Existentialism/'The Stranger'
This is my seminar paper on 'The Stranger'.
The book highlights many existentialist ideas such as there being no higher power to guide people in life. It also looks at how society is unnatural because it can shape our views. Another important existentialist idea is that choice is key. We have the ability to choose to do what we want to do and when we want to do it.
The first chapter of ‘The
Stranger’ deals with the death of a character simply known as Maman, who is
Meursault’s (the main character) mother. It is obvious that her death doesn’t
seem to matter to him, this is shown when he says “Maman died yesterday. Or
maybe yesterday, I don’t know”. Meursault doesn’t express any sort of emotion when
he hears about the death of his mother, which is a trait continued later on in
the book. He only seems to be concerned with the timing of her death, not the
fact that she is dead. You could say that this quote highlights an idea that
Nietzsche advocated - human existence is meaningless. Maybe Meursault’s viewpoint
is that ‘we are all going to die’ so it doesn’t matter that Maman has died as
she was going to die anyway.
Kierkegaard said we should
accept that death is both unpredictable and inevitable, as many people struggle
to grasp the idea that they will one day die. He blames society for our
attitude towards death, society seems to deny death and this makes it harder
for people to accept death and move on when it suddenly affects them.
Meursault’s detachment from
any sort of emotion is highlighted again at Maman’s vigil. Meursault can’t
understand why the women are crying because as far as he is concerned, Maman’s
death shouldn’t matter to anyone because she is dead. Meursault takes the
existentialist viewpoint that we should simply accept death. In prison he
accepts the fact that he is going to die and doesn’t seem to mind that he will
be executed because as he has previously stated, death is inevitable. He says
“I’d never really been about to regret anything. I was always preoccupied by
what was about to happen, today or tomorrow”. The future is the most important
dimension for existentialists. Our most important decision is the next one we
make.
Meursault doesn’t grieve for
his mother the day after her funeral. He goes about what we believe is his
normal Sunday routine - going swimming, seeing Marie and watching a film. At
the end of chapter two, Meursault says “It occurred to me that one more Sunday
was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that,
really, nothing had changed”. This is a clear example of him not really caring
about Maman’s death and that he has accepted what has happened and already moved
on.
Meursault’s lack of emotion
is once again shown when he kills the Arab. He doesn’t have any regret for the
murder as he doesn’t seem to dwell on past events and is only concerned with
the present and the immediate future. Heidegger said that if we dwell on past
events, we will only feel guilt.
Meursault murdering the Arab
also shows that death is meaningless and unjustified. Meursault affirms his
belief that this is the case when he reads a story in a newspaper about a man
whose mum and sister killed him because they thought he was a rich guest to
their hostel. Meursault also sees that there is no rational order to the world.
Another Nietzschean idea that
comes up in the book is ‘God is dead’. Meursault might be behaving in the way
he is because he doesn’t believe in a higher power, so he doesn’t have to
please anyone as many religious people think they do.
Meursault’s only show of
emotion is at his mother’s funeral. Her good friend Perez is flagging behind
the main group and Meursault seems to feel sorry for him. There is a stark contrast
between their reactions to Maman’s death. Perez is really hurt by her death,
whereas Meursault sees it as meaningless that anyone is sad that she died. This
again relates to the ideas advocated by Nietzsche and other nihilists - life is
meaningless and the existence of the world is also meaningless.
Heidegger talked about ‘facticity’.
A person’s facticity is made up of all of the events that have previously occurred
in their life. Heidegger said that if someone was to use their facticity as an
excuse for things that they have done (e.g. someone using their bad upbringing
as an excuse for committing crime) then he is a ‘das man’. Being a ‘das man’
also means that you would let what people think you should do affect what you
do.
Throughout the book,
Meursault proves that he is not a ‘das man’ because he makes choices. He
chooses not to show any emotion at his mother’s vigil and makes the choice to
shoot the Arab. Meursault would be expected to cry after finding out that his
mother has died and would be expected to not shoot to Arab as he has withdrew
his knife, but he chooses to go against what society would expect him to do, as
he is his own man and no one can make decisions for him.
Meursault in turn shows that
he has ‘transcendence’. This means that he reacts to his facticity by making
decisions. Not based on what other people would do or expect him to do, but
based on his own morality, this is another existentialist idea.
