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SHINING_EXISTENTIALISM

                                                June 14, 2011

                                                  ALL_THINGS_SHINING

From the last chapter of Dreyfus &
Kelly, "Conclusion: Lives Worth
Living in a Secular Age" p. 205:

"David Foster Wallace's need to create
meaning ex nihilo out of the individual
puts him in the traditional position of
God, a position that Nietzsche embraced as
well.  But Wallace's exploration of this
God-like position led him ultimately to
feel that it was necessary for a meaningful
existence and that he could neither
understand nor live it himself.  If the
authors have got the phenomena clearly in
mind, then individualist autonomy, it
seems, leads at least to wickedness or          David Foster Wallace, Dreyfus & 
tragedy, and more likely to nihilism or         Kelly's poster-boy for the
even suicide."                                  pitfalls of individualism, was
                                                apparently treated for mental
    On the other hand, it                       problems for his entire life.
    could be the authors have                   Taking his suicide as a grand
    been doing some rotten                      inditement of existentialism is
    cherry-picking, and have                    not even the silliest thing
    ignored some examples of                    about this book.
    existentialists who have
    lead exemplary lives.


   It's a familiar principle: pick the
   worst of the opposition, and insist
   that they're representative.

      The defenders of religion
      always want to talk about
      20th century totalitarians,
      the defenders of atheism
      always want to talk about
      medieval religious wars.


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