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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (192138)	6/20/2012 1:09:30 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543803

<<But since Sartre and Camus said different things, and Camus insisted he was not an existentialist, I'm not sure anyone would "see" in their mind's eye what both those men "saw". It's a very confusing term, "existentialist". I'm not sure it's helpful to use it now. >> Existentialism is certainly messy and amorphous and also the most important thing I ever learned. So I feel it is very useful. In fact I told both of my kids understanding existentialism was the path to freedom. The irony (my favorite word-g) is that it is also fundamental and basically quite simple. But what makes it so hard for people to understand, is that we humans are not fundamental, but rather irrational. Think about it. Over 90% of the people in the world follow their culture pretty closely (and all cultures are primitive) and believe in one myth or another that have no basis in fact. So the primary thing existentialism is really doing is unlearning primitive beliefs and replacing them with a modern view of the world and allowing people the freedom to be who they want to be. How I tie the 60's and existentialism together. As I have said, the 60's was the largest existential movement in the history of mankind. Before 1960 people throughout the entire world, for all of history, without exception, functioned according to whatever myths and culture (script) was handed down to them. There is no exception to this anywhere in the world for all of history, I ever found; and that is what changed in the 60's. It was an awakening to the fact that all cultures were primitive and people had the "right" to not have to follow their culture if they didn't want to. "Do you own thing" was a mantra. Every person has the right to manifest their own destiny without cultural interference. That was a huge realization (never before realized) and we fought a huge war over it. And today we all take it for granted. One can wear their hair any length they want, have tattoos or color their hair red. And women are equal to men in every respect. Manifest destiny is an integral part of existentialism, because each person is an individual unto themselves.