Advocating fatalism
- Learning from fate
Description
Fate has the potential to become a liberating idea, and to be a kind of anchor for constructing one’s viewpoint on the world and our life-narrative. This approach was developed by the ancient Stoics, who taught we strive in vain to change the way the world is. The course of wisdom is to focus on changing ourselves for the better, whatever situation we find ourselves in.
Context
“Fate” refers to those circumstances of existence that are given and unalterable, or that come into play in an arbitrary, inexplicable manner, often having a momentous impact on our lives.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s notion of amor fati (“love of fate”) embodies the goal to be the kind of individual who says “yes” to life as a whole, including its highs and lows, its blessings, limitations, and drawbacks.
Implementation
Political leaders have often called upon the destiny “divine providence” has bestowed on their countries to justify war and colonialism. This fate-infused idea derives from an underlying belief in the inevitability of history.
In the 16th century, Calvinists persecuted and killed Christians and others who disavowed the Calvinist belief in the peculiar doctrine that we are all “predestined” to either heaven or hell.
Claim
If we looked at fate from a realistic, down-to-earth perspective – as comprising the fixed conditions of life (circumstances of birth, death, genetics, ethnicity, culture etc) plus the imponderable way certain unanticipated events alter our path over the course of time - we find it can be integrated into views of life that preserve and perhaps even enhance our sense of agency and purpose. There are critical junctures at which we decide to make a major free choice; there is something about this act that is fateful as well. We can neither turn back nor turn away from it. Nor can we undo or redo it, predict or escape from its long-term consequences.