What is existentialism?
In his lecture “Existentialism is Humanism,” Jean-Paul Sartre described existentialism as existence preceding essence, by which he meant:
“man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself.”
What Unusual Orthodoxy attempts to question is the labels and definitions that pervade society today. Its existentialist dream is an attempt to break free of them. Unusual Orthodoxy does not seek to discredit definitions but rather attempts to bypass them. But it only remains an attempt as such.
(Source of quotation: Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufman, Meridian Publishing Company, 1989)
