Since there is no teleology, the world wasn't created for a reason， and it doesn't exist for a reason. And if there is no reason for any of this, then there's also no absolute to abide by.
There's no cosmic justice, no fairness, no order, no rules. Now, existentialism has its roots in late-19th-century thinkers like Kindergarten and Nietzsche. But it really came into its own during and after world war II, as the horrors of the Holocaust led many people to abandon any belief in an ordered world. And who could blame then?
When Nazis became possible, meaning became much harder to find. But Sartre face meaninglessness head-on, and explored one of the most agonizing aspects of existentialism.
Not the world's lack of meaning. But it's terrifying abundance of freedom. To most of us， freedom sounds pretty great. But Sartre thought that we are painfully, shockingly free.
After all, if there are no guidelines for our actions, then each of us is forced to design our own moral code, to invent a morality to live by.
Sartre took this to mean that we are “condemned to be free,” a fate that he found to be quite awful. You might think that there’s some authority you could look to for answers, Sartre said, but all of the authorities you can think of are fake.
You can do what your parents say, or your church, or your government, but Sartre said those authorities are really just people like you, people who don't have any answers, people who had to figure out for themselves how to live. So the best thing you can really do, he determined, is to live authentically.
for:阅读练习生
乙亥年四月初五
