is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Existential Absurdity.

Existential Absurdity.

If you're wondering about the color change, read the entry I wrote an hour ago. It's cheerier than this one, too. Everything will be OK.

Remember when I was writing about Creighton's suicide, and its unpredictability despite the fact that I knew how sad he had been for some time? And then I wrote about how the people I placed in the category "Brilliant Ill-Adjusted" would probably never kill themselves despite being wed to a way of being that will forever be a bit beyond the capacity of most human beings to plumb? And, so, Absurdity Saves? Well, later that day I read this, in Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition:

"If we look upon freedom with the eyes of the tradition, identifying freedom with sovereignty, then the simultaneous presence of freedom and non-sovereignty, of being able to begin something new and of not being able to control or even foretell the consequences, seems almost to force us to the conclusion that human existence is absurd."

So, one, Arendt is my boyfriend, definitely, because she joins me in my crusade to rewrite the idea every liberal thinker of freedom has. Freedom is not the liberty to do whatever you please and master your own destiny. It is the responsibility of being capable of starting something new, and also of becoming responsible for things that may or may not have been your fault or intent. Because that is simply what the conditions of the world demand.

Also, in the above quote she shows how Evany's "what's going to happen?!" question is itself a classic kind of existential angst. OMG! Why will I never be able to know what the future will be?! We all fall prey to this, it drives us all crazy, because a certain amount of security is necessary to human happiness but at the same time the future can never be entirely secure (which, if we think about it, is also necessary to human happiness: possibility). As I never seem to tire of saying, what is unpredictable about human life and relationships brings us all the most dangerous and/or sad things but also all the most precious things, like love and friendship, things we don't get to master or choose just for ourselves on our own terms. Rather these things always are a bit beyond our control because they have to do with what other people want and do, too.

So the fact that we are free to begin or create new things, but then those things once begun or created stand on their own and move beyond our capacity to control forever (especially when it comes to relationships), the contradiction inherent in those conditions (freedom, unfreedom) might make us think that human existence is absurd.

Then Arendt adds a footnote:
"This 'existentialist' conclusion is much less due to an authentic revision of traditional concepts and standards than it appears to be; actually, it still operates within the tradition and with traditional concepts, though in a certain spirit of rebellion. The most consistent result of this rebellion is therefore a return to 'religious values' which, however, have no root any longer in authentic religious experiences or faith, but are like all modern spiritual 'values,' exchange values, obtained in this case for the discarded 'values' of despair."

In case that seemed jibbery to you, I'll admit that she is basically kicking my ass right there. I like to go around pointing out to people all the time when the logic they use calls itself secular or nonreligious but actually uses a disguised form of theological reasoning (like when we say that we can rely on reason to give us objective truths, we are relying on reason to be a God. That is, we want reason to be that last authority past which no questions need be asked. But a secular world cannot have that kind of an authority. Because it has no God that all can agree on! And, just as with the conflicting monotheisms, there are many standards of reason, so even if we decide to ignore the disguised theology of our reliance on reason's capacity to guide us, we won't have avoided all sites of conflict.).

What I mean is that saying that Absurdity Saves is like saying that it is no longer up to me to find a way to make life meaningful. It's like saying I want a God to do that for me! But my God is Absurdity! Good Lord!, as they say. What I should have said instead is that the Brilliant Ill-Adjusteds (and those of us who adjust ourselves OK but still always feel a bit out of step with things, or whose sympathies lie more with the BIAs) will not kill themselves because they have not fallen prey to the despair caused by finding the dominant reality and its truths to be the only account of what a meaningful life can be. Oh the despair caused by the idea that what passes as value for a majority of people is the only way life can be valued!

And that is usually what I do say. Why did I not notice my mistake? Well, as Arendt said in her footnote, the rebellion evinced by an existentialist's embrace of absurdity is obtained "for the discarded 'values' of despair." Despair makes you want to find an answer. Sometimes no answer is forthcoming. So it seems a good idea to embrace absurdity, the impossibility of there being answers. It's an easy thing to resort to, for me, especially, given that my sense of humor relies heavily on the world's absurdity.

In conclusion: it's fine (and, I would say, even good) to have a sense of the limits of reason's ability to answer all questions. But it's equally important to watch out that you aren't giving up too easily when it comes time to try to answer questions that the dominant mode of reason wants to call unanswerable. Don't just say something is absurd without thinking about what you are giving up thinking about when you say that. That is the content of today's Ass-kicking of Jill. (Remember: Always Already Ass-Kicked.)

1:43 a.m. - February 07, 2005

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