Is Pondering the “Meaning of Life” a Pastime for the Privileged?
On one hand, an argument could be made that my college students should consider “the meaning of life” during the short period they’ll have the time to approach it with any intellectual rigor. Most will move on to the “business of life” after college without the time, energy, or interest for such intellectual pursuits.
Is philosophy a privileged pastime? Is it an indulgence? Or as Ed writes: “At worst I would say having time to ponder philosophy is elitist, or something the majority of humanity does not have the time to worry about that much.”
So what is Man’s Search for Meaning then? A treatise crucial for restoring sanity to the human race? Or another philosophical polemic to be combed over by intellectual elites? My agnosticism on the issue is yet more evidence that I am not worthy of teaching Frankl’s masterpiece.
Will my students really change as a result of my teaching them Man’s Search for Meaning? Will I change? Does anyone really change when reading an inspirational book or seeing a film or some other work of art? We may feel the momentarily inspired, we may passionately discuss the themes with each other, we may make resolutions to change, but it seems more often than not we just resort to our mediocre, aimless behavior. Frankl writes about how people saw the film, based on a Tolstoy novel, Resurrection, and felt compelled to face their own mortality by living a life worthy of suffering and death but this was only a transitory feeling soon forgotten by the pursuit of earthly comforts and pleasures: “After the picture we went to the nearest café, and over a cup of coffee and a sandwich we forgot the strange metaphysical thoughts which for one moment had crossed our minds. But when we ourselves were confronted with a great destiny and faced with the decision of meeting it with equal spiritual greatness, by then we had forgotten our youthful resolution of long ago, and we failed.”
Most of us want to do good, most of us want to live a life of meaning, most of us would rather be worthy of suffering, but even decent conscientious people easily get lulled back into a life of self-interest and laxity. People watch great films and make resolutions that last a few minutes or a few days at most. Or people do the same watching Oprah, or going to church, or reading Man’s Search for Meaning. Let me give you another example. My officemate teaches health classes and one subject is smoking and its dangers. He shows a video of a doctor examining two lungs, sitting like slabs of meat, on two examination tables. The smoker’s lungs are bloated and sickly yellow. The students gag at the sight of those diseased lungs, but during the break my officemate reports that the smokers go outside the classroom and light up their cigarettes.
Bad habits and addictions aren’t the only things that hard difficult, if not impossible to change. There is also the matter of self-interest causing us to compromise our principles. Let me give you a personal example. A few years ago, I found my conscience bothered by eating animal products. I had read about the horrors and cruelties of factory farming and felt compelled to become a vegetarian, if not an outright vegan. My principled diet did not last long. I found I could not get sated on a vegetarian diet and was overeating carbohydrates and sugars resulting in weight gain. Then I read The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith who writes about getting all sorts of medical problems from forcing herself to be a vegan for twenty years. Then my GP told me he was treating two morbidly obese patients who are vegetarians. And he added that malnutrition is worst in vegetarian cultures, including India. Then my wife Carrie wanted to get pregnant and she wanted us both to eat animal protein to increase my potency and her fertility. And then we had twin girls and our pediatrician said human beings are omnivores and should eat some meat. So in the end my self-interest compromised my principles. I eat some animal protein, I try to buy organic, but in the end I see principled eating as futile. The organic market is a boutique industry catering to less than one percent of the population. The horrors animals face as they’re raised and slaughtered at the butchering factories continues. And some would argue that we should not care about the animals as long as there are starving people in the world. In other words, our survival is a priority over principles and values.
A cynical voice in me says we don’t live by values and meaning. We live by what’s best for us. And the same voice says few people really change when confronted with the necessary changes to lead a meaningful life that Frankl explains.
My cynical voice also tells me that I should not even be thinking about meaning at all, that such a foray into this subject is for those who have no life, for those who do not live fully. I am reminded of Eric Weiner’s discussion of thinking too much when he visited Thailand. He writes that “The Thais, I suppose, are too busy being happy to think about happiness.” Perhaps the same is true of meaning. Perhaps if I were too busy leading a meaningful life, I would be too busy to be thinking about meaning.
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