The Four Realms of Meaning Mountain
At the bottom of Meaning Mountain is the bottom-dwelling realm, the land of the sloths, miscreants, narcissists, predatory hedonists, fops, dandies, pathological liars, impostors, grifters, mountebanks, snake oil salesmen, and other members of the Moral Dissolution Club. No fair-minded or decent human aspires to exist in this loathsome realm.
Traveling north up Meaning Mountain, we arrive at the middle realm, the land most people aspire to. Middle Mountain, as it's often called, hosts the world's decent people who do their work, fulfill their responsibilities, remain faithful to their partner and seek a life of security and comfort according to society's social contract.
These individuals seek the 8 Essential Needs, which we will peruse below. The people are "nice" but they tend to be invisible and rarely achieve anything "groundshaking" pertaining to the progress of the planet. For them meaning takes a back seat to comfort and security. They don't "make waves"; they simply get cozy in their cave and put their life on auto-pilot. But they fall short of Frankl because they avoid tension and conflict (105).
Between the middle and the top realm are the creative producers, those who flourish in their passion. They may not pursue Frankl's edict of self-sacrifice, but they do not settle for the mediocrity that pervades the people just below them. Often these people change society with their scientific breakthroughs and innovations. Think Apple and Steve Jobs. More generally, think about comedians, entertainers, actors, writers, musicians, artists, etc. These people cannot bear living without the torment of a struggle to better their work and art. To quit working would be, for them, a death.
Climbing past the cumulus clouds and then the misty shroud, we are now at Realm Four, the peak of Meaning Mountain. We are now in the presence of a rarefied breed of people, those disciples of Full-Potency Frankl. These are brave souls who cast away comfort and comformity to pursue Frankl's edict to take their cross and give up their life for the sake of others, to embrace suffering, theirs and the world's, and to seek what Life demands of them. For the Full-Potency Frankl acolytes, comfort and security take a back seat to meaning, sacrifice, and public service. Most people who change the world for the better come from this hard-to-reach mountain peak.
Looking at the Writing Assignment Through the Dialectical Method (going back and forth between thesis and anti-thesis, support and refutation, to arrive a more informed opinion)
Man’s Search for Meaning Essay Assignment (Expanded)
Viktor Frankl argues in Man’s Search for Meaning that in the face of suffering (the dominant feature of existence), we must use our free will to choose the appropriate attitude toward that suffering. We can either see suffering as cause to be angry animals, looking at life as little more than a place of senseless futility that justifies an attitude of nihilism so that our life is little more than unleashing our beastly, hedonistic passions and live a life of alienated selfishness. Or in the face of suffering we can elevate our humanity by adopting an attitude that says we must find courage, conviction, and moral righteousness through a Higher Purpose or Meaning.
Viktor Frankl witnessed both attitudes in the concentration camps. He observed people either descended into moral dissolution, becoming dehumanized animals who lived a day-to-day existence without purpose, or they found a purpose that preserved and even elevated their humanity. His mission in Man’s Search for Meaning is to persuade us to become Destiny Seekers, people who becoming morally righteous by finding meaning.
However, there is a camp of thinking that is skeptical of the idea of meaning for four reasons.
The first reason that meaning is so subjective, varying from person to person, that to discuss it as an essential life force therefore is absurd.
Secondly, the skeptic will argue that people don’t have any objective meaning. Rather, they pursue some illusion or other that gives them a sense of purpose—perhaps a false one—that gives them motivation. In other words, people motivate themselves by making up all sorts of incentives, but these incentives could be less about “meaning” and more about chimeras.
A third point of skepticism is that there are people who find meaning in very disturbing ways, most notably by being brainwashed and manipulated such as a person who converts to a religious cult or perhaps to some extremist ideology.
The skeptic’s fourth point of contention is that she will argue that we cannot choose meaning because we are not agents of free will; rather, we are agents beholden to forces we cannot control, namely, determinism, the philosophy that states our biology and environment affect our behavior and that “choices” are just an illusion. We say we “chose” to do something after the fact, but in truth, we were hard-wired to act in such a way.
Addressing the skeptic’s points above, support, refute, or complicate Frankl’s argument that we are responsible to be Destiny Seekers and find our own meaning in order that we make the appropriate response to a life of suffering and that failure to find meaning will doom us to the hell of the “existential vacuum.”
Suggested Structure:
Introduction: Frame the debate or write a compelling anecdote that transitions to your thesis.
