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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/22/2009 6:32:43 PM | This is generally considered one of the 10 most influential books of the 20th century. Nonetheless, it's one I've discovered late in life. I think this is more of a philosophical thread than a scientific one.
Some random thoughts I have on it:
~Obviously, coming out of experiences during the Holocaust, his writings both reflect on and inform others writings on it. In particular his division of people into "decent and indecent" contradict Hannah Arendt's reflections on the "Banality of Evil." I think I'm siding with Hannah on this one. While there are the truly evil and saintly among us, most of us are moved by the prevailing winds.
~His writings fill an unfortunate void. Wittgenstein's intellect and charisma made his, "That which is unspeakable, we must pass over in silence," far too prevalent. Following the greatest atrocity in human history, the power of Wittgenstein had Western Philosophy wrestling with trifles when it should have been addressing the big issues. Frankl does address those issues.
~He wrote it in 9 days and intended it to be published anonymously. I'm thinking the speed in which he wrote it makes it powerful. But I don't know if it would have been as influential if it had been anonymous.
~I'll admit when I was young and heard the saying, "Live each day as if it's your last" created a notion in me of actions without consequence, like in Groundhog Day. Frankl's admonition to, ""Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!" gives that saying a whole different twist.
Which lead me to:
~I'm wondering if the writer of Groundhog Day was going through Logotherapy when he wrote it. After all Bill Murray's character lived through:
"When we are no longer able to change a situation – just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer – we are challenged to change ourselves."
And found redemption through: "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."
~Finally, through his experiences, he ends at a much more hopeful worldview than the Drive determined self of Freud or Adler, the Behaviourist models of the time, or the determinist position of mainstream religion (the whole Omnipotent, Omniscient Creator God who knew everything that would happen at the moment of creation, and created it so nothing else could happen). His, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom," resonates with me that we have free will. Despite all the evidence to the contrary. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/22/2009 10:50:04 PM | I was afraid this was going to die an orphan. Thanks guys.
There's something else that he touches on (well more than touches on it) and that's something that I've read about from survivors of the Gulag. You had to be a selfish SOB to survive that nightmare. "A man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how."
He went into survivor guilt before it had a name.
It actually reminds me of "The Drama of the Gifted Child" in one sense. Drama essentially forms the template of just about all the self help books that have been published in the last 35 years. "Man's Search for Meaning" gave us the language that more than an entire school has grown up around. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/22/2009 11:55:38 PM | Among the most interesting aspects of this book is the description of how "civilized" and modern persons react to the horrible environment of the concentration camps.
Another book that deals with a similar topic: finding meaning/purpose in times of great suffering, is "the consolation of philosophy" by the early medieval author Boethius. Boethius, who served in positions of high power in the post-Roman empire Ostrogoth kingdom, was falsely accused of treason and was sentenced to death. He wrote the book, which takes the form of a dialogue with the womanly manifestation of philosophy, while awaiting execution. The central question of the book is why bad things happen to good people.
Hope you get a chance to read and enjoy this great work.
CS | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/23/2009 7:21:52 AM | Thank you for the recommendation. I actually will seek it out.
One reason for that is because of something I heard about as an undergrad which doesn't mesh with Frankl. Dostoyevski was picked up with a bunch of other dissidents in Tsarist Russia and sentenced to death. At the very moment before execution (lined up with a rope around the neck) they were all granted a reprieve. Fyodor then genuinely changed his entire outlook and became a complete booster of the regime.
So I've been trying to integrate Frankl's observations with this sort of anecdote. Another perspective might help me. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/23/2009 9:09:56 AM | OK, well, see, you got your brain, and it does what it does, then you got the rest of your body out there prowling around for food and stuff. So one day this mind of yours turns its attention from wondering where they hid the cheese to how the maze is built, and it seems highly suspicious how the scale is just your size. The walls just high enough to keep you in, the runs just wide enough for you to pass through, and all that left and right at every turn. Now you're in it. Now your food finding machinery has been taken over by itself. It's no longer your faithful servant in the quest for cheese. It is hungry for its own glory. That's from how it gets a reward for navigating the maze. Satisfied? No, because beyond the maze must be where all the cheese is kept, that one big wheel of cheese just there for the taking. Outsmart the maze builders and the feast is yours.
This new mission assigned, when you come to the left or right you stop to ponder. It's not enough anymore to choose which way, because in that moment before decision are clues about the entire proposition of being there faced with the choice. That becomes the deliciousness even more compelling than the mere scent of some crumbs ahead. If nibbling at a morsel after running ragged is good, then plunging face first into the mother lode would be ecstasy.
