Post Number 2: In love with impossible questions and some top absurdist thinkers

 Post Number 2: In love with impossible questions and some top absurdist thinkers

Bill Wahl, Absurd Man Tour Guide

Absurdism Today is here to remind us that the existence of the universe is entirely unreasonable. This monthly blog is for every aspiring absurdest.




What is "the absurd": Part Two
 Absurdism or the notion of "the absurd" if often misunderstood, or more likely, it isn't known about in the first place. It is certainly on the fringe of philosophy, and as a school of thinking struggles to be properly understood. Absurdism is a highly credible school of thought in terms of philosophical validity, but it also can be instrumental in helping individuals reflect on how they want to create their lives. The Algerian-French Philosopher Albert Camus gave a general definition of the term "absurd" as a precursor to explaining what this term means in a philosophical sense. In The Myth of Sisyphus he wrote: "If I see a man armed with a sword attack a group of machine guns, I shall consider his act to be absurd. The magnitude of the absurdity will be in direct ratio to the distance between the two terms of comparison. There are absurd marriages, challenges, rancours, silences, wars, and even peace treaties. For each of them the absurd springs from a comparison [between an aspiration and reality]". As concerns Absurdism, the human need for inherent (or intrinsic) meaning and the universe's refusal to offer it up creates a contradiction - the apprehension of this contradiction is the human experience of absurdity.

In the 1940's and 50's Camus was a pretty cool guy. What James Dean was to the cinema, Camus was to philosophy, drama, and fiction. If you don't like him with the cigarette, use google images and you will find plenty of shots of him looking more academic, e.g. wrinkled tweed jacket and pipe. 


In Love with Impossible Questions
Human Beings seem to have a very difficult time accepting the absurd nature of existence. We want to escape the absurd and we generally do that by adopting some ideology which is meant to explain how it is that I exist and what THE point of existence is, i.e. most people just want someone or something to tidy up all the cosmic mess. Our need to escape from the confusion of existence seems understandable. After all, we know that we are going to age, that we are going to get sick at times, that we may suffer chronic pain, incur some awful losses, and we can be sure that we are going to die.

A universe which does not explain itself is like "adding insult to injury". So we prefer to ignore questions which we can't answer, or we express faith in some ideology which claims to understand how we are here and what THE purpose of all humanity is. And to make matters worse, the question what is the meaning of life is only one important question that we cannot understand with certitude.

There are at least 6 further questions which humanity does not understand with any certainty. Here they are:
1. Why is there something rather that nothing? This was Martin Heidegger's famous question.
2. Is our universe real? If we really knew the answer to this question with absolute certainty there would have been no point in making the movie The Matrix (first film), because that was what that film explored. The Matrix 2 and 3 were just rubbish, as we all know.
3. Does God Exist? Even theists have to admit that their believe in God is an act of faith. An act of faith is a belief I hold (some would say cling to) in the absence of being able to prove or know with certainty that my belief is true.
4. Is there life after death? Well, no-one seems to have come back from the dead to answer this one, except possibly Jesus, and this of course reminds us that faith is involved again.

5. Can you experience the universe objectively? You say tomato, I say tomaeto. Can we really see the colour blue in the same way? This couple to the right seem to have a highly subjective way of seeing the universe, and it may lead to them killing one another. She seems to have a grenade launcher and he only has a boxing glove and a fireman's hat - but he does, for the moment, hold the trophie. Who do you want to win? Your answer will be subjective of course. But how do we know that someone, somewhere, isn't capable of an objective apprehension of the universe. We can't rule that out with certainty.
6. Are numbers real? Mathematicians have (believe it or not) written entire books on this question.

Absurdism asks that we face existence with our eyes open, that we prefer truth to everything else (like security, connection to a community of people, or a trophie). Seeing the world through the lense of absurdity seems to have a peculiar effect on those who can bear to do it. Absurdism is a bit depressing and scary... but it's an awful lot liberating. It's depressing and scary because I am no longer able to escape from the harsh reality of existance, but it's liberating because if no one or nothing can explain existence with certitude, then I am free to create my life in my own way and on my terms. I am no longer bound by any ideology which idealizes existence or explains away what has no business being explained away. It takes a lot of courage to be able to say "I don't know".

