Existentialist Performative Practice
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An Existentialist Performative Practice is an Existentialist practice that is an elevated-significance performative practice.
- Context:
- It can (typically) necessitate active participation from the existentialist individual, highlighting the existentialist focus on personal authenticity and responsibility.
- It can range from being an Authentic Existentialist Performative Practice (deeply rooted in personal beliefs), to an Inauthentic Existentialist Performative Practice (where actions may be just for show).
- It can be a Regularly Performed Existentialist Performative Practice, such as regular introspection and questioning, or an Irregularly Performed Existentialist Performative Practice, such as confronting unique moments of existential crisis.
- It can include practices like self-reflection, questioning life's meaning, embracing freedom and responsibility, and confronting existential angst and the absurdity of life.
- It aims to manifest, actualize, or enhance a sense of life meaning through direct personal experience and conscious choices.
- It can (often) be preceded by Existentialist Assessment Practices to gauge the personal impact and significance of one's actions.
- It can (often) be informed by Existentialist Learning Practices, gaining insights from existentialist philosophers or texts to deepen understanding and inform actions.
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- Example(s):
- Donating significant resources to UNICEF to save children's lives, to make the universe more beautiful.
- Not having children in order to donate more to UNICEF (despite the pressures to have children).
- Courageously living through an existential crisis.
- Meursault, in Albert Camus' novel “The Stranger", who chooses not to adhere to societal norms of grief and remorse when his mother passes away and later after he commits a murder.
- Raskolnikov, in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel “Crime and Punishment", a penniless ex-student who justifies his murder of a pawnbroker as an act of justice against a malicious individual. His subsequent moral and existential crisis represents his struggle with the authenticity of his actions.
- Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of Franz Kafka's “Metamorphosis", who wakes up transformed into an insect-like creature, forcing him to confront his new existence in isolation and alienation from society.
- D-503, in Yevgeny Zamyatin's “We", lives in a dystopian future society where individuality and freedom are suppressed. His choice to fall in love and rebel against his society represents his existential commitment to authenticity.
- Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell's “1984", chooses to rebel against a totalitarian state, despite knowing the likely fatal outcome, demonstrating his existential choice of personal authenticity over societal conformity.
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- Counter-Example(s):
- a Religious Perfomative Practice, such as a religious ritural or a Buddhist performative practice.
- Following Societal Norms without questioning their relevance to one's personal existence.
- As depicted in Realist Plays like Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" which don't emphasize individual existence, freedom, and choice through performative acts.
- See: Existentialism, Absurdist Theatre.