Lecture 2 - Existentialism

We start lecture 2 of the last semester of HCJ with our old friend Nietzsche. We open with the well known phrase of his “God is Dead”, meaning that God as a whole didn’t ever have any existence. He believed that if there was no God, there is no need for morality, more importantly no meaning for morality. Nietzsche says that this allows us to have freedom to decide for ourselves with our own personal values. The open sea is a metaphor that is commonly used to show this belief system of Nietzsche’s. This whole system of thinking, we were told soon after, was known as the End of Certainty. Nietzsche felt that this was the chance for mankind to be free. He believed that freedom allowed us to find our true selves. This is where his phrase “the over-man” or the German translation “the übermensch” comes from. The over-man defines himself and his place in the world with the decisions he makes of his own free will; “one is not born a woman, but becomes one”.

 Heidegger is the next philosopher on this histories check list that shall be covered. He wrote the famous book Being and Time was about what it meant for a person to exist. In this book he concludes all beings have a Dasein, a creature of ‘presence’ that lives in each and every one of us.  “This entity which each of us is himself . . .  we shall denote by the term Dasein.” (Heidegger, Being and Time). This idea of Dasein can also be read in the sense that a person only exist from the time they are born until the moment they die. He believed that we were stuck in our own minds, when applied to an individual; this can make everything impossible to understand for we can never be fully understanding of what is happening to us. He also believed that being part of this world is not spatial; he believed that rather than being ‘in’ the world and being just ‘there’, we are engaged with it. The world needs to exist for us to exist. We are defined by our engagement and involvement in the world and when we are asked to describe ourselves we do not speak about our true selves only the social aspects of our selves. This way of thinking is an exact opposite of Descartes famous words “I think therefore I am”.

In an existentialists view there is no such thing as a blank slate, instead there ‘facticity’, something that will define you on your development through life. For example; where you are born can affect accent and lifestyle, how wealthy your family are also determines these aspects. This is known as ‘Moral Luck’. Existentialists also see the future as the most important dimension, as it gives us the opportunity for possibility. There is an obviously link between this way of thinking and Heidegger’s theory. This link is transcendence. Transcendence is my reaction to my very own facticity. It relates to how define ourselves through the use of reactions from facts we’ve learned that we had no control over.

Jean- Paul Sartre also had a very valid opinion on this movement of learning who we are and our place in the world. The main idea of Jean-Paul Sartre is that we are, as humans, "condemned to be free." He believed that humans cannot escape choice. Everybody has to make choices in order to progress with their lives but you can however hide away from it. However, Sartre believed that this could also be a bad thing as a person should not follow society; they should be their own individual. Each person should take responsibility for their own actions and not place the blame on anybody else or lie to escape punishment.  A main point from Sartre that is appropriate to end on as it something i truly agree with is we are allowed to escape our past, and every person has the right to be able to do so. Every person that uses their past as an excuse should however be exempt from this as there is no excuse. 

The Battle of Algiers

The viewing for this lecture was the war film The Battle of Algiers. Before the screening of the film we were told that this film in particular was a “handbook/guide” for all wanna-be terrorists. So it sounded delightful from the off. This film, released in 1966 is a war film based on the Algerian War, between 1954–62, against The French Government in North Africa. The film highlights both the French troops and Algerians using every form of violence they could think of in order to kill the other including makeshift bombs and walk by shootings and suicide acts. One in particular that stuck in my mind was a makeshift bomb placed in a woman’s handbag; she then leaves the bag in a cafe full of people. I think you can guess the rest and probably predict how the film pans out.