Existentialism

Coetsier, Meins G.S., “Dialogisch leven in tijden van ‘Godsverduistering’: Martin Buber en Etty Hillesum.” In Etty Hillesum in perspectief (Etty Hillesum Studies, IV). Eds. Klaas A.D. Smelik, Ria van den Brandt, and Meins G.S. Coetsier, 33-47. Ghent: Academia Press, 2012.

The comparative study Etty Hillesum and the Spiritual Search breaks new ground by demonstrating the Jewish existential nature of Etty Hillesum’s spiritual and cultural life in the light of the writings of Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Much of the disputed theological literature on Etty Hillesum has emphasized her as a Christian writer, mystic or martyr. But as the dissertation argues, such a reading overlooks the extent to which Etty Hillesum was already intuitively resonating with Jewish spiritual experience in a life that was culturally shaped by the totalitarian Nazi regime. Hillesum’s diaries and letters illustrate the struggle of her spirit to come to terms with her personal life in the context of the Second World War. Her consciousness was formed by a rediscovery of the divine presence in the relationship between man and man, leading to a direct conversation with God. Hillesum took responsibility for the Other as a way to embrace justice and compassion. Some studies on Hillesum’s spirituality summarize her writings in the light of Christian literature, culture and tradition. This dissertation, on the other hand, provides a framework for understanding Hillesum’s spiritual search as a Jewish existential path to God within the wider cultural context. The study seeks to dispel some of the confusion that assails readers when they are exposed to the bewildering range of Christian and other cultural interpretations of the diaries and letters. This work represents a spiritual search within an intercultural environment that will resonate with the contemporary world.

How do human beings find a sense of identity and purpose?  Usually, the process involves devoting oneself to a group, a role, or a cause--something we deem more important than ourselves.  The author recounts his own journey of humanist self-discovery, and urges other humanists to share theirs.  By coming out of the humanist closet, we help others discover their own path to a life that truly matters.

This is first draft of a coming essay based on my earlier work on the topic, which has a similar research goal as its predecessor, but one  that will expand in both scope and depth. The first paper was written while I was a graduate student in Budapest with time constraints and bars to visit. The freedom of independent research should allow me to approach this apparently very popular topic in a more engaging and creative way. More drafts to come.

The relationship between Jean-Luc Marion and Søren Kierkegaard is one deserving of more attention due to the similarities in not only the depths of their religious convictions and breadth of their intellects, but also in their responses to certain philosophical dilemmas.  One such instance is of their discussions of love and sin.  Kierkegaard interprets sin as pure despair, that which temporally and eternally separates me from God, who has called me into relationship to/with Him.  Marion’s discussion of sin/despair in his Erotic Phenomenon is rather implicit, for when he offers love as a solution to any number of personal problems (e.g. boredom), he is nearly always referring some form of Kierkegaardian despair.  Thus, common ground between Kierkegaard and Marion’s ideas is that they agree on despair’s place in the world, except that for Kierkegaard despair leads me to faith, whereas for Marion it leads me to love.

"De-stressing Race. Documenting ‘The Trauma
of Freedom’ in post-apartheid South Africa;
through the viewpoint of a Black Female born
during the state of emergency (1985-1990).

ABSTRACT:
This study is as an examination into the everyday experience of Freedom in our
democracy as a traumatic one.
I outline my search as a Sartrean existential project, via the definitions of the key
terms in the investigation: Race, Trauma, Freedom, Post-apartheid, South Africa,
Black and Female. I make use of a practice-as-research mode of exploration through
the methodology of Narrative Inquiry to discover the stories that give meaning to my
being; as a free being. Through a critical reflection on the theatrical praxis, I draw
meaning as to what it means to be a young Black woman in South Africa today.
Freedom as a conceptual fact and the awareness thereof is outlined as the cause of the
distress that has been termed the ‘Trauma of Freedom’. What this work reveals to me
is the paradoxical optimism that is inherent within the ‘Trauma of Freedom’."

