Existentialism and the End of ‘Society’

[ussusimiel]

I was talking with a friend about Camus’ The Outsider (which I haven’t read yet) and during the conversation he read me a couple of passages which sparked me to formulate what seemed like a very complex question, but actually turns out to be very simple.

I’ll lay out the question as I originally formulated it and then give the simpler version:

• - Given that the Enlightenment saw the dethroning of God (and thus Religion) from the centre of society, and given that it can be argued that there is a direct connection between religion and society going back through human history*, is there a sense that Existentialism (an extension of the Enlightenment), by insisting that there is no external meaning (God), has implicit in it that there is no society?
  
  - Do certain types of Existentialism have the end of society implicit in them?

This thought struck me very forcibly because it explained certain things (especially about art and artists**) that I hadn't understood before. It also stretched my imagination to start to begin to try and conceive of what such a societyless human situation would be like.

My brain is still in a sort of attenuated state

u.

* In the Sociology of Religion there is a theory that society (and religion) comes into being at the communal meal, where individuals for the first time realise that they are part of something bigger than themselves.

** One of the things that I have noticed about the artists and poets that I know is that there is a constant tension between their creative work and society. It's as if their efforts to see reality as clearly as possible leads them to perceive the layers of power and control that society imposes on us at all times.

[EDIT: to fix typos.]

[Vraith]

I was talking with a friend about Camus’ The Outsider (which I haven’t read yet) and during the conversation he read me a couple of passages which sparked me to formulate what seemed like a very complex question, but actually turns out to be very simple.

I’ll lay out the question as I originally formulated it and then give the simpler version:

• - Given that the Enlightenment saw the dethroning of God (and thus Religion) from the centre of society, and given that it can be argued that there is a direct connection between religion and society going back through human history*, is there a sense that Existentialism (an extension of the Enlightenment), by insisting that there is no external meaning (God), has implicit in it that there is no ‘society’?
  
  - Do certain types of Existentialism have the end of ‘society’ implicit in them?

This thought struck me very forcibly because it explained certain things (especially about art and artists**) that I hadn't understood before. It also stretched my imagination to start to begin to try and conceive of what such a 'societyless' human situation would be like.

My brain is still in a sort of attenuated state

u.

* In the Sociology of Religion there is a theory that society (and religion) comes into being at the communal meal, where individuals for the first time realise that they are part of something bigger than themselves.

** One of the things that I have noticed about the artists and poets that I know is that there is a constant tension between their creative work and 'society'. It's as if their efforts to see reality as clearly as possible leads them to perceive the layers of power and control that 'society' imposes on us at all times.

Heh...this thread may turn in to something, so I may say more later, but for now I'll stay as short and simple as I can...even more so than your question.
[[maybe the simplicity will actually spark people to say "oh, no no no...."]]
No, existentialism does NOT destroy/imply no society. It requires society.
Communal meals came from society...not the other way around...society came from the need to survive. Religion may well have begun around the dinner table...a latecomer with knives not intended to carve food.

Good observation on artists/society. That's all I'll say for now.

[Orlion]

U, I believe you are conflating "religion" with "culture". A society tends to have a cultural framework, which religion may play a big or small part in. It just depends... and culture, much like society and enlightenment, is not homogenous. You'll see similar characteristics throughout American culture/society, but Texas culture/society is different from Ohio culture/society. Since culture can exist with or without religion, Existentialsim is no threat to it. It would only be a threat to, say, society as Puritan Christians would know it... but it also does not go just one way, Puritan Christianity would be a threat to Existenial society as existenialists would know it.

[Fist and Faith]

People are gregarious. We must hang out together. Even though we get on each other's nerves. No better example than marriage, eh? One way or another, we'll have societies.

[ussusimiel]

Communal meals came from society...not the other way around...society came from the need to survive. Religion may well have begun around the dinner table...a latecomer with knives not intended to carve food.

I'll disagree with you here, Vraith, as it will be important to get the terminology correct from the start. It is part of my premise that a new thing is constituted at the meal, whether we call this 'community' or 'society' doesn't really matter. The point is that this new thing is exactly what religion protects (which is why they come into being at the same time). And this why the removal of religion from the centre of 'community'/'society' is so important.