Meursault’s ability to make a decision also relates to Franz Fanon and Nietzsche’s desire for people to ‘do something’. They would want existing political/social structures to be destroyed so that future improvement can take place, this can only be done if people make choices.
It is clear that Meursault is
an outsider to society. This could be because he looks at the physical aspects
of a situation, rather than the emotional or mental ones. A quote late on in
the book that highlights this is when Meursault says that the prosecutor “announced
that I had no place in a society whose fundamental rules I ignored”.
This goes back to the point I
made that existentialists say that society questions people who don’t follow
the conventions and unwritten rules in society. This is shown when the
prosecutor tells the jury what Meursault did the day after Maman’s funeral,
probably in an attempt to make the jury see Meursault as a bad person. This is
despite the fact that what he did on that Sunday should have no bearing on the
jury’s decision. After all, Meursault has as much choice and free will as any
of the members of the jury.
Despite existentialists
believing that we are in control of the decisions we make, Meursault has no control
at one point during the book. After the first part of his trial, Meursault is
taken back to prison and then back to court in a short space of time. You could
say that he is in control though, because he chose to kill the Arab and he
would have known that that decision would have led to him being on trial.
During the trial, Meursault asks why he is actually there, because he knows he
is guilty.
The way that Meursault reacts
in certain situations could be considered inhuman or even similar to the way
that a ‘psychopath’ would react, but that is only because certain things have
been ingrained in me. This is something that existentialists are firmly against
and say that we must make our own judgements on the situations we are faced
with using our own internal morality and no one else’s.
Notes from seminar
Schopenhauer said that life is meaningless and that we should just kill ourselves. We must find something to avoid our hellish existence, this can be alcohol or drugs, but also something like music - which is the most pure form of intoxication! These fixes are only short term though.
Humans are motivated by their own wants and desires, this is known as the will.
Existentialists believe that stuff exists without having any inherent meaning. If we strip away everything we end up with a blank canvas, but we can 'paint on it' and make the world what we want it to be. Make the world 'our own'.
The world is full of meanings, but we put meanings on the world.
In The Stranger, Meursault decides what is important and what is not. He doesn't care about the past as it is just that - the past. We can't do anything to change what has happened before. If you regret not doing something when you had the chance and spend the next few weeks regretting it, you should then be looking back to a point in history before you were born. You have no way of changing what happened before you were born, so why should you think about it? As the Oasis song 'The Masterplan' goes, "Everything that's been has past". Do what Noel Gallagher says - don't think about the past, you can't change it.
If we do think about the past, we are living in 'bad faith', according to Jean-Paul Satre.
Keynes/'The New Industrial State/other Economics stuff
The book 'The New Industrial State' advocates the need for a managed society, whereby the state controls corporations and the production of goods as well as providing services. Galbraith (the writer of NIS) said that too much control from the state is bad.
John Keynes advocated an economic system whereby money is pumped continuously being printed. Nowadays it is called 'quanatative easing'. It is essentially just printing money in order for the economy to 'pick up'. The main problem is that this new money goes to the banks, not the general public, so it doesn't get spent.
It could be argued that Keynes was a socialist as he wanted to print more money and give it to the less well off people in society and not richer people. He doesn't want to do it for moral reasons or be a modern day Robin Hood, but simply because poorer people spend money on things like cigarettes and alcohol (another Oasis reference), this in turn boosts the economy and those who sell and produce the goods being bought.
If you give a man £100 he'll spend it, not save it. Rich people are more inclined to save it (giving it to the banks).
The government taxes rich people higher because the government needs to get back the money that rich people stow away.
Another example of Keynesian economics at work nowadays is when 'NEETs' (Not in Education Employment Training) have to go to classes that keep them off the streets. They get money for going to these. This seems pointless at first glance, but by giving them money, the government knows that the NEETs will spend that money because they are poor. In the true spirit of Keynesianism, not just one person is employed to give the NEETs their money, because by paying more and more people to hand out the money, the government is in turn putting more money into the economy because it knows that the employee will go and spend their wages, just like the NEETs.
Hayek took an opposite view to Keynes and Galbraith. He wanted a completely free and open market. He was loved by the right wing especially Margaret Thatcher, who wanted a smaller state and less state intervention.
This leads me to wonder if governments of the future will become smaller and smaller so that everything run by the state at the moment is privatised. This is slowly taking place in education, while there are many private schools, more and more 'free schools' are popping up. Will the government privatise the whole of primary and secondary education in the near future?
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