Swans often symbolize some sort of idealized notion of something or other. So, yea, here's a big finger for you swans.


 Some Top Absurdist Philosophers (in chronological order)

Socraties  (469 BC-399 BC) Greek

Socreties was absolutely fearless in the manner he asked questions (a practice which became know as the Socratic method) and he never rested in his attempt to get to the truth. Like all good absurdists, he never did get to the truth concerning the truly important questions, which is why he famously said, "All I know is that I know nothing". And yet he was willing to die rather than stop questioning, which had been annoying the local authorities. Great bloke.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Danish
Freud knew about anxiety. Kierkegaard knew anxiety! Kierkegaard wrote 7,000 pages of journals in which he made a searching examination of the nature of human existence, and what he discovered was that anxiety and uncertainty are at the core of life. And yet, he believed that one must find meaning in a world of uncertainty. He wrote, "The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die".
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German
Another fearless questioner who claimed that "God was dead". Having dealt God a big punch to the gut, Nietzsche enabled other thinkers to appreciate that maybe we do live in an absurd universe. He wore an incredibly bushy mustache and  wrote a book called The Gay Science, which seemed like a good title choice at the time. 

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
German
Heidegger was hugely influenced by Kierkegaard and in turn was very influential on philosophers such as Sartre. Very difficult to quickly sum up his huge body of thought, but his profound interest in nothingness (death), time, and meaning made him a huge influence on absurdist thinking. Having said that, reading Heidegger is about as enjoyable as hitting yourself repeatedly in the side of the head with a ball-pean hammer.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
French
Absurdism is closely related to the philosophy of Existentialism, and some would say that Sartre IS existentialism. Sartre held a radical position on humanities's capacity for freedom and held that we must be responsible for creating meaning. Along with Camus, he explicitly wrote about the nature of existence as absurd, and much within his fiction and plays explores the difficulties of living in a world with no intrinsic meaning. 
Albert Camus (1913-1960) French-Algerian
No one is more closely associated with Absurdism that Camus, mainly because Camus placed the absurd nature of existence at the very center of  his philosophical thought. He was probably Sartre's best friend for many years, but they fell out famously over a difference in opinion concerning Soviet Communism (Sartre backed it, Camus would not accept the violence under Stalin). Sartre's long-time girlfriend Simone De Beauvour once asked Camus to sleep with her. He said no, but this probably didn't help matters. Camus was quite critical of philosophers who explored the absurdity of existence, but then tried to find some way to escape from it. He was critical of Kierkegaard for taking a "leap of faith" into Christianity, criticle of Sartre for eluding absurdity by his belief in the historical development of humanity through communism, and he probably would have criticized Nietzche for notions such as eternal recurrence. 

Stay tuned for further updates of Absurdism Today. Next month we explore the relationship between comedy and the absurd and you get to see some completly absurd public signs.

Please check out B. Wahl's novel, The Art of Impossibility, on Amazon. Search using the title.

 

Post Number 1: Who is Absurd Man (and Woman)

Bill Wahl, Absurd Man Tour Guide

Absurdism Today is here to remind us that the existence of the universe is entirely unreasonable. This monthly blog is for every aspiring absurdest.

 What is Absurdism?
Absurdism is a philosophical school of thought stating that it is not possible for humanity to find inherent meaning or value in existence. The key to understanding this view is the emphasis on inherent meaning or value. Absurdism does not suggest that it is impossible for individuals to experience any aspect of existence as meaningful or as having value (this cup of coffee has value to me… I may experience a role I play as having meaning). Rather, Absurdism states that it is not possible to understand any ultimate or universal meaning behind the existence of the universe and my experience within it. The efforts of humanity to find inherent or intrinsic meaning will ultimately fail because the sheer amount of information as well as the vast realm of the unknown make certainty impossible. The distinction between personal meaning/value and inherent meaning/value is critical, and, for those who can look at it, changes everything.

