Existentialism is a reaction towards materialist reality from an idealist perspective.
Existentialism, as in, the notion that reality has no objective meaning, is objectively correct. There is no god nor higher power to bestow objective meaning on to people.
What we do have is a lot of subjective meanings piled together with lots of people agreeing on them so they become basically objective.
God is dead and we killed him.
The very phrase that encapsulates that the explanations, religions, beliefs, and deities of old have ceased to matter, and that only though the casting aside the nihilism that arises from putting our fate into a “god”, can humanity itself take its existence by the reigns and become its own god.
I’m tempted to agree in principle. But I have some questions, as existentialism seems at odds with historical materialism. These questions aren’t necessarily for you to answer, as each question would probably take a book or more to fully explore. But I’d be interested in yours and others’ views.
- a. What does objective meaning mean?
- b. Is objective meaning the same as objective truth or objective knowledge?
- c. Is objective meaning merely the result of scientific enquiry?
- a. If Marxism is scientific, can it lead to objective meaning (without the need to say that this meaning came from a higher power or god)?
- b. If historical materialism presents a ‘totality’, a grand narrative that claims to accommodate all truth, does historical materialism claim to know an objective truth?
- If historical materialism does claim objective truth—or perhaps objective knowledge—does it also claim objective meaning?
- If alienation is the separation of human subjectivity from objectivity, and communism is intended to end alienation by allowing a reunification of objectivity and subjectivity, does communism pressuppose that objective meaning is attainable, just not until it becomes objective-subjective meaning?
- If communism does presuppose some concept of objective meaning, does this mean reality has (an/some kind of) objective meaning?
- If the answer to 5 is, ‘yes’, does that mean any definition of ‘objective meaning’ cannot be universal? Perhaps it is historically contingent.
- If there is no possiblity of a universal, ahistorical ‘objective meaning’ does that allow for non-historical materialists to lay claim to objective meaning in different eras?
- If the answer to 7 is, ‘yes’, does that mean that religious claims of objective meaning could be objective (even if it came from humans rather than was bestowed by a higher power)?
I suppose this is why Marx told us to go beyond philosophy. We could go round in circles all day without improving the world one jot.
All of these are, like you said, pretty hard to answer, except for
2 b. Is objective meaning the same as objective truth or objective knowledge?
No. Objective meaning refers to the idea of objectively correct goals to life. “Meaning of life”. This can’t exist unless there is a god or designer that created the universe
I think that clears up some of the other questions, too, as I don’t think Marxism does offer a ‘meaning of life’ in that way.
As are a host of ideologies.
In my opinion “hope” and “despair” are bourgeoisie concepts because they’re not really active, they just involve sitting around and thinking something’s going to happen. Real communists perform actions.
Hope is an ideal that one can use as fuel to move towards. Despair on the other hand is a reaction to what has come before.
Both of those are vital components of the human condition, and without them the vast majority of human emotion and effort becomes meaningless. Hope and despair are intrinsic to humanity and it’s progress.
Why bother changing anything if you have no hope for the better? And why bother making those changes if you feel no despair at the present situation?
I’ve often wondered if nihilistic/pessimistic life-averse philosophies emerged as a side effect capitalism
Actually, it is very easy to get into despair, when you see how many evil and injustise is in the world. Sometimes I just want to kill myself. Sometimes I agree with Schopenhauer that life is a pendulum oscillating between boredom and suffering. Btw, I actually have birthday in the same day of year as him. While he was inspired by oriental philosophies, I do not know where his doomerism came from. What I love in ML, besides other things, is that it gives hope to struggle while do not being blind to injustice and poverty.
But a significant majority of that evil and injustice is perpetrated by the bourgoisie, giving weight to the idea that our philosophical outlook has been greatly darkened by capitalism
Yes, and since 80s the world additionally suffers from the sickness called neoliberalism known also under oxymoron name “free market”, exactly every country which was forced to such policy or was so stupid to follow it.
I have this theory that the reason why people in Nordic countries have the most depressing philosophy you’ve ever heard is because only the most depressed people could ever choose to accept living in an icy shit hole.
I love philosophy memes, bring it more!
When’s the community coming?
You mean a community with philosophy memes?
Ye
When I get something good, I will think about it 👍🏻 or maybe I will invent something myself 😁
I won’t defend existentialism, as all I know if it is Sarte being whiny and undialectal, but I do agree with the notion that life is suffering (or at least unsatisfactoriness).
