"So, What's it all about?" [By Joel Achenbach]

from the Washington Post / August 7, 1992

<<<
Why do we love to use big words, such as "existential" and "metaphysical" and "deconstructionist," even though we have no idea what they mean?

We never understood "existential." We suspected it had something to do with wearing shades all the time, especially at night.

"Existential" is the granddaddy of overused philosophy terms, and it shows no sign of going into retirement. We found 19 uses of the word in The Washington Post in the first six months of this year (for example, a song "sounds as if it were written by Chuck Berry in a decidedly existential frame of mind," and a vote for Jerry Brown "is an existential leap into the unknown").

David Lehman's book "Signs of the Times" explains why these words are so popular. The most obvious reason is that "the word announces the writer's knowingness: I'm hip to what's hip. I know what's happening in the world of big ideas." But we like a second explanation that he gives in passing: Since no one knows what the words really mean, you can't use them incorrectly. It sounds smart in any context.

In an interview, Lehman gave us one other explanation: "People like things they don't fully understand." (You've already heard the joke about these deconstructionist literary critics. What happens when you cross a Mafioso with a deconstructionist? He makes you an offer you can't understand.)

"Existentialism" began to cohere in France during and immediately after World War II, promoted by such writers as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. What was it? Well, it wasn't a philosophy. It was just an umbrella term. In his essay "Existentialism and Death," Walter Kaufman wrote, "Existentialism is not a doctrine but a label widely used to lump together the works of several philosophers and writers who consider a few extreme experiences" -- like pain, fear, trembling, death -- "the best starting point for philosophy." >>>

American intellectuals and bohemians, always awed by the French, imported the term and began using it in all manner of ways. Existentialism gradually took on something like a definition: Individuals should not adhere to preexisting doctrines and axioms and ideals, but rather should create their own, based on direct experiences. The official buzz phrase was "Existence precedes essence," but perhaps a better slogan for existentialists would have been, "We're just making this up as we go." (The Why column is very existential.)

Norman Mailer may have been the single greatest popularizer of the word. In "The Presidential Papers" he called John F. Kennedy "The Existential Hero" and wrote, "I knew if he became President, it would be an existential event: he would touch depths in American life which were uncharted." And: "Existential politics reveals itself with Jackie Kennedy. ... A lady of beauty caught willy-nilly in political life reveals the insubstantial existential nature of political acts."

What's it mean? You're not supposed to ask! You're just supposed to ... get it.

Is it a crime to misuse a word? Of course not. Lehman writes, "Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.”

Ed. note: This was writen long before the concept of the thought police was put into practrice under a variety of euphemistic names.

Comments

[Kyril Alexander Calsoyas]

A chair has four legs, each leg of equal length. We know immediately when one of the legs of the legs is off length. Language is an agreement between deep sea voyagers to make every effort to remain true for the sake of preserving life. Hence, pilots use English, keep it terse, and avoid embellishment. The deathbed is probably the best place to hear language used as it should be.