LOS MARGINADOS: RESENDING -- Finding the meaning of life in Auschwitz [THANKS TO THE SINAES]

sábado, 7 de mayo de 2016

RESENDING -- Finding the meaning of life in Auschwitz [THANKS TO THE SINAES]

Apologies for resending the newsletter. We had some problems with the server and a couple of stories were deleted, causing a mix-up in the links. Hopefully the issue has been sorted out. .

The famous Harvard philosopher Willard Quine was once asked what the meaning of life was. He responded: “"Life is algid, life is fulgid. Life is what the least of us make most of us feel the least of us make the most of. Life is a burgeoning, a quickening of the dim primordial urge in the murky wastes of time".

In other words, what a stupid,stupid question. I suspect that many people would agree with him, unfortunately. The British comedy team Monty Python called one of their irreverent films The Meaning of Life, which implied that the question was stupid and all answers were absurd.

I suspect that Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and psychologist, would have regarded these responses as not just daft but dangerous. Without meaning in their lives, people die; he saw it happen before him many times. Frankl has an important message for our era. Taking advantage of a couple of anniversaries, two of our stories below will give you a taste of his inspiring ideas