The question of the meaning of life in the postmodern scene

The meaning of life is a similar theme to both the madman and the comic, says Terry Eagleton in the preface to his book, "The Importance of Life", part of the Oxford series "Very Short Entries". The insight and ease of this remark shared in 2007 is just as relevant and self-conscious as in 1942 was the seriousness, drama and passionthat the meaning of life is the most urgent question . In his rich biography, the subject of meaning has been used to manage different languages, moods, platforms, programs and terminology, but self-irony has never been part of his communicative strategies. One of the first significant mockings of the search for meaning comes from Nietzsche in his criticism of nihilism, and is rather a perverse portrait of the philosopher who believes that being should give him pleasure in his meaning rather than a teaser the level of the new generation of communication with existential conundrums. After the triumph of the question of meaning in the mass culture marked by Monty Python and Douglas Adams in the early 1980s, the funny one is implanted in the image of spiritual practices and this reflects a radical lightening of expectations for the existential " science "and the claims of philosophical dignity in the negotiation of the" most urgent "of the questions. If Nietzsche interest in him testifies that there was a consensus among their contemporaries about the leadership position of the issue of meaning in the field of human anxiety and needs, then the interest of the comedy genre implies some fundamental transformation of the consensus and, in general, emulates the subject.

image source

If the long history of the construction of the problem, which is subdued to the nineteenth century, has produced an impressive list of arguments for justifying life, in its most recent history, the problem is more familiar with its collection of anecdotes and cartoons. Looked at the side of everyday practices, the subject of the meaning of life has gained lexical popularity, and despite the fading memory of past glory, pathos and drama, it now acts as a disorder of emotion rather than a clear program of reflection. In unofficial conversations, the topic is a regular rubric, part of the daily chat menu, along with politics, storytelling, and personal drama. It is usually a meeting of serious and ridiculous, and it represents an environment for the exercise of the right to indiscriminate speaking, self-disclosing, or wit demonstrations, not a reason for rational discussion or at least a well organized monologue. At best, the sense that is extremely intimidated and embedded in the equipment of personal identity performs the function of a communicator of personal taste, lifestyle and value orientation or of the individual project of good life. The expression itself gets an iconic sound, it becomes an easily recognizable symbol, a slogan, a cliche, but we are not quite sure what to do - whether to avoid it, to ridicule it or to take the risk of talking it sensitively.

The confusion comes not only from the ambiguity about its meaning, but also from its controversial dossier: his psychoanalytic reading follows an unattractive reduction to the neurotic. Freud does not intend to compromise the question itself, but rather the nihilistic tendencies when he postulates the neuroticism of the sense of nonsense, but in the collective memory remains the vague belief that any longer and passionate circling around the question of the difficulties of existence points to some pathology. The neurotic reference can be overwhelmed by another negative, which greatly impacts the reputation of the question of the meaning of life. Because he is not entirely at home in modern philosophy, as philosophers "seem to be reduced to the position of technicians on language issues", the notion that they are just the main advisers of the meaning, is a popular fallacy. In fact, the shadowy part of the spiritual industry is much more interested in the meaning of life, and rather the guru, the personal spiritual counselor, is the realistic figure of the daily metaphysics expert, the more famous teacher of art of life. This is the second serious omission in the dossier of meaning: its quasi-religious strides in the direction of the freak. This double burden of frivolity in the most recent history of the spiritual sphere - the reference to clinical diagnosis and esotericism - is one of the reasons for talking about the meaning of being treated with great caution. What partly saves the practice of talking to meaning is the spontaneous discursive constraints that speakers themselves impose in order not to raise doubts about their mental status: the meaning is not generally spoken, normative or persuasive even in private conversations. The meaning is spoken emotionally, perhaps poetically and artistically, but not theoretically. Teoretizing, cosmologizing, generalizing, universalising, and dramatizing the meaning of life has become a bad taste. This new discourse label has the right to disregard only crazy and comedians. To put it briefly, seriously, by putting the subject of the meaning to the audience, there is already something embarrassing and obscene, like crossing a border of the intimate that protects not only our inner inviolability but also our social adequacy.