Viktor Frankl: Why believe in others [video] (1972)
ted.com
ted.com
In this view he disagreed with and distinguished himself from those existentialists who held that life was meaningless.
Further, he felt that even in the worst and most restrictive of circumstances (such as in concentration camps) one could still choose what attitude to adopt towards what one was forced to go through, and could choose to answer the questions life asked of you with dignity.
I don’t think of a disagreement in this regard, because even if there’s objectively no meaning in life, it doesn’t mean that there’s also no subjective meaning.
I think that was the whole point of Frankl, how you can find and develop this subjective meaning.
It aligns closely with Eastern traditions along these lines.
It says nothing is real so everything is pointless. They might share the base premise, but it's a pretty important distinction.
1. People are capable of both great evil and great good (often in close proximity).
2. Having a great intellect may, in fact, make someone more compassionate.
3. Finding meaning in a cause, project, person, etc. can allow a person to endure much more than most would expect.
For those who aren't familiar with Frankl's personal background, you'll find many of the relevant details in that book (and perhaps also in the linked video although I haven't finished it yet). Trust me when I say that the man has a legitimate claim to discuss the topics on which he tends to focus.
What I found surprising when I read it (years ago) was how having a family would constitute so much meaning. I remember reading the book thinking "alright, I'm simply a teenager, but I can now make the heuristic that family = meaning to basically everyone."
I suppose that I wasn't so big on family in my teenage years.
> If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelego. Frankl found evil in prisoners who were promoted to guards and good in guards who were supposed to use and unceremoniously dispose prisoners.
This crucial insight seems to enable the best leaders—be they parents, teachers, organizers, etc—to bring the best out of their people.
It’s also something highly under-appreciated in contemporary economics and management theory (and policy making, correspondingly).
And I don't think it requires absolute precision in action -- just a willingness to observe, think and iterate. After all, the influencer is as much of a human as the influenced. We're talking about influence over the scale of years, if not decades.
This is one of those domains where the "Lindy effect" might be a good rule of thumb -- the longer a guide has survived, the longer it is likely to survive, because the likelier it is to add value. Conversely, many "modern breakthroughs" are likely to be fads.
Saying "You are amazing, here is an A for trying" is a different culture entirely, and came from somewhere else.
The accent, the humor, the content, the man, his life and his books.
I never quite understood why so much Americans are out there just "to make a lot of money".
Lot of money, but realistically probably not enough to cover their uncovered healthcare costs once their health get worse.
But even in the best case, you earned a lot of money, you die rich, and that was it?
Recognizing capitalism as a fact is one thing (that I do myself), worshipping it like Ayn Rand belongs to the dullest ideologies ever invented. Capitalism does not care that you are worshipping it damnit!
Then I have read Max Weber and understood it all:
"The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit Of Capitalism"
Oh yes, that makes a lot of sense. It's not just capitalism, there is deeper meaning behind it and it comes from religion.
By contrast, I was raised as a Catholic - I'm not an Catholic today, but that's was my education was - so I learned from an early age that talking about money all the time is not what good people do.
As a counterpoint, the US is perhaps the most charitable advanced nation (in terms of charitable giving per capita). Take from that what you will, but perhaps the conclusion should not be “Americans are more greedy or materialistic than others”.
> I learned from an early age that talking about money all the time is not what good people do
For better or worse money is a major component of agency both in your own life and in society at large. On a personal level, reducing your working hours to spend more time with your family requires a focus on money to make that happen. On a societal level, there is no universal health care, affordable education or shift to clean energy without deep and involved conversations about money.
My conclusions were that both my reluctance to talk about money and US fascination for material success had a religious background.