"De-stressing Race. Documenting ‘The Trauma
of Freedom’ in post-apartheid South Africa;
through the viewpoint of a Black Female born
during the state of emergency (1985-1990).

ABSTRACT:
This study is as an examination into the everyday experience of Freedom in our
democracy as a traumatic one.
I outline my search as a Sartrean existential project, via the definitions of the key
terms in the investigation: Race, Trauma, Freedom, Post-apartheid, South Africa,
Black and Female. I make use of a practice-as-research mode of exploration through
the methodology of Narrative Inquiry to discover the stories that give meaning to my
being; as a free being. Through a critical reflection on the theatrical praxis, I draw
meaning as to what it means to be a young Black woman in South Africa today.
Freedom as a conceptual fact and the awareness thereof is outlined as the cause of the
distress that has been termed the ‘Trauma of Freedom’. What this work reveals to me
is the paradoxical optimism that is inherent within the ‘Trauma of Freedom’."

If doping would be done in a sufficiently healthy, candid, autonomous, wise and fair way, would doping be OK? If so, all wrongs would lie in doping abuses, namely when done with too much health risks, deceit, coercion, fecklessness and unfairness. I will briefly advocate this important point – already made by many others – only to proceed to the further argument that under certain circumstances, perhaps nobody can exemplify human(ist) dignity and existential(ist) authenticity better than that modern witch, the doping sinner. Advancing in three ironical steps, I will press this iconoclastic argument as far as possible. Doping will serve as a prime example, but the argument is relevant to all profound self-alterations via the deep integration of artifice within one’s own body – by way of ingestion, injection, implantation or otherwise.  In a first irony, I argue that the values marshalled in many intrinsic denunciations of doping – character, authenticity, solidarity, humility, virtue and dignity – can just as well provide powerful support for it – perhaps to the point of morally mandating it. From a humanist-existentialist self-understanding, which I take to be the most plausible outlook on life, moral character and authenticity demand that one does not imagine one’s biological constitution to be a responsibility-relieving excuse or a purpose-providing exhortation – no matter how psychologically gratifying that would be.. Instead, our god- and nature-forsaken human condition should be acknowledged and if possible, testified of in practice. What better way to do so than to supplant some fundamental part of one’s natural blueprint with an artefact of one’s own volition, enabling oneself to realize an existence that is originally and authentically one’s own?  Affirming Leon Kass’ dictum that “an untroubled soul in a troubling world is a shrunken human being”, I concur that we must not manipulate our self-understanding so as to blind ourselves from discomforting but true aspects of the human predicament, for instance via a helping of Aldous Huxley’s wellbeing-inducing drug Soma. However, in a second irony an analogy can be made between Soma and the more traditional opiate of religion. One could argue that by fabulating some (crypto-)creationist or teleological self-understanding and thinking one lives meaningfully by following the cues of one’s biology, in a sense one dopes oneself into a inauthentic and morally unwarranted state of existential comfort.  In a third and final irony, I again wholeheartedly affirm the widespread anti-enhancement worry that for all the health, ability, beauty and welfare that the human enhancement enterprise may bring, we will be enhancing ourselves into a state of increasingly acute existential perplexity. Indeed, as the determinants that shape and drive our existence become increasingly up for grabs, the plausibility of a prefabricated meaning to our existence crumbles, and our self-understanding becomes increasingly circular. I argue therefore that Bill McKibben is right in fearing that “should we ever escape our limits [and become ‘everything’] we will become – nothing.” However, I take this experience of existential vacuity to be at the heart of the human tragedy. I conclude that we must above all not see ourselves as creatures of Nature, God or Fortune who live meaningfully by executing their directives. Sharing the core values and concerns of Kass and McKibben, my conclusion is the polar opposite to theirs. We ought to openly affirm our god- and nature-forsaken condition and, ideally, wilfully estrange ourselves from our default biology to testify of our (unfortunate but true) condemnation to be free. To a significant extent, it would make us a Homo Ludens come full circle: living a life of our own devise, in bodies of our own devise.