UH oh, but there's a problem now. Being a maze runner your entire outlook depends on that structure for orientation. You can have all of the maze running outcomes as long as you stay in it. The cheese could be missing, and you starve. It could be poison, and you die. It could be fake, made of wood, and you chip a tooth. It could be the wrong brand and leave a strange aftertaste. It could be where you expected one day then someplace else the next. Or it could be where it should be and easily found. None of these possibilities can exist outside the maze. None of what you know can apply beyond the context of your knowledge. Now what??? | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/23/2009 8:13:00 PM | I love a book that makes you look at things differently.
After Freud, everything that came before got reinterpreted through that lens (from Hamlet to Al Jolsen). I've already mentioned Groundhog Day, but many of my favourite movies are taking on a new spin: Meet John Doe, The Third Man, Happiness (Todd Solenz).
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/23/2009 8:49:55 PM | I was introduced to this book in high school... longer ago now relative to WWII.
What I remember was the struggle for survival among the captives. As an adult I have a greater appreciation for the sense of loss... material, personal, physical... loss of freedom, dignity and humanity. Frankel's participation and observation of deprivation revealed that those who survived had the will to live because they had a purpose... meaning. Our spiritual growth comes from sorrow, grief, loss and separation.
So the space that allows for response can be a moment in time or extend between relationships... allowing for revelations and/or redemption.
And so it goes... | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/24/2009 8:58:16 AM | And to think that I reference this exact book in my profile!
It's on the top ten list of books that all people should read and I wholeheartedly agree. It was a life-changing read for me.
Thanks for spreading the word on this amazing piece of literature, HalftimeDad! | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/27/2009 2:19:08 PM | Now acceptance. Now the recognition that there are greater possibilities. Now, not good or bad but the recognition that there is more than what may be possible within your experience.
Frankl was a brilliant writer and therapist. Many of his ideas were ground breaking and counter-intuitive to knowledge as it was viewed at that time in the western world. His approach (logo therapy) does tend to be somewhat paternalistic and "expert in its' scope", but something that it did with his patients was accept them as much as could be tolerated at that time in the west. One of his approaches was paradoxical intent. Rather than convince his patient to change their attitude or thought, he would join them in it. Like the old "if the kid wants to smoke, I will give him so much he can't stand it by forcing them to smoke cigars" kind of approach. He would let people have their way rather than try to get their compliance. It was paternalistic in that he always had a good idea how things would turn out but he did not waste a lot of time trying to get them to see things his way. He encouraged them to experience it for themselves. This eliminated that dialectical approach where believing and not believing sets up a struggle within the patient and/or between the patient and the therapist. He modelled acceptance of the client, their behavior and their thoughts in general this way. The thing is however, the ultimate goal was for the client to come to their senses and see things his way.
The alternative does answer now what. It is acceptance. Acceptance to all of the possibilities. Frankl was approaching things like a buddhist to a limited degree. He joined the patient in accepting the possibility that things were neither good or bad but where he was different was where his underlying belief was that it was bad. The buddhist is a little more scientific about it. It may be enjoyable to smoke that cigarette , it may help you to relax, it is hard to quit and all your friends do it. All may be very true. By the same token, are you looking at lung disease, the cost, how dirty it is, how bad it is for the loved ones around you? Also true. Pure acceptance opens your mind to a greater realm of possibilities. (This was meant as a response to Farceur who posed a question) It didn't come out as a response so I must have made a mistake but that is okay, I can accept that.(LOL) | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/27/2009 8:28:20 PM | Read the book twice years ago.
Unfortunately, Logotherapy isn't considered mainstream anymore, but Frankl's message is profound and enduring. 'Radical accceptance' is central to modern DBT, and the themes of 'naked existence' are central to existential philosophy. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/27/2009 8:43:11 PM | That's interesting. I kind of breezed over existentialism years ago, but found it too depressing for me. Whereas I find Frankl to be affirming.
