. Surely, not taking our lives too seriously would help?

However, I find that in practice, Nagel misses the mark. How can people reasonably be expected to manage their existential anxiety by simply detaching from their circumstances? How can irony and humour alone empower us to live meaningful and fulfilling lives? How will irony and humour prevent nihilism?

John Kekes argues our capacity for reflective detachment can turn us against ourselves and sabotage our life’s projects. How? Reflecting on our lives often elicits despair and cynicism, the sort that irony and humour can’t always overcome. Moreover, we have a natural tendency to over emphasize the negatives, which in turn raises the spectre of nihilism. Clearly, this is to be avoided. If so, contrary to Nagel, the best approach may be to avoid reflecting on our condition.

The Power of Stories

Kekes argues that a fulfilled life grounded in meaning and purpose requires personally identifying with one’s life projects.⁴ Storytelling helps accomplish this.

Our life affirming projects give substance to the stories that we share and our stories foster an understanding of ourselves and our place in the world.

When we no longer identify with our projects, we are forced to question our values and beliefs. This happens most often when we find our projects worthless, pointless, misdirected, trivial, destructive or futile.⁵ Or, as it so happens, we may simply stop caring.

Transcendence

Victor Frankl, an adroit psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, offered profound insights into the human condition. He wrote Man’s Search for Meaning, and in it, he offered a lurid account on how prisoners found meaning in their lives while suffering in the most desolate of places; a Nazi concentration camp.

Victor Frankl

In the camps, the SS soldiers preserved prisoners for one purpose — to draw out every last bit of their strength and labour before incinerating their flesh. In times like this, where a grisly death is all but guaranteed, people lose all morals, faith, reason and dignity. Consequently, the worst elements of human nature emerge.Frankl argues, rather frankly (excuse the pun)

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.⁶

Frankl discovered what separated the most formidable prisoners from those that could not bear their conditions: the richness of their inner life.

…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.⁷

Farnkl argues a rich inner world arises from self transcendence; the shifting of one’s life trajectory from the inner world into the outer world. This involves directing our lives towards an object greater and more valuable than ourselves.

Frankl kept his mental acuities intact by reminding himself of his wife. He would recall the most particular details of her existence; her laugh, her skin, her hair, her fragrance — all the simple and sweet joys of being in her presence. He then busied his mind in reconstructing the fragments of his lost manuscript. Finally, he made himself useful by serving as a doctor in the sick camp.The lesson: we must forget ourselves to realize our value. Why? Good question. Let me explain with a story.

Prodigal Son

A father raises his two sons in a countryside farm. As they come of age, he offers them his inheritance and the opportunity to explore the world. The elder son turns the offer down, but the younger son accepts. He immediately leaves the farm to live a life of extravagance and debauchery.

After years of drugs, partying, petty mischief, and debt, the allure fades and the curtains are called. He begins looking inward, questioning himself, his values, priorities and beliefs.

Eventually, he falls on hard times, so he takes on a humiliating job throwing food to pigs. When he can no longer bear it, he returns to the farm.

To his surprise, the father doesn’t hesitate in welcoming him, instructing his eldest to kill the fatted calf to celebrate. The eldest is indignant as he’s been loyal and obedient all these years. Nevertheless, the father insists, embraces his son and tells him you’ve been lost but now you’re found.

Why did the father celebrate his son’s return?

You are the father, the eldest son is your intellect and the prodigal son represents the journey you undergo to realize your own value. In the journey through the world of the senses, the world of wonder, joy, pleasure, pain and sorrow, you try and escape yourself. When you fail, you return to yourself, in search of your life affirming purpose.

The intellect does not realize the significance of this journey, for it is an irrational journey. But, that’s exactly the point. Life is irrational and unpredictable. You must abandon yourself to realize the value of yourself.⁸

What’s my verdict? I agree with Frankl. The search for meaning in life is misguided as it rests on questionable assumptions. Meaning is not out there to be discovered, nor can it be invented out of thin air. Sure, we can cultivate meaning while enduring pain and suffering, but there must be compelling reasons to suffer in the first place.

Cultivating meaning in our lives is an intrinsically spiritual practise that enables us to survive even in the most inhospitable environments. To find meaning, we must suffer. There is simply no avoiding it.

During our worst moments, when disaster overwhelms the spirit, when our mind and body is taxed beyond its resources, when we are left unsure of our ability to bear our conditions, the seeds of our salvation can be found once we find we are worthy of our suffering.⁸

Notes:

¹ Camus, Albert (2000). The Myth of Sisyphus. Penguin Books, p. 32

² Nagel, T (1971). The Absurd. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 20, p. 718

³ Ibid, p. 720

⁴ Kekes, J. (2000). The meaning of life. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 24, p. 21.

⁵ Ibid, p. 20

⁶ Frankl, V. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, Boston. p. 109

⁷ Ibid, p. 66⁸

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