Thesis
Paragraphs Address Each of the Skeptic’s Points
One or two paragraphs address the idea that meaning is too individual and subjective.
One or two paragraphs that address the idea that meaning is an illusion we use to motivate ourselves.
One or two paragraphs that address the idea that “meaning” or a found purpose can be the result of brainwashing and manipulation.
One or two paragraphs that address the idea that we don’t choose meaning; some of us may have a sense of meaning, but only because we are hard-wired to. In contrast, some of us are hardwired to NOT have a sense of meaning and be okay with that.
Two counterargument-refutation paragraphs that address your opponents’ views.
Important Note
If you're refuting the skeptics point by point, the counterargument section is not necessary because your WHOLE essay is a refutation.
Conclusion
Conclusion is a more emotional (pathos) restatement of your thesis.
Skeptic’s First Argument:
Meaning is too subjective, varying from individual to individual, so we cannot speak about meaning. If everything is meaning, then nothing is meaning. Meaning must be distinct from all the motivations people claim to be meaning.
Counterargument
Frankl would agree that meaning must be distinct from greed, ambition, consumerism, and all the other false meanings people claim to be meaning. He would argue that there are common characteristics of real meaning.
Some of those common characteristics are maturity, improved priorities, less egotism, moral integrity, empathy, and acting on social justice. Perhaps most importantly, our individual life experience makes meaning different for all of us.
For example, a young man who was abused in the foster parent system grows up to counsel people who were abused by adults.
A drug addict goes to college to become a counselor for drug addicts.
In the examples above, the meanings are different, but they have common qualities.
Skeptic’s Rebuttal to the Above Counterargument
Even if we concede that all the different “meanings” people discover have commonality in the realm of morality and helping others, we still have the problem of motive.
For example, a mother adopts babies whose mothers are drug addicts. These babies have enormous needs and impose enormous stress on the woman’s two biological children. The biological children condemn their mother as having a martyr’s complex. Her ego hungers for suffering to define herself as a martyr and she enjoys others seeing her in this dramatic role. The children claim that egotism, not empathy and compassion, is the driving force. So the woman’s “meaning” is a false one.
Such false meanings are described in Larissa MacFarquhar's Strangers Drowing, a nonfiction book about "do-gooders."
Frankl Defender’s Counterargument to Skeptic’s Rebuttal
I concede that the mother and people like her may have bad motivations for doing meaningful things. I might even go so far to admit that the majority of people use the wrong motivations to define their meaning and purpose. But these bad examples fail to negate that there are truly good people out there, Viktor Frankl included, who do good deeds that match their good motivations.
If we heed the skeptic’s cynicism, we will be blind to those truly good people who have both good motivations and a higher purpose. These good people are our role models and heroes. The cynic is blind to their deeds and he appears to eager to make us as blind as he is.
Skeptic’s Second Argument:
What we call meaning is simply an illusion. People have all sorts of “meaning,” but they merely create illusions or chimeras to chase and then they call these illusions their “meaning.”
Counterargument
Frankl would concede that there are many people pursuing false meaning, but that fact does not negate that there is real meaning.
Frankl is a moral absolutist who believes in right and wrong and two races of people: decent and indecent. Clearly, if someone’s “meaning” doesn’t have a moral outcome, then Frankl would be the first to admit that that person has not found real meaning at all but is pursuing an illusion.
But like in the first argument, if 95% of people are chasing a false meaning, that doesn’t mean a real meaning does not exist.
It appears that arguments 1 and 2 are very close and in fact may intersect at many levels. I’ll leave it to the students to decide if they should fuse arguments 1 and 2 into one argument or keep them separate.
Skeptic’s Rebuttal
Who is Frankl to be the arbiter to what is real and false meaning? He gives us no ultimate guide in his book. Further, people could pursue a false meaning with a moral outcome.
For example, a man who lives a reckless life as a bachelor, may drink the “let’s get married in the suburbs” Kool-Aid and settle down in some suburban neighborhood.
Clearly, this suburbanite’s existence is morally superior to that of his reckless bachelor days, but he is now simply a sedated, mindless consumer of the middle class, a zombie who’s disappeared into his domestic cave where he watches Netflix and obeys his wife’s shrill commands.
Frankl Defender’s Counterargument to the Skeptic’s Rebuttal
Frankl would concede that this tamed suburban husband leads an empty life. While slightly more moral than his bachelor version of himself, he is still someone who falls short of meaning.
This suburban man needs to find a Higher Purpose.
