PHILOSOPHY 201 (STOLZE) Notes on Thomas Wartenberg, Existentialism

Chapter Seven: Authenticity Conformity vs. Authenticity Facing Death Squarely Acting Authentically MLK on the Need to be “Maladjusted”

Conformity vs. Authenticity Ex: Stranger than Fiction

Facing Death Squarely Heidegger’s analysis of “being-towards-death” Ex: Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilych” Discovery or creation of an authentic self (pp )

Acting Authentically Nietzsche’s criterion of the Eternal Recurrence of the same (p. 138) An objection: the problem of an “authentic tyrant” Sartre’s solution (p. 141) De Beauvoir’s solution (pp )

Simone De Beauvoir’s Argument against the Possibility of an “Authentic Tyrant” 1.Assume that there existed one individual who freely decided to enslave everyone else by making them subject to his or her decisions; call such an individual an authentic tyrant. 2.But individual freedom necessitates the existence of others in a world within which one can concretely exercise one’s freedom in relation to those others. 3.Freedom that cannot be concretely exercised is a contradiction in terms. 4.Therefore, if there were only one free individual, then the exercise of that individual’s freedom would be impossible. 5.Therefore, an authentic tyrant would not in fact be free. 6.Therefore, there could be no such thing as an authentic tyrant.

MLK on the Need to be “Maladjusted” Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the word “maladjusted.” Now we all should seek to live a well adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such things. I call upon you to be as maladjusted as Amos who in the midst of the injustices of his day cried out in words that echo across the generation, “Let judgment run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave and half free. As maladjusted as Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery could cry out, “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who dreamed a dream of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization. And then we will be able to move from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice. (Excerpted from Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Power of Nonviolence,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James M. Washington [New York: HarperCollins, 1986], pp This is only a partial transcript from a lecture King gave to the YWCA at UC-Berkeley in 1957.)