Existentialism

The existential movement draw upon some interesting concepts of the self, however these outlooks seem very alien as far as I am concerned. Sure, living for the now and just by current, sensory impulses seems like an unashamed way to live a life (somewhat embracing Freud’s theory of the id), but to me this ethos seems like a reckless way to experience a life; a life which encounters constant contradictions, never accomplishing any sort of decent existence.

Claiming to be an existentialist comes across as very selfish and unfulfilling, and though they believe to be independent, I believe living, as an existentialist is lonely; or am I just influenced too heavily by my ego?

Existentialists believe you are what you make yourself through your own experiences, but in doing this one rebukes moral responsibility. In their pursuit for certainty via experience, an existentialist does not care about personal responsibility, which really gives them no place in society e.g. when Camus’s protagonist (in “The Outsider) Meursault kills without remorse.

To be a traditional existentialist one must rely on no one and remain in solitude. The existentialist’s search for truth is very lonely, and without sharing experiences, the individual’s search for truth is surely slowed down. More modern existentisalists (who have noted the fact that social interaction is necessary) take a different stance but still an equally bleak outlook, which can be seen for example in Jean-Paul Sartre’s perceptions that relationships are solely established by people's attraction not towards one another but rather how that person makes them feel about themselves by how they look at them. Existentialism is essentially selfish and despite an existentialist’s belief that they are more honest as an individual, they are far more deluded than the worst of philosophers.