Originates from Nihilism. While its more popular-sounding sibling existentialism is finding one’s own meaning, absurdism is where one should embrace the absurdity of this search, not even bothering, yet living (or even thriving) despite there being no meaning in the first place!
I actually think he has a strong point, as the biological meaning of
any organism is to live, and if meaning has to be permanent, due to the
inevitable fact the universe will end one day, at that moment in time,
it will be as if humans never existed in the first place! Yet, humans
view that as not enough to really be a “meaning”, and finding "meaning"
is futile, as it can be taken away, for example, if your meaning was to
“get employed in a dream job”, what would happen (psychological
phenomenon) if you are fired? etc. It’s probably not a bad idea to be an
absurdist, as long as you don’t show your "rebellious" nature to others,
like saying "life is meaningless" may get you a false diagnosis of a
mental health condition, which is true experience from school, they think such things are
clinical instead of philosophical! How ironic that I was better educated
about myself than they were, about philosophical ideas... In the first
place, the rebellion mainly occurs because of the meaninglessness of
life, not because of other human beings themselves.
For you will live until you die. This will always be the case by
axiomatic nature! The dictionary definition is that life is "not being
dead"! However, death
is pointless if intentionally caused! Humans are scientifically presumed
to only get one shot at it; thus, please avoid death. You don't need a "meaning" to
live. It's more silly to rebel with Biology than the lack of subjective
"meaning".
It may make no logical sense at first. After all, it's literally called Absurdism! It might scare the brain that such trickery is needed to remain mentally stable. But, rather, I consider it a new era where we can debate about God's non-existence, and radically affirm that it was shocking that humans believed in religion for so long. There's no good evidence, yet we still do! With the same logic, there's not really a meaning of life, but you still want to live it, do you? (Darwinism)
From the very famous philosopher, Albert Camus. Well known for writing about The Myth of Sisyphus, where Sisyphus is destined to push a boulder for life, and thus though he doesn't have a "meaning", he decides to paradoxically continue to live anyway! I think many people are like this, but few like to admit this.
Life gets harder. Yet people still bother. Even though they know that life won't get easier. They see how unfair the world is. But they still keep living! This is the biological will to live! As a saving grace, their skills grow, too, and their brains develop. Still, it meets the description of how absurd life really is.
The conflict is inevitable. Man is eternally biased. Man's psychology suffers with conflict! If one cannot detach, suffering (which is stated in Schopenhauerism) occurs! This is not what Absurdism really wants, but it is a common misconception, so I just stated it here.
= I see how much of school is absurdism (the most obvious Sisyphus rock: exams). It was explicitly designed to be a myth. But now it is real. Children and teens suffer through it - period - and even 9-5 jobs might be like this.
There will inevitably be a conflict between reality/ideals, or will for meaning & lack of one? Can you even control "meaning" or "reality"? Not really. Probably not the past that shaped school into existence neither.
Category:Philosophy Category:School of thought Category:Albert Camus Category:Philosophy Category:Meaning