Skeptic’s Rebuttal
This married man is too extended, barely treading water to make ends meet in a brutal economy. Feeding his wife and children is an almost insurmountable task. The married man does not have the luxury to ponder meaning. When we exert all our energy to make ends meet, we don’t have the time or energy to about things like meaning. We live one day at a time as we try to make ends meet for our family.
I’ll concede that some people, like Viktor Frankl and drug and abuse counselors find some kind of meaning, but Frankl’s book is not universal.
For working stiffs who are barely making it, life is provisional and day to day and all about survival. And it’s NOTHING about meaning and higher purpose.
That’s my problem with Frankl’s book. It’s applicable to some people but not all people. It’s not universal.
A lot of us, through no fault of our own, get in a rut, and there’s no free will that can change that. Life is a treadmill and when the time is up we die.
Sorry, Frankl cheerleaders of the world, I’m a Meaning Skeptic.
Frankl Defender’s Rebuttal to the Above
Frankl would disagree with you. His thesis is that no matter what your circumstances you have the freedom to choose your attitude.
If you’re a working stiff, as you say, barely making it, you have little right to complain in the context of Frankl surviving in the concentration camp.
Therefore, your problem is that you are a whiner. Blame yourself, not Frankl.
Skeptic’s Third Argument
A lot of people find meaning but only through brainwashing and manipulation. What do we say of cult followers who lead extremist lives as they slave for the abusive cult personality? They found “meaning,” but they were brainwashed and manipulated.
Hitler and his followers found “meaning,” but they were evil, psychotic, or both.
Counterargument
Frankl would concede that brainwashing is not meaning. But remember, the meaning Frankl found was not through brainwashing but blood, sweat, and tears.
Let us not use bad examples, to dismiss a legitimate idea. That is a logical fallacy. For every brainwashed person there is a person who found real meaning on his or her own terms.
Skeptic’s Fourth Argument
We don’t choose meaning. We don’t even have free will. We are bound to determinism, the principle that biology and environment govern our actions. Free will is an illusion.
Counterargument
We can concede that biology and environment do indeed hard-wire us to behave in a certain way. But when we find meaning, we transcend our deterministic limitations. Viktor Frankl is the embodiment of this principle.
We can choose our attitude to find meaning in suffering or turn to hedonism and nihilism, which are false balms for the inevitable suffering life throws at us.
Skeptic’s Rebuttal
Frankl had no free will. He was born a good person and his goodness was reinforced by his upbringing. His “choices” were simply the behavior of a man programmed to be good.
Frankl Defender’s Rebuttal
You are wrong, Mr. Skeptic. Free will is a muscle that can be developed. The more you resist temptation and exercise discipline, the stronger your free will becomes. The empirical evidence shows this to be true.
When you choose to eat right, exercise, study, show kindness to others, to name a few examples, you will find rewards that reinforce that good behavior.
Both determinism and free will exist simultaneously.
Skeptic’s Fifth Argument
I know people who don’t have meaning. They’ve never read Viktor Frankl or any religious polemic. They have no religion. They have no “meaning.” However, they lead fulfilled lives because they live in the present and they experience connection with their family, friends, community, and the world at large.
I don’t believe you need meaning, as Frankl defines it, but you do need connection.
Counterargument
I’ll concede that there are people out there who are hard-wired or predetermined to be happy. They are at peace with themselves. They live in the present. They are connected to others.
However, their lives have not been tested. Frankl warns us that everything can be taken from us at any time.
Yes, some of us seem to live a life that appears like “smooth sailing,” but that never lasts forever. Be prepared. Find a higher purpose before it’s too late.
Skeptic’s Sixth Argument
I’ll concede that some meaning exists for some people. However, meaning is not universal. And motivations behind meaning are too complicated. While Frankl is a good man who found meaning, his book fails to be a universal “one size fits all” self-help book.
The book succeeds as a book of inspirational literature in which we can admire the rare man Frankl, a truly exceptional hero.
But his claim that we can all find meaning and choose our attitude toward suffering, is too general and doesn’t fit with all the complexities I’ve described.
Meaning is not either/or. You don’t have meaning or not have it.
Rather, meaning is relative. You have some meaning some of the time, more meaning some of the time, less meaning some of the time, and no meaning some of the time. That’s the human condition for many of us.
