At the close of my essay The Individual and The Human World, I spoke briefly about the contemporary West–and America in particular–as a place where “individuals determine and create themselves in their own image–rooted in the satisfaction of their own preferences–the sole authors of their lives.”1 This phenomenon, which is admittedly broad and multifaceted, has become hegemonic in the contemporary West. Here I will attempt to explore some of its contours, though certain details will have to be postponed for the time being. As a kind of umbrella term, I will refer to this state of affairs as cultural existentialism.2
Continue reading “Introduction to Cultural Existentialism”Category: Thomas Hobbes
The Individual and The Human World
Up to this point, I have used the word “world” without disclosing what is meant by it.1 Yet this should have gone more or less unnoticed, since it is part of the nature of our existence to be embedded within our world, and thus its context provides us with many underlying assumptions which we take for granted. The world I am speaking of is what I will call the human world, which makes up “a world within the world”, so to speak. It is a world which–though metaphysically inseparable from the physical and especially biological aspects of our existence–nonetheless transcends them. An understanding of the depth and complexity of this will be necessary if we are to make certain concepts and observations sufficiently intelligible, and its articulation will help us better understand our situation, placing us in a better position to evaluate the phenomena we are considering. In this initial exposition, I am drawing heavily upon the work of Hannah Arendt and Raymond Tallis.2
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