1. What is the central theme of existentialism? That to live is to suffer and to suffer demands that we draw meaning in the face of suffering. We must, in other words, find a purpose for our suffering. To be strong enough to choose one’s attitude in the most excruciating circumstances is a good place to begin at finding a purpose and a goal. The question is how do we get there? Frankl sometimes begins with the question why don’t you commit suicide? And his answers contrast his logotherapy or existential analysis.
2. Frankl warns about searching for happiness and success. He writes on page 17: “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long, run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”
3. What is “tragic optimism” and what does it mean to say yes to life? See page 17.
4. Who were the Capos and what made their characters so malevolent? They were losers outside the camp who finally got their chance to assert power. These are the worst kind of people, opportunists, sadists, haters. See page 22.
5. What happens to morality during a survival “free for all” described on page 24? Scruples become a liability. People lose their souls as they become more and more primitive in the worst sense of the word. See page 25.
6. Why did Frankl change his mind about publishing the book anonymously? See page 25. You have to have credibility and the courage to stand up to your convictions and to bear witness.
7. What was the danger of losing one’s will to live? It never returned. Prisoners would smoke themselves to death.
8. Suffering such extreme abuse and torture, what happens to the prisoners? They go into shock, develop a grim sense of humor, develop an objective curiosity about what will happen to everyone under these extreme conditions; they become apathetic. This apathy is described as an “emotional death” on page 39. On 40, he talks about being numb to everyone’s suffering. Then they undergo depersonalization. Also they learn that what they learned in textbooks about what the body can and cannot take is not true.
9. The prisoners learn the process of acclimation: “Man can get used to anything.”
10. What are the dangers of becoming dependent on false necessities? We define ourselves with these things; we become fearful of losing things we don’t need.
11. How does shock become a form of denial and a survival mechanism? See page 37.
12. How does he elaborate on apathy and personal insults on pages 42 and 43 and 47? Insults create indignation, a hunger for justice, which fights against apathy. See page 44. On 47 he talks about self-defense mechanism and regressing to the primitive state.
13. Why did some of the less robust intellectuals survive the camp better than those of a sturdier build? See page 56.
14. What experience does Frankl describe that evidences he does not suffer from apathy? See page 57. And see page 60. And see page 69.
15. On page 83, how does Frankl explain the inferiority complex that afflicts the prisoners? We see a form of dehumanization.
16. What does Frankl say about freedom during even the most brutal circumstances on page 86?
17. What two attitudes toward suffering are described on page 88 and how do they represent the difference between life and death?
18. On page 90, how does a provisional existence contribute to the hopelessness and apathy that afflicts the prisoners? What is needed for them to have an “inner hold” on their life? See page 91. And see page 93, top. The crisis they faced was an opportunity for spiritual growth (as is having children, as one struggles with all the chaos, the monotony and tedium of parenting chores)
19. How is the process of giving up described on page 95 like unemployment depression?
20. What is the prisoner’s state of mind or psychology after being released from the camp? See page 105. How could this happen to me? The SS guards were chosen for being sadistic. Frankl found kindness in some SS; cruelty in some of the Capos and the other way around. He discovers there are only two races: the decent and the indecent.
21. Describe the process of depersonalization on page 110. Nothing feels real. Everything feels like a dream. Some were tempted to rage and pillage the world as revenge for what was done to them, but this was causing them to lose their soul all the more and give a victory to evil. Some succumbed to bitterness and disillusionment.
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