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Existentialism
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Existentialism is popularly associated with the notoriety it enjoyed in Paris in the 1940s, when its opposition to the dominant encoded forms of power and ideology was discussed and perhaps lived out in the hothouse atmosphere of Saint-German-des-Prés cafés and night-clubs. The identification of a philosophical movement with the life-style of its major proponents (here, principally, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir) is... necessarily short-lived, and existential philosophy has wider implications than the youthful revolt encapsulated in the Left-Bank protest movement. It is possible that post-war France needed the sugar-coating of a cult movement to help it swallow Existentialism's high moral seriousness.
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This sense of estrangement from others is found in another classic of Existentialism, the novel The Stranger (1942), by Camus. Like many of Camus' stories, this one is set in Algeria. It is about a fellow whose mother dies but who can't stand sitting up at her wake. He leaves, and offends the community by his evident disrespect. Later, he kills a local Arab. This is not something that the French colonial judicial system would ordinarily take very seriously, but local French opinion is so unsympathetic with our "stranger," just because he left his mother's wake, that he is condemned for the killing of the Arab.
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Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society. - Anita Brookner (b. 1938), British novelist, art historian. Interview in Writers at Work, Eighth Series, ed. George Plimpton (1988).
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Existentialism, a difficult system to define, has been developing over the last fifty years. As it evolved it attracted followers from many different backgrounds. Today its influence has subtly affected much popular thought and expression. As F. H. Heinemann observes
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Existentialism is being identified with ugliness; criticised by Christians for being despairing and non-serious, by Communists for being too subjective and by both for lack of hope. They think that man needs firm rules.
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Existentialism