Existentialism in 4 Minutes
Or less
If you’ve ever felt discontented, anxious, rebellious, or marginalized, you’re undoubtedly an existentialist.
Existentialism was a philosophy that took its form in the 20th century; it was a slow uprising against traditional thought — specifically concerning what’s called, essentialism.
Essentialism was propagated by Plato and his student, Aristotle, basically saying that everything and everyone contains an essence.
They also believed that your essence dictated who you became in life. Which was a concept that stayed popular among political rulers. It’s why for the next thousand years in the western world, that if you were the son of a king, they believed that you had the right essence for what made one a king. For what made one royalty.
And this was ultimately because god chose your path in life; you didn’t have a say in the matter. You just bowed your head and accepted your lot in life.
But then in the 1800s a man finally rose up to challenge this idea of essentialism. He was a german philosopher by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche.
A.K.A., the german walrus.
Armed with his ferocious lip-guard mustache, he set out to prove that there was no inherent meaning in anything or anyone — that everything was pointless because, god, the source of essence, is dead. This view later evolved into what’s now called, nihilism: which is essentially to believe that nothing matters given the meaninglessness of existence. (A view that Nietzsche ironically didn’t endorse himself.)
So when Nietzsche passed away, not only did he leave behind an inspiring boldness for dressing the upper lip, but more importantly, he also left behind his critiques against essentialism.
Now fast forward to Paris in 1930, and we’ll find our curious cross-eyed friend, Jean Paul Sartre.
Wrestling with his own doubts about god and essentialism, when Sartre read Nietzsche, he was inspired by the nihilistic world view he identified, and even adopted it for himself (with modifications).
He was also inspired by another german-born philosophy called, phenomenology. Which was an approach for philosophizing over everyday, common experience.
Think of it as the act of describing what appears to you on a subjective level — everything that enters your awareness through the 5 senses.
When Sartre heard about phenomenology for the first time, he nearly fainted. Literally. And I know that sounds extra, but to be fair, you can sympathize with him more when you understand the philosophy that he was otherwise cornered into pursuing.
We’re talking about a philosophy called, epistemology. Which, according to Brittanica, is the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge…
So yeah, just some mind-numbing metaphysical stuff.
So with epistemology out the window, nihilism and phenomenology came together in Sartre’s head, and had a baby. And that baby’s name was existentialism.
In the same way that nihilism rejected essentialism, existentialism took it a bit further and actually flipped the framework that Plato and Aristotle were working with. So instead of your essence preceding your existence, the existentialists believed that your existence preceded your essence.
And so because there is no god-issued essence in your life, you no longer have any moral guidelines to adhere by, no one to answer to.
You, are free.
In hearing this message, you can imagine how everyone in 1938 took on this new idea of freedom with gusto…
But then WW2 happened.
Nazis happened.
And the devastation that ensued just crippled people philosophically.
Because it begged the question: If we’re radically free, and if this is what humans are freely choosing to be (that is, nazis), then what does that say about us as a human race?
So after that time, people didn’t know what to do, or how to view themselves. The freedom they had was just too overwhelming.
But regardless, Sartre stuck to his guns, still holding onto the belief that we are condemned to be free.
And condemned, that’s the key word.
You see, Sartre knew very well that this chasm of freedom that opened up to humanity, wasn’t one that provoked celebration or joy, but rather, a well of Anxiety.
And this Anxiety isn’t being anxious over this thing or that, but instead it runs deep as a basic feature in our lives.
So the next time you feel disgruntled, rebellious or isolated, if you find that those things are grounded in anxious questions like Who am I? or What should I do?
You’re pretty existentialist.
Or to use a more common phrase, you’re at least going through an existential crisis.
P.S. - if you’d like to see this article in a video format with funny b-roll, well you’re in luck! Because that’s already been done, and you can check it out here.