Comment on Anon reads nihilist philosophy
WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 17 hours agoExistentialism is a response to essentialism though. It isn’t that life has no meaning but that people can be free to choose the meaning and path of their lives. An acorn can only become an oak tree but a person is not born with their future path preordained. The idea is existence before essence instead of essence before existence.
An acorn can only become an oak tree but a person is not born with their future path preordained
modern people love thinking this but most people never move even 50 miles from where they were born and the single largest indictor of ‘success’ in life is your parents income
for example being born in gaza or ukraine right now is pretty damn bleak
Yes me too. But that same baby born in Gaza could be born 15 miles away and live an entirely different life. That is the whole point. The gazan child is not essentially a victim by virtue of being born in Gaza. The gazan child is likely to be a victim not because she has to be (is essential to her nature) but because someone has chosen to victimise her. What modern people miss is that that distinction was lacking for the first couple thousand years of philosophical thought.
You’re both correct, but the underlying point is it’s not guaranteed if you’re a human in Ukraine vs an acorn in the forest. HUGE difference, and only a clown would pretend they’re equivalent.
who’d actually choose to roll the dice?
there is nothing glorious about suffering and the human condition being what it is means very few will end with a charmed life
vastly more of existence has been and will be without me existing, I think i’d been fine skipping it entirely
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Yes, read Simone Beauvoir along with Sartre. Sartre is kind of a comically a privileged white man. As you say people can be free to choose the path of their lives, but some more than others.