existential angst

[Daniel_Bingamon]

but I think that it is one of the reasons that I like to make flutes, merely to stay busy. I feel more relaxed and content if I am busy with my hands and not thinking so much.

Making whistles keeps me off the streets as well, however if I saw what was on the streets, I probably wouldn't want to go there anyway.

It doesn't keep from thinking though.
Instead, I get wild ideas to make things like Triwhistles:


idle hands are the Devil's workshop
So, busy hands are whistlemakers workshop?

Which one is more dangerous?

[Wombat]

I think you should be asking for an answer in plain French.

Very roughly, it is anxiety that doesn't seem to have any clear object. By that I mean that it isn't directed at something clear and concrete. If you are anxious about where your next meal is coming from or about an upcoming exam that's directed anxiety with its own object. If you are just feeling anxious and it doesn't seem to be about anything in particular, that's existential. It's a fancy way of saying you are anxious about life in general.

You are now ready to move on to 'alienation' and 'false consciousness.'

Actually, that's a classic definition of anxiety, more generally speaking than existential anxiety. The classic understanding of anxiety puts it into contrast with fear: Fear is a response to an identifiable threat-object and anxiety is something that feels like fear but is free-floating, without attachment to a particular object or stimulus.

Of course you are right. But I'm still wondering about this account. In my desire to avoid using an eistentialist explanation, did I just overshoot the mark? Or is it rather that, without the lousy existentialist theory of motivation, existential angst just collapes into ordinary anxiety. IOW, existential angst as a special kind of anxiety is just an artefact of a bad theory?

Let me say a bit more about why I really hate the existentialist gloss on this stuff. The freedom that we are supposedly frightened of seems to me to be a very capricious and superficial kind of freedom. If we were all free in this sense we would be characterless, willful brats. We wouldn't be genuinely autonomous persons. We would lack personalities. We would have no long term plans. In the deeper sense in which freedom really matters to us, we wouldn't be free at all.

If first-order desires are things like the desire for chocolate now, or for a cigarette now, then second-order desires are desires about desires. Examples of these would be the desire not to want to smoke, the desire to diet successfully. These second-order desires have a lot to do with planning our lives and with giving our lives meaning. Almost every major goal we strive for involves suppressing countless first-order desires. It is our ability to do this that makes us truly autonomous; it isn't bad faith and it isn't irrational.

Perhaps what I'm calling autonomy comes at a cost and perhaps (existential?) angst is the price we pay for that. If so, it seems to me to be well worth the price. That said, there probably is a kind of motivational dysfunction which involves us in pretending we can't act when in fact we can. But a good psychology would distinguish the two rather than run them together. Or so it seems to me.

[rh]

existential angst doesn't have a DSM-IV code, where generalized anxiety does. so it may be two ways of looking at the same blackbird.

[jim stone]

OK, I called an existentialist, Berit Brogaard,
and asked her: 'What is existential angst?'
'Roughly the despair that people feel when faced
with the meaninglessness of life,' she said.
She is Danish, tall, blond, and beautiful
in a deeply serious angst-ridden way.

This is the truth.

[Lorenzo]

That sounds like post-existentialist drama.

I called my existentialist and he called his wife, also an existentialist, and she called her best friend...well you know what happened; by the time a perfect definition of existential angst all got sorted out, the operator asked what extension I'd like, and if I enjoyed being on hold. I thought she said existence. I told her I was the type that need to know in advance what was going to happen. She said, "do you need help, sir?" I said, "I knew that was coming," and hung up. Now I don't know whether to see a psychologist, philosopher, cleric, or a linguist. And to think, it all started from reading prophecies.

[Flyingcursor]

I had some existing Angus for dinner last night. Ummmm.

[Wombat]

OK, I called an existentialist, Berit Brogaard,
and asked her: 'What is existential angst?'
'Roughly the despair that people feel when faced
with the meaninglessness of life,' she said.
She is Danish, tall, blond, and beautiful
in a deeply serious angst-ridden way.

This is the truth.

If my view is right that existentialists have an infantile theory of human motivation and freedom, then asking an existentialist what he or she thinks would not be likely to throw much light on the situation. Of course they aren't going to agree, and of course they are going to offer a deep-sounding account of what others are missing. What they won't do is accept the invitation to stand outside the theory and look at it with a bit of common sense.

It's not that I haven't taken this stuff seriously; it's just that I'd like to think that I've outgrown it. I mean seriously ask yourself whether the positive account of human motivation really sounds healthy to you? If life isn't meaningless, then existential angst is nothing more than a philosophical mistake on this account. But healthy people still sometimes experience deep feelings of alienation. That isn't proof that life is meaningless.