What is the absurd?
 While the absurd can certainly be described in philosophical terms, it is first and foremost an experience. The experience of the absurd arises when I am aware of a contradiction between my need to understand why or how the universe exists, and the fact that there is no available rational explanation. As a human being, my nature is to want to have an answer, and yet the universe "is silent". This contradiction between my need to understand the ultimate meaning of existence and my inability to understand is the experience of the absurd.

 "Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity..." . - Vaclav Havel

 Another manifestation of the absurd is my obvious desire to continue existing and the fact that I am going to die. But these are just words. The experience of the absurd can be triggered by strange circumstances and can come upon us at unexpected times. It happens in a moment when I am quite aware that I exist - that the universe exists - and yet I might think, "this just seems impossible", or "what is the point of all this?" 

I don't know what this guy is doing

Who is the Absurd Man? Note: The term "Absurd Man" always refers to men and woman  
 To explain who the Absurd Man is, it's helpful to explain what he or she is not. Most people cannot bear to accept the absurdity of existence, and  so, as Albert Camus explained, they find one of two ways to avoid the absurd. Some people escape the absurd through suicide. Others escape the absurd by adopting a metaphysical ideology which claims to explain everything about why and how we exist (which is a sort of intellectual suicide). Absurd Man is someone who rejects both physical suicide and blind faith as acceptable responses to the inexplicable fact of existence. Absurd Man insists on believing only what she can know. In other words, Absurd Man does not run away from the contradictory and mysterious nature of existence – instead, she accepts it and faces up to it. 

 "A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe divested of its illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger." - Albert Camus

So to really understand Absurd Man, we must understand the consequences of accepting that existence does not ultimately explain itself and that there is no pre-packaged faith or ideology which can tell us how to act, value or think. Accepting the absurdity of existence is, in a sense, a “good news – bad news” scenario. Because Absurd Man insists on accepting only that which he can know to be true, he relinquishes all the guidance and comfort offered by religious faiths or non-religious ideologies (such as can be found in many New Age Philosophies). Furthermore, because Absurd Man does not accept direction from metaphysical ideologies, she becomes responsible for creating her own value system. In other words, if Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or astrology are no more than stories designed to give comfort and provide us with various "brands" of universal meaning, then Absurd Man must find his own way. This is why Absurd Man can sometimes feel “homeless”, or in the words of Camus, “as exiled" or "a stranger". 

You can't be serious!

But while the loss of any universal explanation for existence can be disorientating, it offers the most profound form of responsibility and freedom. Absurd Man may have lost the comfort and apparent “clarity” of a convenient metaphysical ideology, but she is no longer bound by any such ideology. As a result, Absurd Man can sometimes feel lonely, anxious, and uncertain… but she is also free to create a life on her terms, and is responsible for its success or failure. Her value system must ultimately come from her and not from any external authority. This fact helps us understand another feature of Absurd Man’s character: Courage. And to the character traits of freedom, responsibility, and courage, we can add another feature: A capacity to appreciate the strange or mysterious nature of existence. Ask a Christian why a certain flower exists and they may answer, “because God made it” or “because god loves you”. Ask Absurd Man why the same flower exists and he may tell you, “I honestly don’t know”. But the existence of that flower may have a compelling strangeness which a Christian cannot comprehend. And, Absurd Man may have to study that flower in greater depth because she has not already accepted an answer which has been given in an altogether too easy manner. When you can accept the absurd, the strangeness of existence and the need for discovery takes on a peculiar fascination. 

I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation - or not.

Please stay tuned for further installments of Absurdism Today. Next time we learn about some of history's top absurdest thinkers and you get to see a photo of a man giving two swans the finger.

Please check out B. Wahl's novel, The Art of Impossibility, available at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. Use the book title as your search term. Thank you.