U, I believe you are conflating "religion" with "culture". A society tends to have a cultural framework, which religion may play a big or small part in.

Again this may be a matter of terminology, Orlion. Culture exists within society, it is how that society does things. However, two societies can have very different cultures yet have many aspects of society that operate very similarily. For example, two societies may have different religions but both of those religions may in their quite different ways act to control fertility. Or, they may have legal systems that operate differently yet fulfil similar functions.

u.

[wayfriend]

Just a thoought: perhaps the principal in u's base post implies that religion will exist as long as society does.

[Vraith]

Communal meals came from society...not the other way around...society came from the need to survive. Religion may well have begun around the dinner table...a latecomer with knives not intended to carve food.

I'll disagree with you here, Vraith, as it will be important to get the terminology correct from the start. It is part of my premise that a new thing is constituted at the meal, whether we call this 'community' or 'society' doesn't really matter. The point is that this new thing is exactly what religion protects (which is why they come into being at the same time). And this why the removal of religion from the centre of 'community'/'society' is so important.

Heh...I think, unless I'm missing a lot, we are not going to agree.
society/community, ESPECIALLY revolving around meals, not only predates religion, they predate HUMANS.
Now, it is likely so that religion grew out of our first attempts to KNOW things, but it is still a latecomer...and it loses its useful aspects as soon as it stops trying to know and starts trying to tell. It stopped being a quest for learning and started being an exercise of power.
If religion had died [or at least become an arena of reflection/contemplation instead of a social power] the day someone invented a ruler and arithmetic we'd probably be better off today.

[Fist and Faith]

Pfff... Some people want power. Some people are sadists. Some people will do the things they will do, whether religions exist or not.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Some people are sadists.

A recent study found that people who qualify as "trolls" on the Internet are also usually trolls in their offline life, as well, and that trolls tend to have some sadistic behavior patterns. They may not be full-blown sadists whipping people for fun but they do take extra pleasure in other people's failures or mistakes.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm sayin'. And if religion went from a thing of knowing to a thing of telling, it's because certain types of people made it happen.

[ussusimiel]

Just a thoought: perhaps the principal in u's base post implies that religion will exist as long as society does.

Very close to the mark, wayfriend. Part of my essential point is that society rests on the existence (pun noted) of 'meaning'. That meaning may be religious or ideological, but in its absence (which is what is at the core Existentialism) society (as we conceive of it) ceases to exist.

Heh...I think, unless I'm missing a lot, we are not going to agree.
society/community, ESPECIALLY revolving around meals, not only predates religion, they predate HUMANS.

Yeah, we're probably not going to agree I agree that forms of society/community existed long before the rise of religions. However, it is when society becomes something extra, maybe through the rise of language or consciousness that I am speaking about. My premise is (as I said above to, wayfriend) that society becomes a source of meaning (which religion guards and expands).

If religion had died [or at least become an arena of reflection/contemplation instead of a social power] the day someone invented a ruler and arithmetic we'd probably be better off today.

This is where we will continue to disagree. Rationality and thinking are not substitutes for religion, maybe for the very reasons that my question in the OP suggests. Maybe because they do not draw their power from society itself. And it is also these tools that lead inevitably to Existentialism.

u.

[Zarathustra]

I've read that religion became inextricably tied to society at the Chiefdom level. Humans have passed through these stages: hunter/gatherer families, to h/g villages (multi-family), to h/g multi-villages with a "Big Man" coordinating theirs efforts, to proto-agricultural h/g multi-villages, and then to full-fledged Chiefdom (at which they've mastered full-fledged agriculture). After that is the country-state level organization.

There were certainly communal meals at the levels below Chiefdoms. But religion wasn't necessary to explain their usefulness or the particular society which produced enough excess to have communal meals. The reason that nearly every Chiefdom was religious was because of the power invested in the Chief. He was almost always the head of the religion, imbued with "godlike" powers, such that he was the conduit of the holy to the mundane. This made his place at the top unquestionable (typically).

