Watch me read this:
I finally listened to Man’s Search for Meaning and let me tell you, my babies, there’s a reason it’s sold a bajillion copies and been translated into a zillion languages. It’s very good. It’s short, concise, well-written (rare for a translation ime), harrowing, and extremely useful.
In the decades since 1959, when it was published, researchers have validated his point that chasing happiness won’t work.
But what really struck me is the whole “crisis of meaning” part.
Recent data show that the suicide rate in Casper, WY is more than a third of that seen in Dachau (29.4/100k vs 55-107/100k).
Externally imposed conditions of suffering do not fully explain existential despair. The will to live does not decrease perfectly in tandem with the rise in suffering. People don’t become shitheads in perfect alignment with the shitheadery to which they’re exposed. There is at least one mediating factor. And I think Frankel is onto something with the idea that meaning makes the difference.
Where do people find meaning in their lives?
Most people, in the West at least, get most of their meaning from their families and religion.
Two facts are probably not coincidental. First, that men are much more susceptible to deaths of despair and second, that women do the vast majority of caretaking in the US. Women, more than men, have to think about what would happen to the children and/or disabled/elderly people who depend on them if they drink themselves to death.
It makes me wonder what would happen to the deaths of despair gender ratio if the US had a robust social safety net.
Man’s Search for Meaning is in keeping with my accidentally reading very religious books. But it isn’t preachy, exactly. It just describes the reality of how religion influences meaning.
I have two thoughts about this.
First, my old standby. In saying “we’re going to tolerate every religion equally,” liberal pluralism inadvertently positions itself against religion. Because a central tenant of most religions is that each is the way, truth, and life as opposed to a way, truth, and life. Liberalism deals with this now by almost only attracting nihilists and spicy nihilists. But that’s probably not ideal, for both growth and human flourishing. I don’t see a way around this except to give people a source of meaning that is compatible with the idea that other sources of meaning are equally tolerable.
Second, I’m growing softer toward organized religion as I get older and further removed from the trauma of my Southern Baptist upbringing. Evangelical Christianity in the US right now is totally unacceptable. But I’m not opposed to what organized religion is on the margins, and could be in general. The reality is that church is the primary institution of civil society for most of the US. Church attendance and religious faith are associated with positive outcomes. Perhaps reform is worth attempting. Perhaps one solution for the meaning crisis is to make Christianity compatible with liberal democracy again.
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Cathy reads books: Man's Search for Meaning