The Existentialist Screams... Nothing is heard

Munch
Originally uploaded by michaelwrice@gmail.com.

Dearest Subscribers,
(Especially Dan, Casey, Sean, and other philosophical types)

Well, today I had the unfortunate task of enduring yet another dull Army day. Usually, my group of 91 Deltas goes to the hospital to perform cases (surgery) but those little escapades were cut (pun intended) last month. So now we stay at the unit and do what I call brown bag training, meaning that I have no clue what we will be doing and usually still no clue after we are done. Today we were forced to suffer through approximately seven hours of hand to hand and knife fighting combat. Our instructor, “Sgt. Killing is Cool” taught us 21 ways to kill a man with your bare hands. If that is not vivid enough for you, I’ll have you know his favorite term was “then his intestines will spill out.” I swear, I’m constantly musing at the absurdity of the situations that I find myself in. Sometimes I just have to step back and say “How did I get here? What am I doing? Where do we go to get lunch?” On and on it goes. Indeed, sometimes existence is absurd (Sartre).

However, the long drought of mental and physical boredom was irrigated by the ample time left to read. I was able to soak up about 200 pages of a new book (2003) called Blue Like Jazz. This book is all the rage with the Christian folks these days, and for good reason. It is a series of memoirs that poignantly chronicle the trials and tribulations of a young Christian struggling with his faith.

My favorite part of the book is the title and jazz analogies found throughout the novel. Jazz, as it turns out, often doesn’t resolve, and for the writer this musical oddity is analogous to his faith, or more specifically, God. Part of me would love to expose some of the huge problems with the work and deconstruct it but that would only be for personal qualms… the book is good stuff.

Every time that I would find myself angry and begin to slip away the author would pull you back in by expressing his own problems, both emotionally and intellectually. That is the power of the book I suppose. Of course, it was written in hindsight after I assume he was able to reconcile the concerns surrounding his personal struggle with faith. These blogs on the other hand… Well, these are a different story altogether.
Part of me wants very much to accept Christianity but ultimately I am not sure of it all. I feel certain of the existence of God with every fiber of my being, which is a start. A foundation, if nothing else.

But another part of me becomes very frustrated with it all and I find myself in a state of severe reluctance and uncertainty. If there is any particular philosophy that I feel gravitated towards or even comfortable with it would be existentialism, which I know sends chills down the spine for some. Indeed, existentialism and religion are something short of compatible with one another.
A few of you have asked me to say a few words about what it means to be an existentialist on the blog since I mention it rather frequently. I’ll say a few words…

Firstly, I don’t feel that you can “be” an existentialist. Sure, you can be familiar with the figureheads, origins, and consequences, but it’s more of a feeling. You either understand and relate to what it is or you don’t. Giving a definition is particularly troublesome… I did read a great passage from an introduction to Sartre’s novel, Nausea. The author basically gave a great analogy, saying that existentialism entered the human consciousness like an elephant enters a crowded and dark room. Naturally, there was much breakage and the nature of the intruder was mistaken. When the lights were turned on, people’s eyes were just beginning to refocus, and they thought, “Oh, it’s just an elephant. He’ll be leaving soon.” But as their eyes did focus and they took a closer look, they realized he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon and they even recognized this intruder all too well.

As existentialism pertains to Blue Like Jazz… This guy is having intense feelings and doubts about what his existence means. He knows there is a God but at times struggles with feelings of isolation and alienation from parts of his faith and what he believes in. Perhaps the father of existentialism, Soren Kirkegaard believed that it was only after you had sunken into the deepest chasms of depression and guilt that you were finally able to accept God. He felt you had to be utterly broken to be able to understand what it meant to let him into your life and accept God in terms of faith. These doctrines are highly visible in Blue Like Jazz, although I believe Kirkegaard perhaps sunk even lower than Don. Here is one of my favorite quotes by Kirkegaard:

I stick my finger into existence---It smells of nothing. Where am I? What is this thing called the world? Who is it who has lured me into the thing, and now leaves me here? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted?

In contrast to this idea of ultimate despair and surrender leading to ultimate redemption granted by God is the notorious Nietzsche. He found Kirkegaards idea that man must have these feelings of insecurity and defeat completely unacceptable. Reliance on God and giving him that power to Nietzsche is admitting the weakness of man; something he is not prepared to do. From here he constructs his whole idea of the “superman” which of course led to many German Nazi’s brandishing his work as a justification of promoting the Aryan (master) race. Did they take Nietzsche out of context to justify abhorrent acts such as the Holocaust? Yes, I believe they did. But let’s not go down that road for the purposes of this discussion.

Nietzsche is most infamous for declaring the death of god, as any opponent of post modernist will have you know. But I have to say, that I feel even simple quote this is often taken out of context, just like the notion that his philosophy led to the Holocaust (which it did NOT). Here is the entire quote extracted from The Gay Science:

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I.”

The notion that Nietzsche would proclaim the literal death of God is absurd, since God by nature is omnipotent (I assume Nietzsche would grant me that). Instead, Nietzsche means that religion is dying and the notion of God has taken a beating by the empiricists, enlightenment, rationalism, science, and the renaissance in general as the Church became vulnerable to attacks for the first time in hundreds of years. Of course, the argument becomes “Even if he didn’t mean God is literally dead, this assertion leads to the dissolution of morals and values while promoting a nihilistic culture.” Maybe. But I just feel that Nietzsche was mostly concerned with the power of man and his ability to break from institutions and the shackles of history. That is a huge them in existentialism (human freedom… existence precedes essence) that Sartre, probably the most famous and last existentialist, but we’ll save that one for later.

The point-I feel that both of these men have valid points that should be considered. In regards to Blue Like Jazz, I think the author is having some very existential feelings, which is refreshing. It is his emotional nakedness and vulnerability that allow the reader to relate. The part that is hard for me is how some people can so easily accept organized religion; or, musically speaking, how some are musical virtuosos while I feel tone deaf. But I hear something but I just have to be sure that the notes I’m hearing are true, or else I run the risk of accepting something on false premises, which in the long run will manifest only to set me back farther.

Alright, I hope some of this made sense for those of you who made it this far. I’m by no means an expert in philosophy but of all the movements I do feel the most comfortable, both personally and knowledge wise, with existentialism. There is no chance I’m going to reread and edit this one, since I’m on about 5 hours of sleep in the last 65 hours, so I apologize for any incoherency. So…

Until next time, I remain, a free being stressing existence before essence,
MW Rice

Quote for the day:
I would like to see the truth clearly before it is too late.
Sartre (from Nausea)

*And the painting is by Munch… Technically, I’m not sure if it can be labeled as “existential” but it seems to encompass many of the feelings of the existentialist.