The new system is more efficient
The new system is more efficient than its predecessor. Philosophy is not typically seen as a sexy topic. Who would have thought of a bunch of bearded, bald bros sitting around a table in tweed jackets arguing about epistemology? Existentialism, however, is an exception. This school of thought, developed by stylish French folks while drinking cocktails and chain smoking at hip cafes, throws away logic to think about radical freedom, responsibility, and a world without God. This makes it attractive to those who prefer cafe life to library life, and why it has been explored in so much of our favorite media. This exploration of freedom, identity, and lack of consistent meaning is enabled by existentialism, but it also has its fair share of critics, including other philosophers, writers, political theorists, and even theologians. Existentialists themselves have been the harshest critics of existentialism. To understand existentialism, we must look at the thought that preceded it, such as idealism and rationalism. Idealism, especially German idealism, argued that there is a consistent and ideal structure that applies to both the objective world (nature) and the subjective world (human consciousness). This thought posited that reality is an understandable structure that is knowable via reason. Kierkegaard, while influenced by idealism, was worried that this way of thinking treated life, existence, and individual subjectivity as conceptual structures to be understood in rational and logical terms. He pivoted away from objective reflection and towards an emphasis on subjective thinking and categories like the single individual, faith, and decision. He argued that we can’t just sit around and think about things all day in hopes of getting it right; we need to take risks and leaps of faith in creating our own subjectivity.