I feel like I never really understood the term until tonight. I'm
blockquote-ing
this section of the Wikipedia article.
The existentialist concept of freedom is often misunderstood as a sort of liberum arbitrium where almost anything is possible and where values are inconsequential to choice and action. This interpretation of the concept is often related to the insistence on the absurdity of the world and that there are no absolutely "good" or "bad" values.
I'm on board with this. There are no absolute values to be obeyed.
However, that there are no values to be found in the world in-itself doesn't mean that there are no values: Each of us usually already has his values before a consideration of their validity is carried through, and it is, after all, upon these values we act.
I'll reference this previous sentence below. Again, existentialism and I are in accord. I think I pretty much got to where I am by coasting. And then, abruptly, I stopped coasting and am having to deal with the atrophy.
...[M]aking "choices" without allowing one's values to confer differing values to the alternatives, is, in fact, choosing not to make a choice - to "flip a coin," as it were, and to leave everything to chance.
I am acutely aware of this. I feel this way; recall
abulia. My frustration with this observation is what leads me to think about these things.
This is considered to be a refusal to live in the consequence of one's freedom, meaning it quickly becomes a sort of bad faith.
"Bad faith" sort of translates to giving up and lying to yourself about it. And I am uncomfortable leaving important decisions to a coin flip.
As such, existentialist freedom isn't situated in some kind of abstract space where everything is possible: Since man is free, and since he already exists in this world, it is implied that his freedom is only in this world, and that it, too, is restricted by it.
Pure freedom – the misinterpretation – is indeed ridiculous. You cannot fly by flapping your naked arms: you are not free to do so. You cannot be a bluejay. Your freedom is inherently bounded in some ways. Recently, I have claimed to "not know myself anymore". What I mean is: I don't know what parts of me constitute restrictions and what parts constitute my free will. Is liking apples more than oranges a restriction? Or a choice? What about having children? Or a dependence on propinquity? What is hardwired in me – a restriction unless I follow asceticism, which I don't – and what it just up to me?
What isn't implied in this account of existential freedom, however, is that one's values are immutable; a consideration of one's values may cause one to reconsider and change them (though this rarely happens).
A big YES here. I used to consider myself a rationalist, but I'm struggling through some emotional times. So I'm less taken with rationalism, since none of
this seems rational. Recall the sentence I asked to you remember. I think one of those times when our values change is when we first attempt to validate them. For me, that took place when I first had to make difficult choices. It is embarrassing that I was 24 years old at the time.
A consequence of this fact is that one is not only responsible for one's actions, but also for the values one holds. This entails that a reference to "common values" doesn't "excuse" the individual's actions, because, even though these are the values of the society he is part of, they are also his own in the sense that he could choose them to be different at any time. Thus, the focus on freedom in existentialism is related to the limits of the responsibility one bears as a result of one's freedom: The relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency, and a clarification of freedom also clarifies what one is responsible for.
The big question: am I responsible for my emotions? When should I use them to make a decision and when should I overrule them?
1 comment:
I share your question. And your name, although, mine has an h after the c.
I've recently come to understand, through my actions and values, and the actions and values of others, that with freedoms come, often grave, responsibilities.
I have been preoccupied with the political ramifications of freedom, not at all because of the state of affairs between the U.S. and the world, but as an american. It seems rights are the political expression of the imprimatur of freedom, and yet, I here so little of people declaring that they have responsibilities.
As far as emotions, I wonder. I have always thought of emotion as an aftereffect. To me, the thought precedes the emotion. By a split second, or perhaps are birthed by understanding as twins. The weight of meaning that seems a fusion of my experiences and my values, has been something that has sent me reeling, emotionally.
If you have responsibility for emotions, than that implies that you have the freedom to emote. That follows from the source and your comment in this post. It would also follow that we have values, and that since we have the freedom to choose them, and bear the consequences, good or ill, for those choices, we will bear those consequences as a situation which we will again enact choice, through our values, the previous, or a new choice of value.
Refering back to emotion, I can only speak nonphilosophically here and say that my emotions seem to be in accord when my values are ratified by my consequences. They are dissonant and hard to bear when my consequent experience defies or denies my values.
I would venture then, that emotions then are a further consequence of freedom. As such, they enter back into the process of Action (or inaction), consequence, experience of consequence, which impacts us rationally and emotionally, and then we are spurred to action, or inaction, in accord with our values, whatever they may be at that time.
It would seem to me that in a niave sense, no, we are not responsible for our emotions. However, as we experience, and value, and learn the overarching patterns of the process we go through, each according to our values, we do have a choice, however difficult it may be to turn this seeming trackbound train, to try new values, hopefully less discordant ones.
Thats all I got for now...Nick Frisby
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