Skeptic’s Thesis
While I admire Frankl and concede that many can benefit from heeding the lessons in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, his thesis, that all of us must find meaning as the solution to human suffering, fails to persuade in light of the many good people who simply don’t have the time or energy to find meaning, the unfathomable motivations that drive people’s alleged “meaning,” the deterministic factors, not free will, that determine if we find meaning or not, and some people are simply “connected” and do not need “meaning.”
Frankl Defender’s Thesis
While I concede that Frankl’s book has some flaws that are correctly exposed by his skeptics, the empirical evidence compels us to use our free will to elevate ourselves in the face of suffering and to seek a higher purpose that goes beyond blind consumerism and nihilistic despair.
Establishing Credibility in Your Argument (with your readers and your professors)
Acknowledge weaknesses, exceptions, and complexities in your argument.
Example
Although meaning is not absolute or guaranteed in even people of the highest character, the pursuit of meaning as defined by Viktor Frankl is necessary to combat the potential pitfalls of the human condition evidenced by ____________, ___________, ___________________, and ________________.
Use personal experience when appropriate.
As someone who lived in a car for two years while barely living due to various addictions, I can speak firsthand about how essential Frankl’s brand of logotherapy is for combatting the self-destruction that ensues from living inside the existential vacuum.
As someone who worked twenty years in a hospital ward with special needs babies and toddlers whose mothers were drug addicts, I am convinced that there is a lot of suffering in this world that, contrary to Frankl’s claim, is senseless, absurd, and meaningless.
Mention the qualifications of any sources as a way to boost your own credibility.
According to Harold S. Kushner, best-selling author and noted rabbi, a life serving the public as shown him the truth of Frankl’s spiritual insights, especially in four key points: ____________, _____________, ________________, and _______________.
Acknowledge concession to your opponents’ views to show you’ve entertained both sides of a debatable claim thoroughly.
While Writer X makes a compelling case that there is much suffering in this world that is senseless, our acknowledging this fact actually strengthens my conviction that we are well served to follow Frankl’s path of logotherapy evidenced by ____________, __________, ____________, and _______________.
Show your readers you are considerate enough to define important terms that increase understanding of your essay.
We can use definition by synonym.
One way to define meaning is to equate it with having an “ideal” or a “higher purpose.” While synonym is usually inadequate for a rigorous definition, it is a good place to start.
We can define by example.
A second way to define something is to point to an example (called ostensive definition, from Latin ostendere, “to show”).
A former wrestler almost lost his life to alcohol and depression, but he started a yoga support group for other former wrestlers. Their goals are sobriety, physical conditioning, and giving each other moral support. This is an example of a type of meaning--being needed by others--that saved a wrestler from dropping into the abyss.
Definition by stipulation
The thing defined must conform to certain characteristics or conditions.
For example, my twins’ and I must agree on a shared definition of a “clean room.”
They want to simply throw their toys and books in their giant toy baskets. I want them to put their bedding on their bed and their books on the bookshelves. I’ve added stipulations to the notion of a “clean room.” And when they get older, vacuuming will be an added stipulation to that definition.
Viktor Frankl stipulates that meaning is not the same for everyone. Nor can someone give meaning to someone else. Frankl stipulates that meaning must come from within, that it must be defined by our own individual life circumstance, and that it must adhere to a moral code. For example, Hitler who found “meaning” with his self-aggrandizement and pathological power quest did not find “meaning” as stipulated by Viktor Frankl.
A formal definition contains the term, the class, and distinguishing characteristics.
Learned helplessness is a mental disease in which people convince themselves that they can’t do things that, objectively speaking, they can actually do.
The existential vacuum, as defined by Viktor Frankl, is the anxiety we suffer from trying to compensate for a living a life that is painfully absent of meaning.
For Frankl, meaning is a human drive that connects with us when we flourish and at the same time suffer in order to pursue a higher purpose that challenges our talents, our character, and our fortitude.
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
An independent clause has a subject, a verb, and is a complete thought:
My elastic waistband makes me feel older than I am.
My encounter with the great white shark compelled me to quit surfing.
Larding my pizza with hundreds of toppings makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
A dependent clause has a subject, a verb, and is an imcomplete thought because it has what is called a subordinate conjunction or connecting word.
Because my elastic waistband makes me feel old
Although my elastic waistband makes feel old
Whenever I eat triple-sausage pesto pizza
Although I have a fondness for deep purple
A phrase, like a dependent clause, is an incomplete sentence, but a phrase has neither a subject or a verb.
