In his March address before a joint session of Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of the “existential threat” that Iran posed against his country. In response, Congress intensified its push for military intervention to destroy this enemy. The phrase became a buzz words “existential threat” throughout the media and on Capitol Hill. Having spent most of my adult life studying philosophy, theology and history, with a special interest in existential philosophy, I find the constant use of the phrase “facing an existential threat” curious. I wonder how many in Congress have studied philosophy or have any understanding of the meaning and history of the phrase “existential threat”?
It seems simple – a threat to another’s very existence – but is deeper than that. Webster defines the term as “a philosophical movement centering individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will…”
The term “existential” was first used by the Danish philosophy Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). During the 40’s and 50’s existential thought was the rage on college campuses and was mostly championed by French and German philosophers who had lived through the horrors of the Third Reich and Nazism. Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were gifted writers who confronted the despair and alienation that gripped Europe during and following WWII. It was a dismal time — there seemed to be no hope for the world, no meaning in life. Out of this malaise emerged the worldview that our only hope is the awareness that there is no meaning outside ourselves.
Sartre states that “man is nothing but that which he makes of himself.” We define ourselves in the world by the choices we make. One is faced daily with random and often irrational events over which we have no control. But we have singular control over the way we face the absurd. We are fully responsible for our own lives and destinies. Therein lies our freedom.
Facing this realization forces a personal confession about the possibility of the falsehood in the role you might be playing. Who I am and who I want to be are at times in conflict with each other. I want to be a good husband or wife but I cheat on my spouse. I want to be a good parent, but I don’t make the time to be with my children.. I want to improve my life but I rarely take time to consider how I might make that happen. Each one of these goals is within reach but one must do it for his or herself and take full responsibility for the outcomes of actions taken.
Simply stated, it is not what happens to us in life, it is what we do with what happens to us.
While this philosophy generated a sense of empowerment, its demand for individual responsibility overwhelmed some. Though futile, searching for answers outside ourselves was far less challenging. Comedian Flip Wilson’s character Geraldine Jones humorously demonstrated this attitude with the catchphrase “the devil made me do it.” But, in the emerging theory, no longer was the devil an excuse for ones failings.
Existentialism poses that we exist in an unpredictable, if not irrational, world over which we have no control. We can control our attitudes and choose the actions we take in response to life events. There is no predetermined right way to live or right path to follow. There is no salvation to free you from your misguided ways. You are the sole source of the good or evil in your life and must live with the consequences of your own choices.
Putting one’s life in the ‘hands of God’ is prevalent example of a means of escaping any culpability for our actions. Forgotten is God’s gift of free will. Adam and Eve chose do disobey God’s law, yet, the loving Father neither absolved them of guilt nor spared them the consequences of their actions. You are the source and the hope of your future.
If applied to nations, this philosophy raises some interesting questions. As the individual must look within and examine one’s actions and evaluate the results, so must nations.
The United State’s policy in the Middle East – to for search and destroy ‘the enemy’ — is a costly and abysmal failure. Yet we continue and even expand the same policy. It is time to look at the consequences of our actions and choose a different path. Though roundly criticized, President Obama acknowledged this possibility when he said: “What I do insist on is that we maintain a proper perspective (on terrorism) and that we do not provide a victory to these terrorist networks by over-inflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat to the United States or the world order. They can do harm. But we have the capacity to control how we respond in ways that do not undercut what’s the essence of who we are.”
While there is turmoil in the world, any response we take must be considered in light of what it might result in, and what our role and the role of others must be to contain it.
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