And yet another Implication of Man Making Man

In Existentialism Is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre lays out the basic premises and principles of existentialism. The first, and what I think is probably the most important, is that man's existence precedes his essence. It is because of this that, as Sartre says, "[man] will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself" (22). But what does this really entail for humanity, this idea taht we are what we make of ourselves (and not just what we eat)?

One answer, and one that I find particularly and paradoxically inspiring and depressing (but mostly depressing) is Absurdism. Absurdism, as most of you know, is a branch of existential philosophy. Its main tenet is that it is humanly impossible, or "absurd", to find meaning in a world where we are constantly creating and recreating meaning for ourselves. Albert Camus' The Stranger is the work Absurdist fiction, and I find it to be one the best pieces of fiction I've ever read. So, what I mainly want to do is shed some light on the scarier implications of the first principle of Existentialsim that Sartre shies away from.

The story of The Stranger follows a man named Meursaulf, whose mother has just died. He is conspicuously not grieving but goes through all the motions–goes to the old folk's home, goes to the funeral, everything. But where is his emotion, where is the pain he should feel for the loss of his Maman? This absence of emotion, I feel, hints at one of the first scary implications I referred to above: namely, that, in a world where we create our meaning almost ad infinitum, our emotions are queasily close to meaningless. This can be summed up beautifully in an exchange between Meursault and his mistress, Marie:

"She was wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again. A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so. She looked sad. But as we were fixing lunch, and for no apparent reason, she laughed in such a way that I kissed her."

Or another instance when he is asked by his attorney if he ever truly loved his Maman:

"I answered that I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn't mean anything. ... I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings."

So in these moments set-up for a confession of emotion, we merely get Meursault acting on impulse and sloughing off any claims to emotion. He has no rational or even emotional basis for anything he does. This can also be seen in the reason's for Meursault's shooting an Arab. He cannot come up with anything other than a description of the burning sun on the beach.

So it is apparent in the Absurdist school of Existentialism that emotions mean a-whole-lot of nothing. But what does that mean for our actions? Does it mean that any emotional bases I have for being friends with someone are in bad faith? Does it mean that any meaning I derive from my emotional exchanges with the people I love are, in the end, mere buffoonery? Camus, I assume, would nod and reply with a terse, "oui". I, on the other hand, am left screaming it can't be so. This is a reason I have a love-hate relationship with Existentialism. On the one side, it leaves me free to just be. But on the other, it leaves me with no way to get meaning out of my relationships with other people.