Stave One of "A Christmas Carol"

You know, I'm rather shocked you don't know about existentialism because it seems right up your alley given all this talk about objectivity, subjectivity etc. It was during the existentialist era that those questions really came into vogue.

Existentialists are hard to pin down. Remember my talk about Sowell ( scientific anti-socialist) and Marx (scientific socialist) fighting it out on the same plane? Existentialists did the same and their main concern was how exactly the individual navigates life.

They each begin with the assumption that their environment is absurd and disorienting. How the individual is liberated from that is the topic at hand.

It's an extremely broad field that covers about 100 years of philosophical thought. It's had such an influence that I'd argue we're all existentialists now to varying degrees.

Existentialist literature includes a pretty wide swath of writers. Albert Camus, Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Hesse are some good examples.

Romantic Transcendentalists like Herman Melville and Thoreau are also considered early existentialists.

Thanks very much. I'm only shocked that you are shocked.

I have read Romantic Transcendentalists. How can they be existentialists if the environment is absurd? Or is it the man-made environment absurd, but the natural environment rational?

I like being surprised. It keeps life interesting.

Surprises can be exhausting, too.

Well that too is something they would argue about.

Something is absurd, depressing, disorienting, etc. Is it how the world is made? Have we made it that way?

The answer to that then informs the individual what to do...if he can do anything.

I should think the Romantics would say, yes- it is of our own doing.

That's why God made the coffee bean.

I expected Luther to say that is why God made beer.

It's no coincidence that the RT's and Existentialists had their day in wake of the Industrial Revolution.

Have you read Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton? That was the most RT flavored book I ever read. It pretty much paints the industrialists in a horrible light. It was good, packed with Victorian morals.

I have read Romantic Transcendentalists. How can they be existentialists if the environment is absurd? Or is it the man-made environment absurd, but the natural environment rational?

IDK, but that makes me think of...

Anarchist reactionary running-dog revisionist
hindu muslim cath-o-lic creation evolutionist
rational romantic mystic cynical idealist
minimal expressionist post-modern neo-symbolist

Armchair rocket scientist graffiti existentialist
Deconstruction primitive performance photo-realist
Be-bop or a one-drop or a hip-hop lite-pop-metallist
Gold adult contemporary urban country capitalist

(its from a song by Rush )

[video=youtube;cHaJLDP5hZo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHaJLDP5hZo[/video]

I expected Luther to say that is why God made beer.

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

~ Ben Franklin