[ChrisA]

Let me say a bit more about why I really hate the existentialist gloss on this stuff. The freedom that we are supposedly frightened of seems to me to be a very capricious and superficial kind of freedom. If we were all free in this sense we would be characterless, willful brats. We wouldn't be genuinely autonomous persons. We would lack personalities. We would have no long term plans. In the deeper sense in which freedom really matters to us, we wouldn't be free at all.

I think you're misunderstanding the freedoms of existentialism. It's not a question of long
term plans, it's a question of pre-defined choices. It's about every action being a choice,
and it is certainly true that there are consequences to choices (which the existentialist accepts
as his own doing, because existentialism rejects fate to an extreme - are choices -are- the
cause of what happens to us). To choose not to commit murder in order to avoid the
consequence of being arrested is certain valid, as is the choice not eat sweets in order to
avoid the consequence of weight gain, etc. What existentialism says, I think, is that there's
nothing inherently morally right or wrong about an action. A murder is as morally neutral as
a walk in the park, but usually the existentialist chooses the walk in the park anyway -
because it has benefits to the health, is of itself pleasant, and so on, compared to the
murder which has risks of arrest and imprisonment that would severely limit future choices
and occupations in a disagreeable way. The existentialist does -not- say 'I don't commit
murder because it's bad' or 'I don't commit murder because I'm an honest citizen', he says,
'I don't commit murder because I don't want the results of committing murder.'

Existentialism fundamentally says you are what you make of yourself, no more and no less.
(Granted my study of philosophy consists of a 101 and a bit of random reading here and
there, so I could be on the wrong page, but I think I've got a handle on it... hopefully.
dictionary.com and wikipedia have entries that are good for little more than memory aids,
and my memory of reading Neitschze and Kirkegaard is kinda hazy.... )

[Lorenzo]

I had some existing Angus for dinner last night. Ummmm.

No bull? Very noble, and all that endtails.

[dubhlinn]

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

Henry David Thoreau.

Works for me.

Slan,
D.

[Wombat]

I think you're misunderstanding the freedoms of existentialism. It's not a question of long
term plans, it's a question of pre-defined choices. It's about every action being a choice ...

Whatever your background in philosophy, Chris, I think you present a sympathetic and informed account of existentialism.

Certainly an existentialist would resist putting things the way I did. But I think a closer look would reveal that he or she is committed to a whole lot of things that I simply don't accept. The idea that (without God) there is no right and wrong and life is meaningless is, IMP, just a crude mistake.

I don't think you can avoid the question of long term plans. If the healthy person chooses every intentional action from a smorgasboard containing every possible option then this would involve reassessing every long term plan at every stage in its implementation. The phenomenology of decision making simply isn't like this at all, nor could it be. A lot of the time we are on autopilot. We'd get knocked over by a car crossing the road if this weren't true.

There have been a lot of sophisticated writings on motivation since existentialism went out of fashion and I think it would be a serious mistake to go back to old ways of conceptualising these issues as though the last forty years had contained no significant advances. Whilst it would be unfair to blame existentialists for not having access to literature not yet written, it would equally be a mistake to talk about them in terms uninformed by more recent advances.

[Nanohedron]

I think you should be asking for an answer in plain French.

"L'enfer c'est les autres."

[jim stone]

OK, I called an existentialist, Berit Brogaard,
and asked her: 'What is existential angst?'
'Roughly the despair that people feel when faced
with the meaninglessness of life,' she said.
She is Danish, tall, blond, and beautiful
in a deeply serious angst-ridden way.

This is the truth.

If my view is right that existentialists have an infantile theory of human motivation and freedom, then asking an existentialist what he or she thinks would not be likely to throw much light on the situation. Of course they aren't going to agree, and of course they are going to offer a deep-sounding account of what others are missing. What they won't do is accept the invitation to stand outside the theory and look at it with a bit of common sense.

It's not that I haven't taken this stuff seriously; it's just that I'd like to think that I've outgrown it. I mean seriously ask yourself whether the positive account of human motivation really sounds healthy to you? If life isn't meaningless, then existential angst is nothing more than a philosophical mistake on this account. But healthy people still sometimes experience deep feelings of alienation. That isn't proof that life is meaningless.

I mean only that this is the truth about what existential angst
is supposed to be. We've had several accounts so far.

Brogaard is very blond and her lovely blue eyes have a
depth that comes from constantly facing life's
meaninglessness. I'm going to call her back later and see
if she will give me lessons.

[emmline]

Brogaard is very blond and her lovely blue eyes have a
depth that comes from constantly facing life's
meaningless. I'm going to call her back later and see
if she will give me lessons.

I'm sorry Jim, but if you don't already have lovely blue eyes I doubt she'll be able to help you.

[jim stone]

Come up to my room, baby,
I'll show you all about existentialism!

You wanna know what truth is?
I'll show you what truth is!

When I look into the depths of your lovely
blue eyes, facing life's utter and intractable
meaningless seems.........alright.

Lessons....