Political reality and the existential question
After just having read the preface to Irvin D Yalom's "Love's Executioner" (and finishing "When Nietzsche Wept", a few days ago), I feel convinced of his good heart, honesty, and the wisdom of what he has to say. The preface elegantly surveys the four existential givens, that form the assumptions underlying his psychotherapy:
- that death is inevitable
- that one is the author of one's one life (one has freedom)
- that one is existentially isolated (as distinguished, btw, from inter-/intra-personal isolation)
- that there is no ultimate meaning to life
Furthermore, he describes how therapy always contains the crucial stage of making the patient aware of one's own responsibility (2), and then proceeds with the 'realy quarry': achieving change, which requires, in addition, an act of will. One must know what one feels, then wants, and then one must will to change (self/circumstances).
Very noticable is indeed Nietzsche's influence, when stated this way. After God's death (4), men must create their own values (2), amidst a world defined by suffering (1), and in an individual manner (3).
Personally, I can account for my formative encounters with (3) and (4). As long as I know, (3) has formed a key aspect of my thoughts. (4) is a new addition, of mainly the last few years, and together with (3) amount wo what one might call my quarter-life crisis. I don't really know what to think of (1), and as for (2), it might be key to solving my current situation, as Yalom points out.
But what I find really interesting, intellectually, at the moment, is the interplay between the existential question, which lives on the scale of the individual, and the political question, which lives mainly on the scale of society (though with crucial ties to questions of the individual's responsibility, etc). For me, at this moment, Nietzsche sure is a key connecting figure, then. For, through Yalom's words, I have now clearly come to understand Nietzsche as a key initial thinker on the individual's existential crisis; though at the same time, through Julia's course on nihilism and fascism, I have gained traction on political perspectives regarding him / these themes.