The A-Z of isms... existentialism.
There they are,
the quintessential existentialists,
lounging in a Parisian left-bank café
discussing the
meaninglessness of life.
There is some truth behind
every detail of this stereotype
but in its totality
it’s a misleading caricature.
It owes much to Jean-Paul Sartre
and Albert Camus,
both philosophers, writers and famous
public intellectuals in France,
from the Second World War
until Sartre's death in 1980.
Sartre argued that the fundamental
principle of existentialism
is that "existence precedes essence".
In other words,
we have to create our own lives,
our own selves, our own values.
God does not exist.
We are born without a destiny,
it's all up to us.
We are therefore
condemned to be free,
condemned because our freedom
is far from that of the carefree,
hedonistic consumer
on a shopping spree.
We have an absolute responsibility
for ourselves,
which can lead to despair
and anguish,
even questioning
the point of living -
the classic "existential crisis"!
This existential angst
has not gone away -
it's the human condition,
as real today as ever.
Political freedom
and material prosperity
end the struggle for basic
existence and survival,
but only increase the struggle
to find genuine meaning
for our existence.
Why are we here?
How can we make a difference?
How should we really live?
Sartre took our freedom as given,
but his partner and fellow
philosopher Simone de Beauvoir,
pointed out that
it's not always that simple.
In her seminal book, The Second Sex,
she argued that society and
political structures often conspire
to hold women back.
Camus argued that, yes we are free,
but the world itself is absurd.
He retold the classical
myth of Sisyphus,
condemned forever
to push a rock up a hill,
only to see it roll back down
for him to start all over again.
Like Sisyphus, our task is to accept
our own absurd lives cheerfully.
Wonderful though life can be,
it has no ultimate purpose,
and we all end as dust.
However, not all existentialists
believe we live in a godless,
senseless universe.
The father of existentialism,
the 19th Century Dane
Soren Kierkegaard,
believed in the Christian God,
but argued reason and evidence
can never prove that he exists.
We have to take a non-rational
leap of faith.
At its heart then, existentialism is
not really all about meaninglessness.
It's about the responsibility
we all have
to make the right choices in life,
both for ourselves and for others.
A heavy responsibility indeed,
and just as important now
as in post-war Paris.
Thanks for watching. 
Don’t forget to subscribe! :)