Years ago I met the first Philisophical Counsellor in Canada. Frankly, I thought it was a good idea, even if I thought he wasn't very interesting. I wondering if, as ideas like this move out of Psychology and Psychiatry, there might be more room for that kind of service. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/28/2009 3:26:53 AM | I realise he's not Viktor Frankl but it is on topic .There is a book by a Professor Saxton-Burr called "Intimations of Mortality " written in the 70s but he was far ahead of his time . Viktor would give him the thumbs up . Google it and see where you may get a copy . | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/29/2009 5:23:24 PM | I was reading this beloved book and put it down somewhere ... I've searched the loo room ,!!! I will find it International ... Said thru gritted teeth . I have this habit of reading a part of a book i love , then putting book down , and wandering off . This is amongst the least of my peculiarities . | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 9/29/2009 5:48:36 PM | | I , to my distress , must have given it to someone to read and it's not been returned but you will find a comprehensive profile etc. in Wikeperdia under Harold Saxton Burr [no hyphen] . Let me know if you have luck there . | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/1/2009 2:35:02 AM | Ahh, what is the meaning of meaning? Like most philosophers he engages in a lot of unnecessary mental masturbation. There are no morals. There is no right and wrong. There is no good and evil. There is, only and always, one's perspective on matters. Everything is nothing more than perspective. Most of what you believe is predicated on social conditoning, and you can very easily be conditioned out of that and into something else. Those hardcore nazis certainly believed they were right. And you can apply that to everyone on down the line throughout history. Pain and suffering are a necessary part of life - anyone who says different is selling something. T.S. Elliot probably said it best when he said, 'Somewhere between the light and the shadow falls the reality.' Hitler was evil to some, a saint to others, but the reality is he was simply, fully commited to his perspective, and you agreed with it or you didn't.
Killing is wrong? Well every year militaries around the globe brainwash millions of kids into believing it's ok, even necessary...so long as their "side" says it is. Nature, the universe is a very violent place and entirely indifferent. As the great poet Stephen Crane once wrote....
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
I'll leave you with one final quote from Terry Pratchett's 'Guards Guards!' that really sums it up best....
He stalked away through the ruined palace, Vimes trailing behind, until he reached the Oblong Office. It was quite tidy. It had escaped most of the devastation with nothing more than a layer of dust. The Patrician sat down, and suddenly it was as if he'd never left. Vimes wondered if he ever had.
He picked up a sheaf of papers and brushed the plaster off them.
'Sad,' he said. 'Lupine was such a tidy-minded man.'
'Yes, sir.'
The Patrician steepled his hands and looked at Vimes over the top of them.
'Let me give you some advice, Captain,' he said.
'Yes, sir?'
'It may help you make some sense of the world.'
'Sir.'
'I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people,' said the man. 'You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.'
He waved his thin hand towards the city and walked over to the window.
'A great rolling sea of evil,' he said, almost proprietorially. 'Shallower in some places, of course, but deeper, oh, so much deeper in others. But people like you put together little rafts of rules and vaguely good intentions and say, this is the opposite, this will triumph in the end. Amazing!' He slapped Vimes good-naturedly on the back.
'Down there,' he said, 'are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no. I'm sorry if this offends you,' he added, patting the captain's shoulder, 'but you fellows really need us.'
'Yes, sir?' said Vimes quietly.
'Oh, yes. We're the only ones who know how to make things work. You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you're good at that, I'll grant you. But the trouble is that it's the only thing you're good at. One day it's the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it's everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no-one's been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It's part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don't seem to have the knack.'
'Maybe. But you're wrong about the rest!' said Vimes. 'It's just because people are afraid, and alone—' He paused. It sounded pretty hollow, even to him.
He shrugged. 'They're just people,' he said. 'They're just doing what people do. Sir.'
Lord Vetinari gave him a friendly smile.
'Of course, of course,' he said. 'You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you'd go quite mad. Otherwise you'd think you're standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.' He looked at his desk, and sighed. 'And now,' he said, 'there is such a lot to do. I'm afraid poor Wonse was a good servant but an inefficient master. So you may go. Have a good night's sleep. Oh, and do bring your men in tomorrow. The city must show its gratitude.'
'It must what?' said Vimes.
The Patrician looked at a scroll. Already his voice was back to the distant tones of one who organizes and plans and controls.
'Its gratitude,' he said. 'After every triumphant victory there must be heroes. It is essential. Then everyone will know that everything has been done properly.'
He glanced at Vimes over the top of the scroll.
'It's all part of the natural order of things,' he said.
After a while he made a few pencil annotations to the paper in front of him and looked up.
'I said,' he said, 'that you may go.'
Vimes paused at the door.
'Do you believe all that, sir?' he said. 'About the endless evil and the sheer blackness?'
'Indeed, indeed,' said the Patrician, turning over the page. 'It is the only logical conclusion.'
'But you get out of bed every morning, sir?'
'Hmm? Yes? What is your point?'
'I'd just like to know why, sir.'
'Oh, do go away, Vimes. There's a good fellow.' | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/1/2009 12:25:40 PM | Existentialism tends to be somewhat bleak.
It is described this way in Ask.com:
A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.
Frankl tends to be much more hopeful without doubt. He drew from the existential approach an analytical method of viewing problems and placing the power to make change in one's life, back in their own hands. Hence, freedom of choice and consequences.
