Saturday, February 11, 2012

No Exit / Existentialism

Existentialism is a pretty crazy "philosophy" in my mind. It's hard for me to relate to the idea that one is responsible for everything that happens to them in their life. I often blame other people if I don't feel like I had any part in the situation. Existentialists say that worldy desire was futile and to me that just doesn't make sense. Why can't one life his life as he pleases? Sometimes people make a decision in the spur of the moment and I don't think that they should always be held responsible for that. People aren't perfect by any means.

3 comments:

sara pendleton said...

Existentialism is hard for me to relate to too. I'm not sure if I misunderstood this philosophy but to me it seems like at the end of the day, it's hard to be proud of yourself; nobody's perfect and if you aim at being 'good' whatever that means to you, then sometimes you're going to mess up and if people are judged by their actions then you're somewhat of a failure because you're not perfect... Maybe I missed the point. Either way, I can't say I'm much of an existentialist anyway; their philosophy kind of bums me out.

ParkerC said...

Yea it seems very negative but it is very logical. It seems like it has had a big influence on society. A criminal can't say that they killed someone because he was a of a different religion and that his religion said to do it. It was their choice and it was wrong.

Mallory said...

I agree with Ravin that existentialism is a hard concept to understand. The idea that you can change your essence from your actions and that each day you can redefine yourself is tough to understand.