No, society doesn't need religion. It can still exist without it. It hasn't always been the main factor holding us together. There are many reasons people have found their fortunes to be increased together. Sometimes, it's war that's the glue. Sometimes it's peace. Or a combination thereof. Today, we're bound by capitalism and free trade ... which had its roots in the multi-village hunter/gather societies which pooled their resources to create "capital" for investment in "public" works, as well as division of labor to maximize output.

Religion isn't primarily useful for holding societies together at the bottom-up level. It's primarily for top-down social structures, like Chiefdoms.

[Vraith]

If religion had died [or at least become an arena of reflection/contemplation instead of a social power] the day someone invented a ruler and arithmetic we'd probably be better off today.

This is where we will continue to disagree. Rationality and thinking are not substitutes for religion, maybe for the very reasons that my question in the OP suggests. Maybe because they do not draw their power from society itself. And it is also these tools that lead inevitably to Existentialism.

u.

Rationality and thinking [and their products like hammers and LHC's] are our best tools of engaging reality.
The various [maybe infinite] arts and emotions are noble and glorious expressions of being.
If religion were lived/expressed as an ART, we'd be cool.
But the problem isn't rationality trying to substitute for religion, it is religion claiming the role of rationality.
Look: if there IS any kind of God out there worth the name, s/he is not MAD/offended/judging/causing hurricanes and/or plagues if we believe in evolution. S/He is PARTYING WITH THE ANGELS CUZ WE FIGURED IT OUT! He's giving Lucifer a big raspberry and doing a silly endzone dance, shouting "SUCK IT! I told you humans were cool, you cynical arrogant bastard! Now bring me a beer and one of the slices with anchovies on it."

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I agree with a lot of what has been said here on all of the belligerent sides, which indicates that there may be some definitional problems going on.

In the first place, U., human society is multifaceted. It is biologic, it is cultural, it is a psychic or spiritual affect of the individual. It means a great many things to a great many people, considered individually and collectively. So it is difficult to talk about human society in general without a great many caveats being thrown about.

I tend to agree with Z., though perhaps not totally, that God as the source of social meaning reflects a peculiarly Western mode of thought, one that itself implies a pre-existing social and cultural order along Western lines. I admit to being slightly disappointed that Z. did not take the opportunity to more completely develop the thoughts of his philosophical ancestor regarding nihilism. But I suppose it is possible that my understanding of Nietzsche is facile or incomplete. Still I would point out that many of Nietzche's predictions about the death of God in the West leading to nihilism (and thus to social degradation) have manifested over the past century and a half.

I also feel the need to cite Jung (he is my muse as Nietzche is Z.'s) here, and observe that a dogmatic God sitting on a throne perched on a cloud is a particularly stifling religious thought that reflects ossified distortions of what were once vital symbols of man's spiritual life. That edifice may shatter but man's spiritual life will continue whether he recognizes it or not. He will find a way to invest transcendence into his experience of the world, even if he uses ostensibly secular vehicles to do so -- society being one of them. I would classify the reform and revolutionary movements of modern times as examples of secular religions. So considered in that way, as long as we are possessed by the logos in the West, we will continue to find new and vital ways of expressing that religious idea even as old ones crumble.

[Zarathustra]

It's a common misconception that Nietzsche advocated nihilism, or that he was a nihilist himself. However, the few times he mentions nihilism were to warn us that nihilism would occur as a transition stage between giving up religion and creating our own values. Nihilism is the product of realizing that religion is a myth we invented, and yet still judging the world in terms of religious values, because we haven't replaced them yet with something else. Thus, a world in which "god is dead" looks like a world without meaning, because we've built all meaning upon god. But that's the importance of my signature quote: to bring virtue back to the world. He doesn't advocate no meaning or no virtue whatsoever.

The truth is that social structures evolve to greater levels of complexity and interconnectedness for a single reason: the logic of non-zerosum relationships. I hate to keep repeating myself, but game theory explains it all. Religion is just one example of a meme that makes use of non-zerosum logic. There are many others. We have evolved in ways that make us extremely good at utilizing this logic, even when we don't realize we're doing it, because it increases our chances for survival.

