Human Development
Human development
Description:
Existentialism is a philosophy that responds to an individual's sense of disorientation in an alienating society and the need to find new ways to come to terms with his existence. A sense of absurdness is experienced in the implicit antagonism between the individual mind and the collective world, in which both strain against each other and without the possibility of either satisfactory embracement or resolution. In the contemporary context in which traditional frameworks are viewed with scepticism and despair, the individual must make his own decisions. It is thus only the individual and his consciousness which are of consequence, and any attempt to come to terms with this must deal with this existential dimension and experience. The individual is thus obliged to seek within in unfamiliar territory and take absolute responsibility for that search. Existence has also been treated as the specifically religious response of an individual faced with decisions in the face of God, and as such with questions of ethics and salvation as opposed to abstract speculation. For the individual it represents a fierce and solitary encounter with nothingness and with a sense of nullification of self through which his salvation may then become possible. It is the assumption of this initial position of maturity and responsibility which represents the key step in human development from this perspective. Existentialism can be viewed as a philosophy of resistance and liberation. As such it is an attempt to set free the individual's authentic self from the cage-like existence of his inauthentic self. The individual's very being rests on the freedom he gains when he chooses to make himself what he his. It serves therefore to awaken the individual from his apathy, obliging him to face his true self, no matter how unpleasant that confrontation may be. In stripping away the illusions by which he lives, and in confronting the very self that he tries to disguise, he may find a tentative peace as a result of a response from with himself. Existentialism therefore gives the individual a way of discovering what makes him unique, affording him a means of comprehending his situation. The existential imagination demonstrates that even at bay the individual still has the means to seek his personal identity and to find happiness even in failure. The individual then transcends his pettiness and becomes a "hero" worthy of his existence. His worthiness derives from his confrontation with his situation, no matter how disenchanting, difficult or frustrating.Related:
Heroism