In front of the restaurant plaza by the Italian fountains
In order to understand Viktor Frankl's principle of meaning as the antidote to the existential vacuum
In spite of my fondness for deep purple
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.
Assumptions
Show you understand underlying assumptions in your argument or the argument you’re evaluating.
Assumptions are stated or unstated beliefs that we use to create another set of beliefs or premises.
For example, in the abortion debate, some people assume the fetus is not yet human and they tend to be pro-choice. On the other hand, some people assume the fetus is indeed human and they tend to be anti-abortion.
If you argue in support of Viktor Frankl, you assume meaning is a good thing.
But those who refute Frankl’s argument might assume that meaning, the thing that gets people out of bed in the morning (this thing people think is meaning), is not necessarily good. After all, there is a huge laundry list of purposes and meanings out there. There are power quests that drive dictators and their followers. There are bizarre religious cults that abuse and brainwash their followers.
And there are those who equate all religions with bizarre cults and the list of unsavory notions attached to “meaning” is endless. Therefore, we have to be careful about assignming assumptions to meaning when we argue about its worth in the context of VF.
Show logic by using premises and syllogisms.
Premises are stated assumptions used as reasons in an argument. A premise is a statement set down before the argument begins.
The joining of two premises—two statements taken to be true—to produce a conclusion, a third statement, is called a syllogism.
Major premise: All human beings are mortal.
Minor premise: Socrates is a human being.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
The process of moving from a general statement to a more specific one is called deduction.
Deductive reasoning starts with general premises and ends in specific conclusions. This process is expressed in a syllogism: major premise, minor premise, and conclusion.
Major Premise: All bald men should wear extra sunscreen on their bald head.
Minor Premise: Mr. X is a bald man.
Conclusion: Therefore, Mr. X should apply extra sunscreen.
A sound syllogism, one that is valid and true, must follow logically from the facts and be based on premises that are based on facts.
Major Premise: All state universities must accommodate disabled students.
Minor Premise: UCLA is a state university.
Conclusion: Therefore, UCLA must accommodate disabled students.
A syllogism can be valid without being true as we see in this example from Robert Cormier’s novel The Chocolate War:
Bailey earns straight A’s.
Straight A’s are a sign of perfection.
But only God is perfect.
Can Bailey be God? Of course not.
Therefore, Bailey is a cheater and a liar.
In the above example it’s not true that the perfection of God is equivalent to the perfection of a straight-A student (faulty comparison, a logical fallacy). So while the syllogism is valid, following logically from one point to the next, it’s based on a deception or a falsehood (faulty comparison); therefore, it is not true.
When appropriate, use nonrational appeals like satire, irony, sarcasm, and humor.
Jonathan Swift is famous for “A Modest Proposal,” an essay in which he argues ostensibly that the way to cure hunger is to feed the landlords babies. In fact, his real agenda was to write a scathing indictment of the cruel landlords by equating their oppressive policies with the eating of children. Swift used satire to get his message across.
Checklist for Analyzing an Argument (your own or a reading you’re evaluating)
What is the claim or thesis?
What evidence is given, if any?
What assumptions are being made—and are they acceptable?
Are important terms clearly defined?
What support or evidence is offered on behalf of the claim?
Are the examples relevant, and are they convincing?
Are the statistics (if any) relevant, accurate, and complete?
Do the statistics allow only the interpretation that is offered in the argument?
If authorities and experts are cited, are they indeed authorities on this topic, and can they be regarded as impartial?
Is the logic—deductive and inductive—valid?
Is there an appeal to emotion—for instance, if satire is used to ridicule the opposing view—is this appeal acceptable?
Does the writer seem to you to be fair?
Are the counterarguments adequately considered?
Is there any evidence of dishonesty or of a discreditable attempt to manipulate the reader?
How does the writer establish the image of himself or herself that we sense in the essay? What is the writer’s tone, and is it appropriate?
To read critically, we have to do the following:
One. Comprehend the author's purpose and meaning, which is expressed in the claim or thesis
Two. Examine the evidence, if any, that is used
Three. Find emotional appeals, if any, that are used
Four. Identify analogies and comparisons and analyze their legitimacy
Five. Look at the topic sentences to see how the author is building his or her claim
Six. Look for the appeals the author uses be they logic (logos), emotions (pathos), or authority (ethos).
Seven. Is the author's argument diminished by logical fallacies?
Eight. Do you recognize any bias in the essay that diminishes the author's argument?
Nine. Do we bring any prejudice that may compromise our ability to evaluate the argument fairly?
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