When I signed up for this class…. I was unsure of what existentialism really was. I think the stereotypical coined definition that my roommates and I came up with before I took is that nothing really matters at the end of the day.
So the stereotype behind existentialism is that life is meaningless and we can really just do whatever. We are brought into this world that doesn’t give us any purpose.
Isn’t that depressing? Like we’re really out here trying to exist and the only person at the end of the day who will be there for us is ourselves.
Beauvior’s Existentialism and Popular Wisdom raises an important part of existentialism that is argued by the existentialist haterz , stating that “Existentialism supposedly does not acknowledge man’s greatness and chooses to paint only his misery”
I mean if even I thought that existentialism is depressing (before this class) and my roommates who don’t know literally anything about philosophy thought so too
however, Beauvior emphasizes that existentialism should not be coined out as a miserable term but as this optimistic blank slate if you know what I mean.However, people are still terrified of their own freedom Beauvior characterizes freedom and mankind stating “Men Fear Responsibilities above all and they are so afraid of engaging their freedom that they prefer to renounce it” Freedom should not be dreadful but for many it is.
Existentialism is not just the overall idea of nothingness. It’s the idea that we can take responsibility in our lives since we have this open freedom to do so.