As was mentioned by uberdave, there have been developments in treatment modalities since Logotherapy. The tenets of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy take this hopeful, non-judgemental approach as a therapeutic tool. They open the world to a number of possibilities. Not paternalistic I am expert therefore I am right, you are layman therefore you are wrong type of thinking. But rather, examine our thoughts or beliefs and consider them in other counter-intuitive ways. What are the possibilities?
A woman who has developed an approach to examine thoughts in a meaningful and thorough way is Byron Katie. She asks one to examine thoroughly what we tell ourselves. She is a very interesting person in that she is a lay person but she taught herself how to question her own thoughts and beliefs. She journeyed through her own depression and hopelessness to develop acceptance and awareness of her own environment. Her book is "A Thousand Names For Joy" and is well worth the read. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/1/2009 10:19:26 PM | | none of this dialogue mentions mercy and that even in the darkest times there is mercy. I believe this. I do not need to be Holocausted. I believe that there is mercy. Just before you die, you see the light. I do not need educated fools telling me otherwise. I have read Victor's book and accepted with respect his viewpoint. Experience diluted by therapy is for the fortunate. Otherwise, you bite the bullet and live and make some sense of what you have lived. These viewpoints are to be cherished and reserved for future reference. Ah...also the therapist grounded. But...in the end the wicked events of life make you stronger, blunted, torn and finally ready for the final reckoning. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/2/2009 2:53:20 AM | | That forward procrastination as if there is or need be anything after and its motivation of terror in the face of death are the dearness of life, that's all it is, and will be as important as your fear and as present as your pain, which can become optional through understanding, as all beliefs can, so feel the freedom from meaning anything at all, at any time if that helps. These strategies for shoring up desperate thoughts against one another, of grasping through emotions favoring one above all and at all cost, as if the mind should be set right are based on a wish to somehow escape reality by remaining undeserving of its horrors, rather than accepting all of life including the manner and finality of its ending. It seems like an awfully lot of work wasted on what will turn out to be maybe five or ten minutes when it does happen. To spend a lifetime or large parts thereof concerned with the meaning that takes the edge off death is to be a student of death. The death disciple avoids living life for fear of losing it, for fear of wasting it, and in the frantic need to be someone becomes nobody. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/2/2009 7:07:48 AM | | How does mercy play a role? In life after death? How does mercy in the after life effect the present moment? What is left for the suffering other than misery? This future reference you are speaking of, can you apply it in the after life? Is that something you know to be true or do you take it on blind faith? What if your salvation in the here and now was as simple as a change in thought, would it be wrong to show yourself that mercy? Are you saying that this suffering is your "meaning"? | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/2/2009 8:00:58 AM | "To spend a lifetime or large parts thereof concerned with the meaning that takes the edge off death is to be a student of death. The death disciple avoids living life for fear of losing it, for fear of wasting it, and in the frantic need to be someone becomes nobody."
You raise a good point. In his book, Frankl suggests that the hardiest amongst us are not those who are the most physically capable, or most intelligent but those who had meaning in their lives. His position is that is what made them strong. That is what made the frailest or weakest survive while the hardiest and most apparently capable withered. Frankl himself feels he was able to survive and maintain his resolve because he had purpose.
I am getting the sense you suggest otherwise. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems you suggest an "in the moment orientation" based on reality and acceptance is of more merit under the circumstances.
I can certainly see there is an "in the moment" quality to the way Frankl spent his time in a concentration camp. But I wonder if his belief in his work had more to do with his living rather than dying. I wonder if it meant he came to accept the inevitability of death, learned to live with it and strove to live his life rather than live his life in fear of dying. Guarding his work became his focus. Like a monk or saint who tended their garden, it was vital and transcends the fear that occupied most people's minds under the circumstances. Through that focus, he was able to tolerate anything. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/4/2009 8:32:19 PM | But much of the book is about those around him and how they coped.
I think if we focus too much on Frankl we miss the essence. He observed the different reactions that people had in the camps and after their release. And his observation that "more people than ever have the means to live, but not the purpose to live for" is a central theme in Adbusters and the Media Foundation.
I see in Frankl both an early premonition about First World angst, and a philosophy to rise above it. It's a modern reworking of the "unexamined life" adage. | |
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| Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
Posted: 10/4/2009 9:34:22 PM | | There is either a thirst for life or there isn't. No matter where you are. Not being able to rise above.. is just another form of death for some. We all die in our very individual ways. Contemplating death does not rob life of its significance but sometimes adds the impetus to live better in an "examined life". Life is not life unless the acceptance of death becomes a living presence. Don't wait to accept this fact, but at the same time do not let the fear of death seize you. Keep the strenous balance and enjoy your search for meaning. | |
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