At this point it's inevitable that our society will grow more complex and interconnected, with or without religion. We're already transforming into a global civilization. If anything, religion is merely slowing it down, as it produces barriers to global unity (Muslims vs Christians, for instance). It will be necessary for us (and inevitable) that our social glue will be something other than religion, because our trajectory is global, but our religions are regional. The only global forces that have the power to unite us into a single civilization is economics and technology.

There's no need for religion, but that doesn't doom us to the degradation of society. Quite the opposite is taking place.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Z.,
1) I fail to see where I've implied that Nietzsche was giddy about the impending nihilism in the West, or recommended it
2) at what point do we come to grips with the truth that religion as you are conceiving it is a Western idea rather than a universal

[Vraith]

Z.,
1) I fail to see where I've implied that Nietzsche was giddy about the impending nihilism in the West, or recommended it
2) at what point do we come to grips with the truth that religion as you are conceiving it is a Western idea rather than a universal

On the first...I'm not quite as into N. as Z is, but it is still a peeve of mine when N, and other existentialists are treated as if nihilism is their fault and the end of us all. Even if it's just a hint...which doesn't go so much to you, but is inherent in the OP. And one point that is in N, necessary to everything about it, is that EVERYTHING is in relation to everything else. Society, other people are required.

On the second, if we want to be nitpicky for no good reason, we could say those kinds of religions are middle-eastern, not western. But, on the whole, that is related to a thing or two I was pointing at upthread.
The religious mindset/experience is one of many states of mind/being natural to humans [perhaps natural to a few other species as well]. It has its function and value...and both function and value seem relatively important.
But there is nothing about religion, let alone any particular religion, that is causal or necessary for society to bind together. It's just one kind of commonality, among many, that we share.
Aside on "western" thing, related still to point 2...according to a prof. I had who happened to be Native American, many...though not all...of the tribal peoples always knew their gods and myths were stories/metaphors. They didn't take them literally the way westerners take ours, but they took them seriously/meaningfully even so...in fact they were meaningful BECAUSE they were metaphors, symbols.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Those near Eastern religions were all hellenized and based on the logos. And it is the logos that underlies Western thought and its strident dualism, such that man's nature is dissected into supposedly autonomous parts. Yet we know this reductionist rationalism is itself illusory. Z., and to a lesser extent Nietzsche both expect that religion is a cultural affect that can be discarded in its idealized form. And yet as Nietzsche intuited, something else must take its place. "Any one who succeeds in putting off the mantle of faith can do so only because another lies close to hand." ~ Carl Jung

I happen to think Nietzsche was somewhat mistaken about what that thing must be, and its nature (as meaning itself must be in part cultural and collective rather than simply individual). But then again, I am no expert on Nietzsche.

[Zarathustra]

Mong, I decided to post about Nietzsche because of your prodding, but I didn't intend for my statements to be 100% in response to yours. In other words, I didn't mean to imply what was in your point #1. I was making my remarks in the context of this thread, which seems to imply that existentialism (and nihilism in particular, for which existentialism is often blamed) doesn't necessarily imply the end of society, or even its degradation as you've mentioned.

I don't think it's nit-picky at all for Vraith to point out that the world's most dominant religions are Middle-Eastern. It's not just a historical point, but a current one, considering how Islam dictates such a wide swath of African and M.E. society.

I think it's a mistake to view this as a Western phenomenon, because of the points I raised above regarding Chiefdoms. This sort of social structure is nearly universal across the planet, including South and Central America. It's a stage through which every country-state has passed. And it was almost always a religious hierarchy. Granted, many of those religions aren't with us now. We don't do human sacrifice much any more. But the question was posed in the context of 'communal meals' being the impetus of religion, so I thought we were talking about deeper levels of history than you seem to be talking about (even before "Western" was a thing).

The only thing distinctively Western about this conversation is the Enlightenment itself, and existentialism. Certainly not the religion aspect.

[NomNomNom]

I haven't read through the replies to this yet, so forgive me if I'm repeating something someone else has already said.

Religion historically being a central feature of society does not mean religion is inexorable from society. Societies (groups) can unite over lots of ideas - the advancement of science, a political ideology, drug use, sex, appreciation of nature, or religion. Removing religion is like amputating a part of society, but it's not the heart of society. The HEART of society is the "soc," the desire for companionship.

We can get along just fine in companionship without THAT.