WHAT IS EXISTENTIALISM?

Michael Tsarion

I would like to explain Existentialism in the clearest possible terms. Whether other books and video presentations do this is open to debate. None of those I have read and seen manage it, which is quite startling. Maybe it is because there are so many different takes and explanations out there. Nevertheless, I think we must get it straight from the off what is the essence of the matter. Then we are free to move forward in our explorations.

Simply stated, Existentialism is based on man’s experience of freedom. As Jean-Paul Sartre and other insightful moderns asserted, man finds himself absolutely free. Freedom sits at the base of his being and takes birth when he does. It’s there in his DNA, so to speak, until the end.

But this is not a matter to celebrate, because the egg-headed philosophers also point out that in the face of his radical freedom, man experiences dread. He experiences a kind of nausea or vertigo when confronting the fact that he is in essence free to think, do and be whatever he wants. In other words, man is threatened by his essential freedom. Sure, he has his paeans to freedom, his high-fluting rhetoric and fanfare on the matter, but it’s a case of crafty camouflage covering his deep-set angst.

Actually, Man reels before freedom which swirls around him like an abyss.

This anxiety about freedom is the actual common denominator for all human beings. No one is spared from it.