Existentialism

A Focus on the Individual and on Personal Freedom

The individual is at the center of existential philosophy. This is at once elating and burdensome: the paradox of freedom is that it is at once a condemnation and a joy. Existential philosophers have written that the individual is “condemned to freedom” in that they must accept personal responsibility for all their actions (positive, negative, and indifferent) as they alone establish guidelines for action. Erich Fromm explained that upon accepting this responsibility, the individual may experience an authentic joy (positive freedom) that comes from intrinsically meaningful motivation and action. Inversely, inauthentic choices doom an individual to a state of despair and tyranny by consent (negative freedom). Existential philosophy places an implicit premium on nonconformity; group norms are of little importance, and groups themselves exist only to help an individual achieve a higher degree of personal freedom. Unfortunately for the existential individual, liberation is seldom the experience of participating in organizations and institutions such as schools and school systems—often places of normative policies, concessions, consensus, and quorum. As such, the existential individual experiences tensions inherent in group life. This can result in angst, alienation, and absurdity.

Absurdity refers to a sense of meaninglessness. To many existentialists, absurdity is the basic plight of the social individual and is imposed on him or her by external group and peer pressures: norms, institutions, laws, conventions, and the like that are at odds with an individual's authentic constitution. Albert Camus described these extraindividual pressures as walls erected between the individual and authenticity and possibly between the individual and society.

Angst is a feeling of despair, isolation, and dread that one experiences in an absurd state. Both Kierkegaard and Sartre suggested that it is essentially a nearly inescapable individual reaction to absurdity and can be manifest in many ways (e.g., frustration, rage, disaffection, indifference).

Alienation is a state in which the familiar becomes strange; old acquaintances, principles, and motives once held close become odd. The foundation is floating. Interest in alienation extends far beyond philosophy, and indeed the phenomenon has been studied in all the social sciences. Empirical research on alienation suggests that it affects groups and individuals in many forms (e.g., sociologist Melvin Seeman's empirical domain of alienation is comprised of powerlessness, normlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and estrangement). Furthermore, alienation is experienced along dimensions of time and space. It can be a feeling that accrues over time or results from finding oneself in an actively alien(ating) environment.

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