Monday, June 25, 2012

Viktor Frankl's Call to Action


In Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning he states, “Live as if you were already living for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now” (Frankl 109). Here Viktor Frankl implies that all actions are not finalized and that an objective stance is necessary to freely create meaning in one’s life. Thus, the Categorical Imperative of Frankl’s statement would read, “Everyone must act ‘only’ with full view and understanding of one’s actions.” This could be said to mean, live life as though you wouldn’t change what you are doing right now because you are ‘capable’ of doing so. Viktor Frankl’s moral implications supporting this can be broken into three particulars: active involvement, meaningful experiences, and our attitude towards our actions and the actions of others in our lives.

The first meaningful action in one’s life is that of actively assisting others, and it could be said that by helping others we in turn help ourselves. We can find great purpose, not necessarily living vicariously though other peoples’ joy, but from the reward that we have given purpose to something in our lives. According to Kant’s Duty Ethics “nothing was good in itself except a good will…and to act accordingly regardless of interests or consequences.” There is no problem in acting selflessly providing that we have analyzed the action to ensure that it is good or moral. However, if we were to look at our morality objectively we would see that our individual experiences are also important to our involvement with others.

Everyone experiences the same thing in different ways because of the way their actions relate. It is these experiences that give meaning to our lives. Our experiences come from the past and we can choose whether or not we learn from them. It is imperative that we understand what we have experienced so that it is applicable to our lives. The people we choose to experience our lives with will also have an effect on how we will understand our meaning. It is through experience with others that ultimately shapes our attitude towards everything.

With this in mind, people must understand that they cannot choose what happens to them and they only have control over their attitude in a given situation. This is the freedom to choose or the will to choose, not if an action happens, but how the action will affect us. We could certainly choose to give up on life in a state of extreme despair. That is our choice. We could also choose to blame others for our actions or lack there of. Conversely, we could also step back or step outside ourselves and, with a full experienced understanding, choose to progress in any direction. This is the strength of free will because it is the one thing we have power over—choice, not about everything, but over our actions and our reactions. The question remains then will we choose to act with the full understanding of our actions?

So now, according to Viktor Frankl we have a system to work with. We do the work, we have the involvement, we are experienced, and we are free to choose how we act. We thus haven’t a reason why we cannot shape our own lives. We haven’t a reason why our meaning to live cannot be right now what it would be in the future. What good is it to work towards a goal if we can’t reach that goal right now? What good is it to act on something if we don’t even know why we are acting? We have the ability to analyze our lives right now and decide what our next action will be and whether or not it is the right one. What is our excuse to not do it right?
-J-

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