existential threats
25 - 06/25 /11:14
Existential threats surround us. News headlines and social media are packed with dire warnings about climate change, artificial intelligence, nuclear war, pandemics, immigration and more. These are threats to our very existence. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
According to Andrew Hartz, founder of the Open Therapy Institute, editors and influencers identifying some “existential threat” are not evoking the philosophy of Sartre or Camus. Hartz suggests naming something an “existential threat” reveals that issue is deeply tied to that person’s own fear of death or their need for purpose.
According to Andrew Hartz, founder of the Open Therapy Institute, editors and influencers identifying some “existential threat” are not evoking the philosophy of Sartre or Camus. Hartz suggests naming something an “existential threat” reveals that issue is deeply tied to that person’s own fear of death or their need for purpose.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl introduced existentialism to popular culture. After surviving four years in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl emphasized the importance of personal responsibility to overcome despair and feelings of meaninglessness.
Those warning today of “existential threats” reject personal responsibility. They demand others must act. Warnings about “existential threats” have become more popular as people have become more irresponsible and less resilient. And our fear of “existential threats” are exacerbated by our increasing emotional fragility.
Recent events—the pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, the increasing secularization of society—have triggered existential concerns. Social-media platforms have intensified feelings of insignificance. Loneliness heightens anxieties about meaning. Distrust of authority nurtures insecurity.
According to Terror Management Theory, people cope with anxiety about death by focusing their fears onto something tangible, often some current political cause. That cause then becomes emotionally loaded with an individual’s anxiety about their own mortality. While this can make their anxiety seem more manageable, it increases their political fanaticism.
People adopt an unconscious hope that somebody else’s action could protect them from death. Sometimes, these fantasies nurture obsessive-compulsive activities, as if repetitions will magically stave off risks. Many Covid practices had this flavor.
Some yearn for an omnipotent state as the means to protect them from their fears. They fantasize that government control might protect them from the internal feelings they can’t tolerate.
Anxieties like this make space for authoritarianism. Politicians earn votes by suggesting our deepest fears are solvable. But when they fail to solve the issue, voter anxieties can descend into fanaticism.
The human search for meaning, purpose, wisdom, liberty, peace will not be fulfilled in our material world. According to the Bible extraordinary hope arises within those who accept Christ as Lord. ~
Blessings,
Dan Nygaard