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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (8933)	12/14/2010 6:15:18 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10087

Existentialism has been misunderstood a lot, IMO, because it is such a hard concept for humans to grasp. Forget about all ideological existentialism e.g.Kierkegaard or even Sartre, Camus or Grass, for that matter. Existentialism is kin to Zen. It is an abstract concept, nothing more, but takes a long time of intense education to see and understand. Humans can engage in abstract thinking but are much more comfortable with concrete thinking. But let me comment a bit on Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus. Kierkegaard was brilliant, but he lived in the early 19th century and like Jefferson he hit very big nails not quite on the head (as Tom wolff said about Mashall Macluen). Kierkegaard was light years ahead of his peers of the time though. Kierkegaard had glimpses of the dignity of the individual and championed that (like socrates). I think that is how he gets to be called an existentialist. But he had no understanding of it in the modern sense. Just as Jefferson had no modern idea of slavery. Kierkegaard had no knowledge of evolution and Jefferson was not even aware enough to fully appreciate the concept of slavery. Which is that one should be horrified at the idea-lol. George Washington's wife bought a slave girl for his birthday. There goes the cherry tree myth, would tell a lie, but had no problem with owning slaves-lol. I would say the earliest person to sort of get existentialim correct would be Nietzche. But he also knew about Darwin. Sarte, Camus and Grass really did nothing more than state the obvious and write about great ideas. but just sophisticated perspectvies. But many budding young intellectuals would tell a person the first insights into existentialism was their first real peek into reality and self actualization.