DE Weekly: Benatar, the Asymmetry Argument, & Camus’s Rebel
Earlier this week, I came across a post on social media from a so-called “anti-natalist,” someone who believes that it is wrong to have children, and that we should not do so. Their reasons, they claim, are philosophical. “When you bring someone into this world,” this person wrote, “you are introducing them to a lifetime of pain and suffering.” The conclusion they draw from this is that it is morally wrong to procreate.
I wish this view of humanity was a one-off. Alas, that is not the case; there have been whole philosophical treatises written on the subject aiming to advance the anti-natalist view.
DE Weekly: Meaning, Ex Nihilo, & the Chasm of Existence
For those not entirely familiar with existentialism, a pervasive mistake that can be made is to conflate the philosophy with nihilism, and to associate the beliefs of one with the other. In fact, even if you do have a solid understanding of existential philosophy, the two can sometimes bleed into one another.
The reason I like to differentiate between the two and really hammer home the fact that existentialism is not nihilist in its underlying beliefs is that I really do not have patience for nihilists and nihilism in general.
DE Weekly: Cynicism, Meaning, & Smiling Friends
There are many roads that lead to existentialism. What piqued my interest at first was how the philosophy presented itself to me during what I would call my “quarter-life crisis.” I had a feeling of listlessness, uncertainty, and dread about how my life was going to unfold in the years to come.
For me, what I saw in existentialism offered hope: a way out and a way forward of this hopelessness I was feeling.
DE Weekly: Macbeth, Shakespeare, & Nihilism
“Life’s . . . a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” These words come from the speech “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” from William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedie of Macbeth.
Reading this quote back, these words could have just as well been written by any of the existentialist authors of the twentieth century. It certainly espouses some of the attitudes toward life that those authors held themselves.