In this blog post, we will examine how humans have responded to existential anxiety arising from contradictions with absolute existence and conflicts between individuals through the lens of philosophical thought.
Humans exist as individuals regardless of their own will, and are destined to disappear without knowing where they are headed. This existential anxiety that humans face can be attributed to the fact that all individuals in the world exist in a horizontal contradiction with all other individuals, and in a vertical contradiction with an unknown absolute being that governs the existence and extinction of individuals. Here, “horizontal contradiction” refers to conflicts arising from differences between entities, while “vertical contradiction” refers to conflicts arising from the fact that the absolute entity remains unknown to entities. How have humans dealt with this existential anxiety?
In ancient Greece before the formation of the polis, the absolute existence was unknown to each individual. The ancient Greeks, who believed that human existence was determined by the gods, considered that the best way to live was to interpret the will of the gods and follow it. However, after the formation of the polis, Western philosophy began to attempt to define this absolute existence. The aim was to use the power of reason to reveal the essence of absolute existence and thereby resolve both vertical and horizontal contradictions. Western philosophy believed that by revealing the universal principles corresponding to the essence of absolute existence, it would be possible to find a universal identity that encompasses the differences between individuals. Thus, it was believed that the identity of individuals could be secured by defining all individuals as legitimate components of a system without contradictions. However, individuals may have different understandings of what universal principles are. Therefore, in Western philosophy, “debate” became important as a means of arguing about the nature of absolute existence through a process of logical justification.
In ancient China, the absolute being that governed human life was also unknown. The ancient Chinese believed that the will of heaven determined human destiny and sought to live in harmony with it. However, after the Spring and Autumn Period, scholars who inherited the ideas of Confucius shifted their focus from the vertical relationship with the absolute being to the horizontal relationship between humans, or the relationship between the self and others. They dismissed the need to define the relationship with an absolute being and focused instead on finding ways to achieve harmony among horizontal entities that were prone to conflict. They established specific moral values, such as benevolence and propriety, that could be shared within a group to resolve conflicts between individuals. This means prioritizing the order of the group over the individual and adopting the values of the group as one’s own identity. Therefore, it became important for them to follow moral values and refrain from revealing themselves in order to achieve harmony and maintain order within a group.
Although these two approaches differ in how they deal with existential anxiety and in the process of resolution, they are fundamentally similar in that they both view humans as capable of resolving contradictions. However, in the former approach, even if individuals endlessly seek answers to the question of what constitutes an absolute being in order to resolve their anxiety, it is difficult to escape the limitation that these answers are merely individual interpretations of an absolute being. The latter has the limitation of being only a partial solution, as it ignores the relationship with absolute existence in order to resolve anxiety and focuses only on resolving contradictions between individuals within the group. These two methods are human-centered methods devised at a time when urban civilization was in full swing and people began to seek a perfect order of domination within the walls of castles.
On the other hand, there is another approach that differs from these two. This most primitive approach starts from the recognition of the inevitability of vertical and horizontal contradictions that arise within individuals, leaving the absolute existence as unknown. This is because it recognizes that there are limits to the ability of individuals to define the essence of absolute existence, and that such attempts are futile. For this reason, contradictions between objects cannot be resolved. All objects are destined to be subordinate to absolute existence, so they entrust themselves to objects that have been given charisma by absolute existence and live in complete dependence on them. Here, “charisma” refers to abilities that are unilaterally given by absolute existence. Individuals adapt to the environment in which they live, temporarily parasitize objects that represent the absolute being by being endowed with charisma, and repeatedly gather and disperse according to changes in those objects. This method does not seek to identify or ignore the absolute being in order to resolve existential anxiety. This is because their existential anxiety cannot be resolved. They simply live their lives with their identity as parasites on the entities that have been granted charisma.
Compared to the previous two methods, this method is characterized by the view that contradictions cannot be resolved and that the identity of individuals is temporary and therefore can be relinquished at any time. If the approach that emphasizes debate and mutual reinforcement is the human-centered logic of cities that has emerged with the development of civilization over the last two or three thousand years, then this approach can be said to be the logic of the wild, which has been engraved in the minds of humans as a way of life alongside all other living things throughout the hundreds of thousands of years of human existence. According to this logic, even the superior perception of humans is not so different from the specialized survival abilities of other animals in that it cannot resolve existential anxiety.
Ultimately, humans have lived by coping with their existential anxiety in various ways, and even now, they are struggling to find a solution. This exploration and effort provide important clues to understanding the essence of human existence and continue to pose new questions and challenges for us. In this context, existential anxiety is not simply a negative emotion, but also a driving force for humans to constantly reflect and develop. In this way, humans continue on a never-ending journey to deeply understand themselves and